Franchised dealers may be set to benefit from the introduction of a cloud-based booking system by one of the UK’s largest providers of demonstrator vehicles.

Initially focused on helping motor manufacturers to maximise fleet and company car demonstrator utilisation, prioritise customer bookings and match bookings to eventual sales, developer AutoXP believes the technology will help dealers.

The cloud-based technology has been introduced by the provider of demonstrator vehicles to corporates and company car user-choosers and transforms what for motor manufacturers has historically been an administrative regime.

AutoXP has invested “hundreds of thousands of pounds” in XP Fleet Control (XPFC), which has taken two years to develop in partnership with the organisation’s motor manufacturer customers.

Ed Sabisky, chairman and acting chief executive, said: “XPFC is a complete operating system, while our competitors are more focused on a vehicle booking system.”

Sabisky, who spent 22 years with General Motors including being CFO at Vauxhall Motors followed by spells as CFO of Interleasing UK and managing director of Masterlease Europe, continued: “XPFC is best-in-class and adds to the string of USPs that autoXP already delivers to our motor manufacturer customers.”

AutoXP’s 120 employed drivers last year clocked up 5.9 million miles delivering 25,000 demonstrator vehicles on behalf of a growing portfolio of manufacturer clients including: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Dacia, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Hyundai, Jeep, Kia, Lexus, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles, Renault, Smart and Toyota.

They also delivered vehicles to support more than 500 client events.

Having transformed demonstrator bookings from a predominantly paper-based system to online, autoXP, which owns the intellectual property of XPFC, is now looking to the future.

Sabisky, who led the acquisition of McKenzie Myers in 2008, which was subsequently rebranded autoXP, said: “We are a sales tool for our manufacturer customers and the launch of XPFC delivers significant added value. The capabilities of XPFC are enormous and will enable autoXP to develop new service lines for our manufacturer customers.”

He said that could, for example, include delivering new cars to fleet customers and working with franchised dealers to increase the utilisation of their own demonstrator fleets with locally-based SMEs and consumers.