FLEET bosses have been told to 'wake up' to the possibilities of e-commerce or face having to adapt computer codes developed to describe vegetables when ordering cars, parts or services over the internet. Peter Minter, chairman of FleetNet, which campaigns for common online trading standards, said the industry was being presented with cheap, simple means of getting connected to save administration costs and improve efficiency.

But many fleet companies were still holding back from embracing e-commerce, despite the huge growth in other sectors. 'E-commerce is everywhere,' Minter told the FleetNet conference. 'But I'm very disappointed in the level of interest shown at senior levels in our industry. There's still a significant amount of holding back, just waiting to see what happens.'

He said managers must demand action at board level and warned: 'If the fleet industry wants to take advantage of e-commerce it must get involved now, otherwise the standards we will be using in the future may be developed by others. We'll end up using code developed to describe a bag of carrots to describe a vehicle.'