Oxford-based online solutions provider Ebbon-Dacs is investing in personnel and technology to help enhance its e-procurement platform Leaselink at no additional cost to leasing company users.

The new investment includes the appointment of two key personnel to the senior development team on Leaselink, a move which forms part of a medium-term strategy to develop the core platform to meet fleet customers’ needs over the next three years.

The first appointment is that of leasing industry professional Diane Parslow (pictured), who has over 17 years’ experience in the fleet industry. Rather than fulfill a commercial role, she will be helping to understand leasing customer requirements and translating them for technical personnel to further develop the Leaselink platform.

“Following an initial period of training on Leaselink, I am really looking forward to working with our leasing customers to continue to develop the platform and fully meet their requirements going forward,” she said.

In the other new appointment, business analyst Sarah Alexander has taken over responsibility for development planning, bringing a wealth of experience in technical project planning to the Leaselink team.

She said: “In my new role, I will be working to develop a series of new features and functionality for the Leaselink platform to more fully meet the needs of leasing company and dealer users.

“For me, it is good to be given a non-commercial brief, focusing on platform improvement and a mission to offer the best possible platform to our entire customer base.”

Over the coming months, there will also be a series of no-extra-cost enhancements to the platform, as identified and prioritised by the Leaselink user group, the first of which, a capability to handle batch orders, has just been launched with further plans for the coming months.

Robert Pilkington, managing director of the Leaselink International division of Ebbon-Dacs, explained: “Margins are tight for many of our customers and, in these hardened economic times, we need to keep moving our platform moving forward, while not increasing pricing to customers.

“This is a challenge with the security demands of the current era, but, by making staffing and technical investments now, we can provide more in the future.

“We have already funded a move to the latest Microsoft database version, which is part of fundamental long term technical work we have been working on to complete by May, which then puts us in a position to really focus on features utilising these technologies.

“I am delighted to welcome Diane to the team and know that Sarah will lead the core platform design and development in a manner that will take Leaselink to a new level.”

The Leaselink e-procurement platform is used by ten of the top 15 of the UK’s major leasing companies to source, order and track delivery of more than 100,000 new fleet vehicles a year from a buying community of leading motor manufacturers and over 1,500 franchised dealers who respond to fleet tenders on a daily basis.

It allows fleet buyers to source the most cost effective vehicles and track their progress online from order through to delivery, and has been proven to generate savings of 10-15% over traditional procurement methods.