ALD opens new centre to develop digital products

27 May 2016

ALD Automotive UK has opened a new Development Centre in Bristol to accelerate its development in new digital applications and products.

The centre is backed by significant financial investment from ALD International and is located near ALD Automotive’s current UK headquarters as well as the location of its new head office, which will open in December 2016.

The new centre is headed by IT director Derek Barker and already has a 60-strong development team, including testers, in place.

The team will develop solutions primarily to meet the needs of the UK fleet market but which can be adapted for international key accounts, local markets and white-label partner groups.

A number of projects are being worked on simultaneously – including the development of a group‐wide telematics platform – and the centre has already seen an acceleration in the development of key projects.

The new centre will also help build on the company’s Smart Mobility programme, which provides a consultancy service to ensure that businesses operate the optimum travel solution. Using advanced telematics to analyse customers’ current working practices enables ALD to provide factual data and advice on making the transition from everything to leased cars and short-term rentals, salary sacrifice, grey fleet management and personal leasing through to alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) and motorbikes or scooters.

Commenting on the new Development Centre, Barker said: “We’re extremely excited about our plans here. Rather than buying off-the-shelf products like other leasing firms, we pride ourselves on developing our own in-house solutions that are designed to meet our exact needs and optimise our services to customers. The new centre will build on this work and improve efficiencies across the business, benefiting all of our products and transforming the services we can offer our customers.

“We’re really looking forward to seeing the feedback from our customers when the full range of products we’re developing goes live – just part of our ongoing list of developments.”