Dealer management system specialist Pinewood says that the IT hardware in use in many dealerships is so out of date that it is of little more than ‘junk’ value.
The problem was identified by Pinewood research, which covers 1,040 dealers using its own and other dealer management systems. Instances were identified in at least 58% of the dealers surveyed.
Geoff Miller, sales manager at Pinewood, said: "The problem of outdated hardware takes two forms.
"The first is when the dealer is using old hardware and old software. Here, the technology will simply be very out of date, probably holding back the business, and the whole system liable to break down regularly.
"The second is when an investment in software has been made but not on hardware. Sometimes, this can work but more often, the old computers clip the wings of the new DMS. The potential of the new technology is compromised."
Pinewood's research into dealer IT hardware follows last month's survey into dated DMS systems.
Research conducted by the company found that the average age of the core software behind the dealer management systems in use in franchise dealers was more than 10 years old.
Miller said: "This statistic places the dealer sector firmly in the dark ages in IT terms and years behind the software technology used in other retail industries."
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