An ‘Incubator’ training scheme has been launched by iVendi as part of efforts to upskill its new recruits for the automotive finance sector.

As the online car finance specialist grows its workforce to meet the demands of growth, senior software engineer Mike Horsley revealed that there was a clear need to hone the skills of recruits to the specific needs of the automotive sector.

The Incubator has been designed to provide a flexible solution to the business’ skills needs as they develop, based on both internally and externally-sourced courses.

Horsley, senior software engineer, who is overseeing the initiative, said: “This is very much designed to ensure that we have the right competencies to satisfy the needs of dealers and other customers going forward while also providing a means for our people to develop the skills that they want to attain.

“So, for example, we have taken on a lot of new coders recently and want to provide them with a defined training programme over the next 18 months that creates the right skills base alongside an understanding of how that fits within our business.

“However, we are also open to people within the company bringing us ideas for training and supporting them through the development of those courses. Happily, this is something that is already happening. There is a lot of enthusiasm.”

Horsley said that the courses produced by the Incubator could be divided into concept and technology modules.

“The tech modules are very much about skilling our technical people appropriately - the first is about data analysis,” he said.

“Alongside these, the concept modules are more about creating awareness across the company. For example, we are producing a module on data security, which is something relevant to the whole organisation.

“However, a key part of the Incubator concept is that all courses are open to all employees and we have already seen a lot of interest from non-technical people in the technical courses. We see this very much as a positive.”

Richard Tavernor, iVendi’s chief operating officer, said: “As a company, we have grown substantially over the last couple of years and now have something close to 100 employees.

“This has meant that we needed to adopt a much more corporate and formalised approach to training but we also wanted something that was very much reflective of our company culture.

“We believe that the Incubator is the right answer. It provides a flexible but non-prescriptive approach to learning for everyone across the business.”

In February this year iVendi announced the creation of five major new senior positions, including three vice president appointments. 

Former head of finance Craig Moss was appointed as vice-president of finance, while Russell White moved from head of sales to become vice-president of sales.

Luke Cowell was recruited as vice-president of operations and human resources.