Bumper co-founder Jack Allman has been named as one of three Autocar Drivers of Change award winners.

Allman picked up the trophy in the retail category for developing a new payment solution for car servicing.

The awards recognise the best automotive industry talent across Retail, Digital and Diversity & Inclusion.

Bumper is an easy-to-use payment platform through which customers can pay their car servicing bill in one- to six-month instalments. It can be integrated into dealer systems and platforms, for easy customer access.

The business launched a customer-facing portal in July, to bolster its existing B2B offer.

Allman and his business partner James Jackson have taken the business from strength to strength, now working with more than 4,000 dealerships, including franchised ones, and garages not only in the UK but also Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

Allman said: “This is a good way to not only help the driver but help the dealer as well. By enabling the customer to spread the cost, they can afford all of their repairs and therefore the dealer is selling all of the identified work.”

He outlined the company’s plans in an interview with AM, last year.

The Diversity & Inclusion award was won by Darren Coan, leader of PurpleLightUp at Ford.

By running the first PurpleLightUp day at Ford, he introduced the company to a cross-sector celebration of 386 million employees with disabilities, using that and social media to “raise awareness and start a conversation about disability both internally and externally”, even going so far as to change the blue Ford oval to purple.

Coan, said: “While the majority of disabilities are invisible, just seeing someone that has something you can relate to can actually make you apply for that company.

“Diversity and inclusion in this industry is hugely important because the industry should be reflective of both its local community and its customer base … if the motoring industry isn’t diversity inclusive, it won’t attract the talent it needs to continue to be successful.”

The winners of the Digital category - Carl Goves, Robin North, Didac Busquets and Eifion Jenkins - have created a system that aims to increase productivity by slashing traffic snarl-ups with advanced simulator technology. In creating Immense Simulations, a simulator platform, the firm allows town planners to virtually model potential traffic problems.

Goves explained: “Fundamentally, I want Immense to be used by decision makers, whether that’s fleet operators or highway operators, to make better choices surrounding the transportation system. Our platform puts the capability of simulating the real world in a virtual environment and asks questions of that virtual world.”

Using the collective list of extensive contacts and industry knowledge from both Autocar and Ennis & Co, as well as the reverse search specialism of Ennis & Co, the judges were joined by senior executives from TrustFord, Toyota, Volkswagen Group, Peugeot and McLaren in deciding the three winners. 

Steve Cropley, Autocar’s editor-in-chief said: “There may well be a skills shortage across many sectors in the automotive industry, but this year’s awards have shown there is still a healthy amount of fresh talent to be celebrated. It was great to see so many pioneering ideas - it just goes to show how great this industry is and the people in and around it.

“And, of course, congratulations to our fantastic winners. All of your efforts and initiatives were thoroughly deserving of this award and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.”