Leaselink is currently being employed by 10 of the UK's 15 largest contract hire and leasing companies who between them supply and manage over 590,000 company vehicles to source and buy their new vehicles.

It is also viable for fleet managers who operate large outright purchase fleets and are buying new vehicles in sufficient volumes to capitalise from the savings that the system creates.

Research by Leaselink supplier, Oxford-based online solutions provider Ebbon-Dacs, has already shown that the e-procurement platform delivers costs savings of 10-15% over old, traditional methods. However, the latest study showed huge savings in all constituents of the vehicle procurement process, but especially in placing orders, handling enquiries and dealing with requests for brochures and demonstrators.

The research was carried out by a major, "top 5" leasing company which operates tens of thousands of vehicles and uses the system to source and procure new ones, but which preferred to remain anonymous.

The leasing company found that when using a manual system it took on average a total of 19.5 minutes per employee to process a new car order, including checking for new orders, assigning orders to dealers geographically, ringing dealers to go through the details of the order, updating the system and entering stock and delivery details.

The same process using Leaselink took just 3.5 minutes, as all of the manual processes were handled electronically – saving a total of 16 minutes per order.

When it came to handling new vehicle enquiries, including checking specification, options and availability, the manual process took 22 minutes, compared to just 4 minutes for the electronic process through Leaselink.

Rob Pilkington, managing director of Ebbon-Dacs, said: 'At a time when many fleet operators are looking to increase efficiencies in their business to maintain or improve margins, e-procurement can generate significant savings in vehicle acquisition costs which can be delivered straight to the bottom line.