Unfiltered with Carl Dean: Garage Management Is Changing. The Technology Needs to Catch Up

I've spent a lot of time around the automotive aftermarket, and one thing that never changes is just how many tasks someone running a garage has to manage each day.

The obvious part is repairing and maintaining vehicles. But behind every job is a whole series of other tasks:

• Customers need looking after.
• Bookings need managing.
• Technicians need allocating.
• Parts need finding and ordering.
• Stock needs controlling.
• Invoices need raising.
• Payments need taking.

For some independent garages, this might still involve a paper diary and manual processes. For larger or multi-site businesses, it could mean information spread across different tools, websites and systems.

Neither is necessarily wrong. Garages have found ways of still getting the job done. But is the technology available to them doing enough to make that job easier?

Garages don't need more technology for the sake of it

It's very easy for our industry to talk about digital transformation, automation and, increasingly, AI. But I'm not convinced the average garage owner wakes up in the morning thinking they need more technology.

They want:

• the workshop to run smoothly.
• technicians productive.
• to find the right parts quickly.
• customers looked after and jobs completed, invoiced and paid for without unnecessary administration.

Technology is valuable when it makes achieving those goals easier, and this is an important distinction.

If introducing another piece of software simply creates another login, another process or another place to look for information, we haven't really solved anything, we've potentially just moved the problem.

For me, the priority should be to bring more of those everyday processes together and make the technology itself simpler to work with.

AI needs to earn its place in the workshop

The same applies to AI.

There is lots of noise around AI at the moment, and that’s only going to grow.

I think that's exciting, but for automotive businesses the questions should be:

What does it actually help me do?

Can it save us time?

Can it remove a repetitive task?

Can it help me find the information I need more quickly?

Can it make an everyday process simpler?

This is the approach we've taken with our new Autowork platform.

Autowork is AI-powered, but we've deliberately focused on practical uses. One example is AI-assisted booking, which can help identify suitable booking opportunities without someone having to manually work through the workshop diary.

We’ve also built AI into our parts catalogue. The AI Sales Assistant helps you find exactly the right part for a job – particularly valuable when there are multiple options.

As AI develops, I think some of the biggest impact will come from gradually removing friction from dozens of everyday jobs, rather than one spectacular feature.

Connected doesn't have to mean complicated

There's another challenge I think our industry needs to address.

A garage might start with relatively straightforward workshop requirements, but over time may want to offer customers online booking, develop its website, sell online, change how it takes payments or expand across multiple sites.

Traditionally, every new requirement could mean finding another provider and adding another piece of technology. But shouldn’t you expect more from the technology partners you already work with?

Businesses should be able to get entry level tech when they start out, but have a straightforward route to add capabilities when they need them.

That's how we designed Autowork.

At its heart, it's a brand-new garage management platform bringing bookings, jobs, customers, vehicles, parts, stock, tyres and invoicing together.

But it's also connected to Klipboard's wider set of automotive offerings. If you decide you need a decent website, want to sell online or need a payments system that just links to your other systems, you can just add that on, without having to piece everything together from different providers.

For me, that's key to what modern garage technology should look like: complete enough to do the job today but with a range of connected systems to give businesses more options tomorrow.

The best technology should make itself useful

We've spent a lot of time thinking about what the next generation of garage management should look like.

Of course, modern technology matters. Cloud matters. AI matters. Connectivity matters.

But none of those things should be the end goal.

The end goal is helping automotive businesses work better.

Autowork brings more of your everyday operations together, puts AI to work where it can help and gives you access to more capabilities as your needs develop.

I'm excited about the Autowork launch, because I think we're entering a period where the question garages ask about technology will increasingly change from “What does this software do?” to “What can this software take off my plate?”

And that's much more impactful for all of us building technology for the automotive aftermarket.

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