NEW YORK, N.Y. and LAKE SUCCESS — In a move aimed at cutting cost, Asbury Automotive is switching the dealer management systems (DMS) outfitting its 124 franchised stores to a single system provided by DealerTrack’s Arkona.

Asbury currently utilizes DMS solutions from three other providers — Reynolds and Reynolds, ADP and UCS. It will begin the change to Arkona’s solution as existing agreements expire. Once the new multi-year contract with DealerTrack is fully implemented, Asbury officials said it expects to achieve cost savings of more than 50 percent annually.

“We felt it was prudent to move to one common DMS throughout Asbury. In meeting with all the various parties, we felt very good about moving to Arkona,” said Allen Levenson, Asbury’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Obviously, we recognize they’re a little newer to the party, but the dollar savings are pretty significant and they really share the long-term vision that we have. So we really view them as partners in building a fully-integrated technology solution.”

Levenson said that Asbury’s move is a key step in a long-term process of implementing a full range of sales, CRM, F&I and other technology solutions from both DealerTrack and other vendors.

“Long-term, we do think it will be revolutionary for Asbury,” he said. “Getting everyone together on the same system should certainly drive a lot of efficiencies to our processes, and particularly as we add in all the ancillary pieces to the DMS and have those fully integrated.”

DealerTrack will begin switching Asbury dealerships to Arkona’s DMS in the coming year.

“Step one of the plan is really executing on what they need, which is to convert their DMS systems to Arkona,” said Raj Sundaram, senior vice president of dealer solutions. “Then, step two is how to create a better process for Asbury, where we’re linking the DMS solution to our product suite. Both of these steps are going to happen simultaneously.”