Dealertrack

Dealertrack (acquired by the massive Cox Automotive empire, which also owns Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book) operates as the highly aggressive, fiercely modern cloud-based alternative to the massive, clunky legacy architectures of CDK and Reynolds. It originally built its entire reputation on a single, absolutely crucial feature: The Credit Application. Before Dealertrack, an F&I manager had to physically fax a customer's credit application to 10 different banks and wait hours for an approval. Dealertrack digitized this entirely. The manager types the data in once, clicks a button, and Dealertrack's API instantly pings Capital One, Chase, and Wells Fargo simultaneously, returning the exact approved interest rates to the screen in 5 seconds. It heavily leveraged that credit dominance to build out a massive, highly successful full-suite DMS. Because it is owned by Cox Automotive, it has terrifyingly deep, native integration with Kelley Blue Book (for instant, accurate trade-in valuations) and Autotrader (for instantly pushing the dealership's live inventory of cars directly to the internet for consumers to buy).