Case Study: Auto Trader achieves 35-second logons and 30-second desktop recovery with AppSense

Auto Trader - Customer Case Study

Auto Trader, the UK’s leading digital automotive marketplace, consolidated offices and rebuilt its IT estate when it moved to a new Manchester-focused infrastructure. The IT team inherited a legacy Active Directory with nearly 1,000 group policies and 2,500-line logon scripts, causing slow logons (five to eight minutes), lengthy change cycles, one-day desktop recoveries, and added complexity around PCI compliance for contact-center billing workflows.

By deploying AppSense DesktopNow alongside Citrix XenDesktop, Auto Trader centralized desktop configuration, eliminated logon scripts, and moved to wizard-driven policy changes. The result: on-the-fly deployments instead of weeks of testing, logon times reduced to about 35 seconds, failed desktops restored in ~30 seconds with no IT intervention, simplified PCI controls for browser access, and improved desktop stability—freeing IT to focus on delivery rather than firefighting.

Auto Trader

Mike Braid

Senior Infrastructure Engineer