Solera’s AI-Powered ShopCentral Solution Named 2026 MOTOR Top 20 Winner, Advancing the Future of Intelligent Automotive Repair

Industry-leading cloud-based shop management solution helping repairers overcome growing complexity, increasing productivity and driving stronger business performance

WESTLAKE, Texas, Sept. 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Solera, a global leader in vehicle lifecycle management solutions, today announced that ShopCentral has been named a 2026 MOTOR Top 20 Awards winner, recognizing an innovation designed to help redefine how automotive repair businesses operate in an increasingly complex, connected and AI-enabled industry.

Across the world, automotive repair is undergoing profound change. Increasing vehicle complexity, technician shortages, rising costs and rapidly evolving customer expectations are putting pressure on traditional operating models. Solera availed the opportunity to solve these challenges differently, connecting data, technology and intelligence across the vehicle lifecycle and applying AI-driven innovation to make repair smarter, faster and more profitable. ShopCentral brings that vision directly into the repair shop, creating a connected operating platform that brings critical workflows, intelligence and business operations together in one environment.

What distinguishes ShopCentral is not simply the number of workflows it brings together, but the intelligence, scalability, connectivity and AI-driven innovation behind them. Designed for enterprise organizations and independent repairers alike, the platform connects repair order management, digital inspections, customer communications, payments, reporting and business operations while integrating with capabilities such as Solera’s multi award-winning Identifix Direct-Hit®. Instead of forcing repairers to move between disconnected systems, manually transfer information or piece together data to understand what is happening in the business, ShopCentral creates a connected operating environment where information moves seamlessly across workflows, teams and locations. This gives technicians faster access to the information they need, gives managers greater visibility into performance, and enables businesses to identify opportunities, address issues, and make better decisions faster. Just as importantly, that connected data creates the foundation for AI to deliver increasingly powerful intelligence and automation throughout the repair process — helping shops improve productivity, strengthen customer engagement and operate more profitably.

For enterprise operators, the challenge is becoming increasingly complex. Growing vehicle complexity, technician shortages, rising labor and operating costs, margin pressure and increasing customer expectations are colliding with an operating model that, for many organizations, still relies on fragmented technology, inconsistent processes and limited visibility across locations. Managing dozens or hundreds of shops through separate systems makes it harder to standardize operations, understand performance, deploy technology consistently and identify where revenue or productivity is being lost. ShopCentral changes that equation. A single cloud-based platform gives enterprise operators centralized visibility and control across the organization while enabling consistent workflows, reporting and performance management at every location. Leaders can see what is happening across the business, benchmark performance, identify opportunities and scale best practices without stitching together information from multiple systems. And because ShopCentral is built as an intelligent, connected platform, new capabilities and AI-driven innovation can be deployed across the enterprise without adding another layer of technology or complexity.

For individual shops, the value is equally clear: one place for the tools, information and intelligence needed to run the business, without the complexity and cost of managing multiple systems. From helping technicians find information faster to simplifying customer communications, reducing administrative work and giving owners a clearer view of business performance, ShopCentral allows teams to spend less time managing technology and more time repairing vehicles and serving customers. At any scale, ShopCentral makes running a repair business simpler, smarter and more efficient.

The recognition is consistent with the overwhelming feedback the product received during its initial launch at SEMA in 2025.

“Most of the systems are geared towards a one-person operator, one-store operator, so we are really looking for a software that has multiple store capability,” said Lee Hughes, Controller at Big O Tires of Las Vegas.

“Managing 100 sites, we have 600 employees and don’t want to set permissions 600 times. I want to have a role set up, and we set the rights for the role and they automatically inherit those rights. If you do that one at a time, it’s not sustainable. I need tools that will help me push that to every location,” said Steve Waibel, Director of Information Technology at Brake Masters.

“Enterprise is key. If you can’t build a system at an enterprise, cloud-based level, that’s the future,” said David Mackey, COO of Western Automotive LLC DBA Big O Tires.

This feedback only confirms Solera’s vision, strategy and commitment to solve a long-standing industry challenge and reflects the pace at which Solera is bringing AI-driven innovation into the repair ecosystem. This platform features seamless integrations including Identifix Direct-Hit®, Intuit QuickBooks® Online and 1stMILE payments, alongside a redesigned Service Status Hub, expanded reporting, faster repair order workflows and new capabilities supporting technician productivity, multi-location organizations and fleet operations. AI-driven capabilities will continue to build on these connected workflows, helping transform the data generated throughout the repair process into actionable intelligence. Each integration and enhancement addresses a real operational challenge facing repair businesses today while expanding the connected foundation on which Solera can continue building what comes next.

“ShopCentral fundamentally changes what it means to run a repair business,” said Meredith Zimmerman, Senior Vice President of Vehicle and Collision Repair Solutions at Solera. “For too long, shop management technology has focused on processing transactions. ShopCentral puts intelligence at the center of the operation, connecting data, workflows and decisions across the business in one AI-powered platform. For enterprise repair organizations, that means greater visibility, smarter decisions and the ability to drive performance at scale. MOTOR’s recognition reinforces what we set out to deliver — a new standard for intelligent automotive repair.”

“ShopCentral moves shop management from software that records the business to intelligence that actively runs through it,” said Victoria Repice, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Solera. “We’ve unified workflows, enterprise-scale data and AI in a cloud-native platform that turns activity across the repair operation into actionable intelligence. ShopCentral gives repair organizations the ability to see more, know more and act faster, transforming complexity into intelligence and intelligence into performance. There is nothing else in the market that brings this level of intelligence to the center of running a repair operation. To see that vision recognized by MOTOR just months after launch is a powerful validation of both the technology and the industry need we set out to solve.”

ShopCentral represents one part of a broader transformation underway across Solera's global ecosystem. Across claims, repair, automotive retail and fleet, Solera is connecting decades of industry expertise with proprietary data, cloud technology and AI to solve increasingly complex industry challenges. In repair, that means moving beyond systems that simply manage transactions toward intelligent platforms that help businesses make better decisions, operate more efficiently and continuously improve.

The MOTOR Top 20 recognition marks another milestone in that journey and another proof point of Solera's ambition to help build the next generation of automotive repair.

About ShopCentral

ShopCentral is a cloud-based shop management platform from Solera designed to help automotive repair businesses streamline operations, improve technician productivity, enhance customer communication, and drive profitability. By combining repair order management, digital inspections, integrated payments, accounting connectivity, reporting, and workflow automation into a single solution, ShopCentral helps shops spend less time managing processes and more time serving customers.

For more information, visit identifix.com/shopcentral.

About Solera

Solera is a global leader in vehicle lifecycle management software, data, and services. Operating in more than 120 countries and serving over 280,000 customers, Solera provides the digital infrastructure that powers critical operations across the automotive ecosystem, serving manufacturers, dealerships, insurers, repairers, recyclers, parts providers and fleet operators worldwide.

At its core, Solera is built on a proprietary automotive data foundation and a cloud-based AI infrastructure designed to operate at industry scale. By embedding intelligence directly into workflows and continuously innovating across its platform, Solera enables customers to move faster, reduce complexity, and deliver better outcomes. By serving the full vehicle lifecycle, Solera creates unique synergies across its network, helping customers unlock greater value, improve performance, and succeed in an increasingly complex and connected industry. Solera is home to many leading brands in the automotive and vehicle ecosystem, including Identifix, Audatex, DealerSocket, Omnitracs, LoJack, Spireon, eDriving, cap hpi, Autodata, and others. For more information, visit https://www.solera.com/.

About MOTOR Information Systems

Founded in 1903, MOTOR Information Systems is one of the world’s premier suppliers of automotive data. MOTOR empowers the industry with trusted, comprehensive solutions spanning service and repair information, parts data, labor times, vehicle configurations, and market insights. A Hearst company, MOTOR continues to drive innovation and efficiency across the automotive ecosystem. Learn more at MOTOR.COM.

Contact: Mediainquiry@solera.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a73b70dc-0b51-47da-bfa1-6305e61453d6