Turning your international fleet strategy into successful vehicle policies
Setting up and deploying an international fleet programme is one thing. Implementing it is quite another. Fleet Europe hosted a webinar (watch the recording) on 12th December 2017 to discuss this issue with the support of TraxAll International, a fleet management company that operates throughout Europe and Latin America. TraxAll's CEO Ross Jackson and COO Thibaud Dedier presented their views on this pressing topic.
One of the first plans of action international category managers tend to come up with when looking for ways to save money on their fleets, is to harmonise as much as possible and to look for ways to work in sole supply. Logical, as the advantages of both internationalisation and harmonisation include cost efficiency, process optimisation and the avoidance of internal administrative burdens. TraXall International: “First of all, Europe is not the easiest continent. It has different cultures and different legislations which make a straightforward harmonisation challenging. Secondly, fleet managers send out an RFQ with the prospect of evolving to exclusivity for the whole vehicle fleet. In reality, the volume discounts fleet managers count on, turn out to be disappointing and exclusivity deals bare a risk to be more expensive in the long run.”
TraxAll International carried out a survey on 92,000 cars and LCVs ordered during the past three years. Where orders are won on merit, no single leasing company won more than 45% of orders in a multi-bid environment based on the TraXall figures. CEO Ross Jackson concluded that these numbers suggest their customers would perhaps have paid too much for at least 55% of the vehicles ordered if they had had exclusivity deals. Another reason not to opt for exclusivity agreements with one leasing company, is that local leasing companies can outperform companies that may have a larger international presence. So why rule them out? But Traxall International recognises the expertise, the geographic scope and the ease of use of working with international companies in the markets where these have an established footprint and history.
Not only is continuous competition through a multi-bid approach the best mechanism to control costs, as far as TraxAll is concerned, the fleet management company underlines the importance of adapting the international strategy to the specifics of each local market.
According to TraXall International managing contracts from more than one provider does not have to be challenging. Fleet management companies such as TraxAll “handle the administrative follow-up, reporting and accounting issues for their clients in return for a management fee that guarantees a two on one return on investment,” said CEO Ross Jackson.
