539 – Reducing the wait for your new business car

LEAD times – how long you have to wait for your next business car or company car – have been a real issue in 2010.

Audi has been one of the worst culprits with waiting times stretching from four months to 12 in some cases.

It’s something that Audi’s James Allitt admitted had been an issue but the company was tackling in 2011 when I met him on the launch of the Audi A7 Sportback model. James, the A7 product manager, said: “We simply misread the demand for our cars in the UK. It’s obviously very gratifying to be in such demand but clearly we need to handle that demand rather better.”

In some cases, the waiting times have cost sales. Concept Vehicle Leasing director Tom Argent says one of his customers simply got fed up waiting for an Audi TT and eventually cancelled the order.

Of course, one upside of the demand for Audi cars is an increase in used values, something Richard Crosthwaite, Glass’s prestige car editor, has pointed out in his various commentaries on the used car prestige market in our Used Business Car section. So waiting lists are not all bad news – unless you are on the receiving end of the wait.

When your cars aren’t built in Europe but need to be shipped from Japan, then the problems of lead times can be exacerbated further.

However, Mazda’s fleet and remarketing director, Peter Allibon, has come up with a new approach to manage the demand. Peter has called it a ‘fleet vehicle sold order pot’. Which doesn’t sound especially glamorous, but I’m sure you wouldn’t care if your new company car was delivered within a fortnight.

Peter explained how it works: “We have four strategically located Mazda fleet centres – Arnold Clark in Scotland, JCT600 in Bradford, Norton Way in Letchworth and Johnsons in Oxford and Swindon – that handle the majority of all Mazda’s contract hire and outright purchase fleet business.