IS YOUR business stuck in the past with the way you provide employees with business cars? Or are you more forward looking? Business Car Manager reporter, Matt Morton, analyses the latest report from LeasePlan: Fleet 2020 – Business Car or Business Mobility?RECESSION, the start of economic recovery, changing customer needs and dynamic employment policies, as well as changing fuel and tax policies, not to mention environmental issues – all these issues are impacting or may impact on the company car. That impact may be on what vehicles your business provides its staff, how they are provided – or whether you provide them to your staff at all.
The recently published LeasePlan report called ‘Fleet 2020 – Business Car or Business Mobility?’, independently written by Professor Peter Cooke, of the Centre for Automotive Management at the University of Buckingham, looks at some of the questions which company senior management need to be asking as they plan the company’s business strategy, including company cars.
The issues may seem at first to be focused on larger fleets; they are not. The issues and concerns raised apply just as much to business cars run by medium and smaller enterprises as the largest in the land.
The LeasePlan report objective is, according to the Foreword, ‘to start and contribute to the debate regarding the future of the business car.’
While the title suggests ‘Fleet 2020’ might be some way ahead -the issues reviewed are, in many cases, much more immediate and should be rising up any company’s strategy agenda.
Emerging from the longest recession on record, many businesses, their suppliers and clients – and indeed the very products and services on offer – have changed in shape and format. Some clients and markets have disappeared; some have consolidated; others now require a totally different product and service.
Yes, it may be easier short term to continue replacing business cars ‘as before’. But would your company be following a business model that is no longer relevant?
Cooke argues that businesses need to look at their changed markets and expected future changes and replace against future – and not historic – demand patterns. He argues that businesses should take the pain and change now, rather than delay the pain of restructuring to the future.
In the LeasePlan report there are a number of checklists of issues and areas that business directors, including business car managers, need to review. They are pretty formidable checklists; each major issue has a series of subtexts as well.
Professor Cooke reports that he wanted to highlight the questions individual operators need to consider. Among his conclusions, Professor Cooke predicts a closer integration for business vehicle provision between leasing and daily rental, tighter provision of business cars, a growth in alternative means of communicating with clients and much tighter management of business car mileage.
The report certainly provides some real food for thought. It’s an interesting question posed – ‘are you planning for a current or even a past business model; or are you looking ahead and planning against real future requirements?’
Have a look at this report, it may well give you some interesting thoughts. It’s available free to download on www.buckingham.ac.uk/cam.
Further information
You can read a news story on the report here: Should you buy or hire?
