Tough economic conditions and heightened competition in the vehicle leasing sector are resulting in widening variances in contract hire rates and an increasing appetite for some contract hire companies to offer improved monthly rentals, reports Interactive Fleet Management (IFM).

Stuart Menzies (pictured), commercial director of IFM says competitive forces are seeing a mounting number of leasing companies review their rates or offer extremely attractive pricing to win multiple orders from larger fleets.

“With the Eurozone crisis in the forefront of everyone’s minds, and the UK falling back into recession, many companies are digging in deep to win every order,” said Menzies.

“As a fleet management company that offers multi-bid contract hire, whereby we work on behalf of our clients to find the best contract hire prices from a panel of major leasing providers, we can see movements in price, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis.”

He added that it is due to this reason that multi-bid contract hire, also known as competitive tendering, is such an important service which is growing in demand faster than any other fleet management solutions they currently offer.

“By acting as a company’s fleet department we provide clients and their drivers with all the advantages of sole supply, while their cost base is reduced by achieving the best contract hire rate each time an order is placed,” he said.

“This offers significant savings as there are some sizeable price differences in monthly rental in the current market.”