Inchcape Fleet Services (IFS) and FMG have signed a partnership deal to create a blend of outsourced incident management.

Matt Rumble, commercial director at IFS, said: “We are constantly evaluating best practice in all areas of vehicle funding and management.

"Over the past two years, one specific area of focus has been the incident management marketplace.

"The landscape in this arena has changed substantially, and many of today’s fleet accident management operations are struggling to overcome the subsequent hurdles including legislative and commercial change, varying degrees of repair capacity constraints, shifts in supply and demand, parts discounts and supply issues, all of which take place against a backdrop of significant developments in vehicle technology.”

IFS performed an internal and external review of the market to try to identify the best incident management solution for the future.

It decided that, with around 30,000 vehicles under an incident management contract, compared with leading outsourced incident management specialists who have ten times that volume, it needed to combine their own strengths with the benefits of working in partnership with an incident management specialist.

This lead the company to team up with FMG, which is providing its next-generation operating system, Ingenium-i, via a new IFS-branded web interface.

This  self-service solution, operated by Inchcape’s own specialist team, will drive Inchcape’s accident management function, with every single task measured to ensure that delays are minimised, costs carefully measured and downtime highly controlled.

Customer repairs will be directed through IFS’s own repair network, with additional support from FMG’s own extensive quality-accredited repair network, to ensure continuity of coverage and capacity across the UK, including the addition of a UK-wide mobile repair solution.