In the spotlight: ALD Automotive

Fuel consumption is charted for every journey and the fleet can view a map to see where the driver went and where it was filled up to validate the amount against the fuel card figure.

Harrhy expects to see some fleets switch from reimbursing on AFR to actual fuel used as a result of the data, which will save them money.

In addition, some fleets are seeing savings of 8-10% on fuel as the accurate figures prevent drivers from rounding up mileage.

Next developments include fuel card integration allowing fleets to import data into the system and speed data to show where vehicles have exceeded speed limits.

Mel Dawson on...

Fleet management companies

“If they are not offering something different, they will struggle. There are a lot of middle men players in the market and that’s not enough; they can’t just cherry-pick on price. But they can be a valued partner to us: if they have created a need in the market for their services, often their customers will need finance.”

Economic challenges

“Competition will remain fierce but we are confident that the quality of our people and our IT infrastructure will enable us to thrive.”

Pricing

“We have to be competitive, but the market demands more than that. It’s about enhancements to the service offering and you have to invest to offer that.”

People

“Investment in IT is in relation to people development: it’s the combination that creates an enhanced service offering.”

Total cost of ownership

“Some leasing companies talk about it but the depth of detail is not as great as ours. We get feedback from customers in a tender on how different leasing companies go about it and they say that we go into more detail on our TCO modelling. It’s a cornerstone of what we do for our customers.”