Of course, cost control must be a key deliverable of any integrated fleet management solution.

All aspects of billing should be automatically logged in real-time as soon as a reservation is confirmed, enabling the user to view the amounts due to each supplier.

It should also facilitate electronic production and dispatch of necessary payments in both purchase and sales ledgers, thereby eliminating the resource-heavy processing normally required for this activity.

Plus, by handling all billing activity electronically as an integral part of the reservation process, the risk of error is once again eliminated.

You mention reporting, what sort of reports can a customer expect to receive?

Any good rental management system needs to provide good information about rental activity – but it has to be easy to access; easy to understand and easy to act on.

Every business needs access to a complete overview of charges, broken down by number of rentals and rental days as well as any special services such as deliveries.

Being able to track rentals by collection and delivery locations, including airports, is also valuable.

Having an insight into the average length of hire, vehicle usage and geographies used will obviously be eminently useful.

The best system will deliver qualitative and quantitative data and customers should expect to be able to monitor live information on the critical elements of service delivery via a dashboard.

For end-users, being able to access reports on usage by reason for hire; driver profiles; geographies and cost centres, as well as fuel costs, is also critical.

Reports showing speeding and traffic fines, by driver name and vehicle group, allow an end-user company to monitor driver performance, which is critical for duty-of-care responsibilities.

Having online access to all this knowledge eliminates costly and time-consuming processes and provides total rental control right down to the individual driver.

Let’s turn now to the rental market in general, rather than rental intermediaries. What sort of vehicles can be rented?

There is a larger than ever range of vehicles on the market today that caters for all needs and fashions. However, many rental companies have actually reduced the number of vehicle types they provide in order to improve their overall fleet utilisation.

To combat this dilution of customer proposition, users need to use more suppliers in order to have access to a full range of vehicles.

This can be costly and time consuming if not managed by a rental management business that can deliver the necessary supply chain.

Rental companies can provide cars ranging from small city runarounds to larger hatchbacks, saloons, MPVs and hybrids but, of course, it’s vital these should be maintained to manufacturers’ specifications and covered by 24-hour breakdown assistance.

Without this end-users will not be meeting their duty-of-care responsibilities, which have become so important for businesses.

Being able to demonstrate environmental awareness is becoming more important for many end-user organisations and the vehicle rental industry is responding to this with systems and solutions that enable choice – and monitoring of rental – by CO2 emissions.

All rental cars are relatively new, and therefore benefit from advances in tackling CO2 emissions, so they can be a greener choice than driving an older vehicle.

Having access to a broad choice of commercial vehicles should also be a key element of any rental fleet. Most rental providers offer a good choice from smaller vans right up to larger vehicles with tail-lifts, etc.

Rental providers also need to address the provision of wheelchair-accessible and adapted vehicles.

The Equality Act, passed into law in October 2010, has put even more onus on all organisations to treat people with disabilities equally and this includes those companies that offer rental cars as part and parcel of their services.

For example, an insurance company providing a replacement vehicle while their policyholder’s car is off the road; or an employer who has employed a disabled person and needs them to travel for work.

There is a growing understanding of this requirement, and companies like Adapted Vehicle Hire, part of the Nexus Group, are setting the benchmark for the range and quality of adapted and wheelchair-accessible vehicles available nationwide.

But there is still some way to go before all rental providers will be able to routinely offer these vehicles.

Presumably the daily rental market offers different services for the managers of small and large organisations. What services are available?

It costs money to keep staff on the road, and in the current economic climate those costs can be pretty heavy. However, using the right rental solution can prove immensely cost-effective.

The key is to find a supplier with solutions tailored to the needs of specific types or sizes of business – or with the flexibility to adapt their services to meet your needs. You might want to rent a vehicle for an hour, a day, a weekend or more.

‘Daily rental’ doesn’t really mean that any more. Some people need a rental car just for a few hours; some for a few months.

The key is to find a provider that can cope with both requirements, giving you the flexibility to match your transport needs.

Businesses affected by seasonal demands or needing to manage contract work will often use longer-term rental. They find it cost-effective because there’s no early-termination fee – they only pay for the vehicles for the time they are needed.

The evolution of the internet has seen many rental providers move away from people-intensive processes. They now provide end-users with easy-to-access tools for making and managing reservations, 24/7.

Of course, it’s vital that the personal touch isn’t lost, but the easier online tools are for making the reservation and managing the process, the more time an organisation can spend on their core business activities.

Online invoicing and cost control should also enhance business operations.

Presumably different services are available for different types of customer?

Yes. First, let’s talk about big businesses.

Where large users of rental are concerned, there are a number of services that add value to the rental process including:

Dedicated contact teams: Many rental companies have established fleet and corporate teams to provide a first point of contact for specific enquiries from major users.

These teams provide the ’personal touch’ that is sometimes necessary for a particular challenge or contract.

Streamlined processes: The facility to integrate a rental provider’s management systems with a customer’s own systems can give enhanced control on the entire vehicle reservations process.

In the name of the brand: Some organisations also want vehicle rental websites to be presented in their own brand.