AN acknowledgement of the move away from the traditional company car towards individually-packaged finance deals for employees is proving the foundation of plans by BCH Vehicle Management to double its 18,000-vehicle fleet by 2002. It has launched a recruitment drive for 10 sales executives who will help the expansion through accessing the small business and retail markets for new and used vehicles with finance lease, personal contract purchase and HP funding products to complement its core contract hire business.

Newly-appointed managing director Keith Allen said: 'We plan to increase our market share by taking a more consultative approach to selling our services and by offering a wider product portfolio which will include, for example, finance lease as well as contract hire. We are building on our successful PCP product, AutoChoice, which is available to our retail and corporate customers as an alternative to the company car and as a staff benefit.'

Recruitment specialist Reed Personnel Services, Somerfield and Lucent Technologies have all set up corporate AutoChoice schemes for their staff. 'We see this market growing rapidly as more companies are looking at offering flexible benefits to its employees,' Allen said.