What’s your fleet focus?

With over 15 years in the fleet industry, Tash has considerable experience working with private, public and not-for-profit organisations. She helps them identify the most suitable funding methodologies, find cost-saving opportunities and create robust, adaptable and suitable fleet polices, including integration of alternative fuels and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

While electrification and sustainability are still hot topics, most of the conversations I’m currently having with fleets focus on business costs. Budgets remain tight – sometimes even reduced – but company cars still have to be suitable and fit for purpose, while perk cars must contribute to an attractive remuneration package.

There’s a lot we can do to help, so I’ll just highlight a few of the questions I’m currently working on:

• Can I electrify my fleet whilst remaining cost neutral? Could I possibly even achieve cost savings?
• Are my driver grade bandings still suitable in 2025?
• Will increasing my contract term improve vehicle choice in my driver grades without having to increase bandings?
• How can I correctly review? Do I need to amend these values, and if so, how do I know the suitable amount?

Our approach is all about data – what it tells us and how we use it. For example, I’m currently reviewing fleet policy with a customer, as it’s been a few years since they last looked at it, and they have one clear instruction – budgets cannot increase.

So, I opened up our toolbox and I’ve focused on a tool I created called TCO Profiling. It takes a customer’s current rental managed policy, automatically calculates the equivalent TCO per grade (so it remains cost neutral) and reviews vehicle selection within each grade. I’ve used it to review the EV offering at each grade, so we can reduce their fleet CO2 emissions upon renewal, while retaining a suitable lower emitting vehicle selection for their drivers.

I then drew on a few more of our tools – including TCO+, fleet policy designer and EV Finder – to produce a full end-to-end solution.

I’ve been in the fleet industry for quite some time and seen many challenges and disruptors. It feels like we’ve been in a prolonged, extended period of change for the last few years, largely fuelled by the electrification timeline. In my opinion, the next few years are likely to be some of the toughest our industry will experience. But for me, this is exciting. It gives me the opportunity to help our customers plot a route through these challenges and out the other side.

While I’ve mainly talked about tools so far, I do also want to highlight how we help with trends. Our quarterly Fleet Focus presentation updates customers on the latest news and changes in our industry. It focuses on what things mean for them; cutting through the market noise and providing a great barometer for when they’re making fleet-based decisions.

I have a number of customers who book this hour-long presentation every three or six months and they’ve told me how much it helps them ensure they have robust, future-proofed fleet strategies in place.

Find out more about Ayvens Consultancy Services here: Fleet Consultancy Services | Ayvens United Kingdom - formerly LeasePlan