The Business Car Files Stellantis A
Above: James Taylor, Stellantis director for B2B.
ppointed Stellantis director for B2B last summer, James Taylor arrived with over 20 years’ experience at Vauxhall – most recently as general sales and marketing director. He now works across the newly combined portfolio of brands, which includes Alfa Romeo, Abarth, Citroën, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot and of course, Vauxhall.
Stellantis has a new matrix structure that is only been in place since 1 January, so Taylor explains how it all works. “We’ve still got ten fleet directors, for how the three organisations were originally structured,” he says. “There’s still a fleet director for FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), a fleet director for Peugeot, Citroën and DS and a one for Vauxhall. Iain Montgomery is Peugeot, Citroën, and DS. Laurence Hagger has taken over at FCA and the Vauxhall position is vacant at the moment.
UK director for B2B, James Taylor Taylor’s job is to provide a coordinated approach for large fleet customers across
the Stellantis group’s nine brands. Martyn Collins talks to him about his role and the challenges moving forward.
“Then there’s the Stellantis Group functions within fleet, under Scott Westerby. Within that, there are several different departments. We’ve got the fleet operations team, which looks after the database, deal management, CRM, marketing, events, and demonstrators.” According to Taylor, all the behind-the- scenes operations sit collectively under this area. He explains that, additionally, there are several sales functions that are run on a pure Stellantis basis. These are rental, leasing, special vehicles, major corporate fleets, and also special vehicle operations.
“Each of those channel heads have got a dotted line into the individual fleet directors of the various brands,” he says. “The fleet directors are still responsible in entirety, but in terms of management, and the liaising with the individual customers – that’s done on a pure Stellantis basis for those areas.
“Underneath Laurence, Ian and the Vauxhall teams, there are regional fleet teams. They will talk around the brands they’re responsible for, but if there is a customer that’s interested in another brand, so for example a Vauxhall buyer might be interested in Alfa Romeo, clearly, they will talk about Alfa Romeo, but primarily they are there to maximise the brand they’re responsible for.”
Taylor concedes that there is still some competition between teams around prospects, in terms of winning business. “In each of those teams there’s a regional fleet manager that reports into the fleet director of their brands. So, it’s certainly a little more complex than when it ran as individual brands, but hopefully it is getting the best of both worlds.” According to Taylor, the biggest benefit of the new structure is the customers. “We know from experience gained at Vauxhall, that
24 | March 2022 |
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