Feature
Whatever happened to the fleet bosses?
Most OEMs of any size had a dedicated fleet sales boss before the pandemic, but they are now a dying breed. Jack Carfrae asks why, and how it has affected fleets.
I
t would have been strange to find a car manufacturer of any size without a dedicated UK fleet boss at the start of the decade. Each brand had its own head of fleet sales – its big cheese, heading up the business end of the business.
These roles still exist, but they are rarer than they used to be. In early 2020, just before the pandemic struck, 20 manufacturers had a fleet boss dedicated either to one brand or to no more than two sister brands (e.g. BMW/Mini or Jaguar-Land Rover) according to Auto Retail Network’s Networks Report, which includes a list of senior OEM executives across 34 brands. The 2023 version of the same report showed 13 remaining fleet bosses, and two more have since left their roles with, we believe, no dedicated replacement. A 45% drop in four years.
The trend is most acute among, but not exclusive to, large multi-brand manufacturer groups. Typically, the role has been spread across multiple brands, combined with another role, or removed completely.
It is important to remember that at least three of the past four years were the weirdest and the most disruptive in living memory. The pandemic goes without saying and the subsequent supply shortages – exacerbated by the war in Ukraine – were particularly hard on
24 | March 2024 |
www.businesscar.co.uk
“If you get a hold of a good account manager, you follow them and they will follow you.”
the automotive industry. Factor in the general drive towards consolidation and joint projects, and a new agency retail model emerging, all against the backdrop of migrating from internal combustion power to electric, and it is not hard to see why things have changed inside manufacturer HQs.
That has not been seen as a welcome change for fleets, though, and operators are very much aware of the diminishing number of contacts at the companies from which they buy their vehicles – and not only at senior executive level.
“You used to have an [OEM] account manager ring you at least once a month,” says Lorna McAtear, deputy chair at the AFP, “these days, if I’ve had an account manager ring me at all, it’s because I’ve actually bought something. That’s the level of difference we are now facing. And in fact, you only talk to your account manager when you ring them and chase them down.”
McAtear believes the reduction is largely down to restructuring in the wake of Covid and consolidation among large groups, and that smaller fleets are feeling it the most. “The bigger fleets stand more chance of being able to get hold of someone; the smaller fleets don’t [and] a lot of it is now relying very clearly on previous relationships. Now, if your previous relationship happens to be with somebody that’s been furloughed, left, changed jobs – whatever it is – you are really, really going to struggle to find out who your next contact is.”
The retail sector is more profitable for manufacturers than fleet, so took precedence when there were fewer vehicles to sell during the chip shortage. While this was not the OEMs’ fault, it meant fleet took a back seat, supporting anecdotes Business Car has reported about major rental companies shopping at auctions for used vehicles, because they just could not get new ones.
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