Mazda’s Peter Allibon at our meeting with good reason to smile: the small business programme is really starting to work, he says

Business Car Manager: Editor’s Blog

MAZDA’S fleet boss, Peter Allibon, came hot-foot into the restaurant where we were meeting via Mazda dealer Milcars of Watford where Peter had been agreeing the final stages of a contract with a small business.

Doing business with SMEs has suddenly come right to the fore of Peter’s thinking, with good reason. As our news story explains, 26% of SMEs are looking for a company car right now (see SMEs in the market for company cars).

Earlier this year, Peter put into place a Mazda small business programme with Mazda dealers and Mazda Contract Hire to offer a better level of support and preferential terms to small firms, whether one car or 50. The programme kicked off at the beginning of May, and so far, says Peter, has resulted in 121 sets of terms put in place, whether the firms were ready for a new company car acquisition or not.

It seems to be going well, too. “Since we started, we’ve had 185 orders, mostly Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 models and generally as company cars,” Peter explained.

“The majority of the orders have been single orders, with a few of 10, but with the potential for repurchase and renewal down the line. I have to say the order with CDL