RUNNING a small fleet of cars and light commercial vehicles is a time-consuming business for an SME.
There’s the sourcing of the company cars or the business vans, and then beyond that there’s ongoing vehicle management and driver management.
We didn’t feel that our small fleet warranted the cost of employing an in-house fleet manager
It’s an ongoing and often costly process.
Larger corporate businesses often employ dedicated fleet managers to deal in-house with their business car management.
SMEs simply don’t have that luxury. But what they can do, a practice which SMEs are increasingly adopting, is to outsource the management of a small fleet to a third party company.
Which is exactly what Wolverhampton based Deritend Group has done.
The Deritend Group is an industrial maintenance company which specialises in the repair and preventative maintenance of factory motors, pumps, gearboxes and rotating equipment.
The nature of the business involves regular on-site visits, so as well as the HQ, Deritend has additional workshop facilities around the UK. The company runs approximately 100 vehicles with a 50/50 split between company cars and commercial vehicles.
Stuart Smith, Deritend’s finance director, explained how Deritend chose to manage its fleet by outsourcing not only the fleet management but also the vehicle sourcing, to a third party small fleet leasing specialist.
“We have been dealing with our fleet partner CBVC since 2002, which was around the same time that both of our companies got off the ground. We have remained loyal to them and have extended our fleet with CBVC as our requirements have grown,” explains Stuart.
