By Ralph Morton, editor

IT’S always worth having a look at what larger corporate fleets are thinking and doing to see what relevance any of their best practice or fleet behaviour might have to smaller SME fleets and business car users.

Is there anything your business can use that would make your business car fleet more efficient, your company car drivers safer, and the cost of cars and vans your business runs more economical?

The leasing company Alphabet has recently canvassed the opinion of some of its major fleet operators and published a report called Risk, Reward and Rationale, which aims to pick up on emerging trends, challenges, issues and opportunities in business mobility.

It seems the key issue big fleets are worrying about is risk. Nearly all are drawing up plans to manage business car driver risk, partly spurred on by concerns about the Corporate Manslaughter Bill.

Key business driver issues What, then, are the key areas you should worry about? The issues that the big fleet boys have covered off are speeding (96%), driving above legal alcohol limit (94%), mobile phone use (97%) and driver fatigue (93%); all of these are worth having on your company car or business car driver policy. Without them, you expose your business to real duty of care issues.

Richard Schooling, ceo of Alphabet adds, “Driver tiredness is a significant risk for business car managers, especially as workloads increase in the current slow-growth economy. This is an area which should be constantly scrutinised, especially where annual business mileages creep up.”

Using private cars on business This is an area where big fleets get jumpy – simply because of the numbers involved and the lack of control. For smaller businesses this shouldn’t be such a problem, although you should make sure the cars are roadworthy, MoT’d, there’s correct business insurance and the driving licences have been checked.

That’s not the view of the fleet guys though: 7 out of 10 business car managers in the Alphabet survey said they would prefer employees to use a fleet car rather than a private car on business.

Here’s Richard again on the survey findings: “Company cars give employers more control over the quality, insurance, emissions and condition of vehicles used on business. That said, if a car is not an essential tool of the job, it may be more economical and less risky to use pool cars or use daily rental.”

Company car allocation For larger companies, the business car managers see a company car as an important means of controlling costs and retaining high-quality employees, and strongly prefer using company-owned vehicles for business journeys (72%).

Small businesses and SMEs may have to be more selective over who receives a company business car. But a company car certainly helps with attracting and retaining staff.

Influencing driver behaviour While the big fleet boys see the company car as a ‘come hither’ device to attract staff, they then tend to wield the big stick when it comes to behaviour. The Alphabet report notes that large company car fleets tended to apply penalties to discourage bad behaviour‚ such as making drivers pay for unfair end-of-contract wear and tear charges ‚ than to offer rewards for good outcomes.

Now, unwanted end of lease charges are always unwelcome, particularly for an SME fleet with a keen eye on costs. And given the ability of smaller companies to think more creatively, it would be far more advantageous to encourage better company car keeping.

I’ve seen several examples where SME fleets have encouraged good behaviour. One instance was a monthly fuel economy chart – those achieving the best fuel figures were rewarded with a cash bonus (it saved the company money on fuel and car wear and tear).

Another was more creative if less regular – a ‘spit and polish’ incentive. The business car drivers had to post pictures of themselves cleaning their car, or having the car valeted, on the company’s Facebook page every quarter with the most inventive or whackiest winning a meal out for two – following inspection from the md. The idea was to encourage pride in the car – and keep an eye on any potential damage that could affect end of lease charges. It worked, too.

And the message from all of this for SMEs is… These large fleet surveys are useful for the business car manager of an SME looking after a small fleet of cars and vans. They provide pointers for best practice that you can adapt for your own firm and the requirements of your company.

And adapting good ideas is key. It’s important to note that over 50% of the fleet managers surveyed by Alphabet were in the public sector, manufacturing and utilties, so their demands along with their company car and business van responsibilities can often be significantly different to a small business.

But there are some good ideas here that are worth exploring for your business. Adapt and improve as the saying goes…

Expert commentary from Fleet Alliance The report is reflective of the Fleet Alliance journey from principally dealing with SME businesses to now managing large fleets too. What we have found is that some of the large fleet habits could quite simply be introduced back to SME fleets.

This not only sees us winning more large fleets, but also enhancing our SME offering.

This is evidenced by our two key models: e-fleet which is our online fleet management system which caters for 5 or 500 vehicles, and our Fleet 360 model which manages all aspects of the fleet for our clients – again regardless of fleet size.

Put simply; fleet is fleet regardless of size, and SMEs should be demanding strong systems and reporting in line with the larger fleet operators.

Martin Brown managing director of fleet solutions provider, Fleet Alliance