SMALL businesses are losing up to £30,000 a year as a result of having vehicles off the road.

And in most cases the problems stemmed simply from not managing efficiently the company cars in a small fleet.

We’re not surprised by the news that the average SME relies on the business owner or the managing director to carry out the small fleet company car management work.

On average they are each spending half a day a week on the job, time they could better use for driving their businesses forward.

That was the result of research from Ford Retail, the world’s largest Ford dealer group, designed to help the business community understand the true cost of a poorly managed fleet.

It showed that an overwhelming majority (88%) of small businesses believe they aren’t big enough to warrant a company car management service.

This is despite the fact that the operating even a small number of vehicles could be costing more than is being budgeted for.

In fact 18% of SMEs are putting aside just £1000 a year for their small fleet servicing and maintenance needs, despite it costing closer to £8000.

Those responding to the survey revealed that on average each vehicle spends four days off the road a year, with the cost to the business varying between £200 and £800 a day in loss of manpower and productivity.

Alan Maloney, sales development director at Ford Retail, said of the findings:

“Our research reveals that many small businesses are seriously miscalculating the true cost of maintaining their fleets, large or small, and in most cases spending far more than is necessary.

“UK plc is looking at SMEs to lift us out of the downturn, and with so many wasting thousands of pounds a year in time and money, we would implore all small businesses to review their fleet requirements.”