Last year, LeasePlan registered its second biggest growth on record, consolidating its position at No2 in the FN50. It has occupied that spot since 2008.

LeasePlan’s risk fleet increased from 134,115 vehicles to 139,698, although that’s still around 150,000 vehicles behind market leader Lex Autolease.

Within the LeasePlan group, which funds vehicles in 32 countries, the UK division experienced the biggest growth in terms of asset value.

“We grew our asset base by over £150 million, which is 10-11%,” says managing director Matt Dyer, who took charge in May last year when former MD David Brennan joined Nexus Vehicle Management as chief executive officer.

Dyer has worked for LeasePlan for 19 years in a number of roles, including managing director of LeasePlan International and, latterly, commercial director at LeasePlan UK.

“In 2014 there was a lot of change for us,” he says. “At board level we’ve got a number of new appointments, not just myself.  We’ve got a new commercial director, Jo Elms, and a new finance director, Patrick Steenvoorden, who came from LeasePlan Corporation to work in the UK.

“We also created a business development division, which is looking to take the way we develop, market and innovate our products to the next level. Finding new market segments, and products for those segments, is going to be crucial for LeasePlan’s success in the future.”

The business development division is headed by former brand director Lesley Slater, in the newly created board-level role of business development director.

Slater’s previous role has been taken by Simon Carr, formerly LeasePlan Go brand director, while head of remarketing James Hopkins has become brand director of Network.

With the appointments now in place, Dyer expects LeasePlan’s funded fleet to grow by another 5,000-6,000 vehicles this year.

“Some of our competitors throw around big numbers; I’m not going to do the same,” he says.

But he does concede that he expects LeasePlan’s funded fleet to grow by 30% over the next six years, which, based on last year’s figures, would take it to 181, 607 vehicles.

That number is purely organic growth, with Dyer saying that LeasePlan has an “open mind” about acquisition.

“There has been some consolidation in the industry, and I think that will continue,” he says.

“I’m not necessarily sure whether it will be this year, because the specifics of the market still mean that leasing companies are having a very good time, but as we get into 2016/17 we might well see that continue.”

He points out that the top five companies in the FN50 are playing a bigger role, with a 56% share of the market.

“That dynamic will continue,” he says. “There are lots of companies who do extremely good jobs for their customers.

“In our own regard, we’ve got four brands: LeasePlan Brand, LeasePlan Go, Automotive Leasing and Network. We don’t want people to think ‘here is this giant LeasePlan’. We want people to recognise that we’ve given specific focus for their particular requirements.”

Automotive Leasing is LeasePlan’s public sector arm, Network is its broker division, and LeasePlan Go targets fleets with up to 100 vehicles directly.

“I wouldn’t call LeasePlan Go an SME brand, because we have corporate customers that happen to have small fleets, as well as personal leasing,” Dyer says.

However, he adds that SMEs were a big part of LeasePlan’s growth last year and they now make up more than half of its risk fleet.

Dyer puts that down to “the strength of the Network proposition”, which has 100 franchisees, and the “thriving SME sector in the UK”.

LeasePlan has also had success with its commercial vehicle business, which consists of a five-strong team headed by Mark Lovett.

“We’ve invested quite heavily in our commercial vehicle proposition,” says Dyer. “Our commercial vehicle fleet grew 9% year-on-year. One of the trends is an increasing use of leasing by commercial vehicle operators, and we definitely saw that playing out last year.

“We weren’t just winning business from competitors, we were winning commercial vehicle business from people who had not leased before.”

In the future, Dyer expects there to be more “blurring between rental and leasing”.

“Commercial vehicles have to fit a business’s fleet based on the commitment they get from their customers and, if they’ve got a shorter commitment, there’s no point in us trying to force them into a three- or four-year lease,” he says. He also predicts a “blurring between fleet and retail” with the rise of salary sacrifice.

“As a segment, it’s growing, especially as the economy is recovering strongly and employment is improving. These sorts of benefits are very important as a retention factor,”  he says. 

LeasePlan launched SalaryPlan in 2010 and now has around 7,000 salary sacrifice vehicles. Adding insurance to SalaryPlan last year proved a popular move.

Dyer expects salary sacrifice numbers to more than double to 15,000 vehicles over the next three years.

“The thing we are learning, and we have improved a lot on, is the engagement with the employee population,” he says. “That is crucial to make it successful.”

LeasePlan has also witnessed a rise in the number of cash takers – some of whom use their cash to enter a salary sacrifice scheme.

“Cash takers are arguably a bigger segment now than the company vehicle segment full stop,” he says. “In that regard, you’re in the retail space.”

He puts growth down to company car policies becoming quite restrictive as well as the strength of manufacturer retail offers.

“When you compare it to what you pay in benefit-in-kind taxation you sit back and think ‘well, hold on a second, even though I’ve got this lovely proposition I’m interested in this’,” he says.

“Our job is to make the overall company car proposition still seem attractive – the fact that the company vehicle has all the services included and running costs are covered.

“We are looking to find additional routes to appeal and engage with cash allowance takers.”

Last year, LeasePlan embarked on its first TV ad campaign, aimed at cash takers and personal leasing.

“We have stopped referring to customers and drivers – it’s one and the same,” Dyer says.

LeasePlan’s 2020 strategy is for customers to “love leasing. We want people who use our services on a day-to-day basis to feel an attachment to them”, Dyer says. “We’re going to energise the organisation behind that ambition.”

Digital has a key part to play in that strategy.

 “I would put digital and data excellence as an outstanding priority for us,” Dyer says. “I think digital will change the game in a lot of ways. It opens the ability to have relationships on a daily basis with all your key stakeholders, particularly your customers. Digital allows us the reach to ensure that we’re respecting our drivers as customers and that we’re able to have regular touch points with them.”

LeasePlan has started using instant feedback, which means that a driver rates the service at the point of using it. At the moment it is available on tyres, but will be rolled out to other services in the next 12 months.

“When we get that feedback we need to act on it and make sure the experience remains strong,” Dyer says. He adds that LeasePlan has “a strong commitment to customer loyalty” and conducts a detailed loyalty survey every year across all key customer segments.

The results last year continued the trend where the large majority of customers achieve the status of ‘retained’ and ‘highly retained’.

Last year, LeasePlan extended contracts with several key corporate customers, representing a fleet potential in excess of 15,000 vehicles.

LeasePlan recently launched a new portal, as well as a new quote and order tool.

“Leasing companies have got to invest in digital development,” Dyer says. “In the past, you may have invested in something once every five or six years and once you were done you moved on. That’s not the world anymore.

“The world has got used to a release mindset, because you get your new iPhone and new operating system on a regular basis.” Digital tools also allow customers to “interact in the way they want to”.

“Some of our customers do not want to have to speak to us,” Dyer says. “They want to interact with us, they want to have a relationship with us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to speak to us. Some do, some would much prefer to pick up the phone, so we’ve got to be able to cater for those different preferences.”

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