TOP 10 contract hire and fleet management company Dial will stop prospecting for new medium and large fleet business as part of a major strategic restructuring. The Barclays-owned company believes the acquisition of new business in the large fleet sector is too expensive, and in future it will seek to win a greater share of the accounts that it already supplies.

Dial will also target the small fleet sector of sub-50 vehicles through Network, its intermediary operation that accounts for about 50% of its new business. In addition, Mike Betts, Dial's managing director, said the company would move away from what he described as 'commodity' fleet management services such as invoice processing, to focus on 'fleet funding and the provision of specialised high value fleet services' such as accident management.

The changes will lead to about 80 redundancies among sales and sales support staff, and should reduce Dial's internal costs by about 30%. The company has reduced the size of its board from nine directors to five since the beginning of the year. 'It's all about getting fit for the future,' said Betts, who predicted that many other contract hire companies will face the same tough decisions. He promised a programme of investment in IT, and denied that the restructuring was designed to lay the foundations for a much-rumoured sale of the business.