Fiat is looking to move the fleet proportion of its group sales – Fiat and Alfa Romeo – to 50% of volume, up from 28% now.

From July it will have a new regional structure based on northern and southern teams backed by a national key account manager who will target the largest 30 existing customers and prospects.

The regional teams will include corporate sales managers and SME fleet managers working with dealers and talking direct to fleets. They will replace the existing national set up of three contract hire managers and five corporate sales managers split between Fiat and Alfa Romeo.

“It will improve communications and give us a more structured approach," said James McMenamin, Fiat national corporate sales manager.

The teams will sell both Fiat and Alfa Romeo, cars and vans. Each fleet will now have one point of contact for all their Fiat Group needs.

Talking to Fleet News at Greener Company Car In Action, McMenamin believes it will be easier to boost Fiat fleet sales than Alfa Romeo, which he says is suffering from a low quality perception.

“We need to get more placements on company car choice lists, but that needs fleet manager confidence in the product,” he says.

Fiat residual values are rising due to a shortage of used product pushing up prices. It has completely withdrawn from short-term rental this year, which will remove several thousand cars from the sales mix.

The carmaker is pushing the benefits to fleets of its Eco:Drive USB stick which measures driver performance. It will shortly be introduced on the Mito.

Already available on the Grande Punto, 500 and Brava, Eco:Drive assesses key indicators such as braking, acceleration and speed producing a driver report on fuel cost, CO2 and efficiency.

The results are benchmarked against the other 18,000 users across Europe, dubbed EcoVille.

Drivers are given tips on improving their efficiency rating, such as changing gears earlier if they are over-revving the engine. Fiat says that Eco:Driver has cut CO2 emissions by 1.5 million kg.