CFC Solutions has received several queries in recent months from medium-large fleets that are considering the option of taking some or all of their fleet operations back in-house and want to have an effective software infrastructure in place.

Neville Briggs, managing director at CFC Solutions, said: “Outsourcing has received a lot of publicity in the last couple of years as a fleet solution for companies that are looking to save money. Typically, it involves a medium-large fleet handing over responsibility for some or all of their operations to a fleet management specialist or other third party supplier.

“However, our experience is slightly different. Since the start of the recession, we have seen a little outsourcing across our customer base but, lately, there has been an almost equal buzz surrounding insourcing.”

Briggs said that the factors behind companies wanting to adopt insourcing or outsourcing tended to be similar – a desire to minimise costs while gaining as much control over fleet operations as possible.

He said: “It is perhaps ironic that the impetuses behind insourcing or outsourcing decisions tend to be very much the same. However, each fleet is different and there is no single solution that works well for everyone. It is absolutely valid that the best solution for some fleets might be to insource services while others should choose to go down the outsourcing route.”

Briggs added that, typically, where companies were looking to insource, they made use of the existing managerial expertise available to them.

He said: “We have seen very little recruitment of new fleet managers. Instead, where we have seen insourcing happening there was already a person or team in place that looked after the existing outsourcing arrangement, or the fleet function is being passed to departments such as purchasing or HR.

“It is too early to say whether this is the start of a general insourcing trend but we are certain that there is genuine level of interest out there.”

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