Mazda Motor Europe is expanding its pan-European fleet focus as the manufacturer looks to win cross-market corporate sales and increase business-sector penetration in a string of individual countries.

Simon Monks, who has more than 12 years experience in fleet and aftersales in the UK and across Europe, has joined Mazda's European fleet operations team as manager, international corporate sales, and a second international corporate sales manager will be appointed shortly.

In the financial year ending March 31, 2010, Mazda Motor Europe sold 239,000 vehicles in Europe out of global sales of 1.193 million. However, fleet sales accounted for less than 15 percent of European volumes.

That means around half of all Mazda's European fleet sales are in the UK and the Netherlands, where the company has seen its established corporate focus pay dividends with year-on-year rises in volumes to around 20,000 units thanks to a strong focus on both the leasing sector and end-user blue chip fleets. The success in winning corporate sales business in these markets means that this strategy is being used as the template for Mazda's European fleet development.

At the core of the strategy is a comprehensive model range headed by the Mazda6 and Mazda3 and also including the Mazda2, Mazda5, CX-7 and iconic MX-5, which has won numerous fleet industry awards for its desirability, reliability, strong total cost of ownership figures and, in many cases, class-leading residual values.

Mr. Monks added "Delivering desirable company cars with first class CO2 figures is important because many international companies are taking the view that while being eco-friendly means being ‘green', the euro is also ‘green' as the lower a car's emissions the better its fuel-efficiency, which will deliver financial savings."

The European's team philosophy is to ‘think globally and act locally' with tenders responded to and contracts managed centrally, but vehicles supplied at a national level with each country's fleet department forming a personal relationship at a local level.

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