Infiniti to create direct fleet team

Infiniti intends to create a direct fleet team as it targets growth in the fleet market over the next five years.

A dedicated fleet sales person, who will report into Infiniti’s UK sales director Tony Lewis, is being recruited.

“They will be the focal point for all those people who have questions about Infiniti and they will be going out to key customers and selling the brand,” Lewis says.

“We will expand that team over the next few years to two or three people, but Infiniti is a little bit different because we are able to use the significant resources that the Nissan fleet team has.”

Fleets of more 25 vehicles are already being targeted in conjunction with Nissan.

“The fleet team that work within Nissan GB are all fully briefed on the Infiniti range, the unique hospitality of our dealer network, our distribution, and our service and maintenance costs,” Lewis says.

He claims that SMR costs offer “outstanding value”.

“Service and maintenance for all our cars – with the exception of the 5-litre FX – over three years and 36,000 miles, agreed with our network, is £625 or £200 a year.”

Lewis believes that working with Nissan is “the right approach” and he suggests that it can also help Nissan to strike limited badge deals as Infiniti can offer boardroom cars beyond Nissan’s volume product.

Fleet sales targets

Infiniti has already had success selling cars such as the FX diesel into the boardroom, as well as selling to senior managers and business owners.

However, Lewis predicts that Infiniti will finish the year with modest fleet sales of between 200 and 300 cars (about 30% to 40% of its overall sales).

By 2016 the plan is to increase sales to 20,000 - with at least 50% of those coming from the fleet market.

“It might sound like a lot of cars now and our growth curve might look dramatic but if you look at it against the products we are going to introduce and the markets we can go and play in then it’s not a crazy objective,” Lewis says.

Infiniti also intends to have 40 dealers in the UK by 2016 to support the greater volume plan. 

Recent openings in Stockport (pictured)  and Leeds has taken the total number of Infiniti centres to six and the plan is to open a new centre every two months, on average, for the next six years.

“You need the distribution for the fleet industry to continue to believe in you,” Lewis says.