Tight service maintenance and repair controls alongside a zero tolerance attitude to unauthorised expenditure is essential if businesses are key to keeping budgets in check, according to Fleet Support Group (FSG).

Analysis by FSG reveals that pence per mile operating costs on the Home Retail Group company car fleet are today identical to 1995 at 2.23p with the average maintenance costs per vehicle down by a massive £83 a year.

Taking inflation at 2.5% per annum into account it equates to a total saving last year of £344,331 in maintenance costs on the 981-strong fleet.

Meanwhile, at Office Depot the average maintenance cost per company car over a seven-year period has reduced by £15 per vehicle. Taking inflation into account that equates to savings last year of £47,640 across the 397-vehicle fleet.

And, at Travis Perkins if inflation of 2.5% per annum is taken into account, the average maintenance cost per vehicle has been slashed by £188 (20%) delivering a saving last year of £249,476 on the 1,327-strong company car fleet.

Fleet Support Group chairman Geoffrey Bray said: “Pence per mile figures are the most accurate mechanism for monitoring individual vehicle costs.

“The key to reducing fleet operating costs is driver management so it is vital that ourselves and our customers use fleet maintenance data to manage employees. Many clients have achieved dramatic cost reductions by using data in a more proactive way.”

FSG uses a range of key performance indicators and a ‘traffic light’ fleet management monthly report format to easily help customers focus on key issues in a bid to cut operating costs.

Topics flagged ‘red’ are deemed by FSG to require urgent attention; those marked ‘amber’ require monitoring or action; and those marked ‘green’ are shown to be satisfactory or on target.

“Some companies can get bogged down in reams of management reports and, as a result, pay little attention to the information contained within. So we believe that our traffic light reporting system is a simple mechanism for drawing decision-makers’ attention to important action areas,” said Bray.

“We are practising what we preach: that cost management is key. But we are delivering our verdicts in a straightforward, easy-to-understand format.”

FSG uses its own independent network of approved Masterserve garages for the majority of vehicle SMR work with job authorisation and invoices being tightly managed by an expert team of trained mechanics at the company’s Chippenham headquarters. FSG has instigated a fixed price maintenance policy to aid budgeting and eliminate any nasty cost surprises.
 

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