Arcadia Group and Arval have just celebrated 20 years of successfully working together as customer and supplier respectively. To celebrate this milestone, representatives from Arcadia joined members of their account management team at Arval’s Head office in Swindon for a celebratory lunch.

Leading fashion retailer Arcadia Group has more than 2,500 outlets and owns nine well-known high street brands: Bhs, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topman, Topshop, Wallis and Outfit. Arval currently provides a wide range of services to the Group to support its mobility programme, through Contract Hire, Guaranteed Maintenance, Accident Management and Rental products.

John Pryor who is group facilities manager at Arcadia Group is a regular at Arval customer forums and has been at the heart of this relationship. He comments:
“Arval have had the ability to change and support the mobility requirements as the Group has changed over the years and this is a testimony to the heart of the relationship”

Initiatives across the Group, which included the amalgamation of the Bhs Stores fleet from 2009, incorporate the adoption of a whole life cost approach for job need business drivers to help drive down the Groups CO2 emissions as well as supporting a wider choice list for drivers.

Arval has also been able to work with Arcadia to reduce costs with savings of nearly £700,000 achieved in 2010, through a combination of the whole life cost approach, pooling reviews, improved accident management and the effective use of short term rental vehicles.

Arval has facilitated forums at Arcadia for employees to compare the benefits of company cars vs. cash allowances and has implemented its Fleet Protect product to deliver licence checking and online risk assessments. Further enhancements are also underway or planned as Arval continues to support Arcadia to keep the mobility of the Group at the forefront of operational efficiency.

Jenny Powley, sales director at Arval and Executive Sponsor comments:
“We have built an extremely strong relationship with Arcadia Group and to have worked successfully together for 20 years is a great achievement. It is testament to Arcadia’s desire to deliver fleet best practise and the hard work of our teams to support them in doing this. We continue to add value to Arcadia through our products and services and look forward to delivering effective solutions to John and his drivers in the future.”