Heineken Ireland has appointed the UK division of Fleet Logistics International to manage its fleet.

Heineken Ireland employs 534 staff, and runs a fleet of around 212 vehicles. This is a mix of mainly Volkswagen Passat company cars for sales grades and BMW and Audi models for management grades, while the company’s commercial fleet comprises primarily Opel Vivaro light commercial vehicles.

Heineken Ireland had employed the same fleet management supplier since 2010, but decided the time was right to go out to the market in a tender exercise to see what other suppliers in the market could offer.

After an intense selection process, the company opted for Fleet Logistics UK as its new fleet management partner ahead of a number of other potential providers.

Procurement services manager, Fernando Lallana, who led the process, said that the company had a number of objectives from its new appointment.

“Fleet Logistics is required to provide us with an end-to-end tailored fleet management service solution. We have a long list of KPIs but amongst our priorities would be the objectives to guarantee transparency on tenders, review our fleet policy, review our agreements with lease companies and help us to clarify and improve our internal processes,” he said.

“We are looking for a one-stop shop for all our fleet management needs, and while cost savings are a target, they are not the main priority in year one,” he added.

Lallana said that the current mix of vehicles on the fleet was in line with global fleet policy.

”However, there is still room to discuss other brands and models. We are hoping that Fleet Logistics will provide a number of interesting proposals for us.”

“They have a fantastic team, structure and policies. The whole fleet management proposal is very comprehensive and some of the key points from the initial implementation will be to focus on the role of third party suppliers to the fleet management process, and the ease of implementation for organisations with low internal knowledge or maturity,” he said.

“I want to thank Stuart Donnelly and his team for their efforts during these last few months. We still have many challenges ahead but I am sure that Fleet Logistics will deliver on its promises, and that we will soon see a growing return on investment,” he added.

Stuart Donnelly, international sales director at Fleet Logistics, said:”Our objective following this new appointment is to professionalise the management of the fleet. This will mean looking at all the key areas of the fleet operation including third party suppliers, vehicle acquisition, e-auctions and whole life costs.

“We have already taken various steps to improve vehicle acquisition costs and have been able to achieve an additional 5-8% savings in lease car rentals on the first batch of 20 new cars to be added to the fleet. These are additional savings from the previous multi-bid environment the company was using.

“We are also in the process of implementing several new third party providers for a number of fleet services, such as accident management, for example, and on the horizon we have other areas such as short-term rental, fuel management and mileage capture.

“We are delighted to begin our collaboration, and hope that by providing a first rate and highly satisfactory fleet management service to them, we may develop not only a long-standing business relationship in Ireland, but  perhaps, over time, a wider European relationship,” he said.