Sanderson Weatherall, an independently-owned firm of chartered surveyors, property consultants and asset advisors, has outsourced the management of its company vehicles to CLM.

Sanderson Weatherall, which has offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Darlington, Exeter, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Teesside and York, delivers its property services across the UK via a workforce of around 220 employees.

The new outsourcing arrangement will see CLM managing the company’s fleet of 90 vehicles and providing a broad range of services including maintenance management, driver management, grey fleet management and short term hire via mini-leases.

The management of the fleet had previously been carried out in-house but, following a period of growth, Sanderson Weatherall wanted to free up administration time and concentrate on its core activities by outsourcing the management of the fleet to a specialist.

The company carried out market research and invited three fleet management providers to visit its offices and outline the services they offered.

Service delivery, cost, organisation compatibility and who it felt best delivered in accordance with its needs were all factors considered by Sanderson Weatherall before selecting Newport Pagnell-based CLM.

Sanderson Weatherall provides company cars for a variety of job grades from newly qualified surveyors to partner shareholders in the business, determined by monthly leasing rental benchmarks. The vehicles are used primarily for site visits.

In addition, the company has around 70 drivers that use their own vehicles for business purposes.

The company operates mainly upscale brands such as BMW and Audi, with some Land Rovers, Mercedes and Volkswagens, which are funded by four year, 80,000 mile contract hire agreements.

One of the services CLM will now be providing will be competitive tendering for each new vehicle, employing a panel of preferred leasing suppliers to select the most competitive prices and reduce acquisition costs on the client’s behalf.

Paul Crawshaw, HR manager - associate partner, at Sanderson Weatherall, said the appointment of CLM was based around a desire to bring a greater unity and increased support levels to the company’s growing fleet.

“We are looking for a greater level of consistency for our employees in managing their fleet needs, together with meeting legislative and health and safety requirements to support our business and legal objectives,” he said.

“We will measure the success of the initiative based on feedback from our employees, as well as financial performance.”

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