Housing, property management and regeneration specialist Pinnacle Group has appointed Fleet Alliance to manage its 280-strong vehicle fleet, predominantly light commercial vehicles, on an outsourced basis.

Pinnacle Group is a family of five core businesses – Pinnacle Regen, Pinnacle PSG, Pinnacle People, Pinnacle Places, Pinnacle Power – providing an integrated range of housing and property management services to both the public and private sectors.

It operates some 260 vans, the bulk of which are within its PSG specialist cleaning division and are a mixture of Citroen Berlingos and Ford Transit Connects with a small number of larger tippers.

There are also around 20 company cars on an open choice policy, although these will be phased out to be replaced by cash allowances.

The company took the decision to switch from its previous fleet management supplier because it wanted to streamline its fleet administration, reduce costs and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its fleet.

Sarah Russell, Pinnacle Group procurement manager, said: “We decided to carry out an open market review and appoint an outsource specialist to improve the efficiency of our fleet management operations and administration, not least because we were being inundated with invoices on a daily basis due to the age, condition and number of suppliers within our fleet.

“We selected Fleet Alliance because they were able to demonstrate a clear understanding of our business and our requirements, as well as reassuring us that they would be able to work closely with us to achieve our objectives."

Among the initiatives that Fleet Alliance will be introducing include consolidated invoice management, while a new competitive tendering strategy across the Pinnacle Group fleet will employ a panel of four preferred contract hire funders to help drive down acquisition costs.

All vehicles will also be provided with full maintenance packages.

The van fleet was previously operated on a variety of replacement cycles and mileage intervals, but this will now be harmonised to three years/60,000 or three years/90,000 miles, depending on the specific job need.

To help manage the fleet more effectively, Fleet Alliance will also be implementing its cloud-based fleet management and reporting suite, e-Fleet, which will contain full details of all vehicles on the Pinnacle Group fleet.

To increase compliance and improve driver identification, Fleet Alliance has also arranged the introduction of a telematics partner for Pinnacle, while the roll-out of smartphones to all van drivers will provide access to Fleet Alliance’s e-Fleet Mobile app.

Russell addws: "Although it is still very early days, across the board everyone feels that our fleet management has already improved and that we will see long term benefits from the measures we are now introducing, with consolidated invoicing and a far more indepth level of MI reporting being key."

Martin Brown, managing director at Fleet Alliance, said: ”We are delighted to welcome Pinnacle Group to our portfolio of corporate clients. We will be working closely with them to help meet their corporate objectives and improve the efficiency and effective running of their mainly light commercial fleet. “

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