UK Fleets Face Falling Fore­casted Resid­ual Val­ues and Ris­ing SMR Costs
The UK con­tract hire sec­tor is expe­ri­enc­ing ris­ing ser­vic­ing, main­te­nance and repair costs and falling fore­casted resid­ual val­ues, yet fleet oper­a­tors remain unscathed with an over­all reduc­tion in rental rates. Read more

Fleet Europe Presents the Lat­est Fleet Europe Tax­a­tion Guide 2012.
More than ever before, tak­ing car tax­a­tion trends and rules into the equa­tion is impor­tant to cor­rectly under­stand and mas­ter the Total Cost of Own­er­ship (TCO). 2011 was a very chal­leng­ing year with the Euro cri­sis affect­ing us all. Many gov­ern­ments have not spared the auto­mo­tive indus­try in search for new income. Higher VAT rates, lower Co2-emission bands and new taxes in some coun­tries are push­ing up the TCO of fleets. The impact how­ever highly depends on the
envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness of the fleet con­sid­ered. Read more

State of West Vir­ginia Saves $1.6 Mil­lion
Fuel spend, com­pli­ance, dri­ver safety, main­te­nance sched­ules and replace­ment cycles are chal­lenges that every fleet man­ager faces.  But for gov­ern­ment fleets, the list doesn’t end there.  States and munic­i­pal­i­ties face a unique set of obsta­cles, includ­ing bud­get and com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­straints.  In 2010, the State of West Vir­ginia part­nered with ARI in an attempt to over­come some of those obsta­cles – and it has suc­ceeded in sav­ing $1.6 mil­lion as a result. Read more

Back from Vaca­tion? Time to Tame that Inbox!
A few weeks ago, I returned from a week-long technology-free vaca­tion with my fam­ily. No com­puter, no phone, no email. When I got to the office and checked my com­puter, I had hun­dreds of email mes­sages wait­ing for me. I took a deep breath and started in on them. Three hours later, my inbox — a week’s worth of mes­sages — was empty. Read more

First in the series by Jeof Bean, based on his book: The Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Rev­o­lu­tion — How Com­pa­nies Like Apple, Ama­zon, and Star­bucks Have Changed Busi­ness Forever.

Begin­ning in 2007,  and in the eco­nomic vac­uum of 2008, it became very notice­able that there were a group of com­pa­nies from sev­eral indus­tries that were bet­ter, dif­fer­ent, more prof­itable and sus­tain­able than most oth­ers.  What were these com­pa­nies doing?

For auto­mo­tive fleet man­agers there are oppor­tu­nity insights from Apple, a com­pany that took bold steps with cus­tomer expe­ri­ence to enter and rede­fine a mar­ket new to them. Read more

AFLA: Inno­va­tion: Shap­ing Our Future for Growth
Sep­tem­ber 10–12, Hyatt Regency Hill Coun­try, San Anto­nio, TX
Join AFLA on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 10, 2012 at the Auto­mo­tive Fleet & Leas­ing Association’s Annual Con­fer­ence to hear Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.com, present “The Busi­ness of Inno­va­tion.” This pre­sen­ta­tion explores the fun­da­men­tals of innovation…how to gen­er­ate great ideas, how to “fail fast,”  how to kill projects with­out killing peo­ple, and how to exper­i­ment and “do more with less.”  Many speak­ers talk about the future — Terry will share step by step plans to cre­ate it. Click here for more infor­ma­tion about this must-attend conference.

NAFA: Mas­ter­ing Inter­na­tional Fleet Man­age­ment
Octo­ber 16–18, Hyatt Regency Tampa, Tampa, FL
Are you run­ning a fleet beyond the North Amer­i­can bor­ders? Man­ag­ing mul­ti­ple fleets in mul­ti­ple coun­tries can be com­plex, and at times, con­fus­ing. You have to under­stand each country’s cul­ture and his­tory, how busi­nesses func­tion, and how work­ers per­ceive “outsiders.”

Through inten­sive ses­sions fea­tur­ing renowned inter­na­tional speak­ers, NAFA’s Mas­ter­ing Inter­na­tional Fleet Man­age­ment Sem­inar will help you learn the intri­ca­cies of devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing fleet poli­cies in numer­ous regions and coun­tries.
•    Dis­cuss expanded global ter­ri­tory includ­ing South Amer­ica, Cen­tral Amer­ica, Aus­tralia, and Europe
•    Explore the com­plex­i­ties of run­ning a multi-nation fleet
•    Under­stand the com­po­nents and com­plex­i­ties of Total Cost of Own­er­ship
•    Review the lat­est and cur­rent data and infor­ma­tion from around the globe
•    Engage invited expert speak­ers from Europe and South Amer­ica includ­ing FleetVision’s Hans Damen and Peter Egan

Stay tuned for more infor­ma­tion to come this sum­mer!
If you are inter­ested in attend­ing NAFA’s Mas­ter­ing Inter­na­tional Fleet Man­age­ment Sem­i­nar and would like to be put on a mail­ing list for more infor­ma­tion, sup­ply your con­tact info by click­ing on this link.

“Nobody fights harder for fleet man­agers than NAFA. We are the eyes and the ears of fleet man­age­ment — our leg­isla­tive sup­port is unparalleled.”

Phillip E. Russo, CAE, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of NAFA, on NAFA’s leg­isla­tive work.

LeasePlan USA has recently appointed Jim Coates to the position of regional vice president, client relations, Midwest. Coates joined LeasePlan as an account manager as part of the client services team in 2008. Ultimately, he provided internal management to a portfolio of clients with a combined fleet size of more than 9,000 units, and was an integral part of a client services team that achieved consistently high client satisfaction and loyalty scores.

Share: