January 6, 2014
Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Sutton_Janice Letter from the Editor — Happy 2014!

We believe that 2014 is going to be an excit­ing year in Fleet, filled with many oppor­tu­ni­ties for us all to enhance our careers and add even more value to our orga­ni­za­tions. We sum­ma­rize 2014’s Top Fleet Con­fer­ences in Sem­i­nars & Con­fer­ences. The gold stan­dard in fleet edu­ca­tion, NAFA shows up sev­eral times on our […]


pitcher_mike_100w_4_20_2009-10_18_am.jpg LeasePlan Honored with Supplier Excellence Awards

John­son Con­trols rec­og­nized Lease­Plan at its annual Build­ing Effi­ciency Sup­plier Excel­lence Recog­ni­tion Event held in Mil­wau­kee. Awards were given in the cat­e­gories of Excel­lence in Exe­cu­tion and Lead­er­ship. Lease­Plan was rec­og­nized with the Lead­er­ship award for their con­tri­bu­tion to cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. In a sep­a­rate cer­e­mony, Lease­Plan received the Global Sup­plier Excel­lence Award in Cus­tomer Satisfaction […]


ford_pickup_cng22 PHH Teams with VNG for CNG Fueling Solutions

PHH Arval has expanded its alter­na­tive fuel capa­bil­i­ties through an agree­ment with VNG.CO, a cre­ator of a com­pressed nat­ural gas (CNG) fuel­ing net­work. The agree­ment will sup­port PHH fleets inte­grat­ing light-duty nat­ural gas vehi­cles (NGVs) into their oper­a­tions. Across the nation fleet oper­a­tors can take advan­tage of NGVs to save up to 40 per­cent on […]


David Teater ‘Safety First’ Column Debuts In NAFA’s FLEETSolutions Magazine

As part of an on-going effort to keep safety issues on the fore­front of fleet man­age­ment, NAFA is proud to announce the debut of “Safety First” – a new col­umn pro­vided by the National Safety Coun­cil (NSC) – that will run in each issue of FLEET­So­lu­tions mag­a­zine.  The first col­umn, which takes a look at […]


russo-phil

VIDEO: Phil Russo on This Year's NAFA I&E

Min­neapo­lis may be chilly in the win­ter, but it’s heat­ing up for NAFA’s 2014 I&E at the Min­neapo­lis Con­ven­tion Cen­ter — from April 8 through 11. NAFA Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Phil Russo talks about some of hot top­ics on this year’s agenda, includ­ing cost cut­ting ideas, dri­ver and vehi­cle safety, tech­nol­ogy and pro­fes­sional development.

Smart Consulting
brownson-patsy
  The Voice of the Fleet Customer
 

An expe­ri­enced fleet man­ager works with Amer­i­Fleet on focus groups to help the com­pany build its brand as best in class.


Click here to watch video
Remarketing Today
jeff-bunch
  Normal Depreciation Rates Returning
 

His­tor­i­cal data is great to have for loans — but com­bin­ing that data with fore­casted future val­ues or resid­u­als is even more powerful.


Click here to read more



The Fleet Spot


Kate Vigneau Kate Vigneau: Fleet Education is Her Passion

Kate Vigneau is NAFA’s Pro­fes­sional Devel­op­ment Strate­gist as well as head of her own busi­ness, KMVS Fleet+ Con­sult­ing. We talked with her about the upcom­ing edu­ca­tional events is NAFA is offer­ing and were espe­cially keen to hear about the new Mas­ters Sem­i­nar for more expe­ri­enced fleet pro­fes­sion­als. Talk­ing about the edu­ca­tional cur­ricu­lum at April’s NAFA I&E, Kate says, “The goal is for every sin­gle per­son to leave there think­ing that they just saw some­thing new, learned some­thing, or heard some­thing they have never heard before.”

Tim McHugh Tim McHugh Named Senior VP, North American Supply Chain at ARI

Tim McHugh – who was serv­ing as ARI’s Vice Pres­i­dent of Sup­ply Chain and Com­pli­ance just prior to this appoint­ment – will now be respon­si­ble for over­see­ing vehi­cle acqui­si­tion, remar­ket­ing and com­pli­ance ser­vices for all of North Amer­ica. A 24-year employee of ARI, he has demon­strated lead­er­ship, exper­tise and vision through all of the different […]

Alison Vanderhoof Alison Vanderhoof Joins WEX as SVP, General Manager for Emerging Markets

Ali­son Van­der­hoof has joined WEX as senior vice pres­i­dent, gen­eral man­ager for emerg­ing mar­kets. Van­der­hoof will over­see the busi­ness per­for­mance of WEX’s travel, health­care and employee ben­e­fits busi­nesses glob­ally. “Ali­son brings more than 15 years of expe­ri­ence man­ag­ing cor­po­rate strat­egy, part­ner­ships and cross-functional teams at high growth busi­nesses, and she is well suited to oversee […]

Seminars & Conferences  

Plan­ning your cal­en­dar for 2014? We’ve pulled together the top fleet con­fer­ences for this year to help you decide where to spend your edu­ca­tion dol­lars.  These meet­ings and expo­si­tions can broaden your per­spec­tive, offer proven solu­tions to sim­i­lar prob­lems faced by other fleet man­agers, reveal new and excit­ing tech­nol­ogy offer­ings, and keep you up-to-date on […]

 
Fleet Challenges in 2014  
EXPERT ADVICE FROM CEI'S WAYNE SMOLDA

Auto­mo­tive fleets are expe­ri­enc­ing just the begin­ning of an accel­er­at­ing trend toward higher repair costs, greater risk of unsafe repairs, and more lia­bil­ity from vic­tims of fleet accidents.

Mr. Smolda cites sev­eral fac­tors for what he said is “the begin­ning of a technology-driven increase in the cost of auto­mo­tive acci­dent repairs.” READ MORE

 
Association News & Views  

For decades, fleet man­agers watched events like the Acad­emy Awards and wished they had an indus­try award of their own; one that rec­og­nized the most sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments, inno­v­a­tive ideas, and best prac­tices of their col­leagues.  In 2013, that award was finally real­ized when NAFA intro­duced the Fleet Excel­lence Awards (FLEXY).  Open to every­one in fleet […]




Fleet Trends & Issues


safety_rearview_camera22Long Delayed Rear View Camera Rules Sent to the White House – Again

The White House Office and Man­age­ment and Bud­get has received the lat­est ver­sion of the rules man­dat­ing back-up cam­eras from NHTSA.  It was the fifth time the rules have been delayed, and a clear vic­tory for automak­ers that have fought the man­date, say­ing it is too expen­sive. READ MORE

Ford F150The New Ford Aluminum F-150 to Improve MPG

Ford has vowed to improve fuel econ­omy and is replac­ing about 1,000 pounds of steel with 600 pounds of alu­minum in the F-150 to do so. The truck will be able to get about 30 miles per gal­lon, up from the 17 to 19 mpg of cur­rent mod­els, some experts believe. READ MORE

gps-insight-graphicImprove Productivity with GPS Tracking

Is improv­ing fleet pro­duc­tiv­ity a key goal for 2014? If yes, it may be time to inves­ti­gate how The GPS Insight Fleet Track­ing Solu­tion can help.

The highly intu­itive award-winning inter­face lets you quickly find the loca­tion and direc­tion of each and every one of your vehi­cles- that means you will have com­plete insight into all fleet activity.

Addi­tion­ally, GPS Insight gives you with the power to use the most effi­cient routes for the most effec­tive dis­patch­ing. In the case of bad weather, traf­fic, or other unfore­seen issues, you can remotely reroute a sin­gle dri­ver, or your entire fleet. Yes, you will be able to reroute your entire fleet with­out ever pick­ing up the phone or radio­ing drivers.

LEARN MORE

SCHEDULE A LIVE DEMO

Remarketing Roundup  

While whole­sale and auc­tion prices remain extremely soft for most used-car seg­ments, the retail prices are firm­ing up – at least in Decem­ber. Ver­sus Decem­ber ‘12, Fran­chised Dealer used prices (exclud­ing taxes, fees, inter­est rates, etc.) are up 2.8 per­cent and 1.3 per­cent ver­sus Novem­ber. That still is far behind the year’s high­est prices in March, April and May. READ MORE

 
Global Moves & Promotions  

Mark Bryan – who was serv­ing as ARI’s Vice Pres­i­dent of Global Oper­a­tions just prior to this new posi­tion – will now be respon­si­ble for all of ARI’s Euro­pean busi­nesses, includ­ing oper­a­tions in the UK, Ger­many, Bel­gium, France and Spain. He has also served as Vice Pres­i­dent of Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion and Act­ing Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of […]

 
 




Fleet Management Resources 
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
PHH
Customizing global fleet management to achieve your goals.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
NAFA
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
The CEI Group Inc.
North America's largest accident management and fleet driver safety company.
GPS Insight
GPS Insight offers GPS tracking solutions to meet your organization's unique requirements and challenges.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.