By Janice Sutton
Jeff, you have had a very distinguished career in fleet and have recently formed your own consulting company. Tell us about it.
JS Consulting is the second generation and extension of what I did for businesses over the last 30 years. After a 20-year career at GE re-positioning and advising a lot of the company’s internal business clients, the last seven of which were in the GE fleet business, I formed this consulting company to go out on my own and work with customers both domestically and internationally to give advice from all of the knowledge that I have accumulated.
The two areas of major focus are foreign offshore companies looking to establish a footprint in the United States, whether as a vendor or as a finance participant, as well as the entire mobility structure that people are looking into. The future of fleet may not be one person/one car at every meeting, so the idea of getting and coordinating a salesperson with a customer does not necessarily have to be after a long drive from an office to the customer’s location. In addition, domestic companies are asking me to assist in developing global alliances and strategic planning.
What sorts of trends are you seeing in the industry?
I think the biggest trend is the evolving use of the vehicle to maximize revenue and minimize costs. The old model of a salesperson having a fully-dedicated vehicle, driving to a customer with a trunk full of goods and services is not necessarily the model that we will see in five years. That will change as electronic meetings become more prevalent and it is that business model and shift that I am seeing.
The other thing that I am seeing is the entire mobility within large cities. Does a salesperson need a vehicle if they live in a suburb of New York City, San Francisco, or Dallas? Can they use a shared program? Can they use trains? Can they use buses? And how do you coordinate the salesperson attending a meeting with the goods and services so that there is a fruitful meeting for both sides?
What are some of the things that you see that are being done better or maybe more efficiently in the UK or in Europe, or vice versa in the U.S?
Europeans have always been ahead of us on the laser focus on fuel consumption. Two years ago when the price of gasoline was $5.00 a gallon in the U.S. there was a hyper-focus on how to reduce our fuel costs. Now that fuel is down to the $2.00 range it seems to have lost that momentum. Yet, overseas there is still this desire to keep fuel costs at a minimum level – there is technology over there that is coming to the U.S.
I have been approached to talk to companies on the best process to monitor and manage fuel consumption in the U.S. Everyone knows that in the total cost of ownership, fuel is probably the first if not the second most expensive aspect of a fleet. If you lose that focus it will again get out of control. So, the monitoring systems that will allow the fleet managers to look at and realize their exact fuel consumption, versus the sticker on the side of the car when they purchase the vehicle, is going to be very important.
How does JS Consulting interact with fleet management companies?
When I formed the consulting company I did not align with any particular fleet management company. Over the past few months I have met with and spoken with each of the major fleet management company in the United States. What I have learned is they are all really good; they all have positives. They all handle customer requests very well. They all have services that are top notch. Some do some services better than others but there is not a noticeable difference. They are all very good and they very much care about their customers. As an independent consultant it gives me the flexibility to talk to each of them and find out which is the best for a particular customer.
Whether it is LeasePlan, ARI, Wheels, Donlen, Element, etc., each of them can offer services to a customer. My goal is just to find the best fit between the customer and the fleet management company on the services that are most important to the customer.
While you consult for companies that are seeking to enter the U. S. fleet market, do you also advise U.S. clients who are looking overseas?
There is a major difference between multi-nationals who have their global fleet manager in Europe looking at the U.S. model and a multi-national who has their global fleet manager based in the U.S. looking overseas. When I am talking to U.S. fleet managers, it is a different model over in Europe between the closed end lease, the unbundled lease, the open end lease with bundled services. Europe is becoming a much more flexible market in what they are offering to customers.
Ten years ago it was primarily a closed end lease, fully bundled services. Now we are seeing that break down slightly so that certain fleet management companies in Europe are offering hybrids – everything from full service with bundled services all the way to open end with unbundled services. I think that is the wave of the future because customers are really looking for transparency.
The closed end lease with bundled services is the least transparent. The open end lease, or even a closed end lease with only financing plus unbundled services, gives much more transparency to the customer and what the actual costs are in working with a fleet management company.
While I was at GE, I oversaw the global initiative which entailed working with both the European customers looking into the U.S. and the U.S. customers looking overseas. JS Consulting is in the position to offer services going in both directions. Whether it is a European company with a fleet manager located in Amsterdam or Paris or a U.S. multi-national with their fleet manager located in New York, Nebraska or California, I will be able to talk to and work with both fleet management companies and vendors in the U.S. as well as their counterparts and and logistic specialists in Europe.
