Pictured: Chris Joyce, COO, Fleet Hire
UK full service contract hire, fleet management and salary sacrifice provider, Fleet Hire, has selected the Leaselink e-procurement platform from Oxford-based online solutions specialist, Ebbon-Dacs, to automate all its new vehicle ordering, improve efficiency and reduce administration.
Fleet Hire, which operates a fleet of around 6,500 vehicles, selected Leaselink, the UK’s most widely used e-procurement platform, after carrying out a thorough evaluation of competitive products in the fleet market.
Leaselink has been proven to generate considerable savings in both manpower and administration over traditional procurement methods, as well as bringing increased transparency to the vehicle procurement process.
Chris Joyce, Chief Operating Officer at Fleet Hire, said Leaselink had replaced the previous manual system that the company had in place.
“We previously relied on manual printouts and email but as the company continues to develop, with increasing numbers of orders, we realized we needed to automate our vehicle procurement process to improve its efficiency. It also helps us reduce paper consumption and reach our performance targets for our ISO 14001 Environmental standard.
“I had used Leaselink with a previous company, an early adopter of the system, so I knew firsthand the full value of the benefits that it could deliver.
“Amongst its many attributes, Leaselink will allow us to deliver the best possible prices for our fleet clients and in the shortest time available. It will also bring much greater transparency to the procurement process and allow us to track the whereabouts of vehicles in the system much more readily.
“We will also be able to monitor the performance of our dealers more effectively and refine the flow of orders to them where appropriate. We have a network of around 70 supplying dealers, and I will now be able to balance the supply of new vehicle orders throughout our network to ensure some of our dealers do not get overloaded with orders as a result.
“It was important for us to use the industry standard system and one that our dealers were already familiar with. The response times from our dealers are now much sharper as a result, as they are working with a system they are well used to,” he said.
Joyce said that implementation of the new platform had been straightforward at the company’s Solihull head office and it had been embraced enthusiastically by end-user staff.
“We have gone live with the system for our procurement team and our sales teams, who have all completed their system training, and have received only positive comments and feedback,” he said.
Fleet Hire has now begun trials with Ebbon-Dacs’ MoDel new vehicle delivery and return car inspection solution, which integrates into the Leaselink platform and introduces efficiencies around the collection and delivery process.
“This is something that we are definitely looking at developing for the future,” added Chris Joyce.
Robert Pilkington, Managing Director of the Leaselink Division at Ebbon-Dacs, said: “We are delighted to welcome Fleet Hire to the Leaselink community and that they have identified some significant benefits in using the latest generation of our market-leading e-procurement platform.
“We are continuing to develop and enhance Leaselink in conjunction with our user groups, and are sure that both our current system, and the on-going rollout of our next generation platform, will help Fleet Hire deliver its business objectives now and in the future. “
