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539 – Reducing the wait for your new business car

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30 December 2010

LEAD times – how long you have to wait for your next business car or company car – have been a real issue in 2010.

Audi has been one of the worst culprits with waiting times stretching from four months to 12 in some cases.

It’s something that Audi’s James Allitt admitted had been an issue but the company was tackling in 2011 when I met him on the launch of the Audi A7 Sportback model. James, the A7 product manager, said: “We simply misread the demand for our cars in the UK. It’s obviously very gratifying to be in such demand but clearly we need to handle that demand rather better.”

In some cases, the waiting times have cost sales. Concept Vehicle Leasing director Tom Argent says one of his customers simply got fed up waiting for an Audi TT and eventually cancelled the order.

Of course, one upside of the demand for Audi cars is an increase in used values, something Richard Crosthwaite, Glass’s prestige car editor, has pointed out in his various commentaries on the used car prestige market in our Used Business Car section. So waiting lists are not all bad news – unless you are on the receiving end of the wait.

When your cars aren’t built in Europe but need to be shipped from Japan, then the problems of lead times can be exacerbated further.

However, Mazda’s fleet and remarketing director, Peter Allibon, has come up with a new approach to manage the demand. Peter has called it a ‘fleet vehicle sold order pot’. Which doesn’t sound especially glamorous, but I’m sure you wouldn’t care if your new company car was delivered within a fortnight.

Peter explained how it works: “We have four strategically located Mazda fleet centres – Arnold Clark in Scotland, JCT600 in Bradford, Norton Way in Letchworth and Johnsons in Oxford and Swindon – that handle the majority of all Mazda’s contract hire and outright purchase fleet business.

“So each quarter I get the four dealers to forecast the model mix they expect to be most popular with fleets. These cars, all destined for business use, are then manufactured and held centrally on the dockside at Zeebrugge in Belgium. When fleet orders are taken, the dealers ‘pull’ cars from the ‘pot’ and deliver to customers within 10-14 days.”

Understandably, Peter is very pleased with how the programme has progressed since its inception in the final quarter of last year. Peter says the number of vehicles held at Zeebrugge has increased from 600 to 900 in the final quarter of 2010 with Mazda6 diesel hatchbacks and estates and Mazda3 diesel hatchbacks being the most popular.

The direct beneficiary has been the business car driver, of course. “Fleets are cancelling orders with their first choice manufacturer and turning to Mazda because they are impressed that we can get a vehicle to them within two weeks,” adds Peter.

Peter is looking to expand the initiative by allowing more dealers belonging to its Business Development Programme – dealers focusing on corporate sales to the SME sector – to access the system.

“Businesses and their company car drivers are only prepared to wait so long for cars and several months is unacceptable to many,” adds Peter.

So if you need a business car in a hurry, you know where to go! But if you really are after that Audi (or any other business car come to that), business car managers could also start to think about managing demand a little better too by anticipating company car replacements in advance and ordering earlier.

Easily said, I know – more difficult to execute when intensely personal decisions on cars are at stake.

Editor’s Blog on how Mazda is coping with demand without the wait

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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