MAZDA was once memorably described as a “pilchard” by former Mazda Motors Europe chief James Muir in seeking to illustrate the modest-sized car maker’s vulnerable place in the automotive ocean’s food chain.
Now, with a flood of new technology and effectively completely renewed model ranges due to start rolling in from next year, Mazda is becoming increasingly bent on turning predator; its eyes fixed on what it hopes are the soft underbellies of larger rivals circling above.
And if all goes as planned, one of the earliest impacts will be felt in the UK business car market.
UK managing director Jeremy Thomson and fleet chief Steve Jelliss are launching a new strategic push to bite off a substantially larger chunk of fleet business than Mazda has either sought or achieved hitherto.
The main targets are the plethora of small and medium-sized companies operating fleets of 20 vehicles or more and Thomson and Jelliss currently are overseeing the recruitment of an additional core of fleet specialists to undertake the project. “It’s an area with good growth potential and in which we are keen on dealers investing,” Thomson explains.
The logic behind the push is persuasive. The UK retail car market remains flat, and with the Eurozone and other global economic ills far from resolution, many industry observers do not expect significant retail car market recovery any time soon. With only 34 per cent of its total UK sales non-retail, Thomson and Jelliss have good reason to seek to tap deeper into the so-far more resilient fleet and business car sector.