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Keeping Up Standards And Ensuring Availability
With around 200 stores in the UK and a growing international franchise presence River Island is at the forefront of the high street fashion market. With over 50 years of fashion retailing experience, it is one of the UK’s largest and most successful privately owned companies. River Island is proud of the fact that it designs nearly everything it sells to ensure that its products have unique appeal on the high street.
Staying in control where it counts is a philosophy that River Island maintains in the day-to-day running of its business and this has contributed to the company’s successful track record. River Island is keen to ensure that standards are high not only on the high street but internally as well. It is therefore no surprise that it applies these rules to the acquisition and management of its fleet of private company cars.
With a 240-strong fleet of cars spread over the UK, it is critical that these vehicles are rigorously maintained and effectively managed on behalf of the company’s drivers. Any service, maintenance, accidents or repairs must be dealt with quickly, causing a minimum of disruption to the individual and the business. The Fleet Management Division for River Island, which is based in the Head Office at Chelsea House, London, is responsible for acquiring and maintaining the 240-strong fleet. The Fleet Management team procures vehicles directly but outsources the service maintenance, accident management and vehicle disposal elements to Venson (the UK’s leading, independent fleet specialist). By outsourcing to Venson, River Island has released internal resources, maintained maximum availability of its fleet and now exercises tighter control over fleet administration costs.
Striking A Balance Between Availability And Cost
Whilst River Island has always procured its own vehicles, preferring to remain in control of this aspect of the fleet, it has wisely outsourced the accident management, maintenance and vehicle disposal to an external supplier. In the autumn of 2002, River Island was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the service offered by its incumbent fleet management provider, so the decision was taken to put the business out to tender. Lisa Condon, Fleet Manager of River Islands explains:
“As you can imagine our employees rely on their vehicles to effectively carry out their day jobs. With our incumbent provider, we were increasingly finding that cars were being left in garages for days on end, whilst waiting for repairs to be carried out. This was costing the business, not only in terms of the amount of time the vehicle was off the road but also in terms of money to provide interim replacement cars. In addition, it was also very time consuming for our internal fleet management team who were constantly on the phone chasing delivery dates.
We therefore decided to put the business out to tender and invited three companies to submit proposals. After a rigorous selection process, we finally awarded the contract to Venson. We felt that Venson demonstrated real expertise in fleet management – the company was a specialist provider for all the services we needed.
The Venson team were superb and extremely responsive. We met the entire team involved with our business at least once before we started. We found that Venson recommended the solutions that we needed and that there were no prescribed services. This was a refreshing change from our previous experience.”
Taking The Headache Out Of Fleet Management
On a day-to-day basis River Island procures vehicles as and when they are required. Venson provides a comprehensive fleet management service that is unrivalled in the industry. Occasionally River Island sources pricing from Venson and also requests that Venson dispose of vehicles on its behalf. The vehicles coming to the end of their fleet lifecycle are generally offered internally to employees and should they not be of interest, Venson arranges for these vehicles to be sold at auction and sale proceeds returned to River Island.
Typically, when there is a problem (such as an accident resulting in damage to one of the vehicles), the driver’s first point of contact will be the Fleet Management team at River Island to register and log the event. However, from there on the problem is handed over to Venson to deal directly with the driver until the issue is resolved. Venson manages a database of detailed vehicle and fleet information on every driver, including full contact details. Venson can therefore guarantee that any query is dealt with promptly and that high service levels are always maintained.
In summary, Venson provides:
• Mechanical and accident repairs
• 24/7/365 vehicle response services
• Inspections, servicing, MOTs, insurance claims and renewals
• A specialist collection and delivery facility
• Comprehensive driver liaison and advisory services.
• Disposal of fleet
River Island and Venson have a fixed priced contract in place, which is reviewed on an annual basis. This allows River Island to calculate the costs for service maintenance and fleet management in advance. This partnership has enabled River Island to set challenging targets for vehicle availability, against which Venson has consistently delivered.
Commenting on the success of the relationship thus far, Lisa Condon concludes:
“Today, we find that any queries are dealt with straight away and the internal Fleet Management team feels confident that we are delivering a value-for-money service to our drivers. We have a good relationship with Venson and the fleet service is now seamless, convenient and of a high standard.”
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