Fleet World has just published the 15th monthly column in Colin Tourick’s series “The Mathematics of Leasing”.
Tag Archives: Article
Asset Finance International launches Auto Finance Update
Colin Tourick has been commissioned to write a quarterly Auto Finance Update for Asset Finance International’s 28,000 subscribers.
The first edition has just been published (see below) and you can get a free copy here
The wonders of the internet
We moved this website onto a new platform 2 months ago, and this provided an opportunity to update the analytical tools.
The results have been so interesting I thought I might share them.
Our website is most likely to interest people in the fleet leasing and management industry, or executives in any business who want to improve their pricing or develop their management. I have been fascinated by the report that shows where visitors to the site are based (or, more accurately, where their corporate servers are based).
Here are the results. These are the numbers of visitors, not the numbers of clicks:
- United Kingdom 2196
- United States 2083
- Russian Federation 1872
- China 1248
- Ukraine 1136
- Germany 1064
- Poland 336
- Netherlands 321
- France 236
- Israel 156
- Philippines 132
- Sweden 130
- Denmark 123
- Canada 101
- Brazil 97
- Latvia 92
- Moldova, Republic of 90
- Japan 63
- India 52
- Australia 47
- Belarus 47
- Italy 45
- Thailand 44
- South Africa 43
- Hong Kong 32
- Indonesia 32
- Czech Republic 30
- Korea, Republic of 30
- Ecuador 29
- Turkey 29
If you are visiting this site and are not UK-based – welcome! We have worked in 15 countries and are happy to work anywhere.
I’m delighted we have had visitors from places I had not expected to see on the list. If you are visiting this site and are not based in the UK, please contact us via the get in touch facility.
It would be good to hear from you.
Fleet News publishes extract from Managing Your Company Cars: Expert Opinion (2011)
Fleet News has just published Colin Tourick’s interview with Nigel Trotman, Head of Strategic Consultancy at Alphabet (BMW)
http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/feature/managing-your-company-cars-the-grey-fleet/41060/?page=1
Lease pricing – a long way to go.
Reply
Published in Leasing Life, June 2011
In recent years my colleagues and I have probably discussed pricing with around 300 leasing company executives.
Some tell us their salespeople have great market knowledge and are even shown competitors’ quotes. Sometimes. Maybe. Occasionally.
What’s best – leasing or buying?
Published in Business Car Manager March 2011
Everyone has an opinion on whether it is best to lease or buy.
Pop into your local dealership and the salesperson will be happy to sell you a car. Ask them if you’d be better off buying or leasing it and my guess is they’ll say buying it. As several dealer salespeople have told me over the year “leasing complicates the sale”. Which of course, it does. More paperwork to be filled in (by you and the salesperson), a credit check and then, horror of horrors, the embarrassing moment that does happen occasionally, where the customer is turned down for finance and turns on his heel and walks out of the showroom. Which means the salesperson hasn’t just lost the chance to arrange the finance, they’ve also lost the chance to sell the car.
Continue reading
How to buy … daily hire
Published in Fleet World
Daily hire (vehicle rental) is a useful and cost-effective way to buy short-term mobility for your staff. You get the car or van you need and someone else has to worry about depreciation, road tax and maintenance.
Getting the price right. A (hopefully) thought provoking article.
Published in Leasing World, October 2010
The leasing industry has been hit hard by the recession and has responded in several different ways. Everyone in the sector knows the stories about lessors cutting out broker business, seeking efficiencies, reducing headcount and so on.
Yet very few lessors have spent any time working out how to quote optimum prices in the market. By ‘optimum price’ I mean quoting the rental that is most likely to win the business whilst at the same time being as high as possible. Clearly, if you quote a price slightly higher than your competitor you will lose the deal. And if you quote well below your competitor you will win the deal but at a lower margin than you could have achieved. You should be trying to ensure that you select the price that is just below the level your competitor is likely to choose. Impossible? No, not at all.
How to Buy … Auction Services
Published in Fleet World, September 2010
Auctions are a real fleet success story, having revolutionised the way fleet vehicles are sold. They are efficient and generally achieve the fastest sale at the lowest risk. However – and here I am inviting irate auction-house managers to protest – most of the people who attend are motor traders who are buying stock for resale, so you will generally only achieve ‘trade’ prices when you sell at auction. These of course have to be lower than retail because the traders have to leave enough scope to achieve their margin on resale. Nonetheless, the speed and efficiency with which cars are sold at auction is impressive, and this can save you a lot of management time as well as money (including interest, depreciation, vehicle holding costs and marketing costs).
How to Buy … Contract Hire
Published in Fleet World, January 2010
So, your business isn’t cash-rich, you don’t want your employees to have the hassle of sourcing their new cars or selling their used ones, you don’t want to speculate on the value of used cars and you like the idea of having a pretty tax-efficient form of finance. So you opt for contract hire. It can’t be a bad decision: vast numbers of other businesses do the same.