The independent fleet management specialist, which currently has around 180,000 vehicles under contract in 26 different countries, interviewed international fleet managers at companies with a combined total of four million employees and around €1,200bn of revenue, mainly in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and financial services.

Almost half the companies represented had revenues of between €10bn and €50bn, while 21% of the survey group employed more than 250,000 people.

Passenger cars made up the bulk of the vehicles at fleets interviewed, as some 70% of all vehicles included in the study were cars. A further 26% were vans and 4% were trucks.

In 48% of cases, fleet spending represented between 4 and 12% of the total operating expenditure at these major global corporations. At 5% of companies, fleet spend was 13-20% of the operating expenditure, and at 3% it was over 20%.

Some 20% of companies surveyed managed the fleet exclusively or mainly in-house, with a trend towards a ‘Center of Excellence’ concept and outsourcing. Around 50% of companies managed their fleet globally with five full time equivalent (FTE) employees or less, using centres of excellence combined with outsourcing to a third party fleet management specialist.

When it came to fleet funding, the overwhelming majority of companies surveyed, some 75%, used operational leasing as their primary acquisition method globally.

The majority of these, around 57%, had signed international sourcing agreements with three to five leasing companies, while just 15% of companies were with one leasing company, and only 8% ordered exclusively from this single supplier.

The survey also identified the number of manufacturers that fleet managers had vehicle supply agreements with, and 52% of companies had five or more manufacturers globally, while some 18% of companies used two or fewer manufacturers.

The dominant factor for vehicle selection was TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), sometimes combined with other factors such as taxation or fuel type. Some 41% of companies used TCO solely as their vehicle selection criteria while a further 29% used TCO plus tax.

However, none of the large companies represented in the study used list price as a main basis for vehicle choice, but monthly leasing rentals were important, with 22% of respondents citing this as a significant factor.

For all companies surveyed, there was an increasing focus on capping the carbon dioxide emissions of vehicles on the fleets. Some 85% of fleets had set maximum CO2 limits of 120 to 170g/km for management cars, and from 110 to 165g/km for job cars and vans.

In terms of other green initiatives, some 29% of those surveyed had plug-in hybrid vehicles on their fleets. However, only 13% of respondents had pure electric vehicles on their fleet, but when considering their future potential, more than  two-thirds of companies expected EVs to be a future component of their fleets. 

Fleet managers were also asked which of the areas of their fleet operations they thought had the greatest potential for cost savings. The top three areas identified with savings potential were vehicle selection, manufacturer/dealer contracts and conditions and leasing company set-up.

The second group of saving areas identified by fleet managers were repairs, vehicle remarketing/returns and maintenance management. Fuel cards scored lowest in the list of potential cost cutting areas, perhaps because many large companies already have direct agreements with fuel providers in place.

When asked about the value they perceived from outsourcing their fleets to third party specialists, fleet managers rated the vehicle ordering process as providing the most value from being outsourced. This was due to the better terms and conditions that were achieved and handling the process at lower cost.

Other services that fleet managers perceived value from outsourcing were insurance and accident management, end-of-contract processing, fuel reporting and monitoring, contract monitoring and recalculations and the management of maintenance and repairs.

All of these activities required a unique expertise that may not be close to the companies’ core business, the survey said.

Rainer Laber, CEO at Fleet Logistics, said: “We have collected and collated the thoughts of some of the leading opinion-formers in the international fleet market. And their replies should hopefully give other fleet managers food for thought and a valuable insight into the most effective management for an international fleet.

“As the instigators of this new fleet benchmarking exercise, we would be delighted if some of these insights could be of help to other fleet managers in running their own vehicle fleet.

“We hope that international fleet managers find the results of this, our first fleet opinion poll, of real value. And we look forward to an ongoing dialogue with the rest of the global community of fleet managers over best practice in the international fleet management arena,” he said.