So says Tobias Kern, senior consultant at Brussels-based global fleet consultancy, FleetVision, which has recently completed a pan European fuel tender process on behalf of a global PR and marketing agency that operates around 3,000 vehicles in 11 countries across Europe.

The fleet client had a de-centralised fuel policy, with each country having its own individual approach, but wanted to centralise its fuel buying across Europe to help drive down overall fuel costs.

The tender review process concentrated on negotiating direct contracts with the major pan-European fuel card suppliers, who were pre-selected on the basis of being capable of meeting the tender requirements.

As well as pricing levels, the FleetVision tender process took into consideration factors such as the spending patterns of each country that made up the client’s fleet, the extent of the suppliers’ European network and how they overlapped.

The tender also considered the level of reporting each fuel card supplier provided in areas such as mileages, fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, exception alerts, fraud prevention and fuel card handling, as well as looking of the level of operational support provided through end-to-end IT systems.

FleetVision says it is its opinion that fuel tenders not taking into account the improved management of the fuel process, ignore key factors which will help improve fleet operators’ fuel management programmes and reduce fuel spend. On this background, FleetVision’s tender project underlined the fact to focus beyond rebate levels.

Mr Kern said: ‘Factors such as network coverage, reporting levels and the impact on the drivers are all important considerations in any fuel programme review. Just focusing on securing the best level of rebate from the supplier can ignore important factors which, when combined together, can be more valuable than the rebates achieved.’

He added: ‘Before starting such a programme, the buy-in of the various stakeholders within the organisation is absolutely vital, along with a thorough and detailed implementation process in support of the potential new set-up.’

Amongst other things, the tender project also revealed that the leading European fuel card suppliers all worked with partner networks, each of which had a different strategy on rebate levels and which had to be considered in the overall analysis.

The project also identified a key shift in the European fuel market, following the announcement last year of a partnership between Total and Shell in the German fuel market.

Ideally, once the final decision has been made, the chosen fuel card supplier(s) should be an integral part of an overall fuel management approach that looked at overall fuel consumption across the fleet, green fleet considerations such as low carbon emitting vehicles, the selection of the right powertrain matching the individual driving patterns of each employee, and the provision of eco-driver training for drivers to encourage them to drive more economically and responsibly, said Tobias Kern.

‘Given this background, an integrated fuel management programme that considers volume consolidation alongside process cost reductions, and total transparency on cost drivers and cost control measures, will efficiently reduce fuel spend across the whole fleet. In such a scenario, volume rebates and price reductions are only one part of the fuel management equation,’ he concluded.