One of the biggest mistakes any senior executive with a global brief can make is to view all developing markets as being essentially the same. They are not – they are all at different stages in their evolution and have to be tackled accordingly.

That is certainly the case so far as full-service leasing is concerned, says ALD international sales and business development director, Stephane Renie.

‘If you look at Brazil for example then you soon see that full-service leasing is very well accepted,’ he says. ‘We’ve got well over 13,000 cars out on contract there and we’re competing against all the other key international players in the sector, who are also present.

‘We’re competing against some strong local providers too.’

Turkey is in some respects similar to Brazil, contends Mr Renie. ‘We’re enjoying double-digit growth in a market that is very competitive, very price-driven and with some strong local players,’ he observes.

Contrast this with the situation in China, he says, where full-service packages still do not enjoy the popularity that they should.

‘We’ve been there since 2006, we're the only international company of our type that is in place and currently fully operational – our competitors are locally owned – yet we’ve still only managed to supply 1,300 cars,’ he says. ‘They are usually for top executives and provided with a driver.

‘It’s all a long way from the situation in Brazil but we have big hopes for China,’ he continues. ‘One day demand will accelerate: and when it does, it will accelerate big-time.’

ALD will be in a strong position to benefit when that happens. So will rival Arval.

It entered China in 2012 and plans to start delivering its first cars to customers during the course of this year.

India presents yet another set of challenges and ALD is active there too.

Competition is tough, regulations are quite complex – ‘that’s one of the main issues’ – and it can be a challenge to convince businesses to provide their employees with cars when public transport remains so important, says Renie. ‘There’s a massive reliance on powered two-wheel transport too,’ he observes.

A further problem with India for a company like ALD, Renie says, is that when companies do supply a car to an employee they often deliberately set the residual value artificially low to allow the individual concerned to buy it at a knock-down price after a few years.

From the staff member’s viewpoint it is a means of obtaining extra remuneration without being landed with a tax bill. ‘It is not the sort of package we offer though,’ says Renie, who occupied senior posts with Renault and media agency Carat France before joining ALD in early 2011.

Elsewhere, along with Wheels Inc, its North American partner, ALD has forged a partnership with Australia’s FleetPartners, which has over 60,000 vehicles under management in Australia and New Zealand.

‘For some of our clients it is important for us to have a worldwide presence and it is a way of enabling us to get into a mature market,’ he explains. ‘It would be difficult for us to enter Australia otherwise.’

Opportunities in certain far-flung markets should go some way towards counteracting the sluggish economic growth still bedevilling so much of Europe. However, Europe is by no means a disaster area so far as full-service leasing is concerned, says Renie.

‘We’ve seeing strong growth in much of Central and Eastern Europe,’ he reports. ‘Admittedly the corporate sales market in Western Europe isn't looking so good – we won't be seeing double-digit growth in France, Italy and Spain that's for sure – but SMEs offer plenty of potential.

‘Cash is tight so far as they are concerned in the current climate so they are more willing to consider an operating lease than they might have been in the past.’

ALD is increasing its presence in the sector. ‘We’re also placing more emphasis on white label partnerships with manufacturers,’ Renie says. ‘We’ve now got 85 white label deals worldwide.’

Proposals by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to change the way in which vehicle leases and rental agreements are treated for accounting purposes could potentially have a massive impact on full-service/operating leases worldwide. The aim is to put them on the lessee's balance sheet and Renie believes that this is what will eventually occur.

‘It will be difficult to say what the consequences will be though until we see the final document,’ he observes. ‘It’s an interesting and tricky situation, the devil will be in the detail – will the standard be implemented immediately once agreed in a sort of “big bang” or will it be brought in gradually? And a lot of things may influence what ultimately happens.

‘However, I do not believe a requirement to put assets acquired under an operating lease on a balance sheet will have a major impact on the acquisition method companies choose,’ he continues. ‘I think it will trigger a lot of discussions but I certainly do not think we will experience a tsunami of businesses currently using operating leases suddenly changing their minds.’

Other considerations will have more influence, he believes. ‘A lot of them will revolve around whether firms want to use their own cash to acquire vehicles or whether they would rather invest it in their core activities: in research and development for example,’ Renie observes.

Then there are all the other advantages that operating/full-service leases bring he adds, not the least of them being making it easier for companies to budget ahead and include maintenance costs.

Renie goes on to point out that the IASB/FASB proposals will only apply to publicly quoted companies. ‘A large percentage of the business we do is with SMEs and with some quite large groups that remain family-owned,’ he says. They will not be affected.

He doubts that implementation of the proposals will result in public companies that use operating leases switching to finance leases. However some of them may move to outright acquisition he suggests – assuming they have the cash – and bring in a fleet management company.

‘If they do this though they will still have to shoulder the residual value risk,’ he points out. That will not be the case if they stick to an operating lease.

All in all, he is convinced that full-service leasing has a positive future. ‘We grew by more than 4% last year and we believe we can continue this level of expansion,’ he states.