Inspire Cuts Costs At FDS Group

CHICHESTER-based fleet management specialist, Inspire Fleet Solutions, has cut insurance costs in half as part of a completely outsourced fleet management service at leading independent field marketing agency, FDS Group.

Whitstable based FDS, which works within one of the fastest growing disciplines in the marketing arena providing sales, distribution and brand awareness services to blue chip clients, operates a fleet of around 250 vehicles, primarily high mileage diesels for field sales executives.

Inspire Fleet Solutions has introduced a series of fleet management initiatives, including 12-month vehicle contracts, accident management and a new fleet insurance policy, which have brought major cost savings at the £20m turnover, privately owned company.

At the same time, Inspire has brought in improved driver communications including a dedicated driver helpdesk hotline covering all accident management issues, breakdown and recovery and online service booking.

According to FDS financial controller, Philip Hermon, there have been a number of benefits arising from the switch from internal to outsourced fleet management.

"Inspire provides us with a first-rate fleet management service, which is outsourced, offsite and thoroughly professional, using state-of-the-art fleet management systems. We are a people business and choose to deal with people we like. Inspire is big enough to be effective but small enough to be friendly.

"Their biggest single contribution has been in the management of our accidents which has removed all the hassle associated with them from our day-to-day activities and allowed us to concentrate on our core business.

"We generally have around 120 incidents per annum which Inspire now handles on our behalf. From being involved personally in around 50% of them, I have only been called in to deal with only a few in the last six months, which has freed up our Finance Department’s time enormously and is a huge plus. Inspire have also been able to drive down ‘off the road’ delays following incidents, which naturally maximises our operations and effectiveness in the field.

"To obtain highly quantifiable results and evaluations in a fast changing marketplace FDS often needs to react swiftly. Inspire was recently able to source 100 vehicles at very short notice to meet one customer contract that we had won.

"They have also brought in 12-month, 30,000 mile leasing contracts for our high mileage drivers and incorporated within that arrangement our insurance premiums, which have cut our insurance costs in half. We have been delighted by the progress and service levels to date," he said.

Stuart Donnelly, head of fleet management at Inspire Fleet Solutions, said that the company’s aim was always to provide an intelligent bespoke fleet management solution to meet the client’s specific fleet needs.

"We were able to reduce the number of preferred contract hire suppliers to two and consolidate insurance premiums into contract hire rentals, effectively cutting insurance costs in half. We were also able to select on FDS’s behalf the most appropriate vehicles to meet their own customers’ needs at the most competitive prices, which have added up to major savings per month per vehicle for their clients," he said.