Venson secure major Integral fleet deal

Venson Automotive Solutions, the Thames Ditton based independent multi-management specialist, has won one of the largest sole supplier contracts in its recent history, from a rival company, after a competitive tender process saw them sign a major 1,400-vehicle leasing and fleet management with maintenance deal with Bristol-headquartered Integral, Britain’s biggest and fastest growing national provider of comprehensive maintenance services for commercial and public sector buildings.

Venson, which presently has 11,500 cars and commercial vehicles on its book, has built a reputation for managing blue light vehicles, notably the Nottinghamshire Police fleet, and Integral fleet manager Craig Watson said the company’s experience in working with the emergency services was among the critical factors in awarding the contract.

He said: “Just like the emergency services our operational vehicles react to call-outs from customers. Therefore, it is essential that vehicle downtime is reduced to the absolute minimum. The knowledge that Venson has gathered from working with blue light fleets means that it can use that same experience to ensure our cars and vans are on-the-road as much as possible and not in workshops.”

The new partnership also includes Integral moving to Venson Interactive, the company’s online fleet management software, instead of time consuming, traditional spreadsheets. While Mr Watson is in overall charge of the Integral fleet, each of the company’s 15 centres employs a fleet administrator with responsibility for managing the cars and vans located at their site.

Mr Watson said: “The functionality that we now have from utilising Venson Interactive has advanced our fleet management efficiency enormously. Myself and the fleet administrators now have complete visibility of fleet vehicles and drivers 24/7 enabling us to drill down and extract vital information by exception quickly and easily. The administration time that is being saved is significant in both running the fleet and in compiling management data.

“We were also very impressed that prior to signing the contract Venson had already bespoked the management system to meet a couple of our specific requirements. This now means that we can manage our fuel card data more efficiently and reallocate spare vehicles more effectively thus reducing costs as well as order vehicles online.”

To aid fleet operating efficiency and effectiveness, Venson delivered a two-day induction programme to ensure Integral’s regional administrators were up to speed with the Venson Interactive service. Additionally, Venson’s ethos of managing all client services in-house without resort to third party providers and its one-stop shop account management policy appealed to Integral.

Mr Watson explained: “Lines of communication are very defined and there is no call centre. We have a single account manager who looks after the fleet and knows everything about our vehicles and our drivers.”

Venson is managing out the current fleet and is already starting to supply new vehicles along with a range of additional services including short-term hire, accident management and driver licence checking.

Venson sales director Simon Staton said: “A personal service ethos is at the heart of Venson and that is what attracted Integral. This approach is proving increasingly important in securing new business as many of our rivals promise personal service at the outset and then hide behind a call centre environment once an agreement is signed. That is not Venson’s way.”

Mr Staton added: “With a 1,400-strong fleet the Integral contract immediately becomes one of the largest deals won by Venson.”

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