Antonio Fabrizio talks to John
Davies, chairman of the newly-launched Vehicle Remarketing
Association.
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A new trade body for the UK
vehicle remarketing industry has just been launched, with the aim
of providing more support to companies handling used cars and
commercial vehicles and dealing with residual values on a daily
basis.
According to its founders, the Vehicle Remarketing
Association (VRA) – effective from the beginning of this month –
will be representing the interests of an industry which, in the UK
alone, is estimated to handle and transact over 1.8m vehicles each
year, worth in excess of £9bn.
John Davies, who was for a number of years the MD
of Lloyds TSB Asset Finance and has long been involved in the fleet
financing and remarketing business, has been appointed as the first
chairman of the VRA.
Davies – currently a non-executive director at
vehicle logistics company Autologic – believes the VRA will “fill a
gap” within the automotive industry.
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By GlobalDataHe says: “When you consider how large and
influential the sector is, it is amazing it has not had its own
trade body before, to represent the diverse range of activities
which remarketing comprises.”
Remarketing focus
Although a number of UK trade associations
– including the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the
Retail Motor Industry Federation and the British Vehicle Rental and
Leasing Association – already cover most aspects of the automotive
sector, Davies highlighted that there was none focusing
specifically on the remarketing business.
“A number of major players in the [remarketing]
sector felt that there wasn’t an association for them,” he
observes.
“They realised that a trade body could help improve
the industry sector in terms of better representing it, better
lobbying and also with the recruiting and training standards.”
The VRA plans to cover a number of key areas,
including promoting industry best practices amongst its members –
it hopes that members will agree to share best practices, in order
to set standards and common operational processes in areas such as
vehicle inspection.
Davies adds: “We are keen to do some initial works
on the inspection standards. At the moment there are a number of
different standards that are used by different people in the
industry, and we hope that we can bring those all together and
produce one single standard.”
Alongside vehicle inspection, the VRA in its
initial phase will also focus on learning and development – in
order to drive up levels of professionalism – and on resolution of
industry matters – creating a platform to debate and bring “clear
thinking” on key remarketing issues, as well as lobbying with the
relevant authorities where required.
Registrations impact
A big focus will be on monitoring
registrations, to try and estimate how the continuous fall recorded
in new vehicle registrations in the past two years could impact
residual values in the future.
Davies says: “We are very keen to look at the whole
sector, and particularly at forecasting what is going to happen to
vehicle volumes, because the new car market has been down for quite
a few months now.
“That means a shortage of used cars coming into the
market in two to three years’ time.”
The association – which has been launched after two
years of planning – already has amongst its members a number of
major companies.
These include Lex Autolease, Lombard, Manheim,
British Car Auctions, Honda, RAC Inspection Services, Paragon
Automotive, CAP, EurotaxGlass, Inchcape Retail, Fleet Auction
Group, Arval and Autologic.
Glenn Sturley, vehicle remarketing director at Lex
Autolease, was one of the people directly involved in helping
envisage and launch the association.
Sturley says: “Remarketing used cars for the
contract hire industry alone is a very large part of all of our
businesses and up to now there hasn’t been a trade organisation
that is focused on the important area of remarketing.
“Working with the best suppliers to rigid standards
and optimising sales values is key to running a successful contract
hire business.
“What the VRA does is bring likeminded individuals
together to share best practice and further develop the remarketing
industry to achieve all of these aims, as well as attracting new
talent to the industry,” he adds.
Alongside existing members, Davies says he was
“pleasantly surprised” to find out that a number of potential
members – from across a wide spectrum and including dealers,
auction houses, transport operations and lessors – were showing
interest in becoming VRA members and starting sending applications
for membership.
The VRA will also cover remarketing for light and
heavy commercial vehicles, Davies says.
“We would like that everyone involved in vehicle
remarketing, including those involved in the remarketing of vans
and medium and heavy trucks, considers joining our association and
putting some efforts into debating and fixing the issues that they
have,” he adds.
“At the end of the day, it is up to the members to
drive the agenda for the association.”
The VRA expects to work in tandem with other
associations, when appropriate.
Davies says: “We are very keen to work with [other
associations] and already have had contact with them all.
“They represent a much broader aspect of the
automotive industry, and we would hope that they use us when there
are issues surrounding vehicle remarketing, and particularly when
it comes to lobbying across the whole industry.”
Alongside Davies, a number of well-known
industry figures, including fleet management expert Colin Tourick,
will help develop the strategy of the association for the coming
years.
