Last month in these pages we brought you a profile of LCV rental
specialist Northgate,
which is making a tidy business out of providing companies with all
the benefits of having a van, with almost one of the downsides.
This month, our cover story looks at the car club phenomenon, which
promises to do the same for private vehicle owners, giving them
most of the benefits of ownership, without the associated
headaches.
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It is early days yet for these clubs, which, with their
high-tech setups, only became feasible on a major scale with the
advent of widespread internet access. However, with one transport
charity predicting – somewhat more in hope than in honest
expectation, one feels – that by 2015, car clubs in the UK will
boast a combined membership of 1m, the implications for motor
retailers and financiers are clear. Members of car clubs are far
less likely to purchase a private vehicle and motor finance houses’
volumes will fall as a result. Car clubs are even looking to make
inroads into the corporate car market, initially with the ‘grey
fleet’ and pool cars; turn to p12 to find out more.
Elsewhere in this issue, the theme of ‘management’ twice
rears its head. Brian
Rogerson asks credit houses about risk management in an adverse
climate (see “Coping a cold Climate”), while Richard
Higham presents exclusive research carried out among fleets and
motor financiers looking at sales management, in the first of three
articles for Motor Finance.
Our regular columnists have various bees in their bonnets
this month. Professor Peter
Cooke rails against poor sales techniques at dealerships which
can alienate customers for life, while Graham
Hill asks how the finance industry might make itself more
appealing to the public through advertising – signing off his piece
in typically provocative fashion with a particularly vivid (some
might say unsavoury) mental image. You have been warned.
With, as ever, very best wishes for the coming month.
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