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ARVAL: 'We don't educate our customers'

Date: 21 October 2013

Jack Carfrae meets Arval's new managing director Benoit Dilly and hears why the man heading up the UK's fifth-largest leasing company is more concerned with help than education and why he would consider swallowing up a smaller leasing firm.

"We will consider every possibility: organic growth, acquisition, so yes, why not? It's not a plan, just an opportunistic approach."

That's Benoit Dilly's response to the idea of consolidating with another leasing company - something the industry has become rather used to of late. The new man at the helm of the UK's fifth-biggest leasing firm took the reigns from former managing director Bart Beckers on 1 September, as Beckers moved internally to the new role of chief commercial officer in Paris. Dilly is happy with the shape that the business is in, but thinks it needs to be bigger and swallowing up more of the market. 

"The plan is to grow," he explains to BusinessCar at the company's UK headquarters in Swindon. "I believe there are opportunities for growth in the market. We have five-point-something percent market share - I would be happy with 7-8%. We believe we have everything we need to grow."

There are already measures in place to step up the firm's services to its fleet customers. It comprises a complete reorganisation of what Dilly describes as the "middle-office" services - procurement through to end of contract and everything in between - and moving specific staff onto account teams to deal with individual business customers, rather than having them spread across multiple accounts.

A 20-year-plus veteran of the BNP Paribas Group - that's Arval's parent company - Dilly acknowledges the recent work the company has done on the technology front, such as introducing a free online calculator that can work out whether it makes better financial sense to use an employee's own car or rent a vehicle for a business trip, and it's work on alternative fuel vehicles (see panel 'Electric vehicles on your fleet - a practical guide').

"This market needs to be creative about embedding new technologies - it absolutely has to be for the benefit of the customer. The rental calculator is a good example - it works, it reduces the time spent on these things, it's good."



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