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TECHIES 2012: Small is beautiful

Date: 20 June 2013

 

Before the rebrand and the introduction of Mi Fleet, Ogilvie had around 8000 vehicles on its books. It has grown and continues to do so but bosses have no desire to be crossing swords with the six-figure fleets of Lex Autolease or Leaseplan.

"The 8000-vehicle fleet, three years on, is now a 10,700-vehicle fleet, and we've aspirations to get to 12,500 in the next couple of years. There's no reason why we shouldn't do that, but there's no time scale on it. There's a danger of writing business you wouldn't normally write, because it's not profitable," says Hardy. "Over the next two years or so we'll get close to 12,000, so 12,500 is realistic in the next two to three years. After that point we'd like to get to 15,000. When we get there I think we'll cap things ourselves; after that, we potentially wouldn't be able to deliver the customer service we provide because you can't be as close to everybody. If you grow much more, the way you'd have grow the business would change our ethos." 

That size - or lack of it - means the company isn't afraid of writing business that normally deters the bigger players, such as extended contracts. "Sometimes you can get burnt - you can get hit with high maintenance costs," says Hardy. "But it's profitable and it's flexible for the customer. Most clients want some flexibility and they don't necessarily want to commit to another four years. As long as the costs allow us to, we'll discount it by up to 10%. It's good for us and it's good for the customers. It's not extremely profitable, but it is still profitable, and why would you want to prove your inflexibility to customers by saying they can't? It keeps and wins us business." 



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