Morris joined Polestar last November, having previously been head of direct sales at sister manufacturer Volvo. He told us that he’s seized the opportunity to grow Polestar within the fleet community.
He said: “What I’ve done in terms of actions since joining, is a thorough review of the operation, the structure, and the set-up that we had.
“In December, as part of the reorganisation, our ‘fleet administration’ team, that process all our orders, were moved into our ‘order to delivery’ team. The whole view of that being, that we create order efficiencies for fleet customers – and a speedier response. So, when leasing companies are requesting quotations, those come through much sooner. That was the first part of the journey, and the reason we were doing that was that in that sales environment, that administrative function sat better somewhere else.
“We’ve then invested heavily in people – the team has grown by 40%! We took the opportunity to create four roles that were dedicated fleet sales manager roles. These are regionally based, across the UK. What that does do, is give them the time and flexibility to engage directly with fleet managers. To be able to review their rate book positions, and to support them to ensure Polestar is properly positioned on fleets.
“We’ve also hired Sarah Tottle as head of fleet. Sarah has joined us from Volvo with over 20 years’ industry experience. Working with Sarah, we have Sam Goodman, national contract hire and leasing manager, and Sam Dean, tactical sales manager. Historically, the brand operated with these roles combined, with field-based staff looking after regionally based lease companies. Now, we recognise that leasing account management requires a very specific skill set, and that’s why we appointed Sam Goodman, to give some real clarity there. Sam Dean’s tactical sales manager role is going to be key to all our relationships with our broker partners. Moving forwards, he’s gone in there to provide some clarity and direction to those partners.
“The next phase that we then entered (on 10 February), was we set up the Business Centre operation, following a tender process. We have four dedicated heads operating in our Business Centre operation, and their role primarily is to focus on contacting the SME customers that we’ve worked with over several years. They will qualify and clarify the openness to purchase, as their role is to generate leads, that are passed onto our retailer network.
“Linked into that, we moved to an active selling model, in quarter three last year. This was a significant switch for Polestar, from a passive model where the customer purchased online only. At a local level, our retailer partners and network growth, are going to be key to the SMEs that are in those areas and to start to take advantage of that.
“Globally growth was up 76% in quarter one this year, year-on-year, with 12,000 vehicles globally, and that’s thanks in part due to the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4. I think critically in the UK, we’ve gone from strength to strength, as you know. Nearly 40,000 Polestars will be on UK roads when we get to the end of June 2025 – that’s just in five-years, so it’s a real record-breaking performance.
“May this year was an exceptionally busy month for us, with 274% growth year-on-year, and a BEV market share of 3.5%. This means we’re the second fastest growing car brand in the UK, in the BEV segment. Also, the fastest growing premium brand in the UK.
“We use the word ‘premium’, and it’s critical we start to elevate that, because if you look at the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, we often gain comparisons to some of the other EV competition in the marketplace, but when you drive our products, it’s a much more superior offering.”
Morris is first to acknowledge that it’s 100% easier to go to fleet customers with three models rather than one!
He said: “What’s critical to that success is that throughout this change we have simplified our approach to market. You could almost argue that we were a bit complex – ensuring we were on the correct lists. Plus, there were different levels of support for different types of funding. We’ve now simplified the route for the industry to buy cars, so the journey right through leasing companies, to the salary sacrifice model, and directly to end users. The key is positioning ourselves correctly with those end user fleets – that’s going to put us in good stead moving forward.”
Morris believes the SME market for Polestar is untapped, because of the dealer move to the agency model, as they haven’t been actively selling in their areas of influence.
He said: “They will make that shift, to sell in those areas of influence. We’ve made the shift in our Business Centres to actively target the SME growth. We know as an offering, the product that we have will work for those customers.
“With the brand sales year to date, you’re looking at 80% fleet sales, and so we will continue to drive on that success.”
Morris moved on to tell us about how ‘process enablement’, has effectively freed up Polestar’s retailer partners to support an SME customer on the car buying journey, and place the order with the ‘Space’.
He said: “Historically, we would have said “go back online, you need to transact your whole order online! We will be piloting this from a fleet perspective, as well. Polestar has been direct supply, direct order, and the direct delivery to the customer’s location.
“We know from the feedback from our customers, that they enjoy that Space experience, and from that perspective, we’re able to build those bridges between the retailer partners – because they are formidable at doing their jobs in their localities.
“How do we work and transition that to the fleet world as well? We’ll will be kicking off a pilot with one of our retailers in July, and that will be looking at how we bridge the gap. The retailer will then become the conduit to manage a fleet order. So, as soon as that order is placed, Polestar will take that order directly, and hand it over to a retailer partner – who will manage that, all the way through to delivery, where they can ensure communications are kept up, and they build that relationship at a local level, where that car is delivered.”
Morris’s fleet plans for the rest of this year are focused on significant year-on-year growth within the UK – although he believes it’s also critical the brand has done things like its first fleet webinar.
He said: “We did our first in May this year, and we’ve heavily invested in the ‘Leasing Portal’. This enables leasing companies to gain access to our information.
“This is about how we create transparency with the industry, to say we’re here. We have a premium product offering, but we’ve still got a job to build the brand. There’s 40,000 currently on UK roads, but 3s and 4s are not yet a popular sight – although that will continue to build. My job is making dealing with us as easy as possible.”
