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New fleet boss outlines plans for Seat
Date: 27 March 2009 | Author: Tristan Young
Seat is rethinking its approach to the business car market, according to new fleet boss Nick Andrews.
Andrews, who joined Seat from sister firm Audi three weeks ago, said he has "been given a blank sheet of paper and a target".
Speaking at the launch of Seat's first upper medium sector car, the Exeo, Andrews said he planned to bring many of the systems and processes he had learnt at Audi to Seat.
Andrews shied away from saying he would target particular areas of the market, but said Seat would start by "selling to lots of VW Group-only policies".
He also hinted he would set up a network of business-specialist dealers to look after the smaller fleets, and while he did not have an exact number of dedicated fleet dealers, he did say they would be based in the UK's major cities.
He added that this sub-100 car fleet market was seeing increased attention from the leasing companies, saying: "Fleets with less than 100 cars have traditionally had a relationship with the dealer, but the lease companies who know the 100-plus market is saturated, are going for the sub-100 market now."
To counter this Seat is offering its own competitive lease rates aimed at small businesses and has introduced a £259-a-month offer, which dealers can offer to business users for the new Exeo.
Andrews pointed out the large leasing firms were currently offering the Exeo at an average of £400 a month.
Commenting on the Exeo, which is based on the previous generation Audi A4, Andrews said: "The plan is to sell 1500 a year. For the user-chooser the kit's going to sell it and we've also got that trust element because of the Audi quality."
