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Seat is looking to build relationships with more fleets ahead of a trio of important new products that will expand and refresh its line-up.
The first of these is the Ateca small SUV, a model that Seat UK boss Richard Harrison told BusinessCar is creating a "real buzz" around the company and its network.
"We call the Ateca our third pillar with Leon and Ibiza; this is a very big opportunity" he said. "We set a pre-launch challenge in terms of number of hand-raisers and achieved that in the first two weeks so we are resetting expectations in terms of what the car can do."
Despite Seat suffering a 12.7% decrease in fleet registrations last year, which put it on the very edge of the top 20 corporate brands, Harrison is confident about the brand's ability to grow its company car share.
"We are building for the long-term. I set my team the objective to develop relationships; it would be early to generate registrations but they are looking to the long-term," he stated. "It's important we use today to build relationships and get on more lists, so when we add Ateca we will get a faster ramp-up. If that means suffering hits to market share in the short term, then I'm OK with it."
Seat's UK managing director added that January was a record month in terms of Seat corporate orders, with "a couple" of big fleet deals being sealed, and the Ateca will increase the brand's coverage of the UK market from 54% to 70% by volume.
"It's about playing the long game, the guys worked very hard last year and we are starting to see the fruits with the current cars, and with Ateca we should se an increase in momentum in the fleet market."
The company will, in the short term, be supply-limited with its new model.
"We're very focused on making sure the car is around as a long-term player in fleet and retail with good RVs and whole-life costs," said Harrison. "I'm always very happy when we have got one more customer than we have got supply, and this year we will achieve that."
The order books open in May, with first deliveries expected in September for a car that's priced at a starting point £500 cheaper than its core Nissan Qashqai rival.
The Ateca will be followed by two more products by the end of next year, with the new Ibiza supermini preceding a larger new SUV model.
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