Automotive Fleet, July 2017

up an international fleet sales organization In 1999 General Motors named Steve Higgs who previously worked at GMs Vauxhall European operation to the newly created position in the U S of manager global North American fleet development Higgs commenced expanding the internal lines of communication at GM to respond to multinational fleet needs in major markets around the world One of Higgs early accomplishments was the creation of a global fleet advisory board General Motors held its first global fleet advisory board meeting in 1999 Shortly thereafter GM Fleet Operations introduced a global fleet website Increasingly large multinational corporations approached automotive OEMs wanting to leverage their global procurement footprint and tended to gravitate to those OEMs with global sourcing capabilities Not only was there a global expansion by fleet suppliers but technology was providing multinational corporate headquarter staffs the resources to more closely manage company vehicles outside the home country In particular the incorporation of web based fleet management systems further facilitated global fleet management by providing the headquarters offices of multinationals greater visibility of their far flung fleet operations Invariably this enhanced visibility led to embarrassing revelations of large numbers of vehicles in different country operations that were previously unknown to the home office One internationally well known financial institution discovered unbeknownst to itself that it had more than 1000 company vehicles in Poland which was dramatically out of kilter with the ratio of employees eligible for company provided vehicles These types of revelations abounded and could fill an entirely new blog What also emerged at this time was a trend to create centralized procurement offices which were tasked to consolidate a multinationals fleet purchases Examples of companies in the vanguard of this trend were Hewlett Packard Microsoft Cisco and Citicorp Start of a New Chapter in Global Fleet At the start of the 21st Century the ranks of managers with global fleet responsibilities began to proliferate Among the pioneering managers with global fleet management responsibilities and their start dates are 2000 Katie Rixman manager global fleet for Brown Forman based in Louisville Kentucky 2002 Bolivar Fuentes global procurement category director at Grupo Bimbo based in Mexico City 2003 Tom Settel fleet manager for Colgate Palmolive based in New York City 2004 Mike Sims global fleet planning acquisitions manager for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints based in Salt Lake City 2005 Benoit Viard procurement director for Alcatel Lucent based in Paris France 2008 Pascal Struyve global travel fleet meeting services director at Ingersoll Rand based in Brussels Belgium 2008 Fred Turco senior director Pfizer responsible for HR and Fleet Procurement and Fleet Operations team leadership based in New York City managing an annual total indirect spend under remit of 14 billion With the growing corporate interest in global fleet management during the first decade of the 21st Century Bobit Business Media and Nexus Communication partnered in 2013 to create the annual Global Fleet Conference which alternates between Europe and North America As a testament to the strength of multinational interest in global fleet management every Global Fleet Conference has sold out since its inception five years ago In October 2016 three fleet driver safety organizations joined forces to create The Global SafeDrive Alliance whose mission is to provide a single source global fleet safety program including reporting and certification Comprised of The CEI Group U S Canada and Puerto Rico CEPA SafeDrive Latin and Central America and DriveTech International Europe Middle East and Asia Pacific the members of the Alliance operate on six continents and offer support in more than 35 languages In another development the Automotive Fleet Leasing Association AFLA in 2016 created a globalization committee to create an organized mechanism for fleet industry associations from other regions of the world to network between themselves to share best practices and local market knowledge The 26 member AFLA globalization committee launched a worldwide outreach initiative to fleet associations around the globe to create a consortium based on shared principles that are institutionalized in a memorandum of understanding The group is known as the Global Fleet Networking Consortium and in August 2016 the first member to join AFLA in the consortium was the Australasian Fleet Management Association AfMA which has approximately 550 members The next fleet association to join the consortium was the Asociación Mexicana de Arrendadoras de Vehículos AMAV which translates to the Mexican Vehicle Leasing Association Representing the Global Fleet Networking Consortium in Asia is the China Road Transport Association CRTA which has 1000 members In Europe the consortium is represented by the Association of Car Fleet Operators ACFO which is the U K s largest fleet group with 350 members The consortium will hold its first strategic planning meeting on June 9 2017 in Miami to identify its governance online communication infrastructure and future direction It is an exciting time to be in fleet as a new chapter in the industrys future is unfolding All indicators point to increasing interest in global fleet management especially as new technology further facilitates the ability to efficiently and effectively implement this multinational initiative global fleet The Global Fleet Networking Consortium is comprised of five global fleet associations created to share best practices among themselves The first two associations to enter the consortium were the Australasian Fleet Management Association AfMA and the U S based Automotive Fleet Leasing Association AFLA Pictured is the AfMA and AFLA leadership teams in NYC following the signing of a memorandum of understanding in August 2016 AUTOMOTIVE FLEET I JULY 2017 46