Interviews
16 Jul 19

Alessandro Grosso, FCA: “Infrastructure is the key for future growth”

FCA has ambitions to further increase its true fleet sales and fleet success with large corporate customers. Alessandro Grosso, EMEA Fleet Sales Director, underlines the importance of a strong infrastructure combined with a close collaboration with leasing partners to do so.

“We experienced organic growth in European markets and all others in the world. Growth in true fleet markets grew by 5% during the year 2018, against 4% previously”, says Alessandro Grosso. “Our market share grew considerably in our home market of Italy, from 25% to 28%. Other markets to have increased in terms of fleet are France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria in particular. Our challenge now is to make more headway in the major markets where true fleet represents more than 45% of the whole market – Germany and the UK.”

Do you have a strategy for this?
Yes, two strategies. In the UK it is based on dealers, products, services and the customer experience.  There are two specific sectors in which we will also concentrate in the UK – Motability and the broker channels. The broker channel is via our captive arm, Leasys and the dealer network – this will always be our reference in terms of fleet. But we will also work with independent leasing brokers.

And in Germany?
Here we have to attack the corporate channel, because we are mostly working with SMEs at the moment. There will also be a focus on sales through the dealer network, and a major role will be played by the business centres. These now have 400 additional key account managers across Europe. So we have the support of the international teams, the local teams and the business centres. We have 20 business centres in Germany, but this will double by the end of this year. Another market in which we have to invest is Belgium, where we are behind the market in fleet. We also want to offer each customer the acquisition method which suits him.

How will you do this?
First of all with Leasys, which is booming in the markets in which it has a presence. In markets where Leasys does not have a presence, we will be working with LeasePlan. We have an agreement in place and this year will see execution across the markets. So, in brief, our captive Leasys, the white label set-up with LeasePlan and further collaboration with all leasing companies. All local players are fundamental to us increasing our sales penetration.

A specific sales plan will be delivered for the network, and fleet will operate throughout the whole of the dealer network and business centres.

Are you planning to attack the electric segment?
Within our strategy, we are developing a team 100% dedicated to e-mobility – business development, sales, branding, network development… We have to be able to introduce the right infrastructure into the whole sales network across all countries. By 2030 we want to have a 30% penetration of the electric/hybrid markets in Europe. We are also encouraging our customers to drive the efficient petrol and diesel engines – especially with Jeep – and to be the first to drive the new plug-in hybrids which we will be launching. The key to fleet sales in this domain is TCO, we have to provide the same TCO as for conventionally-powered cars. And with the product launches ahead we are on the right track to deliver.

Authored by: Steven Schoefs
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