With a fleet of 1,9 million vehicles, LeasePlan is the largest player on the lease and fleet management market in the Netherlands as well as worldwide (LeasePlan, 2021). They believe in their Car-as-a-Service strategy that unburdens users with the hassle that comes with the owner
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With a fleet of 1,9 million vehicles, LeasePlan is the largest player on the lease and fleet management market in the Netherlands as well as worldwide (LeasePlan, 2021). They believe in their Car-as-a-Service strategy that unburdens users with the hassle that comes with the ownership of a car.
The fleet of cars and light commercial vehicles is allocated for 73% at corporate client (companies with a fleet >25 vehicles). There is continuous movement in this market segment due to developments such as mobility budgets and total mobility solutions. During the last years, there was much talk around these subjects. However, it was mostly talking without concrete action leading to change. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was felt around the world. The restrictions to our daily lives to contain the virus had far-reaching consequences on how we moved around the last 1,5 years. The number of kilometres driven for business purposes decreased in 2020 by 26% in comparison to the year before (NZMO, 2021). With the lease cars sitting on the driveways, companies were looking to update their mobility policy to facilitate the ‘new normal’ after the pandemic.
In the first part of this report, the mobility trends, market movement towards total mobility solutions, LeasePlan and the changing mobility needs of the employer and employee are analysed.
The call to create more sustainable and flexible corporate mobility solutions were present in the different analyses. The market is rapidly moving in the direction where the employee chooses between different modalities to travel the needed business kilometres. The direct competitors of LeasePlan are working on total mobility solutions that, next to the traditional lease car, include shared car services, public transport and e-bikes. LeasePlan is currently moving in the same direction with the development of a total mobility solution.
The employees are divided in their view towards the lease car. There is a growing group that is actively avoiding the lease car choosing for a cash option even though they are eligible for a lease car. They do not want the rigidity of a four-year contract. The counterpart is the group that uses the lease car for personal mobility needs. When the lease car was stationary for corporate kilometres during COVID-19, it was still regularly being used to drive privately.
Using the current strengths of LeasePlan and the insights from the analyses, an ecosystem was designed to transform the lease car into a shared modality. SharedLease is a new proposition that LeasePlan integrates within their future total mobility solution. The new proposition allows colleagues without a lease car to make business kilometres in an appropriate car. The lease car drivers will receive credits when they make the car available to their colleagues. With these credits, they can purchase a vacation car. Solving one of the main reasons employees do not want an electric lease car is range anxiety (Crothers, 2020). In this report, SharedLease is elaborated and the horizon before and after is presented.
SharedLease allows LeasePlan to venture towards shared car services while staying within their current Car-as-a-Service strategy. Meanwhile, the changing mobility needs due to the ‘new normal’ after the COVID-19 pandemic are met, giving the employee the needed flexibility.