Fleet Logistics, Europe’s largest independent fleet management provider, has gone live in Latin and Central America with global agri-business Syngenta, managing a fleet of around 1,600 vehicles in eight countries across the region.
Fleet Logistics is doing this in two ways. Firstly, the fleet management provider, which has more than 150,000 vehicles under management world-wide, is managing a fleet of 800 Syngenta cars in South America’s largest country, Brazil.
These will be managed directly from the special hub operation that Fleet Logistics has created in São Paulo, offering the same full portfolio of fleet management services that it offers throughout Europe.
This range of services will also be available for other fleet clients in a variety of different South American countries as Fleet Logistics rapidly establishes itself in the LATAM region of Southern and Central America region.
The Sao Paolo hub was set up using the footprint of parent company, international certification provider TÜV SÜD Group, to take advantage of local infrastructure, facilities and staffing. This provided the ability to set up the required operations much more efficiently, effectively and speedily than if new operations had to be developed from the ground up.
Secondly, Fleet Logistics will be responsible for overseeing the management of an additional 800 Syngenta vehicles in a further seven countries across Latin and Central America – namely Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Panama, Guatemala and Mexico.
These vehicles will be managed through an assortment of local suppliers with Fleet Logistics responsible for the management and co-ordination of suppliers to bring a series of standardized processes and efficiencies from the customer perspective.
Fleet Logistics began the implementation of the LATAM project with Syngenta at the end of last year, with a go-live in July, overseen by Business Development Director, Marcus Hennecke.
“The go-live went very smoothly and we now have three full-time staff working in our São Paulo hub. We expect to grow that number further very quickly,” he said.
“We are now live in eight LATAM countries and we will see a second wave of a further 10 countries come on-stream in the region in September. We are already seeing interest from other international fleet clients in supporting their fleets in the region, but our initial ambition will be to stabilize our operations in Syngenta before taking on any further commitments,” he said.
Hennecke added that Fleet Logistics saw that working with local suppliers was a natural way forward and an excellent way of learning the markets and cultures of the different countries in the region very quickly.
“This provides us with a very steep learning curve but we are always mindful that we should respect and the customs and cultures of the region, and not assume that we can simply transplant what we do in Europe,” he said.
The LATAM project further expands the relationship with Syngenta as Fleet Logistics also manages the Syngenta fleet of 1,700 vehicles in 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, through the hub it created specially in Singapore last year.
Fleet Logistics also manages the Syngenta fleet in Europe with 2,400 vehicles in 20 markets at the moment and with the target to expand to 3,600 vehicles by the end of 2016 with a full coverage of the EAME region.
Syngenta, which is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, employs 28,000 people in 90 countries worldwide, and last year had worldwide sales of $13.4 billion. It is dedicated to the purpose of ‘Bringing Plant Potential to Life’ with the aim of increasing crop productivity, protecting the environment and improving health and quality of life through world-class science.
In Asia Pacific, under a four-year-agreement, Fleet Logistics is responsible for managing Syngenta vehicles – cars and motorcycles – in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Axel Ernst, Global Head of Fleet, said: “As a trusted and longstanding fleet partner, Fleet Logistics has delivered not only significant savings on our global fleet, but also reduced our fleet Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), standardized our Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) requirements, provided visibility at global level, and enhanced our driver experience.”
“Fleet Logistics has a unique proposition in the market as they are fully independent, which is very important to Syngenta and, as part of TÜV SÜD group, they are able to expand quickly and at low cost across different regions of the world.
“We now look forward to Fleet Logistics being able to introduce the same level of efficiencies and improvements across our entire Latin American fleet with similar levels of success,” he said.
Marcus Hennecke added: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to expand our collaboration with Syngenta internationally into the LATAM region of Latin and Central America.
“The experiences we have enjoyed together in the APAC region have been really rewarding for both parties and we look forward to bringing the same efficiencies and success rate to the LATAM region. This is a further step along the journey for Fleet Logistics in creating a truly global network for our customers.”
