CF Roberts, a UK provider of electrical and mechanical services to the construction industry, has selected vehicle funding and fleet management specialist, Fleet Alliance, to help manage its mixed fleet of 140 vehicles.

CF Roberts, an 80-year-old family run business, has its headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and operates throughout the UK with a workforce of 250 employees and with three regional offices.

The company operates a mix of cars and vans, primarily for engineers and maintenance staff, according to Fleet Alliance. The vans, which make up around two thirds of the fleet, are Ford Transit Custom and Connect models for engineers, while the cars are a mixture of mainly Volkswagen Golf and Mercedes-Benz C-Class models for contract managers.

Both vehicle classes are contract hired for three years/90,000 miles which CF Roberts, based on previous experience, finds to be the most cost-effective replacement cycle, according to Fleet Alliance.

Following its appointment, Fleet Alliance has now introduced competitive tendering for each new model added to the fleet, replacing CF Robert’s previous supplier with a panel of funders to quote for each new vehicle and then selecting the most cost-effective on behalf of the client.
Competitive tendering used in this way has been shown to to produce savings of 8-10 percent in terms of acquisition costs, and Fleet Alliance estimates it will save a considerable six-figure sum on behalf of the client as a result of employing this methodology over the three-year life of the vehicle contracts.

All of the CF Roberts fleet is now being managed through Fleet Alliance’s online fleet management system, e-fleet, which offers an extensive and comprehensive suite of reports and allows the interrogation of any aspect of the fleet operation. The e-fleet platform has the scalability, capacity and flexibility to handle the administration of fleets from five cars to more than 5,000, and is accessible from anywhere in the world 24 hours per day, according to Fleet Alliance.