Keeping up with the Joneses

You could call it industrial spying. One of my jobs is to keep tabs on rival fleet policies, and this week I discovered what I feared most. A key company had upgraded its car choice, in effect bumping everyone from ‘mass market’ to ‘executive’.

This presents me with a huge dilemma. Either I do nothing, and risk losing staff, or spend the money and match the upgrade.

Any other firm, I wouldn’t be so worried. But this company offers exactly the same service we do, and is easily commutable for most of our staff. If the staff don’t already know, they will do after our industry conference that’s coming up. Just one sly long-distance ping of the locks from the opposition, and our guys will discover they’re motoring a lot less royally than the rivals. We aren’t status-obsessed, we really aren’t, but there’s something about a BMW that no British wage-slave can resist. My wife couldn’t pick out a Beemer in field full of Land Rovers, but for so many men and women in the UK nothing says “I’m valued” like that blue-black badge.

So this is it. Do I offer up the 320d as a replacement for the more blue-collar hatches the sales force currently pick from? First thought is no, mainly because they won’t thank me for the extra car-tax burden. A diesel 3 is the same on CO2, but the SE is near-as-dammit £25k against £18,000 for, say, the Mondeo Zetec diesel. So that’s an extra £40 a month for the top sales guys.

But seen another way, what’s £40 to someone who’s now more motivated (or, more likely, less de-motivated)? They just have to shake the money tree that bit harder with clients and lo, the extra commission takes care of that.

If the Government took into account fleet discounts in its company car tax calculations, then the gap would be too large and I wouldn’t have this problem. If I can get my Lagunas or whatever for two grand less, then what right has the Treasury to whip that extra ‘benefit’ out of the pocket of my drivers? And while I’m on a rant, why the hell are car companies assigning fantastical ‘recommended’ prices they know full well are going to be taken as reality by the Government?

So what am I going to do? I think, nothing. The bosses aren’t affected because they drive exactly what they want anyway. Even if Grouty (my MD) initially approves it, he’ll forget he did and barge into my office one month and two weeks from now, complaining he got cut up in the office car park “by a 19-year-old in a BMW” and demanding to know why we’re treating our staff “like Chelsea players”. And anyway, not all my guys will go-upmarket, and it’ll create tension between the ones that do.

So what I’ll do is this: when they notice the oppositions’ wheels I’ll just tell them that being near the top of one ladder (Ford) is better being on the bottom of another (BMW), and then run and hide at the sheer awfulness of the explanation.