Fleet Alliance appoints Mark Roberts as salary sacrifice product manager

Glasgow-based vehicle funding and fleet management specialist, Fleet Alliance, has appointed Mark Roberts to the newly-created position of salary sacrifice product manager.

Roberts joins the business from Zenith Intelligent Vehicle Solutions where he was most recently customer relationship director responsible for both corporate and salary sacrifice sales having worked with them for seven years.

“Salary sacrifice is a great way of helping customers transition to affordable electric vehicles, as over the next eight years the government will phase out ICE vehicles. At Fleet Alliance, we will help them make the change not only to a different type of vehicle but also a different way to fund their next car,” he said.

“Our main focus will be the SME sector, where many of the larger players don’t want to play, as we will provide customers with the tools to research and obtain quotes for EVs, for which there is an ever-growing depth of choice from the manufacturers. As an all-inclusive package, once you’ve picked a car, you just need to charge and go.

“Our USP will be the level of help and support we provide customers in the critical order to delivery phase to help them make the transition to an EV as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

“There is a huge level of demand out there currently as many companies realise the savings in tax and national insurance that can be made and recognise that salary sacrifice is a great incentive to aid recruitment and retention,” he added.

Of particular value to SMEs

The appointment is being seen as an indication of the importance with which Fleet Alliance views salary sacrifice in its future expansion plans, following the product’s launch to the market in late summer this year.

Then, the company said its new salary sacrifice scheme would allow small and medium-sized businesses to offer their employees zero-emission electric cars at highly attractive rates while cutting their carbon footprint and better managing their grey fleet risk.

While the new scheme is available to fleets of all sizes, Fleet Alliance believes it offers particular value to SMEs who may not necessarily be aware of the benefits of this type of arrangement.

The scheme is an ideal way to provide employees who would not normally qualify for a company car – or those who have opted out in favour of a cash allowance – with ready, cost-effective access to fully maintained, zero-emission vehicles at no extra cost to the business.

It delivers significant cost savings due to Fleet Alliance’s multi-bid funding solution, which employs competitive tendering amongst a panel of funders to ensure the maximum value is delivered to employer and employee by selecting the lowest cost – a facility not normally available to smaller businesses.

The new scheme also offers employers complete freedom to tailor the lifestyle protection typically associated with salary sacrifice to their own circumstances, which reduces costs yet further enabling them to deliver greater savings to their employees.

Andy Bruce, CEO at Fleet Alliance, which manages in excess of 30,000 vehicles, welcomed Mark Roberts to the business.

“We see Mark’s appointment as being pivotal in our development plans for our salary sacrifice solution, which we believe is perfectly positioned to capitalise on what is an extremely advantageous tax environment for electric cars. This currently offers considerable advantages for corporate buyers with Benefit-in-Kind tax rates as low as 1% currently, rising to 2% from April until April 2025.

“We are seeing a huge number of enquiries from businesses that are not currently customers who want more information about salary sacrifice and the opportunities that exist. They may still operate company cars but want help in making electric vehicles available to a wider cross-section of employees.

“This is at the heart of our core competence and will be hugely important for us and our growth ambitions going forward,” he said.