'Management over price': SK Rent-a-Car expands tailored consulting for corporate fleets

Survey of 465 companies' corporate vehicle managers and users

Only 7.5% cite low rental fees as top priority

85.6% say integrated management would boost efficiency by 10% or more

Automated logbooks, on-site maintenance and accident handling among proposals

SK Rent-a-Car's Jeju branch [SK Rent-a-Car]

More than eight in 10 companies using rental or leased corporate vehicles said they would switch providers when their current contracts expire — yet fewer than one in 10 said low rental fees were their top priority when choosing a provider.

The findings suggest that reducing the day-to-day administrative burden of running a corporate fleet — logbook management, maintenance coordination and accident handling — has become a more decisive factor for corporate customers than vehicle price.

SK Rent-a-Car released the results Friday from a survey of 465 domestic companies conducted jointly with Remember & Company, a business networking service.

The online survey was conducted among Remember members from June 16 to June 22. Respondents were split between fleet administrators handling vehicle management and paperwork, who made up 41.9% of participants, and drivers who operate the vehicles directly, who accounted for 58.1%.

Among companies using rental or leased vehicles, 84% said they intended to switch providers when their current contracts end.

Particularly striking was the finding that only 7.5% of respondents named "low rental fees" as their most important selection criterion — the lowest figure among all categories surveyed. By contrast, 85.6% said introducing an integrated service that handles both vehicle management and related administrative tasks would improve work efficiency by 10 percent or more.

SK Rent-a-Car announced Friday it will expand its tailored mobility solution business, which diagnoses corporate customers' fleet operations, identifies problem areas, and proposes customized combinations of products and services. [SK Rent-a-Car]

Building on the survey results, SK Rent-a-Car said it will expand a consulting service in which its staff visit corporate clients directly, analyze fleet size, driving patterns and administrative workloads, and propose customized service packages for each company.

Logbook management emerged as the single biggest administrative burden for corporate fleet operators. Among fleet administrators who took part in the survey, 75.4% said they spend more than three hours a month on paperwork such as compiling logbooks and verifying receipts.

Some 70% of the staff handling these tasks were at the deputy general manager level or above. Only 22.6% of respondents said their companies accurately distinguish between business and personal use of corporate vehicles.

SK Rent-a-Car said its integrated fleet management system, Smart Link, can ease this workload. A device installed in each vehicle collects driving data, automatically generates logbooks and formats them for submission to the National Tax Service.

Document management — including vehicle registration certificates and contracts — as well as traffic fine checks can be handled through Smart Care Biz, the company's dedicated app for corporate customers.

Maintenance-related disruptions also registered as a significant burden. Some 64.8% of respondents said vehicle problems had caused scheduling disruptions in the past year. Among sales staff in particular, 72% said they had personally visited a repair shop and waited while their vehicle was serviced.

In response, SK Rent-a-Car offers on-site maintenance, sending technicians directly to a client's workplace. Even when the survey asked about preferred features without disclosing the service brand, 58.5% of respondents said they preferred on-site maintenance.

Preference for "one-stop accident service" — covering everything from initial reporting through repairs and provision of a replacement vehicle — stood at 64.1%. An emergency mobile charging service that dispatches a technician to the scene when an electric vehicle battery runs flat drew a 62.6% preference rating.

Companies that own their vehicles outright also reported heavy management burdens. The most commonly cited cost of running a company-owned fleet was "wasted internal staff resources," named by 38.9% of respondents — higher than the 30.5% who cited losses from depreciation and disposal.

Among companies operating their own vehicles, 75.9% said they had experienced work disruptions due to vehicle problems in the past year, above the overall survey average.

SK Rent-a-Car said it also proposes new and used long-term rental options depending on a company's asset management policy — including arrangements where a company uses a vehicle for a set period and then chooses to purchase or return it at contract expiry, or opts for a long-term used-vehicle rental to reduce upfront costs.

SK Rent-a-Car has been stepping up investment in digital fleet management and its used-vehicle business. In roughly two years since the launch of the Affinity Equity Partners-led management structure, the company invested 134.3 billion won ($98.8 million) in areas including the acquisition and refurbishment of the Cheonan Auto Arena and IT systems. Of that total, 19.5 billion won went toward vehicle management solutions including Smart Link and IT system improvements.

Smart Link is a corporate fleet management system SK Rent-a-Car developed in-house in 2016. Using a dedicated onboard device, it collects and analyzes roughly 10,000 types of driving data to manage vehicle locations and trip records, and is used for fleet monitoring and car-sharing by companies operating multiple vehicles.

"A significant portion of the costs generated by corporate vehicles arise not from the quoted price but from outside it — and the reality is that companies often cannot even gauge the scale of those hidden costs internally," an SK Rent-a-Car official said. "We will draw on 38 years of fleet management expertise built since 1988, and on the industry's broadest product lineup, to propose customized fleet operating solutions for each customer."

kwater@heraldcorp.com