So today is officially my final day employed by Renault UK. Thanks to some pre-booked holiday, my last day in the office was actually last week and I’m currently sitting in the sunshine in Ibiza.
I’ve spent the last nine years at Renault UK, joining on a graduate scheme in September 2005. After the first year spent touring departments on three-month placements, I settled into the fleet department for four and a half years of invaluable commercial experience.
I delved into commercial planning, reporting and analysis – as well as the complex, but crucial for market share, Motability channel – before taking up a role as Corporate Account Manager.
The CAM role introduced me to the world of sales, client management, prospecting and much more. I learnt a lot during this time. I was responsible for developing sales to customers whose fleets of vehicles were at least 200 vehicles in size, across a territory that grew over time and by the end of my tenure, stretched from Norwich to Brighton and included much of London.
It was a tough time. Renault’s market share had dropped in the UK and there was pressure from above (premium brands with their strong residual values entering segments of the market where they hadn’t previously been present) and below (the Korean brands in particular keen to push the benefits of their low-CO2 hatches and their long warranties).
This was a role that taught me about the importance of relationships in business. The challenge was to grasp enough about a fleet manager’s requirements from short, infrequent meetings to be able to make the right proposals at the right time. Product and price were important, of course, but so was an affective relationship with the decision maker.
Working closely with the Renault dealer network, who played an important role in supplying vehicles to major fleet customers, there were some great successes – particularly pleasing were new business wins for a major electrical wholesaler and a charity consortium, while developing an existing relationship with a nationwide tyre wholesaler, despite a few product issues, was also extremely satisfying.
A brief stint back in the office within the fleet department gave me my first line management experience, before the opportunity that I didn’t know I had been waiting for came along.