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D E B I S F L E E T M A N A G E M E N T

2 www.southafricamag.com

debis fleet Management FEATURE

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One of the biggest headaches in fleet management is maintenance and servicing.

debis Fleet Management takes the pain away, ruari McCallion reports.

S TA R ST H R E E - P O I N T

else isn’t happy with the new tyres he got at the last service. They don’t seem to be the standard specification. And now someone else is coming in to say that it seems there are a few trucks that are overdue for service. If, like Telkom, a company has more than 19,000 vehicles on the fleet, these headaches become so commonplace that they can threaten overwhelm the company’s normal business.

Just imagine for a moment that you are an owner or finance director of a large company, such as Telkom, for example. Your core business is

telecommunications – creating, managing and maintaining the infrastructure that enables people to keep in touch with each other, for business or personal reasons, across the country and all over the world. Your time should be filled with databases, capital investment in cables, hardware, switching hubs and uninterruptible power supplies and the like. Or maybe with ensuring everything went just right in the World Cup, whether the draw or the news feeds for the thousands of journalists. Perhaps your attention is needed on revenue matters, such as customer account collection coming in and maybe salaries going out.

That’s enough to have on your plate without constantly having to turn your attention to one of your account managers, who has had an accident somewhere out in the bush. He needs a breakdown truck, transport into town and a new vehicle, in order to get him around. And wait a moment – someone



Aluwani Ramabulana, CEO, debis Fleet Management

United Auto FerryS E R V I C E E X C E L L E N C E , R I G H T O N T I M E

United Auto Ferry is a close corporation that was established in 2006. The entity is a logistics company, specialising in the transportation of commercial and passenger vehicles and fl eet management. The company is 100% black owned and seeks to benefi t from the competitiveness of the automobile industry in the country, with strong retail sales enjoyed by the sector and the vehicle manufacturing setups in the country presenting opportunities for downstream industries involved in the transportation of such vehicles. The company is owner managed by the two members and is headquartered in Jet Park, in the

East Rand, Johannesburg. The main objective of the business is to ensure satisfaction of its chosen niche markets and establishing itself as a premier service provider in the vehicle logistics industry.

THE SERVICES OFFEREDUNITED AUTO FERRY CC is a driver and transportation services solutions provider to

fl eet management, car rental and dealerships. The company’s services include outsourcing of drivers from code 08 right up to code 14.

We deliver and collect passenger vehicles, Sport Utility Vehicles (S.U.Vs), trucks and buses for delivery to destinations required by the clients and dealerships within all

areas in South Africa.

MISSION STATEMENTOur mission is to: Add value to the companies that we do business with by

rendering the highest possible standard of service. Ensuring mutual, long term relationships with our clients based on trust and insights gained

through dealing on an exclusive basis.

VALUESThe following set of values is embodied in the organisation’s service charter.l Customer service is the cornerstone of our business and cannot be compromisedl We conduct our business openly, honestly, with

transparency and integrity

CONTACT US:10 Rudo Nell Road,

Jet Park 1459P.O. Box 26727,East Rand 1462

Tel: 011 823 1468 Fax: 011 826 2299www.unitedautoferry.co.za

fast and far since the late 1980s, when it became the specialist fleet management operation of Mercedes-Benz, whose famous three-pointed star of Mercedes-Benz has been in South Africa since the 1950s. Its role, and that of its support services, have changed a lot in the last 20 years. It was in 1998 that debis Fleet Management took over control of service and maintenance for its own vehicles and those of some other companies, as well.

Okay, the scenario above is not likely to cross the financial director’s desk on a daily basis but there will be someone – or, more likely, an entire department that will spending all its time on dealing with the fleet. It isn’t the core activity but it takes up a lot of time and effort. Is there not a simpler way of dealing with it?

The short answer is a definite yes. Businesses have been sued to outsourcing non-core activities for years, now – and there is no way fleet management is a core activity for most organisations, be they in telecommunications, business systems, mining or government.

debis Fleet Management prides itself on taking away the headaches of running vehicles. It provides a single source for all aspects of management. It will schedule servicing and maintenance for a fixed monthly fee, so the corporation knows what its overheads will be, each month.

“Our core business is managing and reducing costs for our clients. We save them a lot of money – and we provide predictability,” said Aluwani Ramabulana, CEO. It has grown

Barloworld “Barloworld toyota Centurion is one of the flagship dealerships of Barloworld Motor retail.

Our brand philosophy and values attempt to ensure that every customer will have the opportunity to experience a seamless mobility solution every time.

By focusing on key aspects such as quality, excellence, efficiency and on time service delivery, we strive to keep the end customer satisfied.

We have found that relationships are built on mutual respect and transparency. In our experience both are good building blocks for successful partnerships”


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later. That company has a high profile itself, so it is worth asking why it retained the debis branding, rather than using its own when it moved into fleet management. The reason is that debis is associated with support services and had a good reputation in the marketplace. It capitalised on its customers’ familiarity with the established brand. Its core business has changed from IT and finance: 90 per cent of its activity is now on fleet maintenance and management. and it is not limited to Mercedes vehicles – which is another reason for keeping the debis name.

“debis initially ran services, such as IT and finance,” said Ramabulana. He is a chemical engineer by training and actually began his working career in the mining industry, with a diamond company. “I enjoyed that but I wanted to find a more commercial environment. So I did an MBA and joined a small consultancy company, named Blue Peter. Its founding members were all former Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) people.” He then gained experience in corporate finance with Nedbank and Absa. He joined Daimler-Benz in 2006 and became CEO two years



T E R N A T I V E !2 emissions.

mixed fleet. It may have Mercedes-Benz, Fords, Mitsubishis and other marques,” said Ramabulana. The fact that its activities are not limited to Mercedes vehicles is another reason for keeping its original name.

debis provides a single source for all aspects of management. It will schedule servicing and maintenance for a fixed monthly fee, so the corporation knows what its overheads will be, each month. “Our core

“Most of the work we do is with Mercedes-Benz (M-B) vehicles,” Ramabulana explained. “All M-B vehicles in South Africa are sold with a maintenance plan, which covers the first 90-100,000 kilometres or five years.” debis is headquartered in Johannesburg and has representative offices in each of South Africa’s provinces. While servicing is carried out by M-B dealerships, Debis manages the administration. “The individual takes the car to the dealer, who uses our database to manage the claim.” Such peace of mind is a clear advantage to the customer – but what does the dealer and M-B itself get out of it?

“We bring efficiencies,” he replied. “Management and administration are our core competences. That frees the dealers and M-B itself to focus on its core abilities and to leverage its skills.” debis’ real value-added service comes into its own when dealing with fleets – a fact that is illustrated by the photos of other vehicles on its website. A high-performance Mitsubishi Lancer, in particular, caught the eye.

“When we deal with corporate clients, we often find that we are taking over a


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developing products and packages that address these growth areas.”

Growth is the operative word. debis is 65 per cent owned by Daimler-Benz and 35 per cent by a black economic empowerment grouping and has a level 2 rating. It employs around 137 people directly and it has been expanding fast. Its current pipeline of deals will see it grow in the region of 35-40 per cent in 2010. That growth is coming through expansion in the market itself and by the company’s ability to increase its share.

“One big deal we won was part of the World Cup. It involved leasing of vehicles and was pretty big – R138 million in one payment,” he said. These huge deals are very welcome but the World Cup happens only every four years and it isn’t likely to be in South Africa again for a couple of decades, at least. Ramabulana

business is managing and reducing costs for our clients. We save them a lot of money – and we provide predictability.”

A large and increasing proportion of debis’ R700 million annual revenues comes from managing commercial and municipal fleets. It has a total of 150,000 vehicles under management, of which 13,000 and rising are on full fleet management contracts. Demand for those services is high and growing.

“We serve a mix of public and private sector customers,” he continued. “The government has prioritised improvement of public sanitation, water and waste infrastructure.” Achieving that requires a lot of trucks, and they don’t come cheap. “Instead of buying a fleet of waste compactors outright, which is expensive and requires a lot of management, municipalities can lease them. We are


Vehicle refurbishment included.

Wishing Debis Fleet Management manymore miles of success in the future.

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funded by them and we are able to go to the market and issue bonds,” he explained. With a strong name like Daimler-Benz behind them, the bonds find willing buyers. “In fact, the credit crunch has worked in our favour; we find ourselves better-placed than many of our competitors. The cost of funding went up but we can still get money. We actually won a deal from a competitor in the Eastern Cape, because we could raise finance and the competitor could not.”

debis invests heavily in training and skills improvement, and not just under its own roof. Its strategy for corporate social responsibility includes initiatives to improve literacy in the communities, especially in rural areas. Rally to READ brings together debis, READ Education Trust and the Financial Mail to address under-developed, under-resourced and inaccessible schools and seek to ensure that their teaching programmes are on par with the most advantaged schools in the country. Its Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme seeks to address soaring unemployment by helping young people to become self-employed by helping with training and gaining vital experience. It was successfully piloted in Gauteng in 2002 and has now trained over 450 unemployed youth, some of whom have gone on to become preferred suppliers to debis itself, the taxi Industry and government. It is involved with dealer programmes, from junior employees to middle management, and offers a lot of tailor-made courses.

“A lot of our intervention is to upskill our own employees. We are working in a specialist market and it is difficult to find people with the right skills,” Ramabulana explained. But debis has some things going for it that help to attract the right potential. “We work on improving our working environment as a means of retaining people. We offer company car programmes, which is a recruitment and retention tool. Our motto is that we are a ‘great place to work’.” It is also a great company to do business with. eND

agreed, but there are other pressures and influences around. “We have just won another contract for waste compactors for a big municipality. It is for R250 million in asset value; we amortise that and turn it into a monthly leasing payment.”

debis’ largest single customer is Telkom, for which it provides end-to-end fleet management. In doing so, it has had to develop skills and expertise that have made it a global centre of excellence for the entire Daimler-Benz corporation. There will continue to be a lot of growth in municipal business

in the medium term, as the cities grow and the services they need so desperately are provided. So the World Cup business is icing on an expanding cake, rather than anticipated repeat business. However, the rest of the world has seen credit availability squeezed extremely tightly over the past few years and South Africa is no different. So how has debis escaped the consequences?

“We are affected but we have a strong parent company, in Daimler-Benz. We are



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