Electricity North West increases fuel spending control with Allstar One
Electricity North West is the power network operator for the North West of England, with a network that connects communities and helps keep the electricity flowing every minute of every day.
Regulated by Ofgem, it is responsible for maintaining and upgrading 13,000 km of overhead power lines and over 44,000 km of underground electricity cables. The company’s various collective assets include a fleet size of 150 commercial vehicles and approximately 300 company cars.
The challenge
Electricity North West was looking for a solution that could guarantee both control and flexibility for fuel spending. Last year, the company launched a strategic pilot to replace cards by ensuring optimisation of fuel cards through discount diesel and supermarket chains. Traditionally, the cards were all vehicle registration-based but the trial transitioned to driver name-based cards. This move has demonstrated how Allstar Business Solutions can provide a solution that works across the organisation, by addressing three main challenges:
- Cost management: with fuel costs accounting for a significant proportion of the fleet’s total operating costs, Electricity North West needed a comprehensive tool not only to better understand drivers’ fuel spending behaviour, but also address the need for higher accountability and responsibility
- Addressing flexibility and convenience: against the backdrop of the pandemic and lockdown measures bringing about a series of branded fuel stations to close and more unmanned supermarkets to open, the organisation acknowledged the importance of having access to a multi-branded network
- Preventing fuel card fraud and security risks, as these actions can take a heavy toll on the company’s bottom line.
The solution
As a key supplier to Electricity North West, Allstar Business Solutions has been a reliable business partner for years, as part of a continuous joint effort to encourage fleet managers to get firmly on track with fuel cost management.
Electricity North West has been using Allstar One card for some time, but it was previously designed around vehicle-specific cards with a supplementary plug (?) [aa1] card. As part of the strategic pilot which started last year, the company focused on one specific part of the business and thus started to replace all 1000 vehicle-specific fuel cards with driver-specific fuel cards. As a result, there are now 750 Allstar One active cards and a handful of Allstar EV Cards.
Key benefits and result
The smooth implementation coupled with the provision and seamless control of cards over the summer in spite of the pandemic have been key success factors.
Inevitably, the swift transition brought about immediate benefits, including substantial savings on fuel, with better visibility and control over spending and more efficient procedures when it came to refuelling, in order to make drivers accountable for purchases and thereby minimising the need for drivers to deviate off route to refuel.
By bringing its vast expertise in fuel cost management, Allstar offered the ideal combination of flexibility and control that would best suit the organisation’s unique financial and operational needs, by making drivers' fuel use more efficient and ensuring higher transparency into spending.
Electricity North West is currently making the best of the Allstar One card by maximising the use of supermarket brands and discount diesel locations as the most cost-effective options. Furthermore, Electricity North West acknowledges the importance of benefitting from the full Allstar network, enabling drivers to achieve savings and not limiting their choices in terms of route deviations needed for fuel fill-up.
Driver education in terms of costs also represents a key strategic element, with significant impact on the fleet’s total fuel use, which will enable Electricity North West to reach its business target and save over GBP 80.000 on fuel expenditure by introducing efficiencies.
Cards usage
2019 fuel drawn – 1.6 million litres in an average year
In Q2 2020 and despite the lockdown, volumes dropped only slightly by 30,000 litres, representing a 10% decline.
Quote: “Although generally considered a major expense for a fleet, fuel and fuel costs are a constant challenge from a strategic perspective. However, in our view, accurate fuel monitoring and control will always represent the Holy Grail of fleet strategy and management. ” - Pat
One of the long-lasting benefits of the partnership with Allstar is embracing upcoming changes towards EV. In the near future, Allstar aims to support Electricity North West during this transition by supporting their company car fleet and commercial fleet.
How can Allstar help your business? Call us on 0345 266 5101
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