1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your professional journey before TFM?
I started my career in fleet as a sales cadet back in 2011, where I progressed through the roles of Salesperson, Account Manager, and finally, a Fleet Sales Manager at a Dealership in Melbourne where I stayed for 7 years.
Following this, I moved back closer to family in Brisbane to work for the family café/supermarket business for around a year, before moving around a couple of Brisbane Dealerships and coming to work for Toyota Fleet Management (TFM).
Within TFM I held the role of sales support for around 4 months before taking a promotion to a Relationship Manager for the next 3 years, managing a portfolio of around 70 corporate customers, growing my portfolio from ~$70m to $150m across the 3 years.
That led me to where I have been working now in the Fleet Dealership Manager role for the last 2 years, partnering with the Dealer Network to provide small fleet solutions in the SME space, whilst also maximising TFM’s presence and contribution to the Dealer Network in corporate and day to day operational activities.
2. What has been the greatest achievement to date in your role?
One of the greatest achievements in the FDM role would be the work I have done in partnering with TMCA in our region to maximise the off-lease purchase opportunities from TFM back to our Toyota Dealers – this initiative has been such a regional success that we are now looking to roll it out nationally.
I have had a very hands-on approach when it comes to training and coaching & supporting the Northern Region Dealer Network, including regional breakfast / lunch & learns. These sessions aimed to give all participants a better understanding of TFM’s value chain funding products – Complete Lease & Maintained Chattel Mortgage.
This has seen us have great success in the Northern Region with a 45% increase YoY for the Complete Lease product alone.
3. Over the course of the next year, what are you most looking forward to implementing?
Working on Project Unify to better align TFM’s offering with TFS and our dealer distribution channel, to become a unified TFA partnership with our dealers. The changes that come from this project will mean the right customer is getting into the right funding product at the right time, whilst also resulting in a wider and fairer remuneration structure for our Dealer Network.
4. What is the greatest advice you have received in life?
My first boss within the car industry and longstanding mentor told me, “Never stop learning, and to share your learnings with your teammates so they can grow with you”
5. Outside of work, what are your other hobbies and interests?
When I’m not working, my key interests would have to be travelling, helping my family out with their business, spending time with friends, and continuing to develop my skills in IT.
With the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, TFM are excited to have launched their new Dealer of the Year Awards. Once again, Toyota Dealerships nationally will have the opportunity to compete for the title of ‘Dealer of the Year’ within their respective region for both rural and metro areas. This award embodies the key drivers for excellence within the areas of large business acquisition, SME (Small Medium Enterprise) business generation as well as operational efficiency in administration.
This year TFM has made further improvements to the point scoring categories including:
NEW metric – Full-Service Lease contracts written (10 points)
SME customer win – credit facility required increased to $300k to align with TFM’s new fast speed credit application process (50 points)
NEW metric – TFM dealer survey response (50 points)
For full details regarding the 2024 Dealer of the Year Awards, please refer to the official program brochure here
All winners of the 2023 awards will be announced at the upcoming regional dinner events throughout March and April.
With over 300k SME sales annually, the opportunity to grow our SME portfolio is significant, especially with the engagement through our dealer network through our product range and our dealer support. From those 300k SME sales, Toyota sold over 56k in the Bronze/ Silver segment, with TFA financing over 17000 of those sold units in the same segment in 2022 and that number will be similar in 2023. Based on those numbers alone, it is evident that this presents us with an opportunity, hence the additional focus for this year.
Chris Baillie and Garry Stride have been working feverishly over the past 6 months on our Unify project increasing support and improving functionality to capture this SME opportunity.
Effectively, we have 4 root causes that impact our position in the SME market.
• Finance Share calculation
• Dealer Remuneration
• Imbalance of Lending and Operational resources impacting operational decision making & response rates
• Poor ‘end-to-end’ origination system currently in place
We will see some quick wins along the way to help support the necessary changes required to support SMEs, whilst other actions will take some time to implement. Effectively, we are looking at the following activities to support our dealer network in growing this segment in your respective PMAs:
• Review finance share calculations to be inclusive of SME customers through the TFM product suite.
• Equalise dealer remuneration to align better with TFS Retail remuneration. This will include reviewing fee structure amongst other initiatives to support our network.
• Ensure our operations team has adequate resources to meet our decisioning SLA’s and align with our retail response rates.
• Enable our Dealership Business Managers to replicate TFM quoting and application functionality using Quantum and ultimately have one ‘end-to-end’ origination system.
The end game is to ensure the customer is provided the correct finance product for their needs whilst supporting the Toyota value chain proposition.
You will be pleased to know we are close to completing a couple of the actions we have been working through by way of reviewing our finance share methodology & calculation, along with a change to our SBC team that will enable the necessary support required to improve our efficiencies & effectiveness when responding to quotes and applications. As we progress through a sizable number of actions, we will update the network with our progress where possible.
The 2023 Toyota 4 Business Professionals Program has officially concluded wrapping up in December, with exciting changes coming to the dealer network in 2024. Based on the feedback you provided to your TMCA & TFM account management team, improvements have been made to the mandatory training and scope of the required.
To reduce the time required of dealers to complete their mandatory training, TFM has re-designed its module to better reflect the greatest opportunity for TFM and its dealers within the SME space via an online learning platform. The new ‘TFA Operating Lease (FSL/CompleteLease)’ training course will be available on the TRC website creating greater alignment between TFM & TMCA and can be completed at the leisure of each Dealership.
Dealers will now also be required to have an ‘SME Customer Strategy’ in place to greater capitalise on this SME market opportunity, which will be developed in collaboration with their TFM Fleet Dealer Manager.
With regards to the bonus TFM KPI’s, changes have also been made to the qty required from each weight group as well as introducing a NEW KPI of SBC quotes processes through Dealer Online. In 2024, any business written from January 1st will also count towards a Dealers KPI target, regardless of the T4BP program start date.
For all details relating to the T4BP program, please refer to the attached brochure here.
In response to dealers feedback on TFM’s credit application turnaround time, the SME Matrix Assessment Process was launched in July 2023. This new process applied to applications with a credit facility equal to or less than $300k and was aimed at our dealers and SME customers, a significantly growing market.
In additional this, we created a ‘Dealer only’ dedicated email box to increase focus on our dealer network quotes and applications sbc.dealer@tfal.com.au
We are pleased to announce that new applications coming through this method are now experiencing same day decision making granted all required information has been provided, a significant improvement from our historical processing time of MISSING CONTENT
This is just one of the many initiatives being undertaken by TFM to provide our dealers and SME customers with greater customer service and ease of doing business. If you have any further questions regarding this process, please contact your regional Fleet Dealer Manager.
Throughout September to December, TFM in conjunction with AutoFlip and selected dealers completed a pilot focusing on its end of lease vehicle purchasing.
This pilot looked to improve TFM’s existing processes and provide greater insights into value chain opportunities for our Dealer Network, keeping business within the Toyota Ecosystem.
Dealerships involved in this pilot were provided with end of lease vehicles to test individual and systems capability to inspect, detail, photograph, and upload onto the AutoFlip auction platform.
TFM is continuing to work closely with AutoFlip to document and improve on insights and feedback received, whilst ensuring that attractive dealer incentives are kept front of mind.
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