Ford has had a mixed sales period recently. On the one hand, its car market share has dropped dramatically and was down another percentage point in Q1 2022, while on the other, the Transit eclipsed even the best-selling car (the Vauxhall Corsa) with a bumper year. Ford’s new mantra is that the Transit Custom is Britain’s best-selling vehicle, and the company took a stellar 34.4% of the overall LCV market in 2021.
That in itself underlines just how important the commercial vehicle and van market has become in the UK, with sales accelerating during the pandemic and Ford ramping up the pressure to build on its Transit-led leadership in the sector.
Here Mandy Dean, who is director of commercial vehicles at Ford UK and joined the firm in 1995 on an undergraduate programme, discusses the booming market, the switch to electrification and the benefits of Ford Pro.
What makes CVs so appealing?
“There’s always things you can learn. Aside from the obvious movements around electrification and connected fleets, which we’ll talk more about in more detail, there’s always opportunities to create something new. When you deep-dive into the whole conversion market and think about the intricacies of that, there’s always things that we can do to help give our customers that bit more. I like that.
“There’s also something about our customer base that I just love. There's something about business-to-business transactions that is different, and which everyone at Ford does really well. Our buyers tend to be very logical people who are relying on us for the success of their business, and that really resonates with me.
“I can have customers who are buying one van at a retail outlet right up to customers buying huge fleets of them directly. We work with the two sides very differently of course, and that’s part of the fun – ensuring each is as happy as the other.”
Is the CV business substantially different from the car one?
“There are specialisms. Commercial vehicles can probably also be more technical than cars, and, with niches within niches, it pays to understand. Our Special Vehicle Services operations, for instance, know their customer base inside out.
“Beyond that, though, the skills are probably transferable between cars and CVs. The marketing and sales sides are similar, for instance, and I definitely feel that my rounded experience applies.”
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