Guest Blog

ICDP was recently invited by the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) to facilitate a workshop with their members on the subject of meeting the so-called ZEV Mandate in the UK.  This is legislation specific to the UK which mandates a given percentage of sales of zero electric vehicles (ZEVs), which in practice means battery electric vehicles (BEVs) between ...

We spend a lot of time talking about customer data, personalised marketing and the potential of AI.  From our point of view looking at the motor industry, we see the opportunity to reduce cost of distribution and grow ancillary revenues by working the customer database harder, and coming up with marketing communications that feel very personal, give the client a ...

I have read and heard quite a lot of comment recently about the challenges that the Chinese new entrant brands (with the notable exception of MG) are having in getting sales traction in Europe. Dealers are signing up to the available franchises, but then not rushing to actually open the showrooms or move from a temporary multi-brand site to a ...

It seems a long time since the holiday break…  We’re already more than half way through the first month, and in the UK there are Easter eggs in the shops.  The first couple weeks back have been pretty action-packed with a mix of research and consultancy activity, but across all of that one of the common themes that has emerged ...

This year has had its own challenges, used car values increased, substantially, in many cases and a shortage of good used cars made it difficult to restock. EV values have been hit hard and we decided to reduce the number of EV stock until the market volatility has been understood more fully. Full electric new car sales seem to be ...

As my first blog of 2024, then the first priority has to be to wish everyone a happy new year!  I managed to squeeze in a longer break, only returning to work on Monday, but I am sure that many of you share the feeling that it seems a long time since the holiday already.  For many, operationally, it’s back ...

It’s been a particularly hectic time running up to the holiday period, and this will be my last blog until somewhere around January 8th.  We all want to be busy, so I’m not complaining, but we also want to make sure that our efforts are productive – that we’re not being busy fools.  That neatly connects to a couple things ...

A few months ago, I received a call from the National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), which is part of MI5, asking if there was a way that we could assist in improving business security generally, using the motor industry as a pilot the learnings from which could be rolled out across other sectors. Their mission is to build resilience to ...

In the course of the typical week, I have multiple conversations, meeting and presentations with different people from across the industry and sometimes it’s difficult to keep track of what you’ve discussed with whom, what’s ended up in different presentations and articles.  I had that feeling thinking about the blog topic for this week when I was sure that I ...

Again, my blog for this week is a bit late as amongst other things I have been supporting my colleague, Gareth Arnould, in the mammoth task of producing the latest version of our European Car Distribution Handbook. This has been published annually since 2007 and is the only publication that quantifies the size of manufacturer sales and service networks across ...