London, 15th of March.  In motoring, it all starts with turning the Key. And from today GE Fleet Services' fleet management solutions are all offered under the new product name 'KEY'. It's the start of everything our customers are wanting.

With our new key product range GE Fleet Services is launching a range of flexible fleet management solutions that meet the needs of all customers, regardless of their size or geographical spread.  

GE Fleet Services has grown from several smaller companies and acquisitions across Europe. The products that were offered prior to the Key family reflected this strong focus on the local customers in each national market. However these national markets are all evolving, and in doing so are becoming more similar, bringing the needs of local customers closer and closer together.  Furthermore, the multi-country customers one of the most important segments of the market are rightfully requiring a product offering that is genuinely consistent across Europe, not just in name but in structure.

In mid-2004, team of GE's European product experts took on the challenge of developing a new range of clear and flexible fleet management solutions, leveraging the best practices that existed in the various local markets. The result is an impressive suite of offerings that meet the needs of a range of different customer groups:

- Fleet Key
- Flex Key
- Control Key
- Key Solutions
- Online Key

"The introduction of our Key family is a big step forward. With this launch we'll be offering a broad range of flexible solution to fit any customer no matter if it is a small, medium or large, or if its needs are in France, Germany  … or pan-European" says Mary McNamara, CEO and President of GE Commercial Finance, Fleet Services Europe.

Fleet Key
The full service leasing solutions from GE Fleet Services are now covered by the new product: FLEET KEY. Fleet Key provides complete or partial outsourcing of a company's fleet management. Fleet Key allows customers to pay a set of monthly fee with no depreciation risk or disposal issues. It relieves our customers from the inherent risks associated with buying, servicing and ultimately reselling vehicles as it covers every aspect of a fleet operation. Beginning with negotiation for the best possible deals from the vehicle manufactures, our role continues by assuming all responsibility for purchasing, vehicle delivery, maintenance, accident, tire and fuel management as well as insurance and registration, culminating in the seamless disposal of the vehicle.

Flex Key
In business today the one constant is change. We can't avoid it, but we can prepare for it. And this preparation can determine whether we succeed.  Flex Key from GE Fleet Services is a product designed to protect our customers against the consequences of change. It helps eliminate surprises by making the lease rates of 91 combinations of lease duration and expected mileage visible at quote stage. Over the life of the lease, contracts can easily be adapted to reflect changes in vehicle use or drivers profile without a risk of any unexpected costs. It is a perfect solution that provides our customers with total visibility on expected costs….and true flexibility to adapt to changes.  GE Fleet Services is the first company to release a truly flexible and visible leasing solution that eliminates the surprises.

"Flex Key is a great product. It's the answer to many of the issues companies have with existing Full Service Lease products. It will give our customers true visibility and flexibility and give us a real advantage in today's market", says Björn Van den Berg, New Product Manager for GE Fleet Services in Europe.

Control Key
Operational leasing is a great solution for many companies, but not all of them. For some companies, buying the vehicle outright, or financing through a finance lease makes sense. However that choice no longer means that they miss out on many of the benefits of a full service lease.

Control Key is GE Fleet Services' outsourcing solution for customer owned fleets. It offers a wide variety of Fleet management services ranging from a fuel card to full outsourcing of all fleet management activities. The same skill set and experience used to run our full service lease products, are applied to customer owned fleet. The result is a smooth, hassle-free service that manages the buying the vehicle at the best conditions, that services the vehicle through the lifetime and that helps to dispose the vehicle at the best possible price, putting the fleet manager in perfect Control.

Key Solutions

Key Solutions delivers what it says - Solutions. We bring our global expertise and years of experience to help our customers unlock their fleets and achieve real savings.  We apply an innovative methodology and strategic mindset that uncovers the true costs and process bottlenecks in order to achieve cost savings in virtually every aspect of the fleet management process.

The Key Solutions team, trained specialists in GE's Six Sigma quality program, start by listening. Only once they understand how the customer's fleet is run today, and what changes the customer is willing to consider, can they start their work. This understanding then leads to highly specific analysis to discover the opportunities. How efficient is a company's fleet management operations? Where could it be better? What improvements can be made? How far is it from best in class? After identifying the principal areas for improvement, the team suggests pro-active savings opportunities based upon specific process improvements. And this is where others would leave it. But GE recognizes that finding the opportunity is half the battle, so the Key Solutions team can then help the customer to implement the changes, making the savings real. Problems solved.

Online Key

Our e-business solutions have been designed to help our customers to better manage every aspect of their fleet operations. With Online Key our customers can improve their productivity and better enforce their purchasing policy by having real time, up-to-date information, as well as fully digitised quotation and ordering. It also lets our customers better manage and control costs - by having a comprehensive drill-down analysis capability, immediate access to fleet life cycle costs and simulation capabilities
With Online Key customers can simplify and optimise their fleet management processes and operations.

"Every day more and more of our customers are choosing to use Online Key to better manage their fleets, with more than 1,000 of our customers across Europe now using it to order their cars. They even call it GE's 'best kept secret' as it so neatly fits their requirements", says Mary McNamara, CEO and President of GE Commercial Finance, Fleet Services Europe.