Audi wants its dealers to put extra focus on targeting their local small businesses.

The prestige brand sees the decline in contract hire brokers, who traditionally handled this business, as an opportunity for the network to exploit.

“We don’t sell as well as we could in this market,” said Iain Carmichael, head of Audi fleet sales.

That is despite having 96 showroom-based local business development managers (LBDM), which are all employed by dealers.

Carmichael said this year they should sell 9,000 cars into local business fleets, up from 8,200 last year.

He said this 10% growth pattern should be sustained.

“We see the LBDMs as the Audi brokers but not multi-brand. And this is where we see growth opportunity.”