Vehicle broker Vanaways has secured a major partnership with Veriforce CHAS, giving direct access to more than 33,000 potential business customers around the UK.
CHAS, taken over by supply chain risk management experts Veriforce a year ago, is a leading UK provider of risk prevention, compliance and supply chain services for contractors and hiring clients in construction, facilities management, the public sector and other sectors.
Since inception as a department of the London Borough of Merton, it has built a strong reputation for simplifying health and safety pre-qualification and raising standards of risk management.
The deal with Vanaways will add to the benefits for its members by offering discounted vehicle purchasing, financing and maintenance.
CHAS will promote van deals offered by Vanaways, including around electric vehicles, as well as offering each new purchaser a branded FleetPack including tailored advice, technology and safety equipment.
The three-year deal was developed by Liam Nicholas, director of business development at Vanaways, with CHAS’ new head of marketing David Turner.
It followed an introduction by Murray Ambler-Shattock of South Wales’ civil engineering firm KM Group, who is a CHAS member and a long-term customer of Mr Nicholas.
David Turner of CHAS said: “Vans are critical to our members’ livelihoods – if they can’t drive, they can’t get to their worksites – so we wondered how we could help those companies too small to have fleet managers, as well as the larger fleet owners, with buying, financing and maintaining their vehicles. With costs rising in all areas of their business, we wanted to give our members the collective buying power of a major membership base to help them get the best deal.”
He added: “We have more than 33,000 members with hundreds of thousands of vehicles across the country, so it’s great to give Vanaways this opportunity to offer our membership the benefits of bulk purchasing and independent buying. This partnership provides our members with something they wouldn’t be able to get themselves, so it benefits both parties.”
Vanaways is itself undergoing strong current growth, having moved into new offices in Ham Green near the M5 at Bristol early last year. It’s reported a dramatic rise in company turnover in 2023, while staff numbers have risen to 72 and the business is on track to deliver sales on more than 6,000 vehicles in 2024.
The company works with a vast network of suppliers across the UK, offering free delivery with a digitalised sales process which enables quick fulfilment of the customer’s fleet needs.
“Partnerships like these are going to enable Vanaways to kick on its unique offering to the next level,” said Liam Nicholas. “We really like helping smaller businesses grow and take advantage of benefits usually only available to the larger companies with bigger buying power. We’ve been on that journey ourselves so we empathise entirely.
“So this relationship with CHAS is perfect, giving tens of thousands of smaller business access to our services and offering, which can only be good for our business as well as theirs.”
