Over 170 members and guests attended the event, which took place at the Henry Ford College, Loughborough, on 25 November and was hosted by Ford Motor Company and co-sponsored by FMG. Support conference partners were Enterprise Rent-A-Car, British Car Auctions and Alphabet.

The sponsors’ welcome saw Phil Hollins, fleet director, Ford of Britain provide an informative insight into recent and forthcoming new car launches as well as technological developments including City Stop and Perpendicular Parking while Andrew Cope, executive chairman of FMG got delegates in the mood for the panel discussion by sharing his thoughts on the digital revolution.

During the “in-dialogue" session, moderated by Peter Eldridge, the expert panel covered subjects including technology and big data.

After lunch, Tiff Needell proved an amusing guest speaker with his many anecdotes of life in F1 and sports cars not to mention TV work. He also presented the 2014 ICFM awards.

Rounding off the packed programme, keynote speaker Hugh Dickerson, senior industry head automotive at Google, gave an interesting and informative insight into the rapid developments in technology and social media and their application in the retail and automotive sector plus an overview of Google’s autonomous vehicle testing programme, which has seen its test cars cover over 700,000 accident-free miles. He reminded the audience that, in terms of technology, ‘today is the slowest day for the rest of our lives.’

Newly elected chairman of the ICFM, Paul Hollick declared: ‘This year’s conference was the best yet and the autonomous vehicles theme proved thought provoking for the delegates who attended. From the panel session to Hugh Dickerson’s keynote speech, there was much for them to take away and consider for future fleet policy. Our guest speaker Tiff Needell proved an entertaining draw and took pleasure in presenting the awards to trainees. In the past year, training has increased by around 30 per cent. And our thanks went to our outgoing chairman Roddy Graham who has significantly helped elevate our profile over the past eight years. As always, the ICFM definitely delivered on its motto of raising the fleet standard.’