Buy or lease a new minibus?
This is a sample of how Business Intelligence can contribute to your incoming operations.
Premises and Business Questions
Patricia owns and manages a DMC in Cancun. Her operations are thriving, transfers volume looks good, seems it’s going to be yet another great season. Patricia’s considering to increase her fleet with a new vehicle, rather than buying seats from competitors when her units are fully booked. But…
•How can she find out if an acquisition is really a good move?
•Which type of vehicle should she opt for?
•Better to buy or lease?
Data will help Patricia take a confident decision. Here’s how to do it with REVVA…
Quick, visual version
Detailed version
Instinct or data? This time Patricia opted for a data-driven approach, so REVVA combined:
- Internal data sources: Bookings (online & offline), searches (online) – Dummy or masked data
- External data sources – Real data from:
- Arrivals at CUN airport (historical & expected) – Ministry of Tourism
- Vehicle cost structure, drivers salaries – Ministry of Industry
- Gas Price evolution and trends – Globalpetrolprices.com
- Retail transfer pricing for CUN – Rate comparison system
- Vehicle current pricing – Local dealers
Please note this is a simplistic model! For instructional purposes, we just analysed current arrival trends, bookings and searches data, profit ratios and costs. Bear in mind that although bookings data are fictitious, the rest of the data is real and current (official sources from Mexico & Quintana Roo state) as of March 2018.
Patricia’s main target markets are pictured above, Official as well as internal data tells us that arrivals will keep a positive trend for the next 2 seasons.
Main customers brought more business than ever last year; however, due to several reasons, profit forecasted seem too variable in the near future. Better to exercise caution.
Costs factors won’t be significantly altered this season in general, but the predicted increase in arrivals will shoot maintenance costs upwards (obviously). Considering that the most used type of vehicle is a 20 seater and based on 2-year revenue/profit forecast, it is established that a lease is the best option (unless for some reason -maybe taxes- Patricia needs to increase capital). After investigation among local dealers, given average prices for second-hand units with low mileage, a good alternative is found, and a lease calculator can be included in the dashboard, in order to simulate monthly payments.
Recommendations
- Wait 2-3 months to verify profit trends, then LEASE a vehicle with a monthly payment of 800U$
- Increase your high season transfer rates (How much, you ask? That requires a different analysis)
- Go to the beach and enjoy, Patricia!
Do you want to try a case study with your own REAL data? Get in touch now >>
Thanks for reading!
Marcelo Bresin