AM grabbed ‘5 Minutes With’ Ludovic Troyes, UK chief executive at warranty and insurance firm Opteven, which has become a supplier to UK franchised and independent dealerships following its acquisition of WMS in 2020.
Charged with leading the business’ growth plans in UK and Ireland, Troyes brings more than 30 years of automotive experience in sales and marketing, including various past roles with Renault globally, culminating in a spell running AM100 motor retailer Renault Retail Group UK.
What attracted you to Opteven, and what excites you most about leading its UK growth strategy?
I joined Opteven in September 2023, and previously spent 30 years at Renault where I had 13 different roles in sales, marketing and retail. Leaving this group was not an easy decision but I took it for two reasons. The first one is that my first contact in Opteven was its CEO Jean-Matthieu Biseau. It is often said that the first interview is the key one, it was the case with Jean-Matthieu, who is a very considerate and personable gentleman. Secondly, I knew that my profile was the right one in order to take on this new challenge but also what was equally important was the fact that Opteven’s activities are 100% linked to the automotive and mobility industries. It is also a very ambitious business which is much more agile than an OEM. So it was the ability to drive the business in an effective manner in an industry I knew pretty well that was the key thing.
Opteven has often spoken about its focus on ‘quality’ as a core value. How do you plan to ensure product innovation aligns with this commitment?
Here in the UK, retail is a very important part of the business and is probably the most challenging one. We are working to adapt some existing European products for the UK such as proposing extended warranties for EV battery which will extend the OEM warranty. That’s a key element in order to progress in the market especially with the development of EV sales, but it’s not only a question of product, it’s also a question of developing new IT tools, new possibilities within our systems to deal with claims. AI could help us to reduce the processing time soon for instance.
This will see us go from using our WMS system which we use for sales to using our internal system which is called CarFlex. We currently manage claims and corporate subscriptions through CarFlex, but we will also be managing retail subscriptions.
As a French-headquartered business, how do you see the UK used car market differently?
Firstly, the UK car market is the largest one in Europe and since you have operated in a PCP environment for a long time, retention is much shorter so you have a lot more 3-5 year old cars available in the market. The international mix in terms of brands is not the same either – the UK has far more from which to choose and a higher share of premium brands.
Opteven said it aims to double the size of its UK activities under its Highway 25 plan. Is that still on track?
Highway 25 is a midterm strategic plan at group level and we are in the last year of the plan and we are now about to start working on Highway 30 whose key objective is to double the size of the global company, not only the UK. 2024 figures have not been disclosed, but in the UK, we have achieved all our targets in terms of growth and profitability. In the UK, we have three different activities: selling and managing claims in both retail and corporate environments through different products and teams. The third one is roadside assistance, historically a core activity, where we manage eight different UK partners when their customers are traveling on the continent.
With your extensive experience in sales and marketing at Renault, how have you applied that knowledge to Opteven’s expansion?
On the retail side, it helped me know how car dealerships drive the B2B business with their knowledge of age profile, financing, regulatory environment and the preparation of cars to be resold. Renault Retail Group has very strong, very robust processes with roughly 100 checkpoints but I believe that when you go into the small dealerships, the preparation process could be much lighter and so that provides a great opportunity to offer the end customer warranties.
There’s a very competitive market in terms of warranty provision in the UK with more than 9,000 or so used car dealers across the country, whether that means small dealers or larger franchise or independent dealer groups. Depending on which dealer target you want to prospect, you need to adapt your products, your approach and your strategy. Our 2025 strategy is to have the right product for each and every customer profile.
Can you tell us more about how Opteven differentiates itself from traditional operators in the UK market?
We have many different type of products, offering many possibilities in terms of parts covered, claim, limits, in terms of everything. Most global providers are doing roughly the same, but we differentiate in terms the way we sell it, the way we price it. Our new Flex product will be totally adjusted for the age and mileage of the car, so that will be totally new. Up until now, we have offered one warranty with one price, whatever the car profile, but Flex won’t be the same. We will however offer both options so the dealer will choose between the flat price or the mileage-adjusted price, so that’s a way we will differentiate ourselves in the market. For instance, in terms of cover levels, it will be more in line with some customer expectations and will deliver a more attractive opportunity for younger used cars, up to 5 years old.
The dealer profile will drive the car warranty profile, because the smaller the dealer, the older the average car will be. If you are a retail group, the average car in their used car stock will be probably between two and three years while if you go to small independent dealers, that will be around eight, nine years. We would also like to develop some new digital tools to help not only the sales team, but also the dealers and we are currently working on that.
What do you see as the biggest challenges for the vehicle warranty and insurance sector in the UK?
I see more opportunities than challenges. For Opteven, the priority is the quality of service whatever we sell, whatever we manage, we need to provide an excellent service to our customers. That may well be mostly in claim management, of course, but also in terms of sales, in terms of whatever the dealer or the repairer is requesting from us. We are committed to developing the right products to make sure that we are following and anticipating the market but we also deliver a high level of service, and for that, we follow the right processes, we have the right tools, and we have a wonderfully skilled staff. They do their job seriously and are really engaged in offering a excellent service to the final customer.
However, since we rebranded WMS into Opteven in summer 2023, Opteven is not yet fully recognised by everyone on the market as we are a B2B brand often working as a white label for most our customers so we need to develop brand awareness which we will work on. The new Flex product will help us achieve that.