Carnmoor Fleet Leasing / BG-Demo – Proposal
Callcompleted
Carnmoor Fleet Leasing · 2 Oct 2025 09:45
Proposal call with Gemma Thorne and finance director Ian Prendergast. Ian wants annual and one-off lines split and the renewal price in the order form. Expected close is Tue 18 Nov 2025, not guaranteed.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Proposal call with Gemma Thorne and finance director Ian Prendergast. Ian wants annual and one-off lines split and the renewal price in the order form. Expected close is Tue 18 Nov 2025, not guaranteed.
What happened: Sophie Ling said the £54k proposal figure is the deal total, not the annual subscription. Ian said he cannot take a total to the board without knowing year two.
Customer view: Ian wants the renewal price stated as a figure in the executed order form. He accepted that Growth credits availability, not freshness, as a line item to understand rather than a deal breaker.
Commercial: Scope is Growth for three teams. Sophie owes a split proposal, renewal price, connector commitment wording, a service levels note and a helpdesk list.
Watch: Ian called the close realistic but not guaranteed, pending the split proposal and security answers. Snowflake compute cost sits outside the proposal.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Growth proposal, year-two price
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Sophie Ling to send a revised proposal splitting annual and one-off lines, with the renewal price stated.
- Sophie Ling to send the connector commitment wording and a short service levels note.
- Amara to contact Ian Prendergast next week about Snowflake cost.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The proposal total of £53,800 is unclear on annual versus one-off, and year-two cost is unstated.
- Ian wants the renewal price fixed in the order form before signing.
- Snowflake compute cost and security questionnaire answers are open before a decision.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Account managers are asking for access, a sign of adoption pull.
- Spare connectors and a possible tier above for freshness credit could support a later upgrade.
Transcript
Sophie LingMorning, Gemma. Can you hear me all right? I've got the little bar jumping, so I think the recording's started.
Gemma ThorneMorning, Sophie. Yes, loud and clear. Sorry, give me a second, I've got a client review pack open and I'm trying to close about six tabs.- Sophie LingNo rush at all. Is that for one of the big corporate fleets?
- Gemma ThorneIt is, yes. Review on Monday, and I'm rebuilding the picture by hand again. Fleet changes from one system, service desk contacts from another, invoice queries from a third. Which is rather why we're all here, isn't it.
- Sophie LingHa, it does make the case for me, doesn't it. Is Ian joining?
- Gemma ThorneHe should be, he said he'd be on at quarter to. Oh, there he is.
Ian PrendergastGood morning. Apologies, I was finishing a call with our funders. Am I audible?- Sophie LingPerfectly, Ian. Morning. Thanks for making time.
- Ian PrendergastNot at all. Before we start, I'd like to understand what has changed since the last version of the proposal. I read it again last night and I'd rather not assume.
- Sophie LingFair question. Three things, really. Scope is still Growth, still the three teams Gemma described: the corporate account managers, the driver service desk and remarketing. What's changed is that I've tidied the connector list so it matches what Gemma and I talked through, and I've put the implementation plan in as its own section rather than a paragraph.
- Ian PrendergastAnd the number?
- Sophie LingThe number on the proposal is £53,800. That's the total value of the deal.
- Ian PrendergastTotal of what, precisely? Is that annual?
- Sophie LingNot the annual subscription on its own, no. It's the deal total, and the one-off implementation sits alongside the subscription in the way the proposal is built. I take your point though, it isn't clear enough on the page. I'll send a version that splits the lines so you can see what's annual and what's one-off.
- Ian PrendergastYes. I'd need that. I'm not going to put a total in front of the board and then be asked what we pay in year two.
- Gemma ThorneThat's the bit I'd want too, honestly. Ian, it's the same thing you said about the last supplier. Nobody could tell us what the second year looked like.
- Ian PrendergastQuite. Sophie, what does that cost per vehicle, in your view? Roughly.
- Sophie LingHonestly I'd rather you did that sum than I did, because it depends which fleet number you want to divide by. Contracted vehicles, managed vehicles, vehicles with open queries. They're all different. What I can say is the price isn't driven by vehicle count at all. It's driven by the tier, so teams, users and connectors.
- Ian PrendergastHm. That's a better answer than a made-up one. I'll do it myself against the fleet on the books.
- Gemma ThorneCan I come in on the practical side? Because I think I'd get lost if we only talk about money for half an hour.
- Sophie LingPlease, yes. That's what the call's for.
- Gemma ThorneSo what I keep coming back to is what the client actually sees. When a corporate customer rings the service desk about a vehicle off the road, and then their account manager walks into a review two weeks later, those two people need to be holding the same facts. Today they aren't.
- Sophie LingRight, and that's the core of it. The brain sits across the CRM, the helpdesk, the accounting system and your shared documents, and it's built inside your own Snowflake account. So the account manager asks something like, what has this client raised in the last quarter and what have we invoiced them, and gets one answer with the sources behind it.
- Gemma ThorneAnd it shows where the answer came from? Because I won't hand a client a report I haven't seen the working for.
- Sophie LingIt does. Every answer links back to the records. That was the thing people noticed most in the demo on your own data, if you remember.
- Gemma ThorneI do. The invoice queries one. Which client, which fleet, and it just pulled it. My team went quiet.
- Ian PrendergastCan I ask about Snowflake? You said inside our account. Who owns that on our side, and what do we carry as a cost?
- Sophie LingIt would be whoever in your IT team looks after your Snowflake account. They'd give us the access during implementation, and the compute the brain uses runs in your account, so it shows on your Snowflake bill rather than ours. For a business your size it's usually modest, but I won't put a figure on it, because it depends on how often people are asking and how much is refreshed.
- Ian PrendergastSo there is a cost outside the proposal.
- Sophie LingYes. I'd rather say that now than have you find it in a month's bill. Amara, who'd be your customer success manager, can walk your IT lead through what to expect so it's an estimate you can plan against.
- Ian PrendergastGood. I'd want that before signing, not after.
- Gemma ThorneLet's get the service desk in on this too. Because they're the ones who'll feel it first. They're the ones who'll say, hang on, that ticket history is wrong.
- Sophie LingAgreed, and I'd welcome that. The helpdesk is the connector where I'd want the service desk lead in the room, because the way tickets are categorised will decide how useful the answers are.
- Gemma ThorneShe's good, she'll tell you straight. I'll set up half an hour.
- Sophie LingLovely. Do you want me to prepare anything for it, or just turn up?
- Gemma ThorneA list of what you'd pull from the helpdesk would help. Just so she can say yes, no, or that's a mess.
- Sophie LingEasy. I'll send that over today.
- Ian PrendergastCan we go back to year two? Show me the uplift in pounds. If the subscription moves at the first renewal I want to know the movement before I agree anything.
- Sophie LingSo here's how it works, and I'll get it in writing for you. Whatever the order form says for the term is the price for that term. At renewal, the pricing that applies is whatever the list is at that point for the tier, and any first-term discount ends. I don't want to quote you a pounds figure for year two off the cuff and have it be wrong.
- Ian PrendergastThat's rather the problem. A percentage without a base isn't something I can use.
- Sophie LingUnderstood, and I'd rather give you the pounds. What I can do is put the renewal price for the tier into the order form itself, as a stated figure, so that you and the board aren't relying on a list that might move.
- Ian PrendergastI'd like that. If it's in the executed document, I can explain it. If it's in an email, I can't.
- Sophie LingCompletely agree. It goes in the order form.
- Gemma ThorneSorry, one more from me. Users. How many of my people can actually use it at the start? Because remarketing hasn't even seen it yet.
- Sophie LingGrowth includes forty users and eight connectors. Your three teams fit inside that comfortably on what you've told me. The user limit is soft, so if you went a few over nothing would break, but we'd have a conversation about adding a block of ten.
- Gemma ThorneRight. And connectors, I count the CRM, the helpdesk, the accounting system, the shared drive and the email. That leaves room.
- Sophie LingIt does, you'd have a few spare. And that's a hard limit, so if you wanted more later it's an add-on of five at a time. Worth keeping a couple free in case you want, say, a telematics source down the line.
- Ian PrendergastLet's not plan the second purchase before the first is signed.
- Sophie LingHa, no, fair. Just noting it.
- Ian PrendergastHow long until my people are using it? From signature.
- Sophie LingThe Growth implementation is the standard programme, a matter of weeks rather than months. It's fixed fee, and the connectors in the order form carry a commitment to be live within a stated number of days, so you'd have that in writing as well.
- Ian PrendergastWritten commitments, I like. What happens if it isn't met?
- Sophie LingThen we're in breach of the order form and we'd sort it out with you, rather than it being a nice-to-have in a slide. I'd rather not over-promise on that call, but I can get the exact wording from our contracts team and send it with the revised proposal.
- Ian PrendergastPlease do.
- Gemma ThorneCan I just check the timing? We're talking about the middle of November for a decision, aren't we? Ian, you said that.
- Ian PrendergastI did, and I'd hold to it. The board meets before then, and I'd want to take it in with the numbers clean.
- Sophie LingThat matches what I have. The expected close on my side is Tuesday 18 November 2025, so we've got a few weeks to get you everything. Does that still feel realistic?
- Ian PrendergastRealistic, yes. Not guaranteed. We'll take a view once I've seen the split proposal and the security answers.
- Sophie LingSecurity answers. Is that the questionnaire your IT team sent?
- Gemma ThorneThat's the one. They'll send it to you directly, I've asked them to copy me.
- Sophie LingGood. Because the brain runs in your Snowflake account, a lot of those answers are about your own set-up rather than ours, so I'll make sure the right person from our side joins that conversation rather than guessing.
- Ian PrendergastFine. And service levels? What do we get if the thing is down, or stale, on a morning when an account manager is walking into a review?
- Sophie LingGrowth has an availability commitment and a first response time for urgent issues, and there's a service credit for availability misses. The nightly refresh is meant to be done before the working day starts, but I should be straight with you: on Growth the credit is for availability, not for data freshness. If freshness matters at that level, that's a conversation about the tier above.
- Ian PrendergastThat is a useful distinction. Write it down for me in plain words, please. I don't want to find out about it in a dispute.
- Sophie LingI'll put a short note on service levels in with the proposal. Available is not the same as fresh, so it'll say exactly that.
- Gemma ThorneI think that's okay for us, Ian. The review packs are the thing. They go out in the morning, but we're building them the day before.
- Ian PrendergastThen it's not a deal breaker. It is a line item I'd like understood.
- Sophie LingUnderstood. So let me recap what I owe you, because I've been scribbling. One, a revised proposal with the annual and one-off lines split out. Two, the renewal price for the tier stated in the order form. Three, the wording on connector commitments. Four, the short service levels note. Five, a list of what we'd pull from the helpdesk, for Gemma's service desk lead.
- Gemma ThorneThat's all I've got as well. And I'll get half an hour with the service desk lead booked and tell you the date.
- Ian PrendergastAnd I'll send you the questionnaire answers from our IT lead once I have them, plus my own questions on the Snowflake cost. I would like Amara on a call about that.
- Sophie LingI'll ask her to reach out to you directly. Next week alright?
- Ian PrendergastNext week is fine.
- Sophie LingBrilliant. Anything else on either of your minds before I let you go? We've got a bit of time, the call ran quicker than I thought.
- Gemma ThorneOnly that the account managers are keen. I don't want to oversell it, but two of them asked me last week when they could get their hands on it. That's not something that normally happens with a new system.
- Sophie LingThat's lovely to hear, thank you. It's the best sign there is. If they ask questions from day one, the rest follows.
- Ian PrendergastEnthusiasm is fine. I'll want to see it in the cost to serve. Thank you, Sophie, that was more useful than the last version of the paper.
- Sophie LingThanks, Ian. Right, I'll get the documents out to you both. Speak soon.
- Gemma ThorneThanks, both. Bye for now.
- Ian PrendergastGoodbye.
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