Fleet management is the optimisation of costs, risks and efficiency in the running of vehicle fleet operations.
This type of management uses an administrative process, so businesses can coordinate work vehicles. It’s necessary to reduce costs, boost efficiency and provide compliance with local government and transport regulations.
The fleet industry requires attention to detail to perform well. Fleet management strategies are helpful for your business to minimise the administrative burden of managing multiple vehicles. However, there are many potential benefits for business owners.
If you’re looking to invest in fleet management for your business, it’s critical to know the facts first. Fleet management can be a complicated industry. However, we uncover the latest tips to help save you money, time and understand what fleet management is.
Benefits of fleet management
Fleet management provides profitable and productive benefits to businesses. When done effectively, businesses can increase fuel savings, improve customer service as well as consolidate and streamline fleet administrative systems.
Other benefits include:
Reduced vehicle acquisition costs: Vehicle acquisition can be costly. Fleet management helps to negotiate the lowest purchase prices, whilst weighing up end-of-life value and total ownership costs. This also encourages smart vehicle selection
Reduced fuel costs: Fuel accounts for nearly 40% of fleet ownership costs. Fleet management can minimise these expenses through monitored performance. GPS tracking provides valuable driver and vehicle information to help determine strategies to reduce fuel usage
Maintenance schedules: Fixed maintenance schedules can bring expertise to fleet servicing decisions, ultimately saving you money
Increased productivity: Fleet management technologies monitor and record everything from maintenance, safety, tracking and routing, improving productivity and employee efficiency
Data-driven decisions: Effective decision making through management reporting and your fleet manager supervising, strategising and enforcing fleet usage decisions
Novated leasing: Smarter vehicle selection weighs up leasing and buying opportunities, including novated leasing which can offer a cost-effective alternative for businesses
Reduced energy consumption: As more people adopt greener lifestyles, maximising efficiency through energy consumption is a big plus for businesses
Fleet management challenges
Despite the benefits, there are still challenges that face the fleet management industry.
Fleet managers are often required to solve problems in real-time within a sometimes volatile and shifting market. Some challenges may include:
Fuel price volatility: Fuel prices are hard to forecast making it a challenge to accurately budget. You can cut back on costs by choosing more fuel-efficient fleet vehicles, eliminating idle time and reducing overall fleet size
Driver safety: Ensuring safety for drivers, their rigs and cargos is critical for fleet management. Safety education programs, predictive analytics and the prevalence of technology can help to eliminate preventable accidents and must be provided by fleet managers
Cost-reduction initiatives: Forecasting changing industries and costs makes budgeting challenging. However, the right software, tools and experience can help to cater for these changes to further reduce costs
Best industries for fleet management
Fleet management provides benefits to multiple industries. Typically, couriers, trade workers, repair and service businesses and oil and gas delivery will rely on fleet management.
These industries depend on their work vehicles to provide a service. Fleet management ensures a smoother operation and efficient real-time customer service through database software, telematics and GPS tracking.
The healthcare sector, such as pharmaceutical services, home health care, assisted living and elderly/disabled transport services also benefit from fleet management. Businesses in manufacturing, insurance, utilities and other corporate or sales services can formulate consistency and company growth through management policies as well.
How to save time and money with effective fleet management
Fleet management saves businesses time and money with out-of-the-box systems to cater for challenges unique to your industry.
Fringe Benefit Tax reporting, reports, invoices, driver’s log books and idle alerts are all automated as part of your fleet management system. These detailed metrics can be used to make operational improvements to your fleet, ultimately saving time and money.
Fleet management is an ever-changing industry. However, as technology advances and new accounting standards emerge, businesses can streamline management and achieve operational success.
Easifleet assists medium to large organisations, running 25 vehicles or more, with flexible fleet management solutions.
For more information about how Easifleet can assist with your fleet management, speak to one of our qualified staff.
For more information about how Easifleet can assist with your fleet management,
speak to one of our qualified staff.
