These 5 factors make your fleet management successful

Fleet management is a complex business. And with an increasing number of vendors in the market, a wide range of services, and unusual external influences, working as a fleet manager is not going to get easier. To help you stay on top of what matters, we’ve put together the key success factors for your fleet management.

1. Flexible Financing

Digitalization, inflation, supply issues – our industry is changing. Many allegedly unbreakable industry laws no longer apply. For example, being on the safe side of entering into all leases of a fleet with the same term-permission combination. For years, there was also the view that there was only a limited selection of lease models. The market has changed a little: there are closed and open models in cost-optimized and flexible variants. Last year, marked by supply bottlenecks, many fleet managers have been well served with flexible contracts – as the framework for businesses is changing faster than ever. A flexible leasing model that does not require the identification of mileage or term at the beginning may give lessees some freedom to act.

2. Maintenance Strategy

The optimization potential for maintenance and repair is greatly underestimated, because there are many recurring processes here. Many processes mean a lot of savings – provided you carefully select service providers and suppliers. Conversely, if maintenance and repair don’t work, vehicles will fail and downtime will cost extra money. This is because maintenance and repair are often thought of in small, separate operations. In fact, you need a comprehensive strategy that brings all the factors together in one process: managing maintenance and repair, approving and complying with regulations for your vehicles, and controlling those processes. Good strategic fleet management and well-negotiated contracts with service providers help you manage all aspects of your fleet in a way that saves you time, controls costs, and avoids downtime.

3. Fuel Management

Due to the current energy crisis, it is difficult to predict the development of fuel prices. Only one is in agreement with the experts: it will not get so much cheaper so quickly. That’s why you should use the crisis as a reason to rethink your fuel program. A well-communicated policy, a telematics program to verify driving behavior and fuel consumption, and a fuel card with customizable controls are just some of the most important aspects of a comprehensive strategy to help you better monitor and manage your fuel spending. Plus, now might be the perfect time to test the use of electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, or other alternative fuels to align your fleet with your company’s overall sustainability strategy.

4. E-strategy

Electric cars are taking up an increasing share of the fleet market. It’s worth it today to explore this topic. And if you’re not a fan of electric vehicles, okay. Careful handling of this topic is certainly helpful, as many have started enthusiastically and maybe landed a little sober. The benefits of e-mobility are known: promotion (less and less), image benefits, competitive bidding benefits, employee desire. But now we also know that switching to e-mobility is time-consuming. There are many guidelines and legal requirements to follow. Not all vehicle types are widely available as electric vehicles. Drivers must be retrained. As you transition, you’ll also need to invest not only in vehicles, but also in the charging infrastructure. That’s why, as with any vehicle procurement, it’s important to develop a comprehensive strategy in advance to make the transition to electric vehicles meaningful for your fleet.

5. Consistent Digitization

As a fleet manager, you need to make decisions every day that have an immediate impact on your fleet. With consistent digitalization of your business, these decisions can be more informed. For example, you can use GPS devices on the vehicles to collect movement data. This keeps you informed at all times about the location, performance, and downtime of each vehicle. However, not only the vehicle movements are digitized, but also processes that were previously documented on paper – for example contracts or invoices. This allows you to work faster and more efficiently. But everyday things also provide valuable data. For example, fuel card data shows what services your drivers are purchasing and how much fuel they are using. It is particularly interesting when you combine different data for analysis: such as high consumption (fuel card data) and aggressive driving (GPS data). Use this data to quickly identify and train drivers with risky driving behaviors.

Feel free to contact us and find out about a suitable model for your fleet.