Managing fleet costs is vital to sustainable business growth. Especially in a time when the nation is relying heavily on online shopping and delivery services, fleet cost management has become a pivotal procedure determining whether a business can power through the pandemic with financial confidence.
However, increased workload and a heightened focus on productivity often leave little time for fleet managers to investigate the cost-effectiveness side of things. This is why we’ve identified a few fundamental solutions that can help them to keep finances under control incrementally.
Endorse safe, ethical and fuel-efficient driving
Improper driving behaviours, such as idling, speeding and harsh braking, can not only deteriorate a vehicle’s performance overtime, but also lead to traffic violations and costly accidents. Not to mention the additional pressure they put on fuel consumption and expenses daily, which can end up being thousands of dollars per year.
To put their vehicles in good hands, businesses must foster a safe, ethical and responsible driving philosophy. Regularly educating drivers and facilitating training courses can help to build this mindset. To maximise on-road transparency, they can look at telematics software technology which can help to pick up improper driving behaviours, record driving events, provide real-time driving advice and produce insightful post-trip reports. The technology can also store real-time and historical insights into fuel consumption, helping businesses to analyse and improve the fleet’s fuel economy.
Optimise replacement cycles
Proper fleet management can maximise each vehicle’s utilisation and reduce lifestyle costs significantly during their optimum economic life. This is when a telematics software system is needed to grant real-time transparency of the vehicle’s condition, from its service and productivity through to mileage and fuel consumption. For instance, when the vehicle has a worn-down tire or is due for a repair, businesses can be alerted at an early stage and take action before these small faults stack up into excessive costs.
Understand when, where and how assets are being used
To manage a truly cost-effective fleet, businesses should define the purpose of every vehicle and asset they own and decide how each can be utilised to the maximum. They can set a utilisation threshold to help ‘right-size’ the exact fleet size needed to complete business objectives, rather than letting aged assets sit in the inventory and collect dust.
With an asset tracking tool in place, businesses can also monitor each asset’s movement, such as when, where and how they are being used, as well as stay alert when an asset needs to be repaired or replaced.