If you own or work in a medium enterprise business or a company similar to many around the world, there’s a big chance you have a fleet of vehicles. These could include the personal cars used by employees, staff transportation vehicles, or vehicles used to transport goods. It could also include vehicles used in the delivery of services. Whichever the case, these vehicles need someone to operate them and take care of them. They will need fuel, regular maintenance, and mileage accounting to avoid losses. These are just some of the reasons fleet managers are employed in the first place.
If you are a fleet manager or intend to become one, here are some creative solutions that can help you do your duties better.
1. Integrate Technology into Your Job
We are in the 21st century, where one way to become better at anything you do is by integrating technology into it. Well, this is even more essential when it comes to business, with every industry having relevant technology that can be utilized to improve operational efficiency and profitability.
Now, it so appears that fleet managers need to incorporate technology even more, especially in industries involving shipping and receiving goods. Fleet management involves several things, which include tracking the movement of the vehicles in your fleet, ensuring the vehicles undergo maintenance, as well as ensuring they are compliant with all legal requirements. These are things that need you to integrate technology into your job for effective performance. Thanks to technology, asset tracking has revolutionized fleet management and made it easier for managers. This is achieved through technologies like GPS tracking, which allows you to monitor the whereabouts of all units in your fleet in real-time. Among other things, fleet management software can also help you monitor the following:
- Where a vehicle is headed
- Fuel consumption
- When the next maintenance for a particular vehicle is due
- How a particular diver is performing
- Vehicle costs related to fuel and maintenance
- Vehicle performance
- Route efficiency
- Enforce driver accountability based on location and route
2. Use Appropriate Management Tools
A fleet manager has several tasks in their job description that have to be performed simultaneously. They include management of the vehicles, HR management, development and management of the mobility plan, and parking lot management. Simultaneous management of these tasks requires you to integrate more than one tool, so you are sure to do all of them in time and perfectly. Make sure that the tools you utilize have a defined working scope. That way, you will know how they are helping you with the tasks, making it easy to determine if they are effective. Use tools that evolve with the evolving needs.
3. Stay Informed About Innovative Solutions
In the past few years, you probably have noticed that the globe has been doing several updates on motors, so they are more eco-friendly. This is a move to curb the effect that old motor models had on the environment. Every year, there is something new that comes up to solve challenges that have been faced previously. As a fleet manager, it is important to stay informed on new solutions, such as fleet safety solutions like CameraMatics, so you can integrate them into your job and let your business enjoy the benefits.For example, most companies have integrated car-pooling, parking management, and soft mobility to ensure sustainable development. If you do not keep yourself informed, such information will not be known to your business.
4. Build on Your Communication Skills
Fleet management bounces between logistics, HR, and operations. The smooth of these three factors depends largely on how effectively you can communicate to the people under your management. It is not uncommon to offer the company’s parking lots and vehicles to the employees as part of their benefits. However, these benefits should never at any time be the reason anything in the company that needs to be mobile isn’t. You as the fleet manager need to communicate efficiently to other employees on how their benefits are going to be given to them without injuring the company’s operations. If you foresee a problem in your job, communicate it to your superiors so you have it addressed before it becomes a real issue.
5. Keep Track of the Taxes
There are several taxing points that you need to keep track of for effective fleet management. When it comes to taxes, you can only minimize the costs of business by paying up early or making sure your superiors know what to expect before the due date. Just for a recap, there are several taxing points in fleet management. Some of these include CO2 emissions, parking lot taxes, and state taxes. They will vary from state to state or region to region. When you know the taxation rates, you can create a plan that makes sure you pay as little as possible while ensuring compliance. This also helps keep lawsuits against your company at bay.
Are some of your employees stealing work hours or engaging in non-company activities/jobs? Are the fuel costs and maintenance fees skyrocketing lately? Have you experienced an increase in late delivery complaints from customers? Well, you could put an end to all these and more using tips from this article.
Fleet management is an aspect that any company will want to make sure is well handled. It plays quite a crucial role in the eventual success of the company. As a fleet manager, the above are just a few tips you could borrow to ensure excellence in delivering your mandate.