Fleet management is more than owning and operating a fleet. It is an interplay of different complex factors such as optimisation and process management. In the last five years or so, fleet management tools have emerged, changing fleet management’s landscape. The fleet management industry is projected to more than $30 billion in the year 2022. And the growth is primarily driven by innovations and advancement in technology. The rate at which this industry is adopting technologies will impact its growth rate, and $30 billion might be an understatement.
The rate at which technology is disrupting fleet management’s growth is noticeable, and it seems the fleet management industries have noticed this trend and firmly strive to embrace technology with open arms. As the fleet management companies adopt robust fleet management practices enhanced by technology, these businesses can now measure their efficiency and effectiveness following fleet management best practices.
What is fleet management in a nutshell?
The process of managing a commercial fleet of vehicles and its operations on a scale. Any company with a fleet of cars needs to implement a fleet management process to make the whole process seamless and profitable. Fleet management tools came to play to optimise and for efficiency. Fleet management is all about optimising, i.e., keeping costs lower or reasonable and maximising profits while keeping in check potential risks.
How many vehicles qualify as a fleet?
Technically say, two vehicles or more make a fleet. But of course, fleet management’s principle makes excellent sense when we talk of many vehicles rather than a few. Anyways, a caravan is a fleet, and as long as protocols and business process discerning fleet operations apply, it doesn’t matter the number of vehicles in a fleet. Fleet management meets economic sense when many cars are at stake.
It doesn’t matter whether the fleet of vehicles in a company belongs to it or rented; the bottom is the fleet of cars subjected to fleet management tools. Whether vans, trucks, cars, vessels, boats, drones, earthmovers, and more, they are all a fleet if they belong to an organisation, and fleet management tools are applicable.
Fleet management company
It is a business utilising a fleet of vehicles to render services to companies and customers for a fee. If a company leases its cars to customers for a fee or rents vehicles to offer services to its customers, all of these qualify as a fleet management company.
According to statistics, many fleet companies own their vehicles while few companies rent or lease a portion of their fleet to render logistics-related services to their clients.
Why fleet management services?
The sole purpose of fleet management services is to keep track of the fleet’s business performance, maintenance, and security. When I talk of performance, optimise profits, and keep costs reasonable, it comes to the spotlight. However, fleet management aims to improve business processes to bring about efficiency in the logistics industry.
Here are some of the responsibilities you can expect of a typical fleet management company:
· Maintain and repair vehicles in a fleet and scheduled servicing.
· Manage resources such as fuel, human resource, parts of a vehicle, and more
· Driver training and behavior management
· Compliance with state regulations
· Asset utilisation
· Manage risks related to fleet
· Plan routes for vehicles to follow
· Endorse waste management policy
· Overall vehicle management for efficiency and productivity