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Fleet management benefits and advantages.

From increased safety, productivity, and driver performance to reduced operational costs, driver turnover, and ambiguity in reporting, fleet management offers numerous benefits to commercial fleets of all types and sizes.

The purpose of fleet management is to oversee and manage all fleet operations to ensure a seamless, safe, cost-effective, productive, and profitable business.

Combined with the right technologies and systems, the best fleet management strategies provide a digital blueprint that allows you to implement efficient, cost-effective, and safe operations.

Here are the top five benefits and advantages a fleet management system can provide your organization.

5 fleet management benefits

The key advantages of a well-managed fleet include the following:

1. Increased profitability

When your fleet runs like a well-oiled machine, your expenses drop and profitability rises.

As your bottom line improves, you can further invest in expanding your business by acquiring new commercial vehicles, hiring new drivers, or perhaps increasing your service offerings.

2. Improved service delivery

A well-managed fleet helps your company deliver orders and services on time, making your customers happy and satisfied.

When your customers have a positive experience, you win their confidence and trust in your services — both of which encourage repeat orders and foster customer loyalty.

3. Increased efficiency

With excellent fleet management, you can extend a vehicle’s life span, improve fuel efficiency, and even reduce your organization’s carbon footprint — to say nothing of reducing costs and generating more profit.

4. Facilitate compliance

Fleet management helps you organize the required documentation to maintain compliance and avoid regulatory fines.

Thoughtfully crafted fleet management policies include documenting the essential information that managers and drivers need to be compliant.

5. Enhanced safety

All fleet vehicles require routine inspections to stay in optimum condition. A regular maintenance schedule allows you to detect issues early and reduce the likelihood of a breakdown.

Additionally, when fleet managers have the tools they need to focus on safety, it becomes easier to ensure drivers don’t exceed their scheduled driving hours. This reduces the likelihood of drowsy driving, which studies show can lead to accidents and, in the worst case, fatalities.

Benefits of fleet management software

Your fleet management software can have a huge impact on your fleet management initiatives.

Depending on the quality of your software, you can significantly reduce the amount of time and resources you spend on managing a commercial fleet.

Below are the hard-to-ignore advantages of a fleet management system:

1. Reduced costs

A software that’s packed with features, such as auto-reminders and email alerts, can help you establish a smooth process for vehicle repairs, maintenance, and audits (among other essential activities).

The fleet management software should also reduce your work hour costs since employees can avoid spending too much time on manual work.

For example, your managers can run your International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) calculations in seconds through the software’s automation features. What would take days, or even weeks, worth of manual data entry, your fleet managers can complete in a matter of seconds (or a few minutes, tops).

2. Improved driver performance

It’s challenging to record your commercial drivers’ performance when they’re on the road. Fleet management software can track driving patterns, spot unsafe behaviors, and provide managers the information they need to coach drivers and modify behaviors.

Global positioning system (GPS) tracking allows managers to monitor speed, driving practices (e.g., idling, harsh braking, cornering), location, and vehicle diagnostics.

All this data can be used to assess and improve driver performance. It also helps managers plan and implement the right strategies to reinforce safe driving behaviors and lower risk.

3. Comprehensive and organized reporting and analytics

Analyzing data and creating reports is crucial to improving your fleet operations. 

A software with automated reporting and analytics allows you to gain valuable insights into your fleet’s performance.

Software that integrates with advanced technologies, such as real-time visibility platforms based on artificial intelligence (AI), makes sharing, analysis, and reporting more efficient.

You can make data-based decisions quicker and implement strategies to improve your fleet operations’ productivity and company’s profitability.

4. Optimized workflows and processes

Modern fleet management software can supercharge your processes and workflows.

For example, a fleet management software can simplify your driver training workflows. Since the tool can capture data about your drivers’ driving habits (e.g., hard braking, sudden acceleration, etc.), you know which negative driving habits to point out and address when coaching a driver.

Also, by logging in to your fleet management dashboard, you can determine which vehicles are running and which aren’t. Knowing the availability of your vehicles without making a single phone call makes your dispatchers’ lives a lot easier.

5. Fraud and theft prevention

Fleet management software can decrease fraud and theft since it can monitor vehicle fuel economy.

When a vehicle’s fuel economy takes a sudden drop, this can be a sign of fuel theft. It could be that the driver managed to tamper or remove your fuel cap and siphoned fuel from your vehicle using a flexible tube.

You can also monitor your fuel purchases using fleet management software. It can show when and where a vehicle was refueled and for how much.

You can match the data from your fleet management software with your fuel card purchase records to ascertain that the vehicle was in the same area when the vehicle was refueled. If your fuel cards are used in areas where your vehicles aren’t present, this can also be a sign of fuel theft.

6. Vehicle lifespan

The better fleet management solution offers dashboards that provide total visibility into all fleet activity and access to real-time insights about your fleet’s service history, oil changes, vehicle mileage, etc. Having instant and easy access to all this information can help simplify and streamline your preventive maintenance process.

The software can also alert you of vehicle fault codes the instant they occur so you can address them immediately. This keeps your fleet vehicles in optimum condition, which then extends their lifespan and saves you money.

7. Better work experience

The often lengthy back-and-forth communication between commercial drivers, field staff, managers, and even customers isn’t just distracting (and extremely dangerous) for commercial drivers; it may also negatively affect an operator’s work experience.

Oftentimes communications require that a driver must pull over, which can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Most calls to drivers are inquiries about their current location, but with the right fleet management software, a lot of these phone calls can be eliminated. Fleet managers can visit their software’s online dashboard and locate the driver in real time.

Having a real-time view of the driver’s location is also crucial if there’s a vehicle breakdown or an emergency. Since the fleet manager can accurately pinpoint the driver’s location, the rescue team can get there using the quickest route.

8. Improved customer satisfaction

Customers can expect an accurate estimated time of arrival (ETA) when your company uses a fleet management software.

Through the software, managers and drivers can uncover the quickest route and avoid needless delays. Integrated GPS features can also send location updates.

For customers, knowing a driver’s exact location and the pace at which your vehicle is progressing improves their experience. This level of insight enables them to track arrival and maximize their time rather than waste hours wondering when their delivery will arrive.

Invest in fleet management

Running a fleet of commercial vehicles has a lot of moving parts.

Staying on top of driver and vehicle safety, maintenance, compliance, and your business’ profitability should be your priorities.

With a first-rate fleet management solution to assist you with your operations, you’ll gain the visibility and insights necessary to ensure your fleet’s performance is top-notch.