The challenges that fleet managers have to face every day as well as dealing with multiple responsibilities always make for tight time and budget constraints and a work scenario where mistakes can be made.
A scenario could easily arise where a manager is not in complete control of their fleet, not having data at their disposal or, despite having the data, not being able to properly measure metrics.
If you find yourself in this situation, have a look at these 3 key areas that need to be kept under control; if their importance is not realised they can really eat out your profits and reduce your fleet to a mere source of cost.
#1 - Unauthorized purchases
Whether you distribute cash to your drivers for fuel (are you really still doing that and not using a fuel card?) or because you do not have a fuel policy, there are a lot of ways in which unauthorized items can be purchased and money that should be used for fuel spent on them. Make sure you set up rules for this and that they are promoted and shared by everyone.
#2 - Recurring maintenance issues that are not tracked
If you have multiple things to worry about and do not properly track maintenance events for your vehicles as they come up, you might not only miss excessive costs that are incurred due to your choice of vehicle provider, but also, if any of your vehicles are too frequently in need of repair, it might well be that they actually need replacing (something you might not ordinarily be aware of). Make sure you have all the servicing milestones at your fingertips—it is another great way to save money on fleet costs.
#3 - Private use of vehicles
Again, if you either are not privy to a vehicle’s location or have not established guidelines or policies for the use of your fleet vehicles, there might be cases of misuse. Make sure you eliminate this possibility, and take advantage of the savings.
