Are You A Fleet Owner? Here’s Why You Need Asset Management Software

Are You A Fleet Owner? Here’s Why You Need Asset Management Software

Surbhi Sood
September 2, 2020
Asset Management Software

It is a challenge to manage a pool of commercial vehicles. Your fleet is the soul of your business; we know it is a challenge, but a necessity for growth and sustainability. Asset management software can make your work easy.

What Is The Purpose Of Fleet Management?


Any an organization that uses vehicles for business requirements need some form of professional fleet management. The aim of fleet management is to control the entire life-cycle of commercial vehicles, in addition to improving efficiency, increasing productivity, reducing associated risk, and ensuring compliance with legislation. Companies like Amazon, eBay, public transport companies, etc. need to manage fleet operations effectively.

Efficient fleet management results in controlling the cost and providing better services.

What Challenges Do Fleet Managers Face?


Fleet managers have huge responsibilities; they have to take care of various aspects of the fleet to guarantee smooth operations. A fleet the manager is accountable for five critical areas of the fleet – vehicle acquisition, vehicle maintenance, fuel management, compliance, and health and safety.

Vehicle Acquisition


Vehicle the acquisition consists of checking the suitability of vehicles, finding changes to the vehicle legislation, and negotiating deals with vehicle manufacturers. While selecting the right fleet vehicle, a fleet manager needs to check a number of things such as fuel consumption, tax amount, and fleet insurance costs. Also, he needs to evaluate what the employee considers the best when selecting the right kind of fleet vehicles.

In addition to that, the fleet manager is also responsible for considering the resell value of the vehicle towards the end of the vehicle’s life. He needs to meet the budget allocations, and savings are always there to be made.

Fuel Management


Fuel costs are ever-increasing, and it is a big challenge for fleet managers to save costs on fuel. There are always fluctuations in market price, and there are many external factors that are beyond the control of a fleet manager, but it is the responsibility of a fleet manager to find ways to cut fuel costs. The fleet manager has to deliver results and come up with innovative cost-saving options.

Petrol is the choice of fuel but hybrid and electric fleet vehicles are also gaining popularity.

Fleet managers do a cost-benefit analysis to determine the most fuel-efficient vehicle. Hybrid and electric vehicles are expensive than petrol vehicles. Fuel cards are used by many fleet companies to track fuel consumption and to reduce wastage. With the help of telematics, fleet managers can remotely observe drivers and see how their behavior impact fuel consumption. Also, they can find the most cost-efficient routes that drivers have to follow.

Vehicle Maintenance


Regular maintenance is required for fleet vehicles. Resources can be assigned to look at the maintenance part of the fleet vehicles or it can be outsourced by keeping in mind the cost-benefit analysis. The fleet manager is responsible for ensuring that vehicle checks are carried out to comply with legislation. The task includes pre-purchase vehicle inspections, driver daily walk-around checks, and regular maintenance checks and ensuring everything is working well.

Health and Safety


Accidents can occur anytime. When something unfortunate occurs, it is the fleet manager’s responsibility to make sure everything is actioned accordingly. He needs to follow a robust procedure; he needs to report to the insurance company to handle all claims effectively and quickly. He also needs to make sure that the driver’s training records are up to date, and health and safety measures are always followed.

Meeting Compliance Requirements


Driver checks, defects, daily checks, inspection sheets, reporting, insurance… it’s a never-ending list. Meeting compliance requirements is a huge part of a fleet manager’s role, and all things need to be well-documented. So that when the need arises, everything will be sorted out. Documentation ensures that every minute detail of each vehicle is available for both auditing purposes and in the event of an accident when the company needs to make a claim or an investigation needs to be done. Also, changes in vehicle legislation are crucial for a fleet business, and fleet managers need to be aware of changes to legislation as they could have a direct impact on the business.

Controlling Costs


Every business looks for ways to control costs. It is the duty of fleet managers to analyze information and make the required changes in the fleet. Changes can be related to reducing the vehicle purchase cost, analyzing driver behavior, and reviewing fuel consumption.

Avoiding Information Overload


When we manage the fleet, there is a pool of data every day. Some of it is relevant, while some of it is not at all important. It is time-consuming to trawl around a huge amount of information, and mostly the concerned person misses the important information when he has to go through vast data. Timely updating information requires resources, and there are time and money implications too. The vehicle tracking system can easily help you sort the important information from time to time and generate weekly and monthly information.

Expanding Role of The Fleet Manager


Advancements in technology are expanding the role of a fleet manager. As vehicle management software makes the work of a fleet manager easy and gives him time to focus on asset management, mobility management, and responsible businesses are also concerned about measuring and controlling the impact their business has on the environment. Fleet management software incorporates all these things and hence makes the work easier.

What Is Fleet Management Software?


A fleet business owner wants to be informed about various aspects of its fleet. He wants to have relevant information that impacts his business. The information should be in a systematic way, and the owner should be able to see it anytime and from anywhere. This is where fleet management software comes to the rescue. Fleet Management software makes it possible for a fleet owner or fleet manager to have a systematic display of information about the fleet at their fingertips. Vehicle management software has recording and reporting attributes, and everything is stored in a sophisticated database. It provides information that helps fleet managers to increase efficiency and reduce cost. fleet apps help in increasing productivity and reduce downtime.

How Does A Fleet Vehicle Tracking System Work?


Fleet management app normally rely on hardware and on the software part. GPS tracking hardware is responsible for collecting data in conjunction with the GPS coordinates of a vehicle (for example, when a the vehicle is speeding, this particular information is collected with time stamp and position of vehicle). The vehicle tracking system provides information that can help in finding discrepancies in operations and improve productivity.

  • GPS tracking software presents data collected to software users in various forms such as specific details in the table format, vehicle location on a map, reports on activity starting and finishing, and much more. GPS tracking devices for fleet management can be of various types:
  • Hardwired GPS trackers are ubiquitous and a fleet using them goes through a 3-wire-installation connecting to the engine, power and ground sources in a vehicle.
  • Portable GPS tracking devices are also used because they give the provision to plug them easily. One such example is OBD trackers.


Which Problems Does Fleet Tracking Software Solve?


Every fleet owner should go for fleet management software as it effectively solves a number of problems that a fleet owner has to go through. It helps in managing the whole fleet intelligently. We are listing a few problems that fleet management software helps in solving:

Cost Reduction


The vehicle tracking system greatly helps in cost reduction. It reduces fuel consumption as drivers are tracked, and they don’t waste fuel because they know they are being tracked; drivers can no longer sleep in the vehicle with ac on. The system reduces the administrative work; you no longer have to assign resources to mark the presence of staff. A fleet manager can check the driver’s position from anywhere without calling him and software helps in decreasing insurance premiums as well. Not only that, but it also reminds you of regular maintenance and provides alerts about drivers’ behavior, for example, speeding, excessive waiting, etc. The advanced technology in-vehicle tracking system helps you reduce costs.

Excessive Paperwork


One the thing everyone hates is excessive paperwork. With the help of a vehicle tracking system, fleet managers can get rid of excessive paperwork as documents are digitalized and stored in the database. There is no need for tedious administrative work.

Getting Relevant Fleet Information


The fleet management system gives you information about every second. You get to know what is happening with the fleet and drivers. Manual methods fail to provide relevant information, but with the vehicle tracking system, you can rest assured.

Checking On Vehicle Use


Sometimes, vehicles are used improperly by drivers. The fleet management system helps fleet owners to implement driver identification add-ons so that apart from authorized drivers, no one can drive fleet vehicles.

Work Organization


Organization of work is mandatory if you need orderly work-flow. The vehicle tracking system allows you to detect which are the best route plans that save you costs on fuel and are not full of traffic. It helps you keep full track of the working hours of every driver and the assignments they completed.

Automate Compliance

The vehicle tracking system allows you to record every minute of information for compliance.

Final Words


Every fleet company should make use of the Fleet management software as it improves fleet efficiency, fleet safety, improves driver and fleet security ensures fleet compliance.

Surbhi Sood

Surbhi is a passionate writer. She has been writing for several years now and enjoys demystifying complex topics to make them understandable for a broader range of audiences.

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