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Learn what fleet management is, the benefits of fleet management consulting, and how full-service offerings support the growth of your business.
Fleet management as a service involves a wide variety of activities that contribute to the efficiency of groups of vehicles, assisting companies of all sizes that have fleets of cars, trucks, and equipment. From finance to operations to maintenance and licensing, fleet management companies provide expert services to save you money and valuable time that can be spent focusing on core business activities. With an estimated 12.7 million vehicles now falling under the direct or indirect supervision of fleet management firms, the fleet management trend is growing.
Any task related to the value or use of multiple owned, leased, or operated vehicles can be considered fleet management.
Fleet management services represent any partnership that helps to create productivity and efficiency within a group of vehicles.
Think of all the tasks you’d need to deal with to run a fleet of commercial vehicles, such as:
Vehicle and fleet acquisition, sales, financing, personal usage and expense tracking
Preventative maintenance, repair, equipment uptime and roadside service
Logistics and delivery management
Fuel consumption, price mitigation and expense strategy
Titling, licensing, registration, tolling, roadway and interstate compliance
Insurance, accident resolution and protection
Telematics and tracking software development, integration and implementation
Consultations on supply chain management
Driver safety and training
Whenever the size of a vehicle fleet grows, there is a corresponding increase in cost, time and headache. That’s why businesses with large groups of vehicles, from light or heavy duty vehicles down to forklifts or scooters, partner with providers of fleet management services.
Fleet management is also a growing trend.
According to MarketsandMarkets, estimates say that overall fleet management has grown to around 12.7 million.
The time cost of vehicle ownership and operation can add up fast.
That’s why fleet management companies like Element Fleet Management can trade on the scale of their operations. Instead of dealing with only one fleet, they manage millions of vehicles, so they can centralize expertise, negotiate better partnerships and build a more efficient infrastructure than anybody else.
For example, imagine you ran a successful HVAC company. You and your staff would handle all activities related to selling, installing and maintaining your HVAC systems. No matter how well you managed your operations in-house, you’d eventually need to find additional efficiencies to help grow your business. That’s when you’d want to consider outsourcing some aspects of your operations, and partner with a larger organization, such as an HVAC association or distributorship.
These umbrella firms open up new avenues for business growth that would be unavailable to any HVAC company. For instance, they can afford a more significant marketing budget, reduce operational risk and streamline overhead costs. In general, outsourcing some operational functions to a larger organization leverages resources no single business can access alone.
That’s the basic model for fleet management companies. They create time and cost efficiencies, so you can worry about more important things, like growth.
Just like any other service business.
Fleet management companies work with you to determine a partnership to support and improve your fleet operations.
In fleet management, that means building out a team, centralizing operations and setting up communications. From there, everything depends on your specific needs.
Looking for more of a partner than a paid service? Great, a company like Element Fleet Management can help with the whole lifecycle of your fleet vehicles, from acquisition and financing to program management and vehicle resale.
Want to keep control of some of your own operations, but transition others? Fleet management companies can work as project managers. Through proprietary technology, these companies equip your team members with tools and resources to increase operational efficiency, mitigate risk, reduce costs and gradually optimize a scalable fleet.
If you’re not sure precisely what you want or need, fleet management companies can consult on strategic solutions.
Whether your long-term objectives aim to improve productivity, add efficiency or reduce operating costs such as fuel consumption, a fleet management consultant can help you. You may even discover services you hadn’t thought of as strictly related to your fleet, such as reducing carbon footprint or managing taxable benefits.
So how much does fleet management cost?
The bottom-line impact of fleet management will vary. Partnering with Element Fleet Management involves collaborating and crafting solutions that address specific pain points, improve performance, and enable business growth. Element's fleet management program will align with your objectives, focus on delivering an exceptional product and make a positive bottom-line impact.
Fleet management services help companies with owned or leased vehicles save money, time and liability. Another benefit is that companies can move resources from vehicle management to more profitable areas such as client service, sales and product delivery.
There are many ways to increase productivity. When partnering with a service such as Element Fleet Management, you get expert support and consultancy to identify the best solution suited to your needs.
Notable benefits to outsourcing the management of your fleet include:
Access to a highly vetted and actively managed supply chain that creates value for your fleet while procuring the equipment and services you need.
Assistance with vehicle acquisition and upfitting, repairs and maintenance, licensing and title, remarketing (aka vehicle resale) and more – to help you realize maximum value and reduce risk across the fleet lifecycle
Exceptional economic value through access to thousands of preferred vendors with pre-negotiated pricing, contracted terms, and standardized warranties
Superior service quality ensured through a rigorously and thoroughly vetted selection process
Leveraging technology systems that:
Enable drivers to filter suppliers based on geographical location, ratings, and relevance so that they can choose the best provider for their specific need
Provide online scheduling and an automated approval process
Optimize spend based on data-driven benchmarking and predictive modeling
Show you what’s happening, with trend-mapping across suppliers and transactions, and reporting that provides both the big-picture and line-item insight into your supplier spend
All these benefits contribute to increased productivity, operational efficiency, risk mitigation, and cost reduction.
The centralized operations provided by a fleet management partner can also introduce efficiencies in the following aspects of fleet performance:
Client service
Fuel consumption and carbon footprint reduction
Maintenance
Accident costs and risk mitigation
Driver safety
Inventory management
Transaction management
Ordering
Reporting
Analytics
Remarketing (aka vehicle resale)
As much as efficiency makes a difference, so does staying ahead of the competition.
The process begins with an initial consultation between you and a fleet management company. Once you and your trusted provider determine the needs and objectives, you are onboarding a partner committed to guiding you to success.
To find out what fleet management can do for your organization, contact Element today.
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