Tuesday 13 December 2011

How Can Vehicle Tracking Benefit Your Company?


How can vehicle tracking help a specific company?

Since I have started work at Business Vehicle Tracking I have been amazed with the diversity of vehicle tracking and how it can help out almost any company that has a vehicle. I have dealt with companies that I never imagined would have a requirement for a tracking unit but when it comes to saving money everyone will want to put more on their profit line.

Here are just a few examples of what companies use vehicle tracking for and the benefits it can bring them.

Limousine/Chauffeur Companies – The first question they always ask is can I see what my driver is doing when they are waiting around to pick up guests? More often than not the driver will have roughly 6 hours to pass before a stag do or hen party crawl into the back of a stretched limousine, once they have dropped off the guests the driver then has a choice, does he drive round London taking in the sites, return to base, park up or even do a few private jobs on the side? Let’s say a limo does 10miles to the gallon and drives that 10 miles between drop off and pick up enjoying the London scenery, that will cost about £6 in wasted fuel, imagine if they did this every day for a year, this will equate to £2190 for one vehicle, with a fleet of 10 this will be an extra £21,900 on a company’s fuel bill.

Vending Companies – A very simple task for employees is to drive to specific locations, fill up a vending machine, do the various checks and move on to the next job. Say it takes 30 minutes to fill up a vending machine, you as the operations manager will want to see a report with all journeys and stop times. If one employee can do 15 jobs in a day and another only does 10 you will want to analyse why. This could be down to longer drives between jobs, traffic issues or simply the worker is too slow and productivity is being affected. With a fleet management system you can plan routes better, ensure they are spending adequate time with customers and better understand problem areas for employees, thus increase productivity and a rise in profits.

Delivery Companies – I know how annoying it is when a delivery company says that they will deliver your parcel between 9am and 5pm, how often do they arrive at 4.55pm meaning that you have sat in all day twiddling your thumbs waiting for them to arrive. With the fleet management platform companies can now give you more accurate delivery times, we can now offer a service in which you can log in to a live tracker screen so you can see exactly where your delivery vehicle is meaning if you need to pop out you can with the knowledge that they won’t knock on your door 2 minutes after leaving your house. Nowadays this technology can give you a cutting edge in the market and a massive boost in customer satisfaction. Also the Fleet Manager can also see your driving behaviour on the road. Employees driving vans with the company logo on the side are acting as an ambassador for your company if drivers are tail gating, speeding or driving erratically this will affect your company image. With driver behaviour modules now being installed in vehicles you can now monitor all aspects of driving meaning that you can control your drivers and reward the ones who are meeting driver expectations.

Sales reps – The image of a sales rep is very important and the first thing that you normally see is what type of car they are driving. If a sales rep has a lovely new, clean BMW you are immediately going to think that the company is successful. When the weekend comes I am sure they would love to drive round in their new company car and why not? Companies do allow for employees to use their vehicle privately, it is a perk of the job. The problem arises when employees put in their hours for private mileage, how do you know this is accurate? Many people are now asking for employees to show their private mileage, whether it is for tax purposes or so they can charge back the mileage to the employee. We are now installing vehicle trackers into company vehicles to take away the responsibility of an employee having to constantly write down their mileage and hand it in every Monday morning. With the use of vehicle timesheets we can quickly identify when a car is used out of hours. Certain parameters can be put on our platform to flag up journeys after 7pm during weekdays or use of the car on a Sunday meaning a driver does not have to worry about recording this. We can even install a key fob system onto the dash board so each time a driver starts his engine he can choose between business and private mileage. It is inevitable that not all employees will write down their private mileage so companies will be losing out on fuel that they have paid for, also some drivers will choose against using the car at weekends as they know they will be charged again saving you money on your fuel bill.

All the above are examples of how you can save money through using Business Vehicle Tracking, every company out there that has a vehicle should have a fleet management platform, whether it is for 1 vehicle or 100 there are savings to be made.