How to Manage your Small Business Fleet – When you have No Experience

If you have expanded your business and now feel the need to have your own fleet, then this is great. You may feel as though you have so much potential within the company and that you also have a much bigger amount of control. That being said, if you want to get the best result out of your business, then you have to make sure that you are adopting the right policies from the get-go.

Automate

It’s vital that you try and automate as many of your processes as you can. You need to keep your vehicles on the road and you also need to try and keep your expenses under control as well. This can be a very challenging task if you are using outdated methods to track your fleet, such as spreadsheets or even paper. Fleet managers often find themselves too bogged down with data to manage everything and if this is the case then you won’t be able to manage your fleet as efficiently as you might think. Fleet management software is essential here, as it can help you to automate your process while also helping you to streamline any data that you might have. If you want to find out more about the future of vehicles then KUO have an interesting article on their site.

Know your Operating Costs

Your bottom line will ultimately be how well your business is doing. You have to know your true cost of ownership when it comes to your fleet if you want to take even more control of your finances. By doing this, you can also make decisions that are ultimately driven by data. The cost of ownership falls into two different categories, one of them is fixed expense and the other is variable expense. Fixed expenses tend to stay the same year after year, but variable expenses can change depending on the efficiency and type of fleet you have. Fuel and maintenance will fall into the variable category, so when you are trying to plan everything out, make sure that you factor these two costs into account and save as much as you can on them.

Manage Vehicle Inspections

It doesn’t matter how big or how small your fleet might be because it is your job to make sure that your drivers are completing the right inspections and that they are also keeping your assets safe and compliant. This will help you to jumpstart your maintenance process and it will also help you to make sure that you are not being bogged down with repairs that could have been prevented.

Maintenance Workflow

One of the major, and most important parts of running a fleet is taking a stance on maintenance. Sure, it may be wise to invest in electric vehicles for the environment and they may require less maintenance, but is it worth it for the miles that your company does? Your maintenance workflow will vary greatly depending on the fleet you have, so you need to work out if it is effective for you to do the checks yourself or whether it’s worth hiring a third party company who can do it for you.