Cost saving is still very much on the menu for fleet managers this year as businesses look to save costs from every conceivable angle. As such, Interactive Fleet Management kicked off 2012 with a management seminar inviting managers from fleet services and those within their organisations who actually make the key decisions in an attempt to prove to them that savings of 12% are achievable with a combination of technology, planning and the right resources.
Ran as a workshop to provide a hands on session in Surrey’s Mercedes Benz World the select group focused on a broad range of cost saving techniques to assess their suitability for their organisations to see if they were compatible with their existing framework.
There is still room for improvement across much of the UK business sector when it comes to fleet management. Many of the huge conglomerates have their fingers on the pulse of their logistics network but, below that level a company’s light commercial vehicle fleet is still budgeted on the basics: vehicle cost, fuel cost, mileage, staff and van insurance with a kitty set aside for breakdown. This workshop was to highlight the next step up and how integrated fleets, incorporating the latest software and communication technologies, have been proven to deliver huge savings.
Jayne Pett, IFM’s operations director, said that their management firm decided to put on the show not only to demonstrate the physical aspects that have changed but to bring the thought processes to the table that had instigated the efficiency drive over recent years.
She went on to add that the innovations on show deliver greater control over the costs of fuel, a dynamic that can never be truly accurately budgeted for. But, by implementing the tighter controls that are now becoming available and implementable across UK fleets, there were opportunities to cut 25% from the fuel bill, alone.
There were other aspects considered and this is probably only applicable to the larger fleet, but multi-bid contract hire can also deliver cost-savings on a huge sale. But, you do have to have a considerable amount of vehicles to generate interest in your contract in the first instance and then significantly lower the contract hire rate to make it worth their while.
Another cost that is flexible throughout the year is maintenance and reparation costs – which the seminar covered in their accident management techniques module. The better you can handle an accident once it’s happened, the closer you can work with your fleet van insurance broker to bring it to a swifter resolution. Accompanying our article van insurance – what to do in the event of an accident there is a handy little download that you can keep on your clipboard if your mind goes blank and you forget what to do immediately after an incident, courtesy of cheapvaninsurance.co.uk.