To be successful on a sourcing team, you need to be open-minded about exploring all available service channels and partners. However, open-minded doesn’t mean being open-headed. You must listen and entertain new ideas, but also temper such a practice and attitude with pragmatism and knowledge.
April 8, 2017
The best way to answer the question of what is the future of fleet is to look outside the fleet industry.Here are six technology trends happening outside of fleet that will have a major impact on the future direction of our industry.
October 3, 2016
There is a direct correlation between high driver morale and high driver productivity. The converse is also true. The hidden cost of low driver morale has a direct bearing on a company’s bottom line. While low morale is an HR/management issue, and even though fleet managers do not control driver salaries, there are actions that fleets can take to help increase driver morale.
September 28, 2016
There is an ongoing perception by senior management that fleet management is not a complicated and sophisticated profession. As a result, one of the biggest challenges facing fleet managers is getting management to recognize and acknowledge their contribution to the company. Here are 10 ways to ensure management recognizes your contribution to the company’s bottom line.
February 1, 2016
How would you characterize your job? Are you more of a “fireman,” spending your days putting out one fire after another? Or, do you devote the time to truly manage your fleet? Most of us will say we do both, but putting out fires consumes a tremendous amount of time and decreases the time invested in managing the fleet from a strategic level. At the most fundamental level, we have to ask ourselves: Are we tactical or strategic managers?
August 11, 2014
How will fleet management change in the next 10 years? I foresee three transformational forces that will sweep through our industry and redirect its long-term direction.
May 15, 2014
A fleet manager’s capabilities and expertise can be easily overlooked by executive management, especially when a fleet is well run. When fleet runs smoothly, it tends not to be on the radar of senior management, who, often, are not aware of the required behind-the-scenes expertise. However, the biggest curse to running a well-run fleet is that it sometimes breeds complacency. Here's how to avoid it.
April 23, 2014
Could the U.S. fleet market of the future evolve in the same direction as the European fleet market? The key factor driving the European fleet market from the 1960s to present has been a high taxation environment. There are many indicators that point to the U.S. entering a new era of very high taxation. Could the same future unfold for the U.S. fleet market as it did in Europe? In my mind, this is not a far-fetched scenario.
March 3, 2014
Fleet managers have to deal with other department managers who may not be team players or who have egos the size of a Class 8 truck. As a result, there are the inevitable fleet-related interdepartmental conflicts, typically driven by the challenge of balancing HR/driver requirements versus finance/accounting department requirements, which are often at odds with one another. Some criticize this involvement of “non-fleet” managers, rather than seeking ways to partner with them.
July 30, 2013
Technology has transformed the way fleets communicate. One unintended consequence has been the increasing de-personalization of the interaction between fleet managers and drivers. In many ways, technology is slowly eliminating the “personal touch” to fleet management, which, since the inception of the profession, has been the hallmark of good fleet management, In the future, will personalized fleet management seem as quaint as the home delivery of milk?
December 13, 2012
My takeaway from last April’s NAFA I&E Conference was the extent to which fleet managers are being stretched to their limits. The catalyst has been the recent economic downturn, which decimated what little staff may have been at the disposal of many fleet managers. Time constraints have caused a fleet manager’s daily activity to be a "juggling act," which has devolved into “crisis management” of putting out an endless stream of "fires."
May 9, 2011
I am dismayed at the number of fleet managers who have lost their jobs due to corporate cutbacks. Similarly, I am amazed at the short-sightedness of today's senior management making these decisions without regard to the implications of lesser-qualified individuals managing one of their largest asset classes. I predict that companies that downgrade the expertise of their in-house management will be on the wrong side of history and will be the poster children of what not to do in a recession.
May 26, 2009
Twenty-five years ago, there was a utopian vision of what fleet management would be like in the 21st century. However, this new century has been far from utopian. Its reality is more like a maelstrom. In eight short years, fleet managers have been buffeted by one major crisis after another, most of them unprecedented and severe. The first decade of the 21st century is shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous in the history of fleet management.
December 9, 2008
The greatest challenge facing the future of fleet management is how we see ourselves as a profession. Are we administrators of a fleet or are we managers? Do we manage from a tactical level – putting out day-to-day fires – or from a strategic level focusing on specific long-term objectives using metrics to benchmark progress? In the future, you will need a strategic focus to succeed in fleet management; otherwise you run the risk of fading into irrelevancy.
August 25, 2008
The greatest catalyst for change in fleet management in the next 10 years will be "technology." It is getting increasingly expensive to operate a fleet. There are diminishing opportunities to reduce cost and enhance fleet efficiency using traditional fleet management techniques. A growing number of companies are investigating (or are more receptive) to technology-based fleet solutions. Looking ahead, here are my predictions as to how technology will change fleet management in the next 10 years.
July 25, 2008