Can Telematics provide real advantages and benefits
to your business?
Answer: Absolutely.
You may have heard of telematics and you may have
dismissed it or considered it a “nice to have” but not a “must have”. You may
have thought “I don’t need that technology. I don’t understand it. I can’t see
the advantages of it.” Or you may have considered it “big brother tech” and
don’t appreciate its practical use and value to your business. However, my
purpose here is to bring you just a glimpse of what such “tech” can do for your
business for the equivalent cost of a couple of beers in a high class London
pub/club per month.
Whether you manage a fleet of vehicles or a “fleet”
of personnel, the considered use of a telematics/tracking platform can provide
your business with a range of direct, easily identifiable, benefits and some
which, although given less emphasis, can and will provide significant
advantages across a range of metrics, from cost reductions and positive
customer experience, to retained fleet value and safety aspects.
Here is a “Top Five” reasons to consider telematics
for your business (small or large). You may, in specific instances related to
your specific business, consider more:
1. Improve Operational efficiency
Your
business, having remote workers, vehicles and equipment will wish to look at
making the most out of resources to minimise costs and boost performance.
Knowing the “where, what, when and how”, in realtime, of all your assets is
going to result in your business achieving greater success through optimal
operational efficiencies. Complete visibility and control over assets will help
drive such improvements. Vehicle & Personnel tracking offers a wide range
of business and operational benefits that will underpin a highly efficient
fleet.
2. Fuel cost
How great
an impact on your bottom line does the rising costs in fuel have? Significant
right? So that fuel usage continuously “bites” and is an ever greater overhead
for your fleet operation and the primary focus for most vehicle-related
efficiency initiatives. Monitoring consumption and identifying areas of
improvement is an essential part of any fuel management programme. vehicle
tracking provides you with a vital monitoring and performance tool to achieve
significant savings.
A study of businesses across all sectors of
industry, by the RAC, said that 68% of businesses using telematics saw a
reduction in fuel bills, while 55% saw a reduction in wear and tear and
48% said there was a reduction in downtime for their vehicles, contributing to
further savings.
3. Security
Vehicle,
equipment and cargo theft could be a major challenge for your business,
whatever industry sector you may be operating in. Tracking technology can help
to protect vulnerable mobile resources such as plant equipment. Real-time
alerts notify of any potential risks, unauthorised movements, whilst accurate
positioning data ensure complete visibility of assets at all times.
4. Manage Benefit in Kind Taxation
Legal
compliance, in this area, can be a headache. Employees must pay tax on company
vehicles and fuel, whilst employers may have extra duty to pay, unless it can
be proved that they are being used exclusively for business use. You need to
keep accurate records for business and private mileage to be able to prove that
journeys are undertaken for work or personal reasons. Using a tracking
solution, a driver can define business and private journeys as part of a
business’ legal compliance while you can easily oversee that what is being
reported is, in fact, correct.
5. Customer experience and
satisfaction
By
investing in integrated telematics, companies have the opportunity to collate
and distribute more accurate data related to individual field operatives, and
make more accurate predictions when providing customers with ETAs. For
companies who have made the transition to integrated telematics, they have
reported significant drops in "customers not at homes" and an overall
increase in customer satisfaction.
A market analysis was conducted by global research
consultancy TNS to establish current consumer perceptions of customer service
standards among businesses that deliver products and services to consumers’
homes, including tradesmen, service management providers and delivery
companies. The study sought to confirm what timeslots consumers are given when
receiving home visits, how often companies arrive late and general levels of
consumer tolerance. Interestingly, the research revealed that 87 per cent of
consumers across Great Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands have
suffered tradesmen and delivery firms turning up late for appointments, with
more than a quarter claiming to have experienced poor punctuality on a regular
basis. The results provide an interesting insight into the importance of
punctuality and good communication from a consumer perspective. Good customer
service will differentiate a company from the competition in any economic
climate, in a recession it can mean business survival.
Of course, a similar experience may well be shared
by large projects in the B2B realm when, for example, one project job is
delayed, perhaps for a whole day or more, due not the late showing on site of
the Project electrician or plumber. There is a never-ending suite of scenarios
which can, and do, impact your customer and, in turn, impacts your business but
which can be managed much better with the adoption of telematics/tracking as a
core function of your business.
Telematics as a
stand-alone investment in fleet management can already be a huge improvement on
managing data by simply using spreadsheets or paper, but by integrating your
telematics platform and sharing any available data across all departments, the
benefits to the business as a whole can be huge.
Telematics provides
an auditable record, encourages safety, can help provide legal security, and of
course, can help your company to save money. Not to mention the benefits to be
reaped by your customers, ensuring repeat business and a good working relationship
with all your company’s clients. Please consider visiting our website: navtrack.co.uk and
contact us with any questions and/or requirements you may have.
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