Fleet Management Technology: How it Creates More Work for You

Many fleet management companies (FMC’s) are constantly looking to develop the latest and greatest technologies for their clients to utilize. The goal being to provide as many tools and insights as possible. While this fleet management technology may sound like something positive, unfortunately many fleets have discovered that these new tools often have the unintended consequence of creating more work than before.

In This Article

Data Overload and How it Slows You Down
Do You Want A Fleet Management Company or Do You Want Tools to Manage the Fleet Yourself?

Data Overload and How it Slows You Down

In today’s technological age, it seems as if every company is promoting the massive amount of data that they can gather and provide customers. Your watch can monitor your oxygen level, your phone can track your sleep cycles, and your navigation app can predict where you’re headed based on the time and day. All of this data is meant to help improve our lives, however, there comes a point when it simply becomes too much. This is called information overload, and it can lead to massive decreases in productivity.

Large FMC’s have spent untold millions of dollars developing robust data systems that can track every fleet metric imaginable. They tout these systems as the ultimate in fleet management. However, while some pieces of information can be helpful, the vast majority of it is just noise that adds complications. There is so much data that one can lose countless hours attempting to comb through it all. On top of that, you then have to synthesize that data into something meaningful. How do you determine what’s important and what isn’t? How do you utilize the mountain of information in front of you to make informed decisions? What happens when different metrics lend themselves to polar opposite solutions? Isn’t that what you’re paying your fleet management company to worry about?

This isn’t to say that all data is useless. There are certainly things worth tracking and reporting. However, for the vast majority of fleets, the flood of information offered by the large fleet management companies is just going to confuse, complicate, and slow things down.

Do You Want A Fleet Management Company or Do You Want Tools to Manage the Fleet Yourself?

While slick dashboards, and endless insights into your fleet may seem like a great thing, the reality is that these tools are offered to you for one reason: they’re designed to allow you to manage the fleet yourself.

If that’s what you’re looking for, then a large FMC may be right for you. However, we have found that most companies prefer to hire a fleet management company that will offer guidance, solutions or ideally handle the fleet for them. They realize that they aren’t experts in the vehicle business and would prefer to outsource that responsibility to someone else.

Managing vehicle maintenance, tracking registration renewals, monitoring vehicle replacement schedules, building orders, and tracking the used vehicle market, are all tasks that Motorlease clients prefer not to deal with, and they don’t have to. Motorlease prides itself on taking the burdens associated with having people on the road and placing them on our shoulders, not giving you tools to deal with the headaches yourself. As a result, our clients spend less time managing their fleet, and more time focusing on their core business.