When you’re managing a tight fleet budget, any steps you can take to cut costs significantly impact your bottom line. If you haven’t evaluated your current strategy for maintaining your fleet, now is the perfect time to review your fleet management procedures. Here are six ways to streamline Fleet Management Costs:
1. Maintain the Right Fleet Size
There are many details in maintaining the right fleet size for your business model. However, if you have underutilized or highly-specialized vehicles that aren’t ‘earning their keep’ so to speak, consider purging them. Since they don’t play a key role in day-to-day operations, getting rid of them will lower fuel, administrative and fleet maintenance costs.
To determine your correct fleet size, first you’ll need to identify and classify all primary fleet vehicles. Identify the vehicles that rank in the bottom 50% of utilization rates. Using data, determine how critical the vehicle plays in your overall fleet. Non-critical vehicles can then be dropped from your fleet.
2. Implement a Vehicle Replacement Plan
To keep everything running smoothly, having a vehicle replacement plan in place is sensible. Associated costs decrease when older vehicles get replaced with newer models. This plan helps reduce costs associated with maintenance, repairs, downtime, and risk management. To develop your replacement plan, do a full inventory of your fleet. Then decide the parameters for repair or replacement.
3. Better Disposal Options
If dropping vehicles from your fleet, it makes sense to recover as much money as possible on the final sale. Remember, the value of cars can have daily depreciation, so you want to sell as soon as possible. Clean cars that have service records and user’s manuals make consumers more ready to buy. To reach a broader segment of auto buyers, consider listing your unwanted fleet vehicles online at auctions, websites, and mobile apps.
4. Consolidated Fleet Management Program
A fleet management program, like Vector Fleet Management provides, helps implement cost savings and increase efficiency in a way that single departments are unable to achieve. When you outsource the management of your fleet, you enjoy a significant savings, including less redundancy, greater flexibility, and process standardization.
5. Manage Warranties
Don’t overlook the savings you can find by managing the warranties for your fleet. There’s no reason to pay for parts, services, or repairs that are already covered by the warranty. Doing warranty by hand could be nearly impossible, that’s why Vector Fleet uses its own Fleet Management Information System (FMIS) to store this information electronically.
6. Reduce Purchase Costs
Obviously, the less you pay to purchase new vehicles, the better your bottom line will be. If you are not optimizing the purchasing processes, you could be paying more than needed. To maximize your purchase process, consider using purchase agreements that help reduce administrative work, and offer better deals. If you’re willing to establish a multi-year contract, many vendors are happy to negotiate deals and develop purchase price assurances that are mutually beneficial. You win because you save more money.
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To learn more about the features and benefits of a comprehensive fleet management program,
contact us today to discuss your specific needs and to get a free cost analysis.
Contact us today for a free cost analysis!
