How Fleet-Driven Businesses Can Optimize and Transform When It Matters Most

This article by Ryan Wilkinson, chief technology officer of IntelliShift will discuss how – with the infiltration of technology into our daily lives – investment in fleet efficiency allows for quick decision-making by providing important information to your business before it’s too late – improving safety, reducing downtime, and cutting fuel costs.

Over the last decade, businesses across various industries have had to undergo complete digital transformation. With the infiltration of technology into our daily lives, business operations are forced to adapt to these changes to remain successful against the competitors. For companies with fleets of vehicles and equipment, the challenge to remain nimble in this ever-changing landscape is even greater. These business leaders must be able to manage resources that are constantly on the move from Point A to Point B to Point C, and so on.

For companies with fleets on highways across the United States, they know that on-demand access to data is critical to operate with speed and agility. According to GartnerOpens a new window , “leading organizations in every industry are wielding data and analytics as competitive weapons, operational accelerants, and innovation catalysts.” Whether businesses – large or small – were early adopters of fleet technology or are just now on their way to digitally transforming their business, companies that depend on fleet and field operations to deliver products or perform services must invest in the technology solutions that leverage data to provide end-to-end operational intelligence. 

This type of investment in fleet efficiency allows for quick decision-making by providing important information to your business before it’s too late – improving safety, reducing downtime, and cutting fuel costs. 

Connected Operations

Data and operations analytics are key factors in an organization’s success. However, GartnerOpens a new window reports that only half of documented corporate strategies mention data and analytics as fundamental components for delivering value. With this in mind, it’s important for companies to not simply adopt technology for the sake of checking the box, but rather, leverage the technology to maximize efficiencies – ensuring their assets and data are connected to deliver insights that benefit their business needs both now and in the future. With the global fleet management software market growing 17 percent per year – and experts believing it will hit $50 billion by 2027Opens a new window – it’s clear that fleet-driven businesses are adopting technology, but it is critical for organizations to think beyond just fleet and asset management. By aligning on forward-thinking business goals and using the data and analytics this technology offers, companies will realize the most from their investment, gain a competitive edge and ultimately, increase their bottom line. 

Investing in fleet technology with business needs and future goals in mind means bringing on a modern connected vehicle and asset operations platform to tie together the assets, data, people, and processes of a fleet-driven organization. By connecting previously siloed data sets from across business functions and digitizing paper-based processes, this technology can provide end-to-end operational visibility that’s customized to an organization’s unique practices, processes, and metrics. From asset and safety management to compliance, analytics and process management, there are a variety of reasons why leveraging a unified technology platform is crucial to effectively managing operational processes. In fact, nearly 50 percent of respondents to the 2021 State of Connected Operations ReportOpens a new window say a top benefit from using a connected vehicle and asset operations platform is vehicle and/or asset optimization. Moreover, four out of five respondents say they have more visibility into the fleet operations now that they are using a fleet operations platform, while two out of five have more visibility into safety.  

2021 State of Connected Operations Report: Graph 1

2021 State of Connected Operations Report: Graph 2

Learn More: 3 Tips for a Truly Agile Supply Chain in CPG Companies

Emergency Services as a Use Case

Managing fleet operations comes in all shapes and sizes, and whether a large enterprise or regional business, companies must take the advances in technology seriously to meet their business goals. In fact, New York-based D&J Ambulette’sOpens a new window  digital transformation journey to connected operations began only five years ago when they realized business operations could be optimized with the help of technology. As a family-owned company having been in business for over 25 years, D&J Ambulette prides itself in being a small business that truly values its employees and customers. For nearly 20 years, the company relied on spreadsheets and pen and paper to track information – from keeping a record of vehicle maintenance schedules to billing and invoicing – the list goes on. As the business continued to flourish, information piled up and dissecting the information to keep operations afloat began to be a pain point. D&J Ambulette business managers turned to technology to help bring their business operations picture together; thus, investing in connected operations proved to be integral to the organization’s ability to pivot amidst the unpredictability of 2020 and continue its mission to serve the community. 

Committed to providing prompt, courteous, and affordable transportation services for nursing homes, adult day care centers and hospitals throughout the greater New York area, D&J Ambulette turned to a connected vehicle and asset operations platform to optimize processes and increase safety for their drivers and customers, all the while also seeing even greater business benefits – growing their business and increasing revenue. 

Preventative maintenance tools such as GPS tracking, dash cam video solutions and vehicle service features for proactive safety use were able to catch issues before they become larger, more expensive problems for the company. For example, video solutions utilize dash cams to provide fleet managers – and drivers – peace of mind when vehicles are on the road. With end-to-end, real time visibility into what is happening with operators at all times, these videos serve as crucial pieces of evidence in case of an accident or customer complaint. The organization specifically saw a decrease in accidents after implementing video solutions – by downloading video of the routes, they are able to identify issues that could occur on the road and/or with the driver that could be prevented. Combining this with any actual complaints received by the company as well as GPS reports, D&J Ambulette is able to make its own formula for preventing issues in-house – such as biannual continual education for drivers and on-the-road inspection.  

Utilizing route management software also ensures its vehicles and operators are working at their full potential, giving drivers the most efficient routes without the time and effort of manual dispatch work or decision making. With the advancements of artificial intelligence – the ability to detect when drivers may be falling asleep at the wheel or otherwise distracted – the company has plans to deploy these types of measures to their fleet of nearly 200 vehicles to continue to increase safety in the future. 

As technology continues to evolve, businesses that are willing to implement these advancements with a forward-looking mindset will discover benefits that go beyond the day-to-day operations. Streamlining and digitalizing operating procedures will allow employees to focus time on other tasks that positively impact the bottom line.

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