Having the ability to identify and process large amounts of data in near real-time, in a user-friendly, intuitive manner, is key for any fleet manager. To optimise your fleet performance, you need real-time insights at your fingertips. With the right technology platform giving you full visibility of all the information you need in the one place, you can save time, money and boost productivity, while helping to keep your drivers safe.
Whether you have a handful or hundreds of vehicles in your fleet, managing your fleet by using multiple systems, spreadsheets or platforms can be inefficient. Valuable information and performance insights can be missed, with unnecessary costs and resource misallocations continuing for years. This lack of visibility, transparency and access to real-time information can affect day-to-day operations, long-term business planning and organisational viability.
With easy access to the right information using an advanced fleet management platform, you can minimise vehicle downtime, increase productivity and discover new ways to optimise your existing fleet. So, what should you look for when assessing fleet management platforms? Below are four key features a robust system should have.
1. One single platform for complete transparency
Capturing vital fleet information from multiple devices is challenging for many fleet managers. Fortunately, fleet management platforms that capture volumes of data as a single source of truth do exist to make the process easier. Fleet managers can streamline processes, identify efficiencies and savings, and improve performance throughout a vehicle’s lifecycle connected via one platform, using a single sign-on.
Having complete control and visibility without cross-referencing multiple platforms gives you the accuracy and confidence needed to improve day-to-day fleet operations while increasing the time available for strategic planning. A comprehensive system ensures compliance with your company’s vehicle policies and safety protocols, keeping you up-to-date on vehicle maintenance needs, and even helps you track driver performance. Then you can use that information to view and manage all associated costs accurately.
2. Real-time visibility
Real-time visibility across financing, maintenance and administrational data from a single platform is key to getting the most from your fleet and a better understanding of each vehicle’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Knowing vehicles’ actual value, including all associated costs and maintenance, can reduce the risk of business disruption or unnecessary costs.
Fleet managers can gather deeper insights into a range of data in real-time, using GPS technology, sensors and driver behaviour. These insights can help make evidence-based decisions that maximise asset utilisation. With such insights, you can accurately measure vehicle usage and reduce fleet operating risks, including overdue servicing, driver infringements, invalid odometer readings or incorrect fuel type use.
3. Robust reporting
The ability to observe, amend and report on your fleet using data pulled from multiple sources or vendors puts you and your business in control of your vehicles and costs. It allows you to shift the conversation from discounts and pricing, to more strategic discussions on future fleet performance and resource optimisation.
Quick, automated and accurate reporting available in a timely manner gives you the flexibility to move fast. Detailed transactional data on lease and driver details, fleet expenses like fuel, road tolls, maintenance, infringements, Co2 reporting and financials – these are basic metrics that should be present in your software to help you make informed decisions. To help you analyse your fleet to identify potential cost savings and improvements, certain platforms allow you to tailor your reports to include categories like fuel, maintenance, fleet scheduling, vehicles on order, vehicles delayed, carbon emissions and vehicle downtime.
4. Integration with existing platforms
Communication between multiple data sources is key to managing your fleet more efficiently. A disconnect between your main fleet management platform and your third-party systems can mean unexpected downtime and increased costs. Fleet managers already juggle a lot of data, so funnelling multiple data sources into one central system seamlessly can make a significant impact.
Rather than switching between operational systems or manually exporting data, look for software that can integrate with multiple sources. Creating intuitive and easy to use custom dashboards increases usability without sacrificing functionality and user experience. Successful integration is often accompanied by an experienced IT team with fleet experience. Having IT teams that understand system integrations and fleet metrics can help pinpoint meaningful datasets for your business. These can often be viewed in annual benchmarking reports and daily analytic dashboards.
Which fleet technology option ticks all the boxes?
When looking for the right fleet technology, think about what will make your job easier to refine your fleet data into actionable insights to guide the future of your fleet. Is it access to real-time data, single sign-on to a central platform or customised reporting? If you can find one system that brings it all together, you’ll be a step closer to streamlining your workflow and optimising your fleet.
ORIX OneView is ORIX’s unique integrated solution to drive your fleet further. It can turn large volumes of data into useful insights that give you the accuracy and confidence needed to improve day-to-day fleet operations. Our awarded platform gives fleet managers complete visibility across the entire fleet, including owned, leased and novated vehicles. From granular transactional data on lease and driver details to premium fleet services, you can manage every facet of your fleet from the intuitive dashboard. Data can be filtered for analysis and customisable reports can be scheduled to run as required. With our technology, you can get fleet data from multiple devices and providers, like fuel, maintenance, parts, and downtime – which flow into a consolidated view that helps you identify the information you need to act upon now. It seamlessly connects with ORIX i (telematics), ORIX Share (car-pooling system), ORIX Fleet Companion App, online quoting and the ORIX Supply Chain to form one integrated, flexible platform, streamlining operations and taking reporting to the next level. With our expert team and in-house built technology, you’ll more easily identify efficiencies, savings and opportunities throughout a vehicle’s entire lifecycle.
Speak to us about how we can help you optimise your fleet and streamline operations with ORIX OneView. Start with ORIX today.
