6 Most Important Duties of Fleet Manager in Today’s Digital Era

The fleet management practices executed by a manager have a substantial role to play in the value chain of your business. With a well-managed fleet, you can cater to customers within the briefest time possible and reduce the expenses of managing the fleet.

While it might sound like hiring a fleet manager is an extra business cost, the value that a manager can provide would seem worth it compared to the expenditures you would have saved.

To sum up, in a nutshell, fleet managers streamline the roles in your business, yielding noticeable results and higher profits.

Duties Of A Fleet Manager

Here are six duties of a fleet manager that he supervises while being associated with your fleet –

1. Collaboration

In earlier times, the role of a fleet manager was to manage the everyday schedule of your fleet.

However, fleet managers of the modern world are intellectual fleet professionals who lead and coach, not only the fleet lineup but also drivers and numerous management levels.

Fleet managers can inspire a team towards a common purpose or vision. For a minor business, a fleet manager might act as the service or office manager, which adds even more duties on their shoulders.

A successful fleet manager formulates a cooperative, working relationship with all domestic functions within the company and personnel associated with it –

• Drivers and technicians – They coach drivers on safe driving behaviors and make sure they know how to deal with a DOT safety inspection.
• Dispatchers and back-office – This body ensures that all vehicles are at the disposal of dispatchers for work throughout the day and enhance routing and deployment of vehicles.
• Business owners and leaders: They focus on compliance and insurance claims issues, recommend ideas for boosting business performance, and improve profitability by cutting down expenses.
• Service managers and mechanics – They check vehicle downtime and track automobile acquisition and disposal.

A fleet manager administers all these bodies and plays a vital role in all these posts every time a body needs added supervision.

2. Sharing knowledge

A fleet manager must have an aptitude for interpersonal communication besides the traditional industrial expertise and organizational skills accompanied with this role.

It takes many people as-well-as diverse skills to keep a fleet going, thus collaborating across all disciplines can mean the distinction between on-time and late, as-well-as profit and loss.

Fleet managers deal with diverging personalities all day long and frequently deal with people who do not share the same preferences.

The role of a fleet manager is not an ideal one, and it is paramount to be persuasive, yet tactful and be able to sway people to do things for you they likely would not want to do, or in the timeframe you prefer.

Fleet managers keep senior management informed on fleet performance, budget demands, latest products, and programs.

Fleet managers understand that most executives are not experts in fleet management, and they only provide them with the fleet data critical to making a decision.

One way to implement this idea is to keep fleet reports jargon-free and formatted for seamless review and comprehension by higher management.

3. Associations with Suppliers and Partners

Fleet professionals deal with suppliers and other partners to upgrade their performance.

Fleet managers implement supply-chain management techniques, such as bringing suppliers collectively as a team to promote communication, providing efficient as-well-as low-cost services to the fleet.

Fleet managers also set the safety and maintenance standards for the fleet and handle all the administrative work.

4. Maintenance and Cost Control

Catering to maintenance schedules can be tedious when you have other business roles to handle. Ignoring fleet maintenance is a recipe for disaster, from failed orders because of vehicle failure to road casualties.

A fleet manager can cater to fleet risk management by addressing every preventative maintenance demand to ensure the vehicles operate in peak conditions.

You can also rely on a well-experienced fleet manager to negotiate maintenance prices and arrange with the different service centers.

Cost control is one of the most important jobs of a fleet manager. If you do not have adequate control over factors that alter costs, you might end up spending more than what your fleet requires.

Some factors include fuel cost, the automobiles you use, whether you lease or buy, the route your vehicles take as-well-as the maintenance schedule you support.

A fleet manager understands the assumptions behind all these factors and can aid you to make budget-friendly decisions.

The long-run benefit of recruiting a fleet manager is receiving a positive client rating as well as saving the expenses of running your fleet.

5. Record Keeping

It is easy for different records that come with owning business automobiles to get forgotten or lost.

However, ignorance is never a pardon for not having up-to-date records such as driving licenses. Missing most of these documents can lead to enormous business losses in terms of fines.

Hiring a fleet manager can keep all these records organized systematically and in check. They also ensure that you comply with the different state laws and have the crucial documents to show.

You must meet specific requirements from the International Fuel Tax Agreement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where a fleet manager can help you with all of them.

6. Driver Behavior Monitoring

Poor driver behavior can destroy your fleet’s health and your reputation as a business.

There also exists a risk that a driver might elope with your vehicle while on the job. Recruiting a fleet manager can help control these aspects of the business with excellent supervision.

Telematics has made it convenient to track vehicles from the comfort of a screen. These devices can identify maintenance issues and the behavior of drivers while on the road.

In case a driver takes hard turns, exceeds the speed limit, or drives erratically, fleet telematics can warn a manager with such data in real-time.

Final Words

A fleet manager plays an indispensable role in overseeing company wagons available for the transportation of freights or products.

The managers work in compliance with managers from other departments to ensure deliveries and distributions happen on time, and the required automobiles are available and operating as expected.

A fleet manager also supervises the scheduling of deliveries and establishes that the department operates within the approved budget.

You need to choose a decent telematics provider as your fleet manager would supervise your fleet mostly through the provided fleet management software to boost efficiency.