Why Corporate Fleet Vehicles Are Important

Corporate fleet vehicles are still important in 2021. However, they require careful management to ensure that they are worthwhile for a business. Let’s learn more about corporate vehicles and how to manage your fleet effectively:

What Is a Fleet?

A fleet consists of all the vehicles owned or leased by a business, government agency or other organization. These vehicles are owned or leased for employees to drive instead of their cars.

Employers choose to do this for a few different reasons. For starters, providing employees with a vehicle can boost morale by making driving and commuting more convenient. Fleet vehicles can also provide advertising for the employer through stickers, signs, etc.

What Are Corporate Fleet Vehicles?

Let’s dive deeper into corporate fleet vehicles by comparing them to personal vehicles and company cars.

Corporate Fleet Vehicles vs Personal Vehicles

When an employee drives their vehicle, they are in charge of everything from gas to insurance, maintenance, etc.

However, when an employee drives a corporate fleet vehicle, the company handles insurance and maintenance. This helps reduce the costs taken on by the employee and is incredibly convenient when driving long distances for work.

Additionally, corporate fleet vehicles can contribute to your company culture thanks to their benefits to employers and employees.

Corporate Fleet Vehicles vs Company Cars

Corporate fleet vehicles and company cars are essentially the same things. Often, companies can get a discount when purchasing multiple vehicles for a corporate fleet. If they are going the leasing route, they may get better lease terms and options. Companies can choose their fleets based on the features, look and functionality of the vehicle.

For instance, a construction company may want to provide its workers with a corporate truck to transport construction materials and tools easily. On the other hand, a company that prioritizes eco-friendly business practices may want to provide its workers with an electric or hybrid corporate vehicle.

Corporate fleet vehicles provide more control to employers while at the same time offering more convenience for employees — making it a mutually beneficial scenario.

When and How To Reduce Corporate Fleet Vehicle Use

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies were forced to reduce corporate fleet vehicle usage due to changing business environments. More employees were working from home and no longer needed a corporate vehicle to get to and from work.

On the other hand, employees no longer need to use a corporate vehicle due to quarantine protocols.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was largely unpredictable and unprecedented, knowing when and how to reduce corporate fleet usage is an important component of managing a corporate fleet effectively. Here are some other scenarios when companies may want to reduce their corporate fleet vehicle usage:

Changing industry needs. Sometimes, the industry changes, and as a result, companies need to make changes to their corporate fleet.
Changing business needs. Conversely, changing needs and priorities on the business side can lead to changes in a corporate fleet. For instance, a company may no longer be focusing on or even providing a specific product or operation that requires a corporate vehicle.
Changing employee needs. Finally, changing the needs and priorities of employees may necessitate changes in a corporate fleet.

Besides the obvious answer of reducing the overall size of a corporate fleet, here are some other tactics that businesses can employ to reduce the cost of maintaining a corporate fleet:

Businesses can try to reduce the miles traveled to reduce the costs of maintaining a corporate fleet. Most companies have personal-use policies restricting the use of the corporate vehicle for company purposes only. To enforce a personal-use policy, companies can monitor and enforce such a policy. Additionally, companies can restructure their operations to reduce the miles traveled by their employees for work every day.
Businesses can try to boost the MPG of their fleet vehicles to reduce the costs of maintaining a corporate fleet. Fuel is often one of the largest expenses of maintaining a corporate fleet. To reduce fuel usage, many companies may consider incorporating more fuel-efficient trucks into their fleets.
Businesses can try to lower maintenance costs of their vehicles to reduce maintaining a corporate fleet. Companies also spend a lot of money maintaining their fleets. To reduce these costs, companies may want to perform more preventative maintenance (PM). Companies may also want to utilize higher-quality products and features like synthetic oil to lower maintenance costs. While such strategies require more money up-front, they save businesses money in the long term.

Fleet Replacement and Lifecycle Management

Another way companies effectively manage a corporate fleet is by practicing lifecycle management. Lifecycle management involves accounting for a vehicle’s total costs of ownership (TCO).

When it no longer makes sense to keep a vehicle that requires more money than it’s worth, the company needs to consider replacing it.

At the same time, replacement isn’t cheap either. Here are some ways that companies can replace their fleets at the right time by practicing lifecycle management:

Companies can maximize residual value by minimizing downtime and maintenance costs for a professional, modern image that prioritizes employee retention.
Companies can maximize the rate of return on every expense for a relatively professional image that prioritizes flexibility thanks to adjustable schedules.
Companies can minimize capital costs by avoiding major expenditures and focusing on drivability rather than image.

De-Fleeting Units

When a company is reducing the overall size of its fleet or simply retiring a vehicle that’s no longer worth maintaining, it goes through the de-fleeting process.

The de-fleeting process involves performing maintenance and making necessary repairs to the vehicles to attract high-value offers during the resale process.

Often, you need to make changes and fixes to different areas, including exterior paint, wheel rims, windshields, windows, mirrors, bumpers, headlights, interior fabric and doors and handles.

Total Fleet Management Solutions

A lot of research and information goes into adequately managing a corporate fleet. This research can be difficult to do on your own. Thankfully, there are total fleet management solutions that you can incorporate to more effectively and efficiently manage a corporate fleet.

Vehicle Tracking Systems

Use a vehicle tracking system to manage a corporate fleet effectively. These systems utilize GPS technology to provide accurate and up-to-date location information on a vehicle.

Companies can use these systems to ensure that employees use their corporate vehicles as they should — and not for personal purposes. This is a great way to ensure that employees are abiding by personal-use policies.

Another way you can use technology to manage your fleet better is to utilize fleet management software. Fleet management software allows you to store all the relevant data regarding your fleet in a single, accessible location.

Furthermore, the software can also provide reports, alerts and emails regarding your fleet, so you’re always up-to-date and making the right decisions to maintain your fleet.

Fleet Relocation

If you find that you have too many fleet vehicles in one place, you may need to relocate some of the vehicles in your fleet for a more balanced approach.

The best way to do this is to find a specialized logistics company to help you transport these vehicles quickly and safely to their new locations.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for help with fleet relocation, look no further than RPM. RPM is a top logistics provider in both freight and vehicle transportation.

We remove the complexity from logistics thanks to over 30,000 monitored and vetted carriers and instant onboarding so that you can ensure that your corporate fleet is where you need it to be. We offer single-source solutions and boast a 98% on-time delivery rate.