Can Telematics provide real advantages and benefits to your business?

Can Telematics provide real advantages and benefits to your business?

Answer: Absolutely.

You may have heard of telematics and you may have dismissed it or considered it a “nice to have” but not a “must have”. You may have thought “I don’t need that technology. I don’t understand it. I can’t see the advantages of it.” Or you may have considered it “big brother tech” and don’t appreciate its practical use and value to your business. However, my purpose here is to bring you just a glimpse of what such “tech” can do for your business for the equivalent cost of a couple of beers in a high class London pub/club per month.

Whether you manage a fleet of vehicles or a “fleet” of personnel, the considered use of a telematics/tracking platform can provide your business with a range of direct, easily identifiable, benefits and some which, although given less emphasis, can and will provide significant advantages across a range of metrics, from cost reductions and positive customer experience, to retained fleet value and safety aspects.

Here is a “Top Five” reasons to consider telematics for your business (small or large). You may, in specific instances related to your specific business, consider more:

1. Improve Operational efficiency

Your business, having remote workers, vehicles and equipment will wish to look at making the most out of resources to minimise costs and boost performance. Knowing the “where, what, when and how”, in realtime, of all your assets is going to result in your business achieving greater success through optimal operational efficiencies. Complete visibility and control over assets will help drive such improvements. Vehicle & Personnel tracking offers a wide range of business and operational benefits that will underpin a highly efficient fleet. 

2. Fuel cost

How great an impact on your bottom line does the rising costs in fuel have? Significant right? So that fuel usage continuously “bites” and is an ever greater overhead for your fleet operation and the primary focus for most vehicle-related efficiency initiatives. Monitoring consumption and identifying areas of improvement is an essential part of any fuel management programme. vehicle tracking provides you with a vital monitoring and performance tool to achieve significant savings.

A study of businesses across all sectors of industry, by the RAC, said that 68% of businesses using telematics saw a reduction in fuel bills, while 55% saw a reduction in wear and tear and 48% said there was a reduction in downtime for their vehicles, contributing to further savings.

3. Security

Vehicle, equipment and cargo theft could be a major challenge for your business, whatever industry sector you may be operating in. Tracking technology can help to protect vulnerable mobile resources such as plant equipment. Real-time alerts notify of any potential risks, unauthorised movements, whilst accurate positioning data ensure complete visibility of assets at all times.

4. Manage Benefit in Kind Taxation

Legal compliance, in this area, can be a headache. Employees must pay tax on company vehicles and fuel, whilst employers may have extra duty to pay, unless it can be proved that they are being used exclusively for business use. You need to keep accurate records for business and private mileage to be able to prove that journeys are undertaken for work or personal reasons. Using a tracking solution, a driver can define business and private journeys as part of a business’ legal compliance while you can easily oversee that what is being reported is, in fact, correct.

5. Customer experience and satisfaction

By investing in integrated telematics, companies have the opportunity to collate and distribute more accurate data related to individual field operatives, and make more accurate predictions when providing customers with ETAs. For companies who have made the transition to integrated telematics, they have reported significant drops in “customers not at homes” and an overall increase in customer satisfaction.

A market analysis was conducted by global research consultancy TNS to establish current consumer perceptions of customer service standards among businesses that deliver products and services to consumers’ homes, including tradesmen, service management providers and delivery companies. The study sought to confirm what timeslots consumers are given when receiving home visits, how often companies arrive late and general levels of consumer tolerance. Interestingly, the research revealed that 87 per cent of consumers across Great Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands have suffered tradesmen and delivery firms turning up late for appointments, with more than a quarter claiming to have experienced poor punctuality on a regular basis. The results provide an interesting insight into the importance of punctuality and good communication from a consumer perspective. Good customer service will differentiate a company from the competition in any economic climate, in a recession it can mean business survival.

Of course, a similar experience may well be shared by large projects in the B2B realm when, for example, one project job is delayed, perhaps for a whole day or more, due not the late showing on site of the Project electrician or plumber. There is a never-ending suite of scenarios which can, and do, impact your customer and, in turn, impacts your business but which can be managed much better with the adoption of telematics/tracking as a core function of your business.

Telematics as a stand-alone investment in fleet management can already be a huge improvement on managing data by simply using spreadsheets or paper, but by integrating your telematics platform and sharing any available data across all departments, the benefits to the business as a whole can be huge.
Telematics provides an auditable record, encourages safety, can help provide legal security, and of course, can help your company to save money. Not to mention the benefits to be reaped by your customers, ensuring repeat business and a good working relationship with all your company’s clients.