logo
logo
Sign in

Does a small business really require a GPS tracking system?

avatar
VZone International
Does a small business really require a GPS tracking system?

If your company has vehicles between two and fifty commercial vehicles, it is a small vehicle fleet business. Depending on the industry, fleet vehicles typically include cars, vans, and pickup trucks.

According to me, it is more important to track your vehicle if you are having fewer vehicles. If you have two trucks and one truck is unproductive, then 50% of your workforce is unproductive. Considering you are having one hundred trucks and one truck is not producing profit, then only 1% is ineffective. You are not even going to recognize that the truck is not productive.

Small business owners always face continuing pressure to maximize every resource they have, which includes fuel efficiency, maximizing route planning, and mitigating safety threats, fleet managers have huge responsibilities to ensure their drivers deliver their services on time to the exact customer.

One of the fundamental ways companies monitor their property and improve transportation services is through GPS tracking for company vehicles. GPS tracking ensures company vehicles are used carefully and efficiently and are well maintained. It covers things like vehicle tracking, fuel consumption reporting, monitoring driver behavior, vehicle maintenance management, and route planning.

Always believe in a philosophy of trust but verify. An organization needs to give their employees the freedom to work independently but have modern systems and technologies to gain visibility into what is really happening on a day-to-day basis. If issues do arise, the data needed for a decision is readily available.

Top 5 challenges small companies face and their solution

1   1. Fuel cost

A recent study shows that most organizations spent almost 60% of their operating cost on fuel. A huge part of the fuel of the vehicle is wasted due to mismanagement. It can be through harsh braking, idling, or speeding. And without a proper fleet management system in place, there is no way to solve this cost.

It can be solved in the following ways:

 Alerts for speeding, harsh breaking, and harsh acceleration: If drivers are operating at unsafe speeds, you will want to know right away. The system can alert you if your vehicles exceed a speed limit that you specify which also adds alerts for harsh acceleration and harsh breaking. It also helps to cut down on unproductive driving behaviors.

Alerts for excess idling: system notify by immediate alert if your vehicles exceed an idling specified by you. It also provides you data on which drivers are the most efficient as well as inefficient thereby can improve driving behaviours by providing coaching.

2. Excessive administrative tasks

 many small businesses still maintain fleets with excel, in this modern era. It is not advisable to give most of your day to paperwork, planning routes, manually adding fuel costs, and other administration. Data has matured over the period and if data is difficult to access, and not easy to understand then people by nature will tend to avoid

Her GPS tracking system provides data from being a line-item spreadsheet to summary information that creates a profile about areas which is of interest to fleet managers. Here this information helps to take a business decision that alters the business to where you want to see it.

3. Unable to track

It is always compelled for small companies to believe in word of mouth rather than machines.

 It is difficult to manage a fleet without knowing:

·         Time spent by my team with a customer

·         Are my drivers using vehicles off-duty?

·         Are they using it for personal use?

·         Are they not starting the work at the actual time?

·         Where are my vehicles currently?

·         Where did my drivers travel?

GPS tracking system helps you to track the real-time location of your vehicle on a live map. It is feasible to get a complete route of travel and time spent in landmarks including start location and end location. Most of the issues are solved if you can just view the live status and location of vehicles

4. Maintenance cost

No drivers are worried about maintaining vehicles and thereby decreasing wear and tear. Do we really take care of the rental car as our own car? Not at all. The same rule goes for the driver

Small business owners cannot afford sudden breakdowns and damage frequently with poor vehicle maintenance habits. But vehicles are the sole of their company. It is especially important for the owners to look after vehicles carefully and decrease the wear and tear of vehicles consequently confirming vehicles are on the road during business hours.

GPS tracker helps to record the driving behaviour which helps to find the most disciplined drivers and which driver needs to be trained. Thereby drivers tend to drive cautiously when they know their driving habits are being monitored. Here the system also notifies future vehicle service intervals which is extremely hard for fleet managers to remember all vehicles. We also preserve maintenance records to ensure fleet compliance

5. Theft

Vehicles are the most expensive assets the small business owns. Therefore by ‘installing a GPS tracking system, you can monitor their location very easily and the company is notified by instant alert if the vehicles are moving outside the operating location


collect
0
avatar
VZone International
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more