If your business has even one vehicle, you are looking at a lot of extra costs and liabilities, from fuel and maintenance to time spent navigating and traveling to driver behaviour and issues. If you are a small-to-medium sized business (SME), these costs could potentially hit you hard. It is crucial to find cost savings wherever possible. Telematics is the solution for SMEs to run their fleets more efficiently, and more SMEs are joining the future of fleet management.
What is telematics, you ask?
Telematics refers to any onboard diagnostics and data-sharing systems for vehicles, including smart GPS-powered location sharing, video feeds, and geofencing. These tools will help you deal with emergencies or problem personnel and discover ways to make your operations more efficient.
Telematics can help your SME in many ways because they provide an integrated, instant approach to data. Typically, the data feeds are uploaded to a server, where you can download them from the comfort of your office or even on-the-go via a mobile app.
How SMEs can benefit from telematics:
1. Get on-board data
You can more effectively manage drivers and their routes with a combination of video feeds from the cabin, real-time driving data and GPS guidance. These tools will provide you with more accurate delivery times, which helps prevent lost time — and therefore money.
Telematics can also help you plan and execute more efficient routes, another source of cost savings.
2. Keep track of where your vehicles are
Geofencing allows you to track the locations of vehicles and set zones to which you want to pay special mind. Perhaps you want to cut down on unauthorised use of the vehicles, or you’d like to mark out a sales territory. Geofencing is an invaluable tool.
3. Get immediate diagnostics and quicker help
If you’ve ever broken down with no idea what’s wrong with your vehicle, you’ve known the expense and lost time. Imagine that happening with one of your company vehicles. Telematics provides onboard diagnostics and the ability to immediately signal for help if your vehicle breaks down.
On top of that, it also can generate accurate crash reports which comes in very handy for insurance claims!
4. Keep tabs on drivers’ performance
Are your drivers practicing road safety? You’ll never know without telematics. The data you can collect on speed, driving behaviour, and compliance with traffic signals can help you assess each driver’s competence and safety — and that helps you protect both your vehicles and your company’s reputation.
5. Let computers do the work for you
For SMEs, there is little room for error in your accounting. Telematics integrates with data management systems to help you get an accurate portrait of your fuel usage and mileage. This saves you valuable administrative times.
6. Improve your marketing strategy
If you run a delivery or taxi service, you might notice that you are serving customers in areas outside those you were targeting. With the help of a constant stream of location data, you can get an accurate picture of where your drivers and vehicles are spending their time, which can help inform your marketing strategy.
SMEs need affordable systems with a high ROI, and a telematics system isn’t as pricy as it sounds. Now that GPS and video technology have come down in price, they are not only reasonably priced, but also essential for further cost-savings. Eventually, they will pay for themselves!
7. The Rise of Telematics in SMEs
Many SMEs, such as Edinburgh-based The Motorhome Franchise, have already embraced telematics as a core part of their security measures and growth strategy. They’ve shown how telematics can help SMEs target new areas in their marketing and ensure safe driving behaviour and thus protect their assets.
Trimming their bottom line allows them to afford expansion of their fleet and overall growth as a company.
Telematics isn’t just for vehicle rental companies.
All SMEs can enjoy all the benefits, whether it’s ensuring a pleasant customer experience by helping drivers be safer on the roads or being able to remotely lock the vehicle in the case of theft. Plus, telematics gives business owners peace of mind that they can always keep tabs on their vehicles, even from miles away.
Are you ready to bring your business into the future of fleet?
Get an affordable telematics system with the easy-to-use, full-featured iFleet and get ready to see some efficiency and cost savings. Join the RM 10 Million iFleet Transformation Fund, in which each company can be subsidized up to RM10,000 for digitising their fleet!
There’s no better time to get telematics for your company vehicles.
