Scalable fleet management solutions for growing fleets

Growth has a multiplier effect on fleet management. More vehicles can mean more maintenance schedules, safety events, reports, users, devices and data to manage. Add another branch or acquire another business and you may also need to fit new vehicles, people and workflows into the operation.

The fleet management technology that worked when your operation was smaller may not be equipped to handle those additional demands. And if you're choosing a new provider, you don't want to discover its limitations after you've invested the time and resources to implement it.

That's why scalability deserves a place on your list of requirements. A scalable fleet management solution should meet your needs today while helping you grow into tomorrow’s opportunities.

What are scalable fleet management solutions?

Scalable fleet management solutions are integrated technology platforms engineered to adapt as you add vehicles, drivers, locations, users, assets and operational complexity. Instead of forcing you to add manual work or piece together new technology every time the business expands, they help you manage more of the operation within the same connected system. 

A truly scalable system brings together:

• GPS fleet tracking with both fleetwide and detailed views 
• AI and automation to reduce manual data analysis and other routine tasks
• Connected fleet solutions that share fleet data with other business systems 
• Reliable, secure infrastructure capable of supporting more users, devices and connections 
• Dedicated support that evolves as your fleet and technology needs change 
• Asset management which keeps vehicles, powered equipment and nonpowered assets within the same system

Understand the benefits of an integrated platform with scalable fleet management solutions.

What components make a fleet management system scalable?

Some of the biggest challenges businesses face when scaling fleet operations start with tasks that used to be easy. A manager can keep close tabs on 30 drivers. One person may be able to distribute reports to a handful of supervisors. But multiply those responsibilities across hundreds of vehicles and the same approach can quickly become unworkable. 

When determining how to choose a scalable fleet management solution​, look for technology that addresses these challenges without requiring your administrative workload to grow at the same pace as your fleet. 

Fleet information organized for every level

When you’re managing a smaller fleet, the same few people may be responsible for most day-to-day decisions. Growth changes that. You may have executives responsible for individual departments, regional supervisors and specialized fleet managers.

A scalable system should make it easy to organize your growing operation around those responsibilities and get information to the people who need it. Leading tools for scaling fleet operations can:

• Align fleet data with your organizational structure. Vehicles, drivers and assets should be easy to group by location, team, business unit or other criteria so managers can work with them collectively.
• Provide the right level of visibility. Executives may need a fleetwide view while regional managers need to drill into the vehicles, drivers and assets they oversee.
• Automate the flow of fleet information. Reports and alerts should reach the appropriate managers and stakeholders.
• Put location data to work. Geofences can help teams see when vehicles arrive at and leave job sites, verify timecards and support workflows such as payroll and customer billing.

Verizon Connect supports these types of workflows through customizable groups, reporting, alerts, geofences and driver identification tools.

Safety management that scales 

With a few dozen drivers, a fleet manager may know who needs extra coaching simply from working with the team every day. At 300 drivers spread across multiple locations, that becomes much harder.

The stakes grow too. More vehicles and miles on the road mean more opportunities for costly incidents, making it increasingly important to identify risky behaviors early, develop a safety culture and reinforce the same safety standards fleetwide. Verizon Connect’s own data shows this: Drivers with more than two stop sign violations are 260% more likely to be in a crash; with more than three overspeeding events crash likelihood goes up by 230%.¹

A scalable fleet safety program should:

• Prioritize safety-critical events. AI video can classify footage so managers spend their time reviewing events that may warrant attention rather than hours of routine driving.
• Compare performance across groups. Safety scoring can help surface trends by location, team, manager or other business unit and provides an objective way to apply standards across all drivers and evaluate progress toward safety goals.
• Give drivers timely feedback. In-cab alerts can address certain behaviors in real-time without waiting for a manager to review the event later. At Verizon Connect, AI-generated in-cab alerts were associated with 30% to 60% fewer risky behaviors, including tailgating, phone calls, distraction, fatigue and smoking.¹
• Connect video with driving data. Integrated GPS and video can provide more context when reviewing incidents or claims and serve as a digital witness when claims are made.

Turn fleet data into operational insights

At a certain fleet size, finding the problem can become as much work as fixing it. A spike in idling, a group of underused vehicles or a change in driving behavior may be buried somewhere in thousands of vehicle records. Your team still has to know where to look.

That is where fleet automation systems for enhancing operational capacity become increasingly valuable. AI can help move the manager’s job from hunting through data to deciding what to do about it.

Operational Insights, Verizon Connect’s generative AI fleet management tool, analyzes fleet data and surfaces unusual activity, recurring patterns and opportunities, including changes in driving behavior, fuel spend, utilization trends and location activity—all of which can reveal efficiencies, cost savings and even uncaptured revenue. This is all done proactively, without the need for managers to prompt the AI, or even know exactly what they’re looking for.

Scalable fleet management solutions for growing fleets turn the power of AI and data into smarter decision making.

A strong technology foundation

Growth can also change where fleet information needs to go. What once stayed mainly within the fleet department may eventually feed transportation management systems, payroll, accounting, fuel card programs and other applications across the business.

Those connections raise the stakes for system reliability and cybersecurity. If hundreds of vehicles, employees and business workflows depend on your fleet platform, an outage or security issue can have a much wider operational and financial impact.

A scalable technology foundation should include:

• APIs, webhooks and prebuilt telematics integrations that allow fleet data to connect with existing business systems and make it easier to add custom or out-of-the-box technology integrations. At Verizon Connect, a developer portal and Marketplace partnership provide additional support.
• Reliable connectivity and system performance capable of supporting a growing number of vehicles, assets, users and connected applications with 99% uptime or greater.
• Cybersecurity safeguards designed to help protect connected devices and fleet data.

Verizon Connect combines these capabilities with Verizon’s broader technology and communications infrastructure. 

Learn more about Verizon Connect’s award-winning platform and the software tools fit for unique fleet needs.

A partner equipped to support your growth

The fleet you manage two years from now may look very different from the one you manage today. You could open another branch, add a new class of asset or decide that AI dashcams now make sense for your safety program.

With ongoing support from a Verizon Connect Account Manager who already understands your fleet and its goals, you have a familiar resource as your priorities change. Your Account Manager can help you identify additional ways to use the platform, evaluate new capabilities and find opportunities to reduce fleet expenses.

The larger and more complex the fleet becomes, the more valuable that continuity can be. Instead of treating every stage of growth as a new technology project, you can continue building on the systems and relationships already in place.

Benefits of scalable fleet management solutions for businesses with growing fleets

Scale magnifies inefficiency. Five unnecessary minutes of idling or administrative work may not look like much on one vehicle or one workday. Repeat it across hundreds of vehicles and thousands of workdays and the cost adds up.

The same multiplier can make small improvements much more valuable. GPS fleet data can help identify fuel waste and underused vehicles, support preventive maintenance schedules, reduce time spent compiling reports and provide scalable compliance management options for growing fleets. 

Verizon Connect customers have seen those efficiencies create additional capacity. Sonoco Recycling saved more than $100,000 in fuel by reducing idling while increasing average route volume from 10 to 12 tons to 17 to 18 tons. At Apex Landscaping, reporting that once took about two hours could be completed in roughly five minutes, giving managers more time to focus on running and expanding the business.

The financial value can show up quickly: 48% of GPS tracking users reported achieving a positive ROI in less than one year.²

The right scalable fleet management solutions for growing fleets should fit more than the operation you run today. They should give you room for what comes next without forcing you to rethink how you manage the fleet every time the business reaches its next stage.

Sources

¹ Verizon Connect aggregated customer data video analysis of the number of events per 1000km on 30,000 vehicles

² Verizon Connect’s Fleet Technology Trends Report