GPS Tracking for Businesses

As a fleet management specialist for an HVAC or plumbing company, you’re knowledgeable about GPS tracking software by now and might even already be sold on the benefits it can offer. Now, you will need to pitch the demand for the applications to your peers or top management.

How can you build the business case for GPS monitoring? This guide will outline the best method to collect information, present your findings, and convince your staff to embrace GPS monitoring to enhance business operations. Many business coaches insist on GPS tracking for a range of fields.

Identifying the problem areas for your organisation

What are the business issues you’re having that revolve around your fleet? Lots of you are not quite sure and certainly do not know the information.

• Do you understand the expense of excessive idling for your company?
• Do you know which of your drivers are the safest or pose the most danger?
• Do you know the average time spent at each customer location?
• Do you know how many unnecessary miles are driven in a day/week/month?
• How well do you keep up with vehicle maintenance?

Most fleet management professionals don’t have analytics and insight into mobile workforce operations beyond what they physically see or hear about. You already know that GPS technology is available to assist you and your management staff collect this information so what are you waiting for?

The way to construct your business case would be to perform a pilot, or proof of concept, using a GPS tracking program. Begin by creating a list of the problem areas for your vehicles in addition to the areas that you think could use improvement, and focus on these areas throughout the trial. You’ll almost certainly discover that the technology can help resolve these business challenges and also help tackle different issues you were not aware of.

Collecting data to make your case

In the start of the trial, establish metrics for what you would like to measure. By way of instance, if fuel consumption/cost is a problem area for you, measure idle time/run-time, unauthorised use, paths taken, and petrol trades. Translate that information into dollars and cents.

Many businesses decide to conduct a blind trial, meaning they don’t mention installing the GPS devices to their workers and track fleet operations for 15 days to collect a baseline of information. Needless to say, you don’t use the information in the first half of this trial to punish any workers, it’s an indication into your worker productivity. Understanding where you currently stand is just what you will need to realise how much room for improvement you have.

After the first 15 days, inform your employees that you’re testing out GPS tracking and place some expectations and policies in place. Gauge the gap in the information for another 15 days to find out how much GPS monitoring helps enhance your fleet operations. Running a pilot will provide you more than enough information to back your claims up to your peers or upper management as definitive evidence for why you require GPS tracking.

Proposing GPS tracking to your peers or upper management

At times the case could be that upper management tasked you with locating a GPS tracking solution. Thus, it is not so much about suggesting the benefits of the technology to them since it is which company to go for. The majority of the time however, there are stakeholders or other decision makers that don’t have this GPS tracking software on their radar, so you’ll need to pitch it to them.

Most executives will initially simply see GPS monitoring software as a cost, when in actuality it’s quite the opposite. When you must present your findings to peers or even upper management, you will need to show them the many benefits, dollar savings, and ROI that you discovered in the trial.

Work with your representative from the GPS monitoring business to put together a presentation that covers the vital data. Contain the problems you found and improvements made during the pilot which contrasts your baseline metrics into your own results. Additionally, present your aims for additional improvement and anticipated ROI from using GPS tracking. Once this information is introduced, there should not be much disagreement as to whether or not your company requires this technology.

Picking the best GPS monitoring solution for your organisation

Once you’ve introduced the need and have approval to proceed with a GPS monitoring project, you want to select which provider to choose. Bear in mind that there are lots of GPS monitoring companies on the current market, and they’re not all created equal. Some are better suited for construction management businesses, whilst others cater more specifically to freight companies.

Here’s a listing of the top five criteria that the GPS monitoring provider you choose must have.

Delivers most ROI

To be able to get the most out of a GPS monitoring investment, you will need to pick the solution that will deliver the maximum return on that investment. Instead of only considering the purchase price tag, it’s important to look at just how much the solution will lower your fleet costs. Only the ones which are highly configurable and that examine the broadest assortment of fleet metrics make it possible for supervisors to comprehensively measure and manage their fleet operations. You don’t need to limit your potential savings by choosing a solution solely on cost.

Quality customer service

Make certain to select a business with superior customer service. You will want to have an experienced and friendly US-based service team which will help you through any problems you have with installations, troubleshooting, and software training. This can be something you need to have available to you 24/7/365. It’s important that they can’t just solve your issue, but fix it on the first call. An excellent customer service and support team will save you from many headaches you’ll otherwise have.

Ease of use

Afford the time to make certain that the solution you choose is simple to use. Compare it to other solutions in the marketplace to help make the best choice. The last thing you need is to select software that’s not intuitive and confusing. Nobody will use it, and you’ll have wasted your money. When it is simple to use, it requires less effort to get everyone educated and on board to attaining your GPS monitoring objectives.

Customisable to your needs

Many GPS monitoring software platforms are “what you see is what you get” products. Be sure that the application selected can be highly configurable so that you have access to the information that you need, when you want it, how you would like to see it. Otherwise, the information will not be helpful and you won’t see as much ROI as possible. Every fleet differs, so one size definitely doesn’t fit all.

Integrations

This is the era of interconnected technology. Many businesses need their accounting, dispatch, and customer service systems to exchange information. Now, GPS tracking solutions have to have the ability to integrate with these systems also. Make sure that the solution you choose will easily incorporate into your safety management systems.