During two decades in the fleet industry, managing director of Chevin Fleet Solutions, Ashley Sowerby, has pioneered the world’s first web-based asset management application and helped hundreds of fleet operations weather two deep recessions. In three instalments, Ashley tells Fleet News how technology has revolutionised the industry.

A Web of Possibilities
It’s difficult to imagine now how we’d cope without the internet these days, let alone manage large or complex fleets without it. Yet it wasn’t until relatively recently that web-based fleet management applications came into being. Up until around eight years ago those fleets that were supported by any kind of software management system at all relied on DOS or Windows-based platforms. Although these were a major asset to any fleet operation at the time, the advent of the internet began to reveal a plethora of new possibilities.

Over the last decade the internet has started to establish itself within the mainstream, becoming an ever growing aspect of everyday lives. When it comes to enabling technology for businesses, the advent of the internet represented an evolution towards a platform for applications rather than just static ‘shop window’ pages. It was at this time the fleet sector began to consider the benefits of harnessing that potential and in turn providers of traditional desktop-based fleet management systems, keen to meet the dot com demand, commenced the race to build an effective web-based platform. Through the design of web-enabled portals, information could be exchanged at the click of a button and data accessed in real-time from any machine with an internet connection - empowering personnel to swap fleet information quickly and accurately.

This also meant that the type and volume of data that applications could support had become infinite, allowing programmes to be designed to exactly reflect the changing requirements in the market, helping fleet businesses achieve a higher standard of visibility, more consistent and streamlined processes and a vast reduction in cost. Unlike the early nineties, thanks in part to web-based technology, the emphasis had shifted from the fleet as a collection of assets, to be more focused on the driver, who was now seen as playing a pivotal role in optimising fleet performance. Through implementing web-based technologies, fleet personnel, from the drivers to workshop mechanics and remote engineers, were empowered and encouraged to take a more active and responsible role in joining up the dots of the fleet management process.

The Driving Force
Whereas traditionally fleets were viewed merely as a tool to facilitate wider organisational operations and objectives, by the turn of the millennium this perception had developed into a more holistic understanding of fleets and the overall business benefits of optimising processes through the adoption of web-based technology. By incorporating all related fleet administration requirements - such as vehicle procurement, repairs scheduling and fleet driver data management - whilst promoting the role of drivers and other fleet personnel in overall successful fleet management, the boardroom began to take note and buy into the value of investment in such technology. This was also indicative of the growing legislative demands impacting upon the fleet industry.

Duty of care obligations, such as regular licence checking, driver medicals, and vehicle safety check lists, although necessary had consequently added to the administrative burden of the fleet manager. With an internet-based fleet system however, this information could now be pulled together automatically from the various disparate facets into a centralised hub, enabling alerts and reports to be formulated automatically and employee safety prioritised.

Data collected by web-based management systems led to drivers becoming key to improving efficiencies and reducing overall fleet spend. With up-to-the minute information on fuel consumption and mileage, uneconomical driver behaviours could be easily identified and addressed with targeted driver training. This, accompanied with changes in company car tax legislation relating to a reduction in emissions, created a new outlook on both the driver’s and the asset’s role in overall fleet efficiency.

Getting From A to Z
After around the year 2000, fleet management dynamics had shifted from getting from A to B, to encompassing a whole raft of related operations that impeded on fleet territory. The rapid exchange of data that was enabled by web-based applications, coupled with organisational investment in a higher volume of PCs, resulted in department-wide interaction and engagement with fleets. Personnel from HR, finance and accounts, from senior management level down to engineers on the workshop floor, could now access fleet software from their desktop to contribute their piece of the information puzzle to present a holistic picture of operations and expenditure.

The internet also made our jobs easier as fleet and asset management providers, because we no longer had to spend hour upon hour laboriously configuring individual computers with the same software – we were now able to upload the systems onto a single machine with instant global deployment with intelligence from the frontline fed directly back to decision makers at head quarters.

Fleets were now taking a more central role within organisations. Fleet costs were on the up then just as they are now, with fuel prices and insurance premiums seeming to continually hike up, making it critical to keep fleet related expenditure in check. In the past decade, ROI has firmly stayed at the top of the agenda, and web-based applications had helped get it there. The web has made the world seem like a smaller place, and the dawn of connectivity was just around the corner, but so was another recession.