Capricorn, a building, shop fitting and commercial property maintenance company with 10 vehicles, has renewed its agreement to use a fleet management system from FleetMatics for a further three years.

Capricorn has used vehicle tracking technology for around 10 years, before switching to the FleetMatics fleet management system in 2006.

Like many users of FleetMatics’ technology Paul Ennis, a partner at Capricorn, accesses his information via a smart phone app where he can see exactly where all the vehicles are.

This real time positioning functionality provides many benefits to Capricorn. It improves customer service as Capricorn is able to keep customers accurately informed about the expected arrival time of his team and it allows the driver to find the most direct route to a job.

It also enhances productivity and provides evidence in case of a dispute about the length of time the company attended a site.

However, Ennis concedes that Capricorn does not use the full power of the business intelligence information which the FleetMatics system can provide although the company is contemplating monitoring fuel use more closely.

But, the company has become so used to having the FleetMatics system it uses it in a myriad of other situations to ensure the smooth running of the business.

Ennis said: “We use it all the time, from checking where one of our employees is when they are running a small errand to monitoring the use of the vehicles by a dealer when they are in for servicing.”