Fleet managers can find out how to turn disparate information into useable insight that can help them take control of costs at Fleet News’s major new event Fleet Management Live.

Brendan Adams, global marketing executive at Chevin Fleet Solutions, will be presenting a free-to-attend best practice workshop on ‘Running a Cost Effective Fleet’ at the event, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham on October 6 and 7.

Adams said: “After staffing, the fleet is typically the largest expense within an organisation. However, as technology has evolved, managing a modern fleet operation has increasingly created a huge amount of usually disparate information coming from multiple channels such as leasing companies, maintenance providers, fuel management companies, telematics devices and more. 

“One of the biggest challenging facing fleets is trying to make sense of all this information and take control of the costs. Because there is so much information coming at them at once, fleet managers can become overwhelmed, failing to identify both inefficiencies and the options available to tackle them.

“Our best practice workshop at Fleet Management Live aims to provide insight and understanding into ways fleet can highlight and control these inefficiencies.

“We will then look at how delegates can apply this thinking to their business – starting with some of the basic strategies, then more progressive ideas.

“The latter part of the presentation will cover more innovative thinking such as ways of not just cutting costs but generating revenue with real world examples demonstrating the concept.”

The workshop will cover some of the biggest costs facing fleets such as procurement, depreciation and fuel.

Adams said: “After costs associated with acquisition and ownership, the biggest expense is most likely to be fuel. Vehicle fuel efficiency and consumption has the single biggest impact in this area but there are many other variables in play such as driver behaviour behind the wheel, fuel types, travel routes, the accuracy of fuel expense systems, poor maintenance and more. Also, because fuel prices are often volatile, it’s very different to predict required budgets.”

The workshop will also offer advice on tackling penalty charge notices (PCNs) and fines.

Adams said: “Ask any logistics company that needs to make deliveries in towns and cities about penalty charge notices and they will tell you how much of a bane they have become.

“We see rising levels of administration required to manage the increased number of PCNs being issued – monitoring, challenging and overturning of PCNs is a massive, further burden in addition to the fines themselves.

“Our seminar will briefly discuss a few best practice ideas for dealing with this issues and ways to reduce PCN-related expenditure.”

To find out more about Fleet Management Live and to register for your free ticket, visit www.fleetmanagementlive.co.uk.