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The start point for the best source of fleet information |
Change is inevitable in every business. Even so, sudden changes tend to be unsettling.
By any standards, a year-on-year decline of nearly 60% in the number of fleet managers in the private sector feels like a pretty sudden change of direction.
In 2011, 63% of companies interviewed for the Alphabet Fleet Management Report (AFMR) had an in-house fleet manager. Last year, the number had fallen to 27%.
Fleet sizes haven't changed much in the last two years, so it's not a case of diminishing need for management expertise. Instead, the fleet function is moving within organisations - or sometimes outside to external service providers.
The AFMR research shows that fleet is increasingly likely to be handled by a company's finance, procurement or operations department (although two-thirds of public sector bodies retain a dedicated fleet manager).
And, while human factors have a big influence on the quality of fleet management, so do today's ever-more sophisticated and capable IT networks. They give businesses a widening range of options for to choose from when thinking about where their fleet should be managed from.
Hence the trend for fleet management responsibility to migrate to a different department or outside the business. Indeed, the number of fleets outsourcing some or all of their management to an external supplier doubled in 2012.
I know that many fleet professionals have misgivings about outsourcing - and it's not something that any company should do just for its own sake or because they believe it will automatically save them money.
And even in a completely outsourced arrangement, the customer must retain certain responsibilities as well as overall control of the deal.
There's a strong argument for retaining the expertise of a fleet manager to run the contract and work with the supplier to deliver on-going operating cost and productivity benefits.
Of course, that doesn't always happen, and the internal fleet function becomes more of an administrative function. Then there is a risk of the customer missing out on strategic improvement opportunities - although a proactive supplier will try to ensure that doesn't happen.
So I certainly don't believe that the fleet manager is an endangered species. Quite the contrary. In many ways, the role of an internal corporate travel and transport expert is becoming ever more relevant.
As rising energy prices drive up the cost of doing business, fleet and travel are at the sharp end of the trend. Fortunately, new technologies - based on refined telematics and mobile networks linked to international payment platforms - offer employers a chance to disentangle the expensive web that corporate mobility generally got into during the era of cheaper energy.
As businesses seek greater transparency and control over their travel and fleet activity, the value of in-house management expertise will become more apparent (even though the solutions will be provided externally).
The job could be called fleet manager or mobility manager. Either way, it's a role that will be around for a long time to come.
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