Despite what most people think, procuring a fleet is anything but simple: it requires certain skills, involves a sometimes unspecified number of participants, needs a sound strategy in order to procure effectively and a list of considerations before getting down to the serious business of buying.
This so-called straightforward process and securing a favourable outcome can often be threatened by some recurring trends that seem to dog businesses that operate fleets. What then are the three main enemies to establishing a sound process for fleet procurement?
Procurement is often seen as an activity mostly dealt with by financial directors or personnel directly connected with funding, who quite often do not have the same expertise as fleet directors or anyone who has hands-on involvement with fleet vehicles and driver management. Limited fleet management background can often be the cause of an unsuccessful fleet procurement process or of a procurement process that is not concentrating on what the fleet actually needs.
Whether a company is expanding, having a change around or rearranging resources (not necessarily a bad thing), there could be some confusion about the roles or the different management layers involved in the procurement process, which could potentially result in discussing fleet strategy with upper management so as to bypass any confusion at the expense of consulting the actual fleet experts. The input of the fleet manager is instead very necessary in these processes and cannot be overlooked.
Controlling costs, as often reiterated, is high up in the list of priorities for fleets, but could be either considered as a single, individual aspect or rather more holistically. If it is regarded individually, chances are that personnel who are unfamiliar with fleet practices focus solely on decreasing costs and not on what is actually most suitable in terms of procuring assets and/or the most appropriate actions to take for the long-term benefit of the fleet. In the process of procurement, asking for the best rate or the lowest cost is integral to the negotiation stage, but services or assets should be evaluated according to their features and adaptability to the company—and this might not necessarily be compatible with the lowest cost.