What is fleet management?
Fleet management refers to all the solutions implemented to manage, optimize, and track the use of a company's fleet of vehicles.
It encompasses operational and administrative management (registration, insurance, fuel), technical monitoring (maintenance, repairs), financial management (costs, taxes, lease or purchase contracts), as well as the strategic dimension (fleet renewal, energy choices, mobility policies).
Managing a fleet isn't just about tracking vehicles. It involves coordinating multiple and often complex challenges, combining regulatory constraints, budgetary imperatives, driver safety, and environmental objectives. The diversity of missions, cost pressures, and evolving mobility modes require a comprehensive vision and rigorous organization. Implementing a true fleet management strategy allows you to transform this complexity into a performance driver, combining financial control, operational efficiency, and sustainable responsibility. An external fleet manager can assist you in this process.
What are the benefits of fleet management?
Using a fleet manager actually brings several advantages to the company:
- A time saver , freeing up teams for higher value-added missions
- A tangible return on investment with a reduction in TCO thanks to the optimization of acquisition processes and maintenance costs
- Access to specialized expertise covering technological and regulatory developments and best sector practices, which is difficult to build up internally.
This approach allows companies to transform their mobility constraints, while responding to the growing challenges of economic and environmental performance.
Also read our article “Why choose outsourced fleet management?”
What are the tasks covered by a fleet manager?
Ensure operational and administrative management
One of the main benefits, as mentioned earlier, is that fleet management saves a company a lot of time, allowing it to focus on its core business. Your fleet manager can thus manage all administrative tasks to maintain an operational and fully compliant fleet of vehicles.
Your fleeter can therefore support:
- Vehicle orders : analysis of each request, compliance with the car policy, control of rental company invoices.
- LLD contract management : careful monitoring of clauses, anticipation of deadlines and optimization of durations to avoid hidden costs.
- Renewal management : rigorous planning to guarantee continuity of mobility and negotiation of the best conditions.
- Driver relations : a single point of contact to simplify vehicle tracking and communication with drivers.
- Monitoring and analyzing the performance of your fleet : setting up key indicators and steering committees to transform data into levers for optimizing your fleet.
It can also meet other specific administrative needs, such as the management of energy cards, registration certificates, Crit'Air stickers, fines or TICPE declarations.
Optimizing the technical management of the vehicle fleet
Technical management can be one of the key responsibilities of a fleet manager. The fleet manager coordinates vehicle maintenance to ensure the reliability of the vehicle fleet, while optimizing costs through rigorous monitoring and the implementation of preventive measures.
| Perimeter | Missions |
| Driver assistance | – Call handling – Organization of breakdown and towing services – Assistance for drivers in the event of breakdowns (relay vehicle, repatriation, etc.) |
| Technical maintenance monitoring | – Monitoring of interventions (technical inspections, revisions, repairs, breakdowns) – Monitoring of compliance with contractual commitments with partner garages |
| Management of relationships with suppliers (repair shops, garages, rental agencies, etc.) | – Issuing agreements to garages to carry out repairs – Verification of the conformity and legitimacy of invoices – Alert in the event of a discrepancy or anomaly (e.g.: changing the same part too soon) |
Thanks to his technical expertise, the fleet manager ensures the optimization of the vehicle fleet to meet regulatory requirements.
And all this is possible by meticulously centralizing the monitoring of each vehicle, each intervention and by relying on digital tools such as fleet management software, allowing for enhanced traceability and optimization of the TCO (total cost of ownership).
Provide strategic advice to optimize the fleet
Thanks to the constant analysis of fleet data, the fleet manager is your privileged contact to advise you and offer you solutions to reduce the TCO of your vehicle fleet.
His knowledge of the automotive sector allows him to ensure continuous monitoring, in order to anticipate technological and regulatory developments.
It can therefore alert you and guide you towards best practices , in order to control the TCO (total cost of ownership) of your fleet .
Your fleet is then optimized, both from a regulatory, financial and fiscal perspective .
Examples: producing reports, adjusting LLD contracts, monitoring fuel consumption, optimizing maintenance costs, choosing engines for renewals.
Anticipate regulations (LOM Law, taxation)
Obligations arising from the LOM and the Climate and Resilience Act, low-emission vehicle quotas, and the intensification of tax penalties require careful anticipation. These developments represent risks when they are experienced, but become real opportunities when they are anticipated.
- In a reactive logic, the company exposes itself to a continuous increase in its costs, to tax sanctions and to a loss of competitiveness.
- In a proactive approach, it is possible to transform regulatory constraints into an opportunity, by securing compliance and controlling TCO.
This is precisely the role of your fleet management service provider: to help you anticipate and manage these constraints.
At FATEC, we support companies to secure their compliance, optimize their costs and transform regulatory constraints into a competitive and sustainable advantage.
Also find out how FATEC supports you in greening your fleet. [CS1]
Rethinking employee mobility
The role of the fleet manager is no longer limited to optimizing a vehicle fleet. It must now broaden its approach and integrate employee mobility management . This development addresses several challenges: reducing the carbon footprint of commuting, improving employer attractiveness, and meeting regulatory requirements.
In France, the trend is already strong. Nearly 70% of French companies already offer at least one mobility solution to their employees according to the barometer [CS1] . These solutions [CS2] are often integrated into an Employer Mobility Plan (EMPP) , which the fleet manager helps to structure and monitor.
The fleet manager can support you in implementing solutions that promote:
- public transport
- soft mobility
- carpooling
- car sharing
- individual electric mobility
The role of fleet manager is therefore undergoing a major transformation to become a mobility manager, capable of managing employee mobility to meet the operational needs, financial objectives and CSR ambitions of companies.
What digital tools can optimize fleet management?
As seen previously, the job of fleet manager is becoming increasingly complex and requires both new skills and being equipped with digital tools to exploit the data.
Data is now one of the key levers to activate to optimize fleet performance. A fleet generates a very large amount of varied data, from multiple sources (rental companies, garages, service providers, energy suppliers, etc.). This fragmentation makes collecting, consolidating, and exploiting data more difficult. Without a fleet tracking tool, exploiting this data becomes very complex. And relying solely on Excel or manual processes is no longer sufficient. Without a dedicated software solution, it is difficult to have a clear and actionable vision.
This is why fleet managers need to equip themselves with fleet management software.
The benefits of a fleet management tool
- Centralization and automation of administrative processes, reducing the risk of errors and processing times.
- Automatic alerts to anticipate important deadlines (technical inspections, end of contracts, maintenance), avoiding penalties and non-conformities.
- Automated reports that facilitate reporting and decision making.
At FATEC, for example, we offer our customers the Mobipilot solution.
Mobipilot is a reporting and management tool designed to centralize all of your fleet's technical data.
It allows you to view all fleet indicators, in order to offer you clear, up-to-date and actionable visibility across your entire fleet.
How to choose your fleet management provider?
Every business has different challenges and needs. Therefore, choosing your service provider should be based on your company's specific needs (fleet size, vehicle types, etc.).
Choosing a fleet management provider is a strategic approach. It's about trusting a partner capable of providing personalized, long-term support to your business and helping you achieve a measurable ROI while maintaining an operational fleet.
The right choice will then be the one that can adapt to the particularity of your fleet, that is to say, having the capacity to manage fleets similar to yours in terms of size, for example, or spread over several sites or composed of various vehicle types (VL, VU, VI, machinery).
It should also allow you to generate savings. This, along with time savings, is the main reason why companies decide to outsource their fleet management. Outsourcing should allow you to reduce your TCO and have better budget control.
Also, when selecting your service provider, it's essential to pay particular attention to the progress plan. Your fleet provider must be able to offer you a clear path, with concrete actions, to optimize your fleet over the long term.
Finally, the service provider must be a truly strategic and trusted partner. When you delegate the management of your fleet, you are effectively entrusting them with part of the management of your business. Your fleet provider must be able to advise you, anticipate regulatory changes, and help you make the right decisions.
Would you like support in optimizing your fleet?
FATEC supports you in budget control and optimization of your fleet.
