One of the unintended byproducts of the Covid pandemic is the increase of public awareness of the importance of vehicle fleets. For much of pandemic period since March 2020, the coverage of fleets and supply chains has gone from esoteric topic to the focus of regular news headlines in the US and around the globe. The spotlight on the crucial roles that vehicle fleets play in the modern economy has also highlighted the need for improved efficiency in the management of vehicle fleets as a fundamental delivery mechanism for commercials goods, commodities and people. Along with fleet’s role as a physical nexus of multiple elements of business and the economy, fleet telematics systems have evolved significantly in the last decade to also become key integration platforms for data sources from vehicles, sensors, devices, cameras, and position trackers as well as the proliferation of data from core business software systems. Unlocking the potential of this data for fleet owners and their business partners is at the heart of my recent research white paper, “Expanding Operational Efficiencies and Business Opportunities with Fleet Management Workflow Automation and IoT Data Integration”.

JBA’s new white paper explores new horizons and benefits that fleet data can have across the enterprise and its core business partners. Modern fleets have multiple systems monitoring drivers, vehicle condition, safety, regulatory compliance and other aspects of the business and in turn interpreting connected data into fleet insights. While those insights generate great savings at a fleet level, elevating the data beyond the vehicle level insights is crucial to enhancing the value of fleet telematics systems and creating tangible benefits for logistics, inventory management, supply chain, ERP, security, CRM and other business systems. As the increasingly rich data from fleet systems have gained value in concert with data from other business systems, fleet management platforms are increasingly shifting focus from being point solutions to embracing the broader benefits of Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities and architectures. As fleet owners manage data insights from multiple systems, consolidated insight management and workflow automation will become the next great opportunity for digitalizing fleet-based businesses and enhancing operational gains across those enterprises. Core operational and administrative focus areas that will benefit most from workflow automation and data integration include precision maintenance, optimization of vehicle utilization, and insurance risk management. Our new report examines the profound impact that fleet workflow automation and digital vehicle control can have when managing the fleets of the future.