FRA press
CAR FLEETS
Media family: Professional media
Periodicity: Monthly
Audience: 74,000
Media subject: Auto-Moto-Cyclo
Edition: October 2022
P.34-36
Reporter: Éric Gibory
Word count: 1564
Fleet management : Productive interfaces
For a fleet manager, the interface of his tool fleet management, with suppliers or internally, results above all in significant time savings, better cost optimization and, above all, easier management and decision-making.
These benefits are also valid for other company services.
Interfaces are a link between our customers' suppliers and our digital tool for fleet management.
From the rental company to the conveyor or the mobility credit provider, the objective remains to provide the maximum amount of relevant information for the fleet manager.
This observation comes from Géraud Portu, CEO of GAC Technology.
Each month, this software publisher imports, for its customers, more than 28,000 files, or more than 36 million rows of data.
A more accurate TCO
Thanks to the interfaces, the fleet manager therefore benefits from a more precise vision of his TCO, with the result that it is easier to identify the actions to be launched to reduce costs.
“For example, mileage reports obtained from fuel cards contribute to the identification of budgetary excesses,” says Marie-Noëlle Bobet, fleet manager at Optixt, the publisher of the Winflotte software.
“And in addition to the economic aspect of optimizing TCO, interfaces also play a role in the quality of service, as for the carpooling, with information centralized in a single tool”, adds Géraud Porteu.
Communicate with other departments
The tool of fleet management most often communicates with various departments of the company.
Because the fleet also concerns HR, in particular to manage benefits in kind (AEN), or even accounting, to process expense reports.
More generally, interfaces are also created for the reservation of vehicles managed in pools, for the use of carsharing vehicles by employees at weekends or in the evening, etc.
At GAC Technology, the GAC Car Fleet tool, for example, retrieves information from HR departments to assign costs to a specific profit center.
The fleet manager can then find out if a particular employee moved from one to another department and on what date, in order to assign the precise costs to each entity.
For some major accounts, GAC Technology also takes on accounting tasks.
In GAC Car Fleet, invoices can thus be validated and then sent to the accounting department.
Decision-making aid
“Interfaces lead to the collection and exchange of data, a fundamental element on which fleet managers make decisions through algorithms and applications”, validates Daniel Vassallucci, president of the telematics company Optimum Automotive. For this manager, the challenges are multiple and require relying on data, but also algorithms and tools to control this data. The interfaces then aggregate as much information as possible for the algorithm to make the right decisions,” continues Daniel Vassallucci. Good decisions that can concern the electrification of the fleet, the reduction of the environmental footprint, the renewal of vehicles, the car policy, the prevention of road risks, etc. “When the company has taken the time to master the data with Toutil, the decision-making process is more objective”, he adds.
More time, fewer mistakes
Beyond these advantages, the time saved represents another important benefit provided by interfaces, in particular by avoiding double entries. This is even more true when this data is made available to the entire company, via traditional Internet tools such as e-mail, or when it is integrated directly into CRM tools, ERPs or accounting software. Internally, exchanges are then most often made with general management, human resources, human resources, finance, accounting, avoiding, thanks to the interfaces, the need to re-enter this data. “Interfaces avoid errors induced by double data entry”, insists Marie-Noëlle Bobet for Optix. Always with a view to good management, these interfaces can also be connected to computer systems.
BPCE Car Lease discusses with its customers
BPCE Car Lease, a multi-brand rental company, is at the head of a fleet of 38,000 vehicles, three quarters of which are passenger cars and a quarter are LCV. Through the Optimum Automotive platform, BPCE Car Lease distributes their vehicle data to its various customers. “Interfaces have an enormous impact on the missions of fleet managers, believes Christophe Mangin, an LLD, pricing and new products expert in the rental company's operations department. When we set up a contract, we ensure that data flows are shared. This connectivity ranges from the exchange of files by e-mail, to the machine-to-machine extranet.” The information collected by BPCE Car Lease is retransmitted to customers from its dedicated platform. Each company retains the possibility of integrating service providers external to this hub. This is especially the case when the company does not contract the rental company for the tires but uses a specialized network. “For them to fulfill their purpose, the interfaces must be as simple and discreet as possible,” underlines Christophe Mangin. The file you are looking for should be downloadable in less than five minutes. The interfaces must also offer a history of all the data and ensure connectivity with any new operator.”
For BPCE Car Lease, moving from Excel to a connected platform saves 15 to 20% in the time spent managing the fleet. In addition, the manager gets complete visibility on his TCO and TCM. It is also able to assess the cost of new forms of mobility. Interfaces thus offer the opportunity to deploy multimodal mobility, with feedback on more recent services such as bike sharing. This is the case of that ofANTAI (National Agency for the Automated Treatment of Offences), with which a company can discuss the traffic offenses reported and the identity of the drivers fined. In this context, HR files that are regularly updated make it possible, in the event of a request, to designate the driver responsible for the fine, with his exact coordinates.
Easier management in the Pernod Ricard group
This facilitation of management and the resulting time savings are highlighted by the Pernod Ricard group, which uses the Winflotte tool. “The interfaces generate significant time savings. La fleet management no longer has to validate all renters invoices, and accounting no longer has to process them manually. These interfaces also contribute to better optimization. We strive for operational excellence, which is why we want to reduce the number of manual procedures. Another benefit is that the risk of errors is reduced and we obtain a report of anomalies,” explains Maeva Roubaud, manager of the 750-vehicle fleet of the wine and spirits specialist (see the testimony on page 34). This is confirmed by Franck Lallet, sales manager at the software publisher of fleet management Informakit: “We sometimes find that with Excel tables, the manager spends so much time entering that he no longer has time to analyze the costs of his fleet.”
Concrete cases
Audrey Leroy will not contradict him. This manager of a fleet of 1,200 vehicles works for Orexad Brammer, an industrial supplies distributor that has opted for the GAC Technology tool. “The software and its interfaces save a considerable amount of time. Compared to Excel, it's incomparable, she recalls. With the link withANTAI, we also spend less time processing PV and we save a significant amount of paper. Our service of fleet management has three people. Without GAC Car Fleet and with Excel, we would need one more person to carry out the same missions”, explains Audrey Leroy. Who also points to the simplicity of creating an interface. “To do this, GAC Technology provides us with a sample email to ask the supplier to do what is necessary in conjunction with its teams. When we buy a company, I therefore ask the publisher and the suppliers to integrate the new data”, she continues (see the testimony below).
But computer tools do not exempt the fleet manager from having to control the elements that appear in his software. For example, if a registration is not recognized by a billing file, this manager must carry out the necessary checks.
Zero paper, zero typing
Thanks to computer interfaces and tools, some businesses no longer enter any data related to their expenses. Beyond billing, this practice will certainly become widespread to all providers in the fleet ecosystem and to all company departments. After “zero paper”, businesses can now aim for “zero entries”.
Éric Gibory
#gestion_de_flotte, #covoiturage, #antai, #IA, #mobilité, #économie
