Elite Truck Hire

Elite Truck Hire’s business falls into two broad categories: it hires out a range of trucks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and also provides full-maintenance leasing for clients who want dedicated vehicles in their own corporate livery but do not want to own or manage them.

It has 10 branches around the country, and operates its own in-house workshops, panel-beater, wash bays and fuelling capability.

Elite Truck Hire’s business is complex, and thus visibility across its various operations around SA is important to ensure managers can optimise the use of expensive capital equipment and service fluctuating client requirements. Key to this is understanding client demand patterns to ensure the fleet is distributed optimally to take into account seasonal changes. Another important requirement is the ability to analyse the performance of the fleet in detail in order to prolong the useful life of each vehicle.

When MD Byron Corcoran joined Elite Truck Hire in 2016, he inherited a set of processes that were largely manual, inefficiently supported by an antiquated software program originally designed for workshop management and “customised” over the years. For example, the month-end process involved an enormous amount of work for staff over a short timeframe, and the information was not always accurate. Expensive sales resources were then used to distribute the paper invoices, further impacting overall productivity.

Corcoran immediately embarked on a search for a specialist fleet management program that could act as the backbone of the growing company, streamline business processes and ultimately allow managers to access reliable data to support fact-based decision-making.

It was also important that the new software was backed by a financially stable provider with access to excellent development resources to ensure continuity and improvement. The software also needed to provide a robust business process architecture and workflow that would support best practice and make it hard to commit fraud.

Designed specifically for the industry, FleetDomain’s software met the criteria and its implementation has delivered clear benefits to Elite Truck Hire. The application is delivered as a service to Elite Truck Hire via a Web interface, and FleetDomain is responsible for all support and development.

Early fraud detection or revenue leakage. One huge advantage is that the system makes it easier to detect internal fraud and avoid revenue leakage because it uses data from all parts of the business. Suspicious activity can be detected and alerts triggered.

For example, the system matches tracking data from a vehicle against the billing and booking systems to confirm that a legitimate client is using the vehicle and that the correct invoice has been raised. In the event of suspicious activity, the relevant manager is flagged.

Visibility across the entire operation presented graphically. Because the system is Web-based and creates a single repository of all data, managers can easily gain a bird’s eye view of the entire operation based on accurate data. 

This means it is possible to track all the variables within the business, from the location of vehicles through to branch performance, to name just two.

For example, the system enables a manager to ascertain rapidly whether a client’s requirement for a certain type of vehicle can be met, something that is key to running a successful rental operation.

Streamlined business processes. FleetDomain incorporates more than 30 years of experience in fleet management – this intellectual capital in essence creates a best-practice framework for the company.

Valuable business intelligence. FleetDomain’s reporting capabilities mean that managers have access to valuable – and reliable – information that can be used to manage the business more effectively. For example, managers can use demand-booking history to ensure that vehicles are optimally distributed around the country based on likely demand, or to identify underperforming entities within the group.

“From a management point of view, FleetDomain makes it easy to access the information needed to understand not only how the company is doing, but how to manage it better,” Corcoran says.

Attractive billing model. FleetDomain is billed per vehicle registered on the system. Because billing is not linked to the number of users, the company can add or remove users without unnecessary administration and without having to adjust billing each time staff changes.