Understand the importance of internal and external stakeholders to your company’s success and how you can make sure they’re respected.
Ensuring you meet the needs of these people as an organisation and as a fleet is vital in ensuring they stay happy, perform to the best of their abilities and continue to give you their custom. Failure to ensure a stakeholder is satisfied with the way you work can mean losing a vital link in the chain.
Meeting the needs of these stakeholders can be a bit of a juggling act and it means being able to handle several tasks at once. These range from keeping customers satisfied with on-time deliveries to ensuring drivers don’t feel overworked, underpaid or feel policed and interfered with, all the time creating stress. It’s a time-pressed job and at the same time you need to control processes and keep costs down, to make sure your fleet remains profitable in the eyes of those at the top. Using the right tools and data can relieve these pressures and enable you to do the job effectively.
Meeting your stakeholders’ needs can be a challenge. By identifying who they are, what they need and having the right information at hand to make everything transparent, you can ensure everyone is happy, creating a smoother and more successful model for your fleet.
Satisfy stakeholders like employees, investors and suppliers by ensuring your fleet is operating to its full potential.
Who are your important stakeholders?
Stakeholders exist at all levels of a company, both internally and externally, and can include:
Internal stakeholders
- Employees – Your drivers on the road, planners and any in-house mechanics you employ to maintain your fleet. Retaining strong talent is important and losing good staff can mean the service you provide to customers can be negatively affected.
- Investors – Shareholders that are invested in the success or failure of your business. If your fleet is running smoothly, with deliveries made on time and customers satisfied, your business should experience success in the form of profits, which filters down to investors. Keeping them happy, understanding their needs and wishes is vital to ensure they stay onside.
External stakeholders
- Customers – Clients are the reason your fleet is in operation. Keeping them satisfied with the service you provide is essential for profitability, the continual success and growth of your company. Dissatisfied customers won’t stick around for long and can create a bad reputation for you in the market, so it’s important to understand their needs and how you can meet these.
- Suppliers – Those who provide services and materials to your fleet. Maintaining a close working partnership with suppliers, including software and service companies who work with shippers, can make the fleet run smoother. Collaboration is key to get the most out of this business relationship.
How do you keep all your stakeholders happy at the same time?
By running your fleet successfully and efficiently, it is possible to ensure that all stakeholders are happy most of the time. For example, providing value for money can raise customer satisfaction levels, while rewarding staff for good work can boost morale and ensure they perform to the very best of their ability. It is about finding the balance between costs, customer and employee satisfaction, while meeting your goals.
At a practical level, you can provide things like:
- Driver training – Invest in your staff to make them feel more comfortable while on-the-road by offering driving training. This will help them perform at peak levels and improve their economical driving, reduce fleet fuel usage and lower costs, thereby improving your profitability.
- Upgrade truck technology – Install technological solutions in your trucks to make your fleet more cost-effective. These can help reduce emissions, improve fuel economy and thus please your stakeholders by making your fleet leaner, greener and safer. Improving driver comfort and pride in their vehicle can also increase their satisfaction.
- Involve stakeholders – Draw on the experience of your team and your investors by actively engaging with partners, suppliers and customers – try and get them as invested in your operations as possible. This could be through regular meetings, digital communications or other means.
As a fleet manager, the main way of winning over your stakeholders is through effectively and efficiently operating your fleet assets - vehicles and drivers. This starts with having the right technology in your trucks and trailers.
Impress stakeholders with your fleet
As a fleet manager, the main way of winning over your stakeholders is through effectively and efficiently operating your fleet assets – vehicles and drivers. This starts with having the right technology in your trucks and trailers.
SideWings can be fitted to many trailers to improve aerodynamics and create a greener fleet. This improves the image of your company, helping it stand out amongst competitors, which should impress stakeholders.
Other technology can be fitted to your vehicles, such as OnGuardMAX™, to significantly improve driver safety. Offering driver training also shows an investment in them, as well as improving efficiencies and the speed of delivery. These should increase driver satisfaction levels, as it shows they are valued, along with improving cost and delivery efficiencies that impact customers.
