FleetManagementWeekly AmeriFleet
April 14, 2015

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Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Greetings from NAFA I&E in Orlando!

We have assembled the entire Fleet Management Weekly team at NAFA I&E, and are very excited to be here! We have a very busy plate of activities between the sessions we’re attending and the dozens of on-camera interviews that we are conducting (watch for those in future editions of this newsletter), and we hope to get to meet you somewhere along the way (if we haven’t already, that is)!

Today’s highlight is the FLEXY awards banquet, where Janice Sutton and I have the honor of handing out awards yet again. Make sure you check the FleetManagementWeekly.com tomorrow – and all of this week – for continuous updates of the action in Orlando!

Ted Roberts
COO & Chief Content Officer


INDEX: Find All of the Fleet News and Information You Need on Newly Redesigned FleetManagementWeekly.com

All posts from the newsletter can be found on our newly redesigned web site, FleetManagementWeekly.com,

Browse these categories:

Association News  — Find out what’s going on at associations of importance to the fleet community.
Fleet Trends & Issues – Check out articles about current fleet issues and trends
Fleet Safety –  Read news about various aspects of fleet safety, including interviews of fleet safety leaders
Fleet Videos – Watch video clips of fleet newsmakers
Interviews – Read Fleet Management Weekly’s interviews with industry leaders.
Telematics — Learn about the latest in fleet telematics news

Read monthly columns: Fleet Marketing, Fleet Asset Management, The Mobile Employee, On Accident Management, The Fleet Customer ExperienceThink Global Plan Local, The Fleet CX Toolbox, and Fleet Safety.


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VIDEO: Don't Miss Friday's Fleet-Managers-Only Keynote Speech

For Friday’s keynote speech at NAFA I&E, executives from the fleet management companies will talk about the big issues facing fleets this year — like safety, procurement, and alternative fuels. Don’t miss this important fleet-managers-only event.



VIDEO: NAFA Makes the Difference
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  How NAFA Boosted One Fleet Manager’s Career
 

Bryan Flansburg has been very active with NAFA for 20 years, and credits the organization for making a big difference in his career.


VIDEO: Credibility and Leadership
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  Making Your Fleet Greener
 

Figuring out how green your fleet is – and how it can be even greener – is a very good way to build credibility with the leadership in your organization.





The Fleet Spot


Ken Latzko CEI Names Ken Latzko Director of Sales Support

The CEI Group, Inc. (CEI), a fleet driver management company, announced today the appointment of Ken Latzko as director of sales support. In that new role, he will lead marketing and creative services support of sales activities and field sales leadership teams.

READ MORE

Safety-first LeasePlan Bundles Risk Management Services to Help Clients Save

Fleet management provider, LeasePlan USA, launches a new solution to help clients save by bundling risk management services. “Through 3D Coverage, companies can choose the level of risk and safety management that’s best for their fleet,” said Jon Toups, LeasePlan’s chief sales and marketing officer.

“As companies increase their commitment to safety,” Toups added, “they see benefits to their bottom line with fewer accidents and lower insurance premiums. But more importantly, the 3D Coverage solution offers a balanced approach to protect drivers while behind the wheel of a company vehicle.”

READ MORE about 3D Coverage

pars-new-logo PARS Enhances Digital Presence with New-Look PARSINC.com

PARS launched its new public website at www.parsinc.com along with its new branding.

According to PARS president Lori Rasmussen, the new website is the first step in a much broader program to utilize state-of-the-art technology in support of its broad array of value-added ancillary fleet services.  

These enhance the value of the company’s vehicle transport services for busy fleet managers who face more complex vehicle transport requirements.

READ MORE 

ARI-logo-from-video ARI to Demonstrate New and Updated Tech Offerings at the 2015 NAFA I&E

ARI its fleet and technology experts will be present at the NAFA Institute & Expo scheduled for April 14-17, 2015 in Orlando, Florida.

In Booth #801, expo attendees can talk with the company’s award-winning Information Technology team, who will be conducting demonstrations of the ARI insights® system’s recent upgrades.

This includes a new dashboard design that incorporates hundreds of new intuitive, visually-based widgets covering nearly every aspect of fleet management. These widgets transform all of a fleet’s data into simple, easy-to-interpret visual elements. Making the data easy to see and understand empowers the user to make smarter, faster data-based decisions about their fleet and helps them to spot and resolve issues more quickly than ever before.

READ MORE for a listing of the ARI fleet experts.

On Accident Management

By John Wolford, CEI associate director of network services

When a fleet accident occurs, if you don’t have a ready network of high-quality body shops at your disposal, like an accident management company does, you’re in a tough spot. That’s because choosing a body repair shop is one of the most important decisions a fleet can make.

And that’s why, as a fleet manager, you should never leave the choice of a body repair shop to chance, and why somebody highly qualified to evaluate repairs should always closely monitor the entire repair process, from examining damage photos and reviewing the estimate to expediting through completion and delivery.

READ MORE to learn the questions you need to answer when choosing a body shop.

 
Incentives Up to $15K Per Vehicle

Does the high cost of zero-emission vehicles keep you from greening your fleet? In California, you don’t have to wait for plug-in and fuel-cell electric vehicle prices to drop. Incentives up to $15,000 per vehicle are now available for public agencies from a newly established rebate program.

The Public Fleet Pilot Project, a portion of the California Air Resources Board’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, provides increased incentives for fleets in California’s most vulnerable and pollution-burdened communities. This support for vehicle purchases allows public agencies with limited resources to access the most advanced technology, according to the Center for Sustainable Energy (CSE), administrators of the pilot project.

READ MORE and find out if your community qualifies.

 
Fleet Marketing

The lyrics from “It’s Late” by Queen’s Brian May really fit the marketing challenge for fleet service and product providers headed to NAFA I&E next week: it is too late to realize all of the marketing value that comes from the industry’s biggest conference. But, it’s not too late to do the best job possible given that this is the eleventh hour.

Let’s approach the steps chronologically from April 6th onwards, keeping in mind that the term “marketing” in our B2B world revolves around your sales team.

April 6th: Have your sales team submit the names of all customers and prospects they should have contacted to see if they planned on attending. Did they set a time to meet at the booth (or elsewhere) and what is the sales objective of the get-together? If a sales rep has few or no customer or prospect meetings, why is he or she going? The same question should be asked of other company representatives because the value of NAFA is simply to win new business or retain existing business.

READ MORE to learn, step-by-step, the actions you can take to fully realize the marketing value of NAFA I&E — the industry’s biggest conference.







Fleet Trends & Issues


Azuga Celebrates 1000 Fleet Milestone

Azuga is announcing its 1,000-customer milestone during the NAFA Fleet Management Association Expo in Orlando this week. Fleets both large and small, across all industries are benefiting from Azuga Fleet’s comprehensive data reading technology. Azuga began Q1 2015 with several large fleet deployments, each with more than 2000 vehicles, a testament to the breadth of its offering, and the appeal of enterprise fleet managers to driver-centric, rewards-driven solutions.

READ MORE

NHTSA Official James Tamm to be a Part of NAFA I&E Session

James Tamm, a top National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) official that has been heavily involved in proposed rulemaking regarding Phase 2 greenhouse-gas emissions (2 GHG), will play a key role in the Lightning Rod Legislative Issues session at NAFA’s 2015 Institute and Expo in Orlando, Florida. The session takes place on Thursday morning, April 16

Tamm will share the stage with NAFA’s legislative counsel in Washington D.C. Patrick O’Connor, President of the firm Kent & O’Connor. 

READ MORE for details about this NAFA session.

Vincentric Announces 2015 Fleet Awards; Ford Vans and Ram Trucks Lead the Way

The 10th annual Vincentric Best Fleet Value in America awards were just announced, with Ford Motor Company leading the way on the strength of its Transit van line-up and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles delivering strong results with multiple winners from its Ram Truck product line. General Motors and Toyota also performed well, with six and five winning vehicles respectively.

The achievements of both Ford and FCA were spread throughout their product line-ups with their success evident in key fleet segments. Ford’s Transit vans won six of the nine van segments, complemented by wins from the Expedition, Explorer, and Taurus along with two Lincoln winners.

READ MORE

Donlen Fleet Experts to Lead Sessions at NAFA I&E

Donlen will lead various NAFA 2015 Institute & Expo (I&E) educational sessions in Orlando, Florida from Tuesday, April 14, 2015 to Friday, April 17, 2015. Donlen fleet experts will be part of various panels providing insights, best practice tips, and other key information designed to help fleet professionals run more efficient fleets. NAFA attendees will be able to meet our fleet experts at the following NAFA sessions:

READ MORE

The Mobile Employee

Preventing distracted driving and maximizing fleet accident-related savings will be the key messages of the CEI Group  Inc. (CEI) at the 2015 NAFA Fleet Management Association’s 2015 Institute and Exp, to be held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida next week.

Ken Latzko, CEI’s director of sales support, will participate as a panelist in a presentation  entitled, “Hey –What’s That Over There?  Threats to the Distracted Driver.” It will cover the science of distraction and how the brain can be compelled to distracting behavior.  Mr. Latzko will be joined  by GE Capital Fleet Services’ Eric Strom, product manager of safety and maintenance.  The presentation will be held Tuesday, April 14, from 2 to 3:30 PM.

At its exhibitor booth, Number 611, CEI will offer case studies that show how its accident prevention and accident management services have saved fleets millions of dollars.  CEI will show how it saved $8.9 million in 2014 for six fleets, with a combined total of 36,000 drivers.

 
Focusing on Distracted Driving at I&E

By Matthew Betz, Vice President Business Development, Fleet at Motus, LLC

“The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as the generation gap.” – Spiro T. Agnew

Looking at the above quote from Spiro T. Agnew, a reader would conclude that it’s the fault of following generations that the lessons of the past are “ignored”—but I’m not sure those generations are any different from the one to which I belong (Baby Boomers) or any other past generation. If you are like me, you probably remember clearly realizing that your parents, or others older than us, couldn’t possibly be any more clueless—that they had no idea what our generation was facing, that whatever they went through at our age couldn’t have any possible relevance to our lives—and, to some degree, we were correct.

After all, the definition of a generation is “A group of people living at the same time who are influenced by the same significant events during their formative years.” It’s no wonder that we don’t understand generations other than our own. Their set of significant events differs from ours. They have developed different priorities due to those experiences, and, more to the point of this article, they require different communication styles, motivations, or ramifications. So, the generation gap may not be as much about younger generations ignoring the past as it is about all generations learning to communicate better with one another.

READ MORE

 
Consultative Expertise at NAFA I&E

Element Fleet Management, has announced that its consultative experts will be prominently featured in both the educational and Expo sessions at the NAFA 2015 Institute and Expo in Orlando, Florida on April 13-17, 2015.

Consulting expertise at Expo Booth #1129
Element¹s booth will feature representatives from the company’s Strategic Consulting group, who will provide mini fleet diagnostic sessions to attendees, based on their own goals and objectives. The Strategic Consulting team focuses on identifying hard-dollar savings and improving driver and vehicle productivity. This is a great opportunity for attendees to talk with these experts about their specific fleets and find out what they can do to improve performance.

READ MORE to check out the experts and sessions







Fleet Management Resources 
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
GPS Insight
GPS Insight offers GPS tracking solutions to meet your organization's unique requirements and challenges.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
The CEI Group Inc.
North America's largest accident management and fleet driver safety company.
Element
Customizing global fleet management to achieve your goals.
NAFA
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
Verizon Networkfleet
Verizon Networkfleet offers GPS fleet management solutions to help small to medium-sized businesses, enterprises, and government agencies better manage vehicles and assets. For a demo visit www.networkfleet.com/demo.