The real value of customer-centric sales and marketing comes from establishing more meaningful and profitable relationships with your customers

By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

More often than not, sales budgets are built the old-fashioned way: by either incremental percentages or a number agreed upon with the sales team. Or, at most, it is the aggregate of a company’s product lines and the territories it covers.

While the second approach is probably more accurate than the first, neither is as realistic as a customer-centric sales budget. In both of the traditional cases, the sales team often struggles with the planning part. It’s just too hard to understand what has to be done to achieve the numbers — especially if there are new team members.

The strength of a customer-centric sales budget and plan comes from a foundation based on three solid components:

READ MORE

Fleet management, like most industries, has been completely reinvented in recent years by a dedication to analytics.

By Kristi Webb, CEO, Element Fleet Management North America

Fleet is now tech-focused. It’s data-oriented. And it’s global. All these factors will continue to drive trends as the calendar turns to the New Year.

Element Fleet expects our industry to continue evolving at an incredibly rapid pace in 2017. While there are many developments to be aware of, here are four we’re focused on as the New Year dawns:

Advanced analytics paves way for real time insights

Someday soon, a connected vehicle will send as much as 25 gigabytes of data per hour to the cloud. That’s a lot of data, especially when coupled with data from your customer orders and day-to-day operations. But how can all this information come together to provide value?

Advanced analytics offers a faster way to bring more sources of data together, delivering insights and recommendations about engine performance, weather and location, accident information and even driver behaviors – such as speeding, idling, and harsh braking – in real time.

How we keep drivers safe will continue to evolve

READ MORE

By Susan A. Lund, President of MR³

We are pleased to introduce a new series, Ignite Your Selling Potential, to help you, your team and your organization drive revenue and results FAST. Regardless of your role, everyone is selling or un-selling during every conversation.

If you can get everyone on the same road, driving for performance consistently delivering value to your customers during every interaction, you can dominate any market and any industry!

Here is what you can expect. Each month, you will receive a message from me to Ignite Your Selling Potential!

You may be asking, What’s in it for me???

READ MORE

Fortune

It’s not a shocker that carpooling apps could reduce traffic congestion.

But now MIT researchers estimate that successful use of ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft could reduce the number of vehicles on the road by a whopping 75% without slowing down travel.

Using their own algorithm, the MIT researchers estimated that 2,000 four-person cars could cover nearly all (95%) of the demand for taxis in New York City, with an average wait time of less than three minutes, for example.

READ MORE

The Washington Post

States with medical-marijuana laws have fewer traffic fatalities than those without, especially among younger drivers, a new study has found.

You would think crash rates might be higher, supposing that more drivers are, too — especially around midnight, when a run to a 7-Eleven becomes necessary.

But, no. Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found an 11 percent reduction in traffic fatalities on average when examining places that have enacted medical-marijuana laws — 23 states and the District of Columbia.

READ MORE

The New York Times

For decades, automakers have been able to count on a fundamental fact of American life: You pretty much need a car to get around.

But lately, novel technologies, including ride-hailing services like Uber and advances in self-driving cars, are creating new alternatives for commuting, shuttling children and going to the store — particularly in urban settings.

There are also demographic and economic trends in play. Many younger Americans do not consider owning a car a goal or necessity — or a necessary expense.

READ MORE

The Detroit Bureau

Drivers pushing for real-time navigation information.

The global connected car market is expected to grow into a $131.9 billion industry by 2019. It will be a separate business, but it will be linked to the auto industry, according to a new report.

The report from Transparency Market Research report, titled “Connected Car Market – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2013 – 2019,” was reinforced by news from GM China that Shanghai Onstar has more than 1 million customers new across China.

READ MORE

Fleet expenses across the board are likely to increase at a slightly faster rate in 2017 than they did last year

By Mark Boada, Senior Editor

While in most areas the hikes are expected to be moderate, in two areas – fuel and accident repairs — they’re expected to outpace the general rate of inflation.

The consensus estimate among economists is that, barring any major global shocks, the U.S. economy is going to grow a bit more quickly this year, at a rate of between 2.1 to 2.6 percent compared to 1.6 to 1.9 percent for all of 2016. Faster growth is also expected to be accompanied by a higher rate of inflation and higher interest rates.

None of this changes the fact that all of the numbers remain below historic averages — inflation has averaged about 3 percent for the past 80 years — but they do indicate that they have already bottomed out and that all figures have started to revert back toward historic norms. Aggravating the situation is that with unemployment already below 5 percent and expected to fall to 4.5, employers are being forced to raise salaries and wages.

All of this means corporate profits will be squeezed in 2017, and fleets will be facing mounting pressure to control expenses even as they watch operating costs on all fronts to go higher more quickly from this point onward. Here is a quick look at some of the details:

READ MORE

Fleet Logistics has three main priorities in the coming months: to integrate and harmonize its IT systems, to standardize its business processes and to adapt the organization to the new standards and approach.

That’s the view of Chief Executive Officer, Dr Jörg Löffler, as he marks his first 100 days in the business at the helm of Europe’s largest independent fleet management company, having joined at the end of the summer.

Fleet Logistics recently celebrated 20 years in the international fleet management arena and currently has over 180,000 vehicles under contract on behalf of major corporate clients throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin and Central America.

READ MORE

The Guardian

A couple whose five-year-old daughter was killed after a distracted driver drove into their car is suing Apple for failing to introduce an iPhone safety feature it patented in 2014 to discourage people from using FaceTime while driving.

The lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara superior county court, relates to an incident that took place on Christmas Eve 2014, when a driver allegedly using the FaceTime video chat application on his iPhone 6 Plus drove into the car of Bethany and James Modisette.

READ MORE