‘Off Road’ isn’t a category. It’s everything you’re not tracking

At the start of 2026, I expanded my role to focus on Off Road. I expected to spend my time only talking about plant, machinery, and construction assets. And yes, that’s part of it. But it didn’t take long to realise something much bigger: Off Road isn’t a niche. It’s not even a category in the traditional sense. It’s everything that doesn’t neatly sit in a fleet list or on a company car policy. It’s the vast, often invisible, layer of operational assets that businesses rely on every single day but rarely track, measure, or optimise.

And that’s where inefficiency hides.

The operational blind spot in plain sight

In almost every organisation I’ve spoken to across the Nordics and Northern Europe, whether it’s an airport operator, a film production company, a stadium, or a manufacturing plan, the pattern is the same.

Leaders have a strong grip on what’s ‘On Road’. Vehicles are tracked, managed, and reported on. There’s accountability. There’s data. There are processes.

But the moment you step off the road, that visibility drops off sharply.

And yet, this is where a huge portion of operational activity happens.

Think about it:

• Equipment moving around a stadium on match day

• Specialist gear rotating across film and TV sets

• Ground support assets across an airport

• Tools, containers, and mobile equipment in manufacturing

• Temporary infrastructure in transport and logistics

• High-value components in motorsports

None of these would be classed as On Road. But all of them move. All of them cost money. And all of them are critical to operations.

The problem isn’t that businesses don’t care about these assets. It’s that they’ve historically been hard to track, and therefore very easy to overlook.

What is Off Road?

If I had to redefine Off Road based on what I’ve seen, it would be this:

Off Road is any non-vehicle which creates value to a business and is not static to a single location. 

That’s a much broader, and more powerful, definition.

Because once you start looking through that lens, the scope expands quickly.

I’ve seen organisations track:

• Wheelchairs in healthcare environments

• Roll cages in retail and distribution

• Laptops and high value IT equipment

• Keys - yes, even keys, across large estates

• Food carts moving through venues and events

• Road signs and temporary infrastructure

• Even coffins within funeral services logistics

Individually, these might seem like small operational details. But collectively, they represent significant cost, time, and risk.

And more importantly, they represent opportunity.

Inefficiency is the real cost

When we talk about asset tracking, the immediate assumption is often loss or theft. And while those are real issues, they’re only part of the story.

The bigger cost, by far, is inefficiency.

Across multiple studies and surveys, we consistently see that a meaningful portion of the working day is lost to non-productive activity: Searching for equipment, waiting for availability. replacing items that are ‘missing’ but not actually lost, duplicating assets because no one knows what’s already there.

It doesn’t show up as a single line item on a balance sheet. But it shows up everywhere else:

• Delayed operations

• Underutilised assets

• Unnecessary capital expenditure

• Increased labour costs

• Friction between teams

For Operations Directors, it’s the constant pressure to do more with the same, or less.

For CFOs, it’s capital tied up in assets that aren’t being fully used.

For sustainability leaders, it’s the environmental impact of overproduction, over purchasing, and waste.

And in many cases, these issues are accepted as ‘just the way things are.’

They don’t have to be.

Visibility changes behaviour

One of the most consistent patterns I’ve seen is this: the moment you introduce visibility, behaviour starts to change.

Not because of enforcement, but because of awareness.

When you can see where assets are, how often they’re used, and how they move through your operation, a few things happen very quickly:

• Search time drops, because people know where to look

• Utilisation improves, because idle assets become visible

• Purchasing becomes smarter, because decisions are based on real data

• Accountability increases, because movement is no longer invisible

And perhaps most importantly, conversations shift from assumption to evidence.

Instead of asking, “Do we need more of these?” the question becomes, “Are we using what we already have effectively?”

That’s a fundamentally different starting point.

The cross-industry reality

What’s been most striking to me over the past few months is how consistent these challenges are across industries that, on the surface, look completely different.

·      A stadium managing event-day logistics

·      A film crew coordinating equipment across locations

·      An airport handling ground operations

·      A manufacturing site optimising production flow.

Different environments. Different pressures. Same underlying issue: a lack of visibility into moving assets.

And the impact of solving that issue is just as consistent:

• Faster operations

• Lower costs

• Better asset utilisation

• Reduced waste

• Improved planning and forecasting

This isn’t about technology for the sake of it. It’s about enabling better decisions.

Beyond cost: The sustainability angle

There’s also a broader implication that’s becoming increasingly important, particularly across Northern Europe.

Sustainability isn’t just about electrification or emissions reporting. It’s also about resource efficiency.

Every unnecessary asset produced, purchased, transported, or replaced has a footprint.

If you can:

• Extend the life of existing assets

• Reduce duplication

• Minimise loss

• Optimise usage

You’re not just improving your P&L, you’re reducing your environmental impact.

And crucially, you’re doing it in a way that aligns operational efficiency with sustainability goals, rather than treating them as separate initiatives.

A shift in mindset

The biggest barrier I see isn’t technology. It’s mindset.

As long as Off Road is seen as a narrow category, limited to plant and machinery, it will continue to be under-managed.

But when you start to see it for what it really is a vast, diverse ecosystem of moving assets, the conversation changes.

It becomes less about what you’re tracking, and more about why you wouldn’t.

Because if an asset:

• Moves

• Has value

• Impacts operations

… then it deserves visibility.

The opportunity ahead

We’re at a point where the tools to solve this are no longer complex or cost prohibitive. The barrier to entry has dropped significantly.

Which means the competitive advantage is no longer about having the capability, it’s about using it.

The organisations that move first are the ones that will:

• Eliminate hidden inefficiencies

• Make better, faster decisions

• Unlock value from assets they already own

• Build more resilient and sustainable operations

And they’ll do it not by focusing on what’s on the road, but by finally paying attention to everything that isn’t.

Final thought

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since stepping into this space, it’s this: The most valuable assets in your business are often the ones you don’t think about, not because they’re unimportant, but because they’ve never been visible. Off Road is where those assets live, and once you start looking there, it’s very hard to look away.