9 ways van tracking can benefit your business

​Our mission is to solve the industry’s challenges in one handy solution to give you peace of mind that you’re investing wisely – in your people, your vans, and their safety. Tracking vans in your fleet not only gives you immense benefits (which we’ll get into) but it works on solving your biggest business challenges.   

Over the last few years, with the pandemic hitting the industry hard, long-term growth goalposts were disrupted and many aspects altered the fleet landscape entirely.     Rising fuel costs see fleet managers wanting to take more control with van tracking devices, and inflation is creating wider challenges with employee headcount. Further to this, ongoing supply chain issues are creating huge interferences with customer satisfaction and logistics efficiency – the challenges faced by the industry have a knock-on effect. Hundreds of van fleets across the country are facing tough times with the cost-of-living crisis, but there’s a solution.   

Of course, some view van tracking systems as a luxury – a business cost to their bottom-line. Companies are making cutbacks to their operations in a plight to increase profit margins, reduce overheads and keep staff. While van tracking systems do require investment, they are well worth it, but as mentioned, it’s an investment rather than a cost, because you’re going to get a return on an investment.

With the benefits of having true and real visibility over your fleets with full transparency over your entire operations, it pays back in increased efficiency, reduces costs and simplifies complex paperwork.   

As we’re looking at a tough economy for the foreseeable future, pushing heavy emphasis on crucial business decisions, you need to be more informed than ever. Van tracking systems ensure you can make swift commercial decisions that make the right outcomes certain – and not left to chance at the cost of your business. Manage the right resources and capacity, and guarantee your vehicles and assets are being treated and driven in the right way for business, and asset, longevity.    

Don’t take it from us – take it from the businesses that benefit from van tracking systems. 

JMC Construction have increased productivity by 33%. By having 100% visibility over their operations, they’re able to direct their efforts to scouting the most fuel-efficient routes and building customer satisfaction.   

You can effectively combat rising fuel costs 

The JMC Construction case study highlights how businesses like yours can easily reduce your fuel costs by being more environmentally friendly. Finding the right routes can take hours if done manually, but van tracking systems scout these out in seconds to save you time idling before getting on the road. Impacting your ability to compete in the market, rising fuel costs can’t control your business.   

You can increase the lifespan of vans & assets 

Driver behaviour is one of the biggest influences in business costs to fleet management. Creating wear and tear can cause big problems down the line with harsh braking, poorly experienced drivers and mishandling of situations. Increase the lifespan of vans and assets along with saving money on fixing these less frequently. Identify drivers who need extra training to prevent harm coming to them or their vehicles with real-time analytics.    

Savings can be used to increase financial support for employees  

89% of adults in 2022 report that their household bills have gone up significantly, meaning that the cost-of-living crisis will trickle down onto employee wellbeing and productivity. But it’s not just about mitigating these worries for business benefit. Having a system that supports them will go a long way in ensuring that they feel secure and safe in the work that they do, and in the business that they work for.    

Having a van tracking system that implements cost saving measures across the board – that’s lower fuel spend, vehicle recovery, insurance premiums, replacing and repairing vans – puts more budget towards supporting your employees through the downturn. Improve staff retention and reduce recruitment costs to practice mindful management to enhance employee satisfaction. Happy employees mean happy customers.    

You can also increase employee safety and wellbeing – and retention rates 

The current approximate cost of hiring someone through a recruitment firm is £3,000, which can add up when you consider the cost of awaiting that employee if you’re trying to fill a skills gap. That’s why retaining staff is crucial, but training and employee satisfaction needs to drive this.    

And when the going gets tough, ABAX van tracking systems have been proven to work quickly in the face of an emergency. On one occasion, an engineer working for Red Van Plumbing suffered a heart attack at the wheel. Being able to track the van to its precise location, the emergency services were quickly deployed and onto the scene within minutes. This engineer wasn’t aware in the moment of his precise location nor was in a state to repeat it to someone, so having his location on hand in real-time was a lifesaver.  

You can heighten the level of security of your vans and assets

If there’s one thing that can heighten the level of security for your business, it’s geofencing. With this technology you’re creating a virtual boundary using GPS, which triggers alerts whenever devices go beyond these.    

The most common type of crime against businesses in 2021 was theft (27%). Van tracking systems deter this because employees know the risk of taking assets for themselves, because of their employers having full visibility. Equally, the severity of theft crimes can be reduced with van GPS tracking as devices can be recovered swiftly. According to Crime and Investigation, economic downturns see more rural crimes. Specially in the countryside, theft can be rife because of the lack of surveillance that the more prominent cities have in place.    

You can increase recovery rate should theft occur 

A geofence can act like an invisible tripwire. That means that whenever a device goes beyond that boundary, it will automatically get flagged. Similarly, you can always find your device and vehicle locations if you suscept that they’ve been stolen. There’s a range of ABAX devices that fit onto each vehicle and fit securely and discreetly.    

J McCann, one of our customers, recovered £25,000 worth of plant machinery because of ABAX tracking devices. With a national presence and 400 employees over the UK, protecting the business plant and tool equipment had become a priority.    

You get better at decision making

Having more time to focus on the business that matters makes for better decision making. It’s not only the time recouped by using van tracking systems, but the wealth of insight you gain from that full visibility and transparency in your operations.

Gather data in the ABAX solution and transform this into valuable information helping your businesses plan resources and gauges capacity. This in turn helps see how long vehicles stay at jobs, how often they need servicing and when maintenance is due.

Learn to be more strategic through the insight you gather and turn this into financial gain by budgeting and forecasting better and more accurately. According to a study of UK manufacturers, a fifth (21%) had turned to data to underpin their business decisions and create space in their core strategy for data analysis.    

Reduce or eliminate administration time

Free up more headspace by reducing the time you take on administrative tasks every day with ABAX van tracking systems. The average business owner spends 6 hours a week on admin tasks, with human error accounting for even more time spent. Not just taking away time, administrative tasks are also said to cost around £600 per person per month. Of course, this figure is even higher if errors occur or sudden influxes of business spring up.    

All this can be reduced by van tracking systems, which means more time to invest into improving and growing your business to gain edge over the competition. Let’s also nod to the fact that adopting new technology to keep your business efficient and safe isn’t even a laborious task – pretty much admin free – with simple self-installable ABAX trackers. There’s no wasted time waiting for installation, and no additional costs.    

Becoming more strategic & data driven 

By using this innovative technology, you will naturally become more aware of advances in the industry and learn where to apply it. From the level of insight you get from the ABAX trackers you’ll start to understand patterns in the ways that your business works and you’ll find yourself becoming more intuitive as time goes on.   

It’s said that untapped technology adoption could boost the UK economy by £232 billion annually. Are you ready to unleash the record revenue growth of your own?   

You discover a new acquisition channel  

Expand your business not just with the extra time you now have to open up your customer base, but improve your customer service. More accurately track appointment times, keep your customers up to date regularly and ultimately delight them through your newfound efficiency.    

Extra revenue is great. And with new customers comes the potential for more collateral to boost your brand reputation. Take more time on generating repeat business, referrals and have your customer write good reviews… because your customer satisfaction will increase with your business efficiency. Did you know that 65% of business opportunities comes from referrals?    

The future of connected assets is already a thing of the present at ABAX. Van tracking systems support you across the business and take all shapes in helping your business reach peak efficiency. Integrate them with your preferred solutions and access across all mobile devices to have them on the go.

Generate insight wherever you are, in real time.