Chevin Fleet Solutions, a global provider of web-based fleet and asset management software, outlined several predictions for fleet software trends for 2017 and detailed how continued development of its FleetWave software will help address a number of industry needs.

Firstly, the company believes that the focus of fleet management software will continue to shift in 2017 to facilitate intelligent utilization and consolidation of a wider variety of both internal and externally-generated data.

Ron Katz, senior vice president, North American Sales at Chevin, explained:

“The continual development of mobile and automotive technologies — such as telematics, autonomous vehicles, and connected cars — means more data than ever is being generated relating to fleet vehicles, equipment, staff, and other types of assets.

“With fleet operations under continuing pressure to keep costs down and reduce workloads and reduce deadlines to a minimum, many organizations are increasingly recognizing the potential of using data more ‘smartly’ to help streamline processes, improve efficiency, and reduce expenditure.”

The key to efficiently utilizing "big data" to support positive operational changes, according to Chevin, is determining what data is most useful and then bringing it together for reporting and analysis.

“We’re increasingly seeing fleet managers becoming more interested in whether their existing or potentially-available, disparate data could be easily aggregated and consolidated across the organization. Furthermore, if this is possible then to what end could this data be used? Simply asking the question, ‘how could we enhance our fleet operations by bringing existing internal or external information together using fleet management software?’ can be a powerful enabler,” observed Ashley Sowerby, Chevin managing director.

Meanwhile, with an increasing variety of data being generated externally by telematics systems, fuel cards, maintenance services providers, parts suppliers, and fleet management companies as well as tax, title, and driver management solutions, Chevin believes that ease of integration will also prove to be a key trend of 2017.

“With so much information potentially available — often coupled with stringent deadlines, administration, or cost constraints — the process of integrating data from third-party applications and service providers into fleet management software should never be difficult or time-consuming,” explained Sowerby.

Chevin’s enterprise fleet management software FleetWave, is capable of being integrated with an unlimited number of external systems or data providers and the company will continue to expand these facilities in more efficient and scalable ways.

Additional in Chevin’s predictions for 2017 is an increased use of mobile devices to help with the management of operations and maintenance within fleets — as smart phones and tablets, according to Chevin, can be effectively used as employee management tools if they are intelligently linked to a fleet management system.

Mobile devices can be used to help manage almost any kind of operational activity from providing load, pick-up, and delivery details and route information to drivers, or collecting inspection, maintenance, or audit information from drivers, workshops, job sites, and more.

Sowerby concluded:

“A fundamental capability of our software is to provide a robust solution that functions as a centralized repository of fleet-related data. With FleetWave’s continuous development in the coming year and beyond, our objective is to continue to help our clients harness a wide range of data and allow them to more effectively manage their fleets through information rather than instinct.”