A Salute to Today's Fleet Manager

The world recognizes nothing short of performance, because performance is what it needs, and promises are of no use to it--Philip G Hamerton

It is not enough to aim, you must hit-- Italian Poverbs

Back of every achievement is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.-- Brooks Hays

There is a great deal of similarity between the professional fleet manager of today and the other managers functioning in the corporate world. While both operate within established management parameters, each manager faces the individual challenges and circumstances that demand properly researched decisions to meet corporate objectives.

Since vehicles in today's market represent a significant capital investment now more that ever, the fleet manager is responsible for those primary objectives including effective-cost acquisition, optimum selection-assignment-utilization in developing the driver policies and, ultimately, locating a method for the maximum return of  the used vehicle.

With financial consideration always paramount, today's fleet manager must walk the tightrope of fiscal awareness and yet provide the safe, comfortable, economical vehicle that management believes to be a fringe benefit as well as an essential sales or marketing tool for the employee and company.

Inexorably, the expenses of service and maintenance weigh upon the fleet manager and are compounded by the increasing costs of fuel and the ever-consciousness of the burden of the expense of money itself.

Today's true professional fleet manager is a wizard of sorts. He must conduct his own business assignment in a unique kind of liaison with his own management. On the one hand, he presses to produce the economic of fleet control while, on the other placates the whims of individual departmental managers who have their own traits and pressures which often undermine the fleet manager's primary objectives and responsibilities.

To fleet managers everywhere, we salute you; not only as professionals but as the individual people that make our industry work. We especially recognize those fleet managers in our Top 100 corporate fleets identified in this issue. They control over 300,000 vehicles (up 37,695 from last year's census).

Importantly, it should be noted only 40 of these large companies totally lease; 38 are completely company-owned; another 7 have an in-house leasing set-up and 15 combine both ownership and leasing. While it is known that lessors provide an expert vehicle management resource, there are many fleet managers carrying this burden on their own; and to their credit.

With increasing demands stemming from rapid technological development and the ever-changing conceptual application of cars and trucks in the market, credence is lent to the fact that today's fleet manager is directly charged with organizational productivity and functional-performance as never before.

We salute you: one and all.