Our world was a relatively simple one, but it has become more and more complicated and if I ask 10 organizations how they will be set-up / how their business model will look like in 5 years, at least 8 will say that they cannot really answer that question and struggle to find their future identity. Most tell me that they classic business model is not sufficient to survive as margins are decreasing so they need to do something and therefore the drive for something new.
So all these organizations are looking for side steps and talk about communication services, workflow solutions, office services, IT, DMS solutions and even paperless office solutions. I see a lot of organizations that believe and hope that but just adding a new service to their portfolio and hand over a couple of brochures to their sales staff, the business will follow automatically. I even see organizations that sell these new services separately from their existing classical business services.
What I however miss is that organizations underestimate the power of true fleet management. By understanding your customer's business, processes and behavior you can identify the needs for these new services. I always tell my customers that if you really maximize your fleet management activities and create a solid program around this activity including solid data analysis, regular reports and face to face review meeting, you have your automatic lead generator for all these new services. Each quarter / report you zoom into another aspect of the customer's business. And for those who are interested in hardware sales, even these opportunities will result from a decent fleet management program. A key success factor for a true fleet management program is that organizations develop and implement this professionally into their organization and ensure that people are well trained on the program. Only well-developed programs lead to success.
