Fleets that persist in using spreadsheets to manage their activities are falling further and further behind best practice, warns fleet software specialist Chevin.
Ashley Sowerby, managing director of says he often encounters large fleets where Microsoft Excel is the primary management tool used. 'If you are managing a handful of vehicles, this is probably fine for most businesses,' he said.
'However, for a fleet running into hundreds or thousands of vehicles, running a couple of dozen spreadsheets is simply not going to give you the level of data handling and report generation that you need.
'As fleets get access to more and more data, this gets ever more true. The best macro in the world will not give you a fraction of the level of sophistication that is available from even the most basic fleet software.
'What this means is that some of the largest fleets are falling further and further behind best practice in all kinds of areas, from duty of care to cost control and, as more and more data becomes available, they will fall even further behind.'
Ashley said that a similar situation occurred in fleets with workshops where there was a cultural reticence to get rid of the whiteboards used for listing jobs.
'It is an almost identical situation. We are able to provide systems that are massively more efficient in almost every aspect but there is a 'we have always done it this way' mentality that can be hard to overcome.'
