Internet helps fleet managers trim costs
By Staff -- Purchasing, 11/19/1998
When field managers at drug and pharmaceutical producer Glaxo Wellcome wanted information about how employees maintained their company cars, Shirley Collins, fleet manager, went straight to the company that manages this part of Glaxo's buy. She said she wanted "real-time access to this kind of information," to support the company's extensive network of employees.PHH Vehicle Management Services created a secure section of its web site, called PHHInterActive, and provided information from a detailed database to customers that use some of the 700,000 vehicles it handles. Now, in "a couple of clicks," says Collins, she can "see the whole maintenance history of a vehicle in real time and tell a manager about it right away."
The web site offers several features that enable customers to make decisions about their fleets whenever it fits their own schedule or needs. Options on the web include ordering vehicles online, access to billing, fuel, and safety and accident information. Glaxo also can access dozens of summary exception reports.
Glaxo even linked its intranet to PHH to promote use of the database. Various departments of the company have access to certain types of information. Purchasing and other departments can track different data for specific purposes. Collins says her company benefits from the fact that Glaxo departments can customize the information for reports.
PHH is continuing to add to its web database. By year-end, the company will have information about out-of-service fleet cars that are available to employees as well as policy manuals for fleet, cellular phones, and driver safety.
The web database complements another key component of PHH's relationship with Glaxo. Collins says that PHH's "complete vehicle operating analysis for Glaxo" provided valuable information such as a state of the business and a "benchmark against Glaxo's industry composite." PHH tailored recommendations for "savings opportunities, using Glaxo's own vehicle data," she notes.
For example, PHH "recommended that we move 20% to 25% of our used-vehicle sales to retail consignment, and that we do a better job pricing our vehicles for sale to employees," notes Collins. She says that since the 1997 analysis, both ideas have been implemented with "good results." Ultimately, Collins says that her company can make "decisions based on a solid understanding of costs," due to PHH's supportable recommendations.
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