Fleet Management Software Contracts with Four States — Missing?
Here’s some great news that popped up this morning. I’m thinking especially of Minnesota, who, a few months ago, found they were “missing” something like 7,000 state vehicles. I chide public officials all the time for neglecting to gte their hands around that which they are getting paid to manage … so this is indeed a step, a big step, in the right direction.
Of course you don’t notice California in that list, do you? Last time they let any news on this escape to the public, Governor Schwarzenegger was missing something like 13,000! vehicles .. but hey, Arnold doesn’t worry about triviality like that (or triviality like having a driver’s license), he’s a fiscal conservative, right?
So why is my enthusiasm not total over this nice big sale? MAXIMUS is a market leader in the high end of this field. Can you figure out the three little letters you won’t find together anywhere on their corproate pages? Yep, you got it, GPS.
What’s been sold here and what continues to be sold and to trick unsuspecting fleet mangers by all the players in this end ofthe market spectrum is location and useage date … or, should I say, lack of same.
After spending a bazillion dollars to implemnt these huge juggernauts of accounting programs no more sophisticated than Quickbooks, the fleet manager who does happen to care that he or she is missing 7,000 cars still doesn’t know where those 7,000 cars are. They just know where the system says the vehicles were when they were laboriously input into the system. They still don’t know the real useage of the vehciles … mileage must be called in or typed in over the network, still a manual (error-prone, expensive) operation and still subject to artful manipulation, and they still don’t know the $64 question … what are these miles being used for? Where did the vehicles burn up these miles at public expense?
Pardon me, but the emporer’s still got a very large draft blowing up his backside.