– By Caroline Falls –
“Fleet management is likely to be more tumultuous in the next decade than it has been in the last five,” said Paul Lauria, president of Washington-based Mercury Associates, the largest fleet management consultancy in North America.
As he puts it, there’s a confluence of three key forces bearing down on fleet owners and fleet management. They are: the growing complexity of automotive technology; heightened senior management expectations created by advances in information technology; and, a loss of institutional knowledge as veteran fleet managers retire and are replaced, in many cases, by management generalists.
Lauria will be keynote speaker at a fleet conference on the Gold Coast later this month. He will share a truly international perspective having worked in more than 20 countries, including Australia.
Lauria says the three forces are combining to create a “perfect storm”. His address will consider the gathering forces – the automotive technology “whirlwind”, the information technology “tsunami” and the human resources “fog.” He will explore the characteristics and history of each of them, and talk about how to best prepare to survive the storm.
Taking shelter will require fleet management to rethink and update traditional approaches, he said. Lauria has ways to guage a business’ readiness for the storm and he will show delegates how to rate their business practices on a scale from reactive through to best-in-class.
The meeting has been organised for 19-21 March by IPWEA, the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia. This is IPWEA’s second fleet conference following the success of its inaugural one in Brisbane last year.
There will be an associated trade exhibition and space in the large grounds of the Royal Pines venue have been allocated for a vehicle display. Sponsors include Hino, Volvo, Isuzu Trucks, Nissan, Teletrac Navman, Ausfleet software, Repco, and Komatsu.
The IPWEA event is aimed at both public and private sector fleet people. It will have two streams – one focused on fleet management and the other on fleet maintenance.
More Information
Fleet Auto News is the media partner for the IPWEA event. To see the full program and for registration details, follow the link here.
