FleetGuru.ai did not wait for the Fleet News Group Awards to become an established industry event before deciding to support it.
The fleet technology company joined the inaugural program as a Foundation Sponsor because CEO and Co-Founder Eden Shirley believes recognising best practice is an important part of moving the fleet industry forward.
“For us, as soon as we heard about it, we wanted to be part of the inaugural program,” Shirley said. “It’s easy to back a program that’s well established. You know the value of it and you know exactly what you’re going to get.”
Instead, FleetGuru.ai saw an opportunity to support the program from the beginning and help establish an awards platform capable of recognising the breadth of work being undertaken across the fleet sector.
Shirley said one of the strongest attractions was that the Awards extend well beyond recognising a single fleet manager.
“Fleet is a team sport,” he said. “There are so many layers and so many nuances to what makes a fantastic fleet manager or fleet management team or strategy or program.”
The Fleet News Group Awards include categories recognising fleet performance, safety, sustainability, technology, suppliers and vehicles, with separate vehicle awards designed to reflect the very different roles passenger cars, EVs, commercial vehicles and trucks perform within fleet operations.
For Shirley, that breadth reflects the complexity of modern fleet management.
He said safety was particularly important, while suppliers also deserved greater recognition for the role they play in delivering successful fleet outcomes.
“These guys are unsung heroes that will often go the extra mile,” he said.
Whether maintaining vehicles, transporting them, disposing of them, supplying technology or manufacturing the vehicles themselves, Shirley believes a large network of organisations contributes to the performance of every fleet.
“Everyone in the value chain deserves to be recognised for best practice,” he said.
FleetGuru.ai itself sits within that value chain.
Its platform connects service providers with fleet management companies and fleet customers to digitise work orders, maintenance approvals, servicing information and payments.
More than 10,000 Australian service providers are connected to the system, and Shirley said more than 75,000 vehicles now have fleet manager connections within the platform.
The company’s involvement in the Awards therefore goes beyond simple brand exposure.
Shirley sees recognition programs as a way of identifying practices that other organisations can learn from.
He said one of the strongest elements of the Fleet News Group Awards was that recognition was not simply based on the size of a company or fleet.
“It felt very much like you were recognising intelligent behaviour,” Shirley said.
“It’s not necessarily the size of the fleet or the brand or the supplier. It was: what are the brilliant things that they’re doing that others aren’t doing that should be doing?”
That concept aligns closely with the idea of fleet management maturity — recognising organisations that have developed stronger processes, systems and management practices rather than simply rewarding scale.
The Awards process also includes an industry voting component, which Shirley believes can broaden the value of the program.
Finalists are initially selected following nominations and an assessment process, before members of the fleet community are invited to vote.
Shirley said industry participation creates another level of recognition for the organisations and individuals involved.
“The idea of having the industry rally behind you and vote for you and recognise you is huge,” he said.
“It helps create awareness for the individuals that are being recognised, whether they’re winners or not.”
That wider exposure is important because the value of an awards program does not have to be limited to the organisations that ultimately collect a trophy.
Fleet managers reading finalist case studies can discover different approaches to safety, sustainability, technology and fleet management and potentially apply some of those ideas within their own organisations.
Shirley believes this sharing of ideas is particularly important as the fleet sector becomes more influential within the broader automotive industry.
He also sees opportunities for the Awards program to continue expanding as the industry evolves, particularly in areas such as innovation, technology and recognition of fleet management companies and suppliers.
“These are really important programs,” Shirley said. “They definitely do champion best practice. We have to move this industry forward.”
For FleetGuru.ai, that is the central reason for supporting the Fleet News Group Awards.
The company is building technology aimed at improving the way fleets and service providers work together, while the Awards recognise organisations that are finding better ways to manage vehicles, people, safety and suppliers.
As Shirley puts it, progress does not always require a completely new technology.
“Innovation is everywhere, but even process innovation — how things are done — is critically important.”
