As companies grow and more assets are added, it is an easy way to quickly lose track of what you have and where they are. I’ve worked with clients in the past who attempted to keep track of these assets via a chalkboard, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and filing systems. Unfortunately, these methods do not provide an accurate and real-time depiction of what actually happens in the real world. In fact, without true visibility you are not able to make sound business decisions. As a company continues to add more assets, unfortunately the amount those assets which are at risk also follow.
I heard a story from a friend of mine about how one of their drivers was upset (not sure why) and decided to just pull over to the side of the road somewhere and drop their load. So there it sat, on the side of the freeway somewhere in the middle of nowhere and they had no idea where it was. It was only when the Highway Patrol contacted the company indicating they had located the trailer that they found out where their assets were. This causes critical delays and concerns for the company and it’s customers as you can probably imagine. If a customer was expecting a goods to be delivered, how on earth do you explain to them this issue when their expected delivery doesn’t arrive when you committed it would? Imagine that trailer along with it’s contents just disappearing, thousands of dollars lost. You’d be surprised how often this actually happens, it’s not unheard of. Luckily, most companies insure for this type of incident and are able to make a claim. At the same time, insurance companies continuously reevaluate rates. Guess who’s policy changes with a higher expense?
When a company has hundreds or thousands of assets, it’s important to know their operating condition and where they are located, especially with expensive vehicles. Tracking assets and collecting data real-time has been proven to be faster, most cost effective and much more accurate than any manual process. It’s also a critical part of addressing employee behaviors that in the past were missed such as driving behaviors, quality standards and other important aspects of a job. Increasing efficiency and reliability for a business is also a crucial component that asset tracking can provide. A tracking software saves time and makes many processes streamlined enabling employees to focus on the customer. Reliability and quality of information for the company and the customer then goes up as they have true insights at their fingertips versus trying to gather that information from multiple sources.
The more I talk to business owners and clients, the more I am realizing the importance of keeping track of assets. Far too many times we find assets just “disappear” or as many like to call it are “misplaced.” And, most of the time we as business owners don’t even realize they are missing until it is too late. There are countless testimonials and case studies I found online that prove tracking your assets as a business is critical, they also make justifying the expense easy with an ROI being accomplished nearly right away after implementation.
