Vehicle Leasing Case Study

Managing Fully Maintained Operating Leases

Track vehicles

Manage compliance and maintenance

Monitor usage

Client Overview

Blackhawk’s client is one of New Zealand’s largest home and community health service providers. It operates 300+ pooled vehicles for use by its 1,000+ staff, across 20+ locations.

It engaged with Blackhawk to better manage its pooled vehicles, to improve staff experience, improve health and safety outcomes, and realise operational efficiencies.

The Problem

Blackhawk’s client faced many issues, in safely and efficiently operating its fleet of pooled vehicles. These issues varied across the many functions of our client’s organisation, with few spared.

Service Delivery

For the service delivery team, working in the community, their biggest issues were:

  1. Current vehicle availability
    1. Staff knew they had booked a pool vehicle for use, but had to trust that it would be available when they needed it.
    2. Too often, it wasn’t.
  2. Refuelling and recharging
    1. Pooled vehicles were often returned with limited fuel, or limited range, giving a poor experience for the next user of the vehicle.

For the fleet manager, trying to manage the widely dispersed pooled vehicle fleet from a central location, their biggest issues were:

  1. Recurring and missed bookings
    1. It was common for staff to habitually book pool vehicles in case they needed them, and only collect them if needed.
    2. This meant that vehicles spent a lot of time booked, but never actually went anywhere.
    3. No shows accounted for roughly a quarter of all bookings.
  2. What pooled vehicles to have, and where
    1. With vehicles spread across numerous offices around the country, and vehicle utilisation poorly understood, knowing the right size and vehicle mix for any given location relied too much on gut feel.

For the health & safety manager, trying to encourage positive behaviours and discourage negative behaviours, their biggest issues were:

  1. Fines & infringements
    1. There was no visibility of how pooled vehicles were being driven by staff.
    2. When fines and infringement notices were received, there was limited visibility of who was operating the vehicles, preventing undesirable behaviours from being addressed.
  2. Unnotified accidents and vehicle damage
    1. When pooled vehicles were damaged, there was limited ability for damage to be attributed to a given staff member.
  3. Vehicle cleanliness
    1. When pooled vehicles were returned unclean, there was limited ability to identify the culprit.

For the finance manager, trying to control costs, and make more funds available for community services, their biggest issues were:

  1. Rightsizing the pooled vehicle fleet
    1. With pooled vehicles booked on a recurring basis, and only occasionally used, they knew they had more pooled vehicle in the fleet than necessary, but not how many more.
    2. Every unnecessary car represented additional insurance, and compliance costs, as well as capital investment that could be redeployed towards the community
  2. The heavy administration of pooled vehicle booking
    1. With so many vehicles, and so many locations, our client spent significant resources administering pooled vehicles.
    2. This involved the fleet manager, as well as office managers and other representatives at each location.
  3. Pooled vehicle costs were not attributable
    1. Without knowing who was using a vehicle, costs could not be properly allocated to different function within our clients organisation.
    2. This meant the true cost of service delivery was unknown.

Faced with these issues, it was clear to our client that they could realise significant value if they solved them, and in so doing, give their staff and communities a far better experience. They engaged Blackhawk, with its deep knowledge of fleet management, to help them implement a solution.

The Solution

Following detailed discovery with the client, Blackhawk worked with executive leadership, and the functional leads, to implement its SaaS platform, and Pool Booking functionality. The Blackhawk solution consisted of three principal components.

01
IoT devices installed into each pooled vehicle
  • IoT devices were installed into all pooled vehicles, giving visibility of their location at any time.
  • IoT devices also provided visibility of when a vehicle was speeding.
02
The Pool Booking module of Blackhawk’s platform
  • The Pool Booking module provides a digital, self-service experience for users in the service delivery team.
  • Users can access the solution via web app, or mobile app.
03
A phased implementation plan
  • Blackhawk worked with its client’s implementation team, to build a comprehensive plan, ensuring that Blackhawk’s solution was both technically, and functionality implemented.
  • Using a combination of the client’s, Blackhawk’s, and Blackhawk’s partners people, IoT devices were rapidly installed, and users trained in a matter of a few months.

The Results

Following implementation of Blackhawk’s Pool Booking solution, our client has realised all the positive outcomes that they set out to achieve.

The user experience of pooled vehicles for service delivery teams increased tremendously.
  • Booking a pooled vehicle became so much easier. With the mobile app, it could be done from anywhere.
  • When a pooled vehicle arrived back at an office location, the user with the next booking was notified, giving them confidence that when they went to use a pooled vehicle, it would be there.
  • If a pooled vehicle didn’t make it back in time for its next booking, users could easily identify who had the vehicle, to understand whether they needed to find another pooled vehicle, or wait a few minutes for the one they’d booked to arrive back.
  • Because the previous user of a pooled vehicle was visible to the next user, users became much more considerate, ensuring that vehicles were returned with adequate fuel or charge remaining.
  • And because no-shows automatically resulted in pooled vehicles being made available again, service delivery teams felt comfortable only booking pooled vehicles when the knew they needed them, safe in the knowledge that they could always get hold of a pooled vehicle at the last minute if plans changed.
The fleet manager was able to cut pooled vehicle administration, and use the vehicles in the pool more efficiently.
  • With Blackhawk’s Pooled Booking solution, no shows were no longer a problem.
  • Where once a no-show meant a pooled vehicle was unusable for hours at a time, now, if a car wasn’t collected within 15 minutes of its booking start time, a booking would be cancelled, and the vehicle made immediately available for booking again.
  • With vehicle utilisation now well understood, balancing the portfolio of pooled vehicles across locations is now a data driven decision.
  • As circumstances change at each location, the mix of pooled vehicles, and the quantity of pooled vehicles, can be adjusted by moving pooled vehicles between locations.
  • By tracking the average length of trips (short vs long), and the vehicle types used (sedans vs SUVs vs vans), our client was able to ensure that the pooled vehicles made available at each location were tailored to the usage observed.
The health and safety manager was able to manage and cement the behavioural changes they desired, in-line with our clients health & safety policies.
  • Speeding, fines, and infringement notices can now be attributed to users of pooled vehicles, which has allowed offenders to be addressed promptly, and directly, preventing negative outcomes arising from persistent negative behaviour.
  • With records of who has used pooled vehicles, it is easier to attribute vehicle damage to a user, allowing offenders to be addressed directly, and repeat offenders provided additional support.
  • Vehicle cleanliness has improved markedly, with users knowing that if they do leave a mess behind, their colleagues that use a pooled vehicle next, will know whose mess it was.
The finance manager was able to bring efficiency to the management of pooled vehicles, and better understand how much to invest in the pooled vehicle fleet.
  • With detailed knowledge of how the pooled vehicle fleet was used, and the effect of unused recurring bookings eliminated, our client knew where they had more vehicles than necessary.
  • When excess vehicles were retired, they weren’t replaced.
  • And with the business process automation that came with Blackhawk’s Pool Booking solution, the number of FTEs required to administer the pooled vehicle fleet halved.

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