Q. How do you see the market for fuel card services evolving over the coming years in terms of partner programs?
A. I think you see most oil companies focus on what they’re good at...
A. Fraud is definitely a big issue for companies managing their fuel costs.
One of the biggest issues is skimming. Criminals install devices on pumps at some fueling stations to read information from magnetic-stripe cards as they’re swiped. Then they steal the account information and clone a counterfeit card to be used elsewhere. EMV chip cards are on their way, but it will be a few years before they are accepted everywhere, perhaps 2020 at the earliest.
So, for now, a fuel card helps in numerous ways. By setting up a fuel card with driver identification numbers, companies can track unauthorized spending or easily manage lost or stolen cards. By setting up controls by driver or by vehicle, managers can get better insight and better control into what their drivers are buying. And many fuel cards have an automatic pump shut-off feature that will stop a fuel purchase that exceeds company policy before it can be completed.
Fraud also takes the form of employee misuse, which can be remedied with tight tracking of fuel card purchases. Another remedy is pairing a fuel card with GPS tracking devices known as telematics, which tells savvy managers whether the vehicle a fuel card says was being fueled at a certain station was actually at that station – or somewhere else.
Senior Vice President and General Manager
A. I think you see most oil companies focus on what they’re good at...
A. I think you will get both. It’s going to take a lot of time to change to just one solution...
A. I think down the road everybody probably assumes that we end up in a cardless society...
A. No, not necessarily. It may be more of a partnership opportunity as they start to get more involved in other aspects of the business...
A. Vehicles will always need to be fueled...
A. In these regions, a lot of what we do is following our customers. We are fortunate enough to have a database of more than 300,000 customers...
A. We’re getting it more from the customers. If I manage a fleet and I have a presence in 15 different countries, I have a global fleet manager that oversees it all...
A. Obviously, a partner will have more presence than an individual customer. A fleet is just one entity, whereas a fleet management partner might have 20 or 30 accounts in a given region...
A. We’re starting to see a lot of points of integration, whether that be with data or systems. Telematics devices provide a rich data set that can be utilized in a number of ways...
A. Fleet management was historically built on the foundation of data. The more data you had, and the more you could combine various data sources, the easier it was to gain insight into how your fleet is operating, allowing you to make better decisions...
A. The pace of change today is faster than it’s ever been, and yet slower than it ever will be from this point forward...
A. The single biggest mistake we see is to view parts of your fleet operation independent of each other...
A. There are many things, beyond the obvious, such as developing a written preparedness plan and training your employees to implement it so you protect your vehicles and equipment and identify which employees play essential roles during a disaster...
A. Arriving at work, Fran Fleetkeeper scans a large board with dots on a map. Some of the dots are green. Some are red...
A. Imagine waking up one day to no fuel, damaged roads, and unknown damage to your fleet of 500 vehicles. It’s the ultimate nightmare for a business with any exposure at all to mobility...
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