Procuring Telematics?
Best Practices to Buying Technology in the Public Sector
When it comes to managing a public fleet of vehicles and mobile assets, implementing telematics has become an increasingly important initiative.
Why Implement?
Using the technology helps reduce costs and risk, increases efficiency, improves sustainability, and provides many other benefits to government fleets and the constituents they serve.
Follow Best Practices
If your procurement office is looking to purchase telematics, read this article to learn more about the best practices to buying telematics in the public sector, streamlining the process, and ensuring a successful implementation.
Qualify Telematics to Your Budget
It’s crucial for procurement to ensure a wise use of the taxpayers’ dollars. That’s why it’s important to ensure any new technology purchases are the right allocation of public funds to the budget.
To quality telematics to your budget, it’s a best practice to determine the need to implement the technology and how it will benefit your fleet operations.
Is Telematics Worth Implementing?
What often brings on telematics procurement initiatives is being contacted by a vendor that makes a strong case for replacing an outdated process, or witnessing the improvements another government organization has experienced through their implementation.
When the benefits become clear and it is determined that change is needed, your team can start to feel confident about allocating a portion of the budget to telematics. There is one additional step every organization should take to ensure they purchase the right telematics solution – conducting a pilot to test the technology firsthand.
Why Piloting Validates the Purchase
Whether there is room in your existing budget or your team needs to facilitate creating one, conducting a consultative pilot with a telematics vendor, or even a few, is the best way to build the case for purchasing a solution. Going through a pilot will help you and your fleet managers identify specific criteria to accomplish your objectives and the costs associated with them. This information is critical in establishing a budget that meets your objectives and proves the return on investment (ROI) is real.
Purchase Telematics with Confidence
With so many fly-by-night telematics vendors around these days, it’s especially important for government organizations to buy technology through vendors they can trust. Purchasing contracts like NJPA, NASPO ValuePoint, BuyBoard, and GSA help organizations buy from technology vendors with confidence and ensure the process of doing business is as efficient as possible.
Is The Vendor Listed on Your Preferred Contract?
To ensure the process of procuring a telematics solution goes smoothly, it’s a best practice to advise any departments piloting a telematics solution on which purchasing contract your organization prefers to buy from. The last thing your office or anyone else involved in the project wants is to conduct a pilot and feel good about a potential vendor, then realize it’s not a fit because of a purchasing method discrepancy.
Advising the various fleet departments about your preferred purchase contract, along with any other important contract details, ensures they are only piloting solutions that will work from procurement’s perspective.
GPS Insight is listed on the following purchasing contracts
Buy Board Cooperative Purchasing
General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule
National Association of State Procurement Officials
Sourcewell Contract
Establish the Timeframe for the Purchase
A highly important best practice when purchasing telematics is determining the timeframe for procuring a solution. During this stage of the process, communication between all departments impacted by the project becomes crucial to a successful implementation.
Procurement’s Timeframe
Since your office is responsible for overseeing the entire budget, it’s up to you to decide when it makes the most sense to purchase telematics. There are many important initiatives for local and state governments, so your department will lead the charge for when it will be the most timely and beneficial to the entire organization. Once a timeframe is established for procuring telematics, communicating this information to all stakeholders in the project is key.
Ensure a Successful Implementation
It’s important to involve all key stakeholders in the decision so they can advise when it makes sense to implement and start planning the deployment throughout their fleet operations.
A well-organized implementation helps avoid an excessive amount of downtime during installations – especially during the times of year your vehicles are used the most.