Fleet managers: when Excel reaches its limits, why should you switch to Digiparc?

2017-05-29T22:00:00.000Z

In France, nearly 80% of fleet managers use Excel to manage their fleet. How to explain this domination of Excel when there are market software dedicated to the management of car fleet?

First of all, Excel is an individual, flexible and easy-to-use office automation tool. With the generalization of the cloud, it is now easier to share than before and allows simultaneous collaborations on the same version.

Its other major advantage is its widespread use in companies, as it is systematically part of the Office suite.

Finally, its price makes it a natural solution because it costs absolutely nothing to use, regardless of the number of vehicles to be managed, the number of users or even the level of sophistication brought to its design.

So does Excel seem like the perfect tool for fleet management?

To be honest, even if it is available in the cloud on a server, Excel must be reserved for the use for which it was designed, i.e. to offer the performance of an office software oriented towards finance and accounting.

But when it comes to managing vital data for the company, shared by one or more departments, to ensure the operation of business processes, Excel is no longer suitable and can absolutely not replace a management software.

Also, without wanting to make trial to Excel, we listed the various difficulties which will appear progressively to any manager of parks on Excel and will make him regret not to have opted from the beginning for a software package of market. Faced with each of these points, we have highlighted the functionalities offered by a dedicated management software package like Digiparc.

A waste of time that is detrimental to the efficiency and optimization of a park: With Excel, you are always wondering if you are really working on the right version. Moreover, you waste an infinite amount of time checking everything constantly, looking for macros or getting lost in tabs.
The advantages of Digiparc: no more wasted time with Digiparc, because all the main sections are immediately accessible, the registrations are done in real time and above all the pre-existing business functions save a lot of time!

No separation between a repository and the data exploitation interface: In Excel, there is no real possibility of creating a business repository that would serve as a reliable basis for daily fleet management.
The advantages of Digiparc: it allows you to have a dedicated repository that will centralize all the basic data of the fleet in all the fields of the eco system of a fleet. This watertightness between the repository and the operational management avoids errors and allows you to be operational more quickly.

Lack of global vision of the data: It is also difficult on Excel to have a global vision of its fleet, to have synthetic dashboards and effective alert systems. The manager is permanently in a relative fog that does not allow him to make the right decisions at the right time.
Digiparc's plusses: as soon as you open the software package, you have a summary table of the most important data, which gives you an immediate overview of the various aspects of the fleet. Alerts are highlighted and easily accessible with the possibility of alerting the users or administrators concerned.

Non-assured traceability: We all know the misadventures of multi-versioning on Excel which sometimes leads to errors that are potentially very dangerous for the proper operation of a fleet: erroneous versions, forgotten data integration, etc.

Digiparc's plusses: DIGIPARC's event log clearly shows administrators who did what when and reduces the risk of error to an extreme thanks to dedicated workflows that facilitate the monitoring of processes and permanent accessibility to Digiparc in real time...

Permanent risk of error: this is the most crucial problem with Excel. Without a centralized system organized according to business processes, errors are potentially constantly present. And we know what exponentially an error can cause in an Excel file. So when it is a file manipulated by 5, 10 or 50 people, the system is inevitably flawed from the start and the integrity of the data cannot be guaranteed.

The advantages of Digiparc: it allows you to organize the management of your car fleets by reproducing your organization online at the geographical level but also at the hierarchical and commercial levels. Everyone has access to the business environment that their administration rights give them and knows exactly what tasks they have to perform.

No Excel is the same: on Excel, everyone has their own macro, their own way of working. This makes it possible to have rich and personalized programs but also generates disorganization and disocialization of processes.
Digiparc's plusses: everything is pre-organized according to business rules that are common to all fleet managers and proven by years of professional practice and field expertise. The management rules are the same for all users and administrators and cannot be modified.

Limited scalability: with Excel, after a few months of use, the program tends to freeze because its complexity makes it more fragile and less and less permeable to any changes.
Digiparc's plusses: with the announcement of its version 5.0, Digiparc shows once again its ability to evolve and offer new features to its customers. Moreover, when you are a Digiparc customer, you automatically benefit from the new releases at no extra cost.

No fine-grained rights management: this is one of the major problems of Excel because everyone has the same rights. As a result, the confidentiality of certain information cannot be guaranteed and anyone can write and modify the program.

The advantages of Digiparc: with our solution, the rights are rigorously established for each person according to his or her position and level of interaction with the company fleet.

Limited cloud usage: even if the usage tends to develop, the use of an Excel file in shared mode on a server is still not very reliable.

Digiparc's plusses: our software package allows real-time interaction of multiple users with different administrative rights. In addition, Digiparc is hosted in highly secure international data centers.

No business function: Excel was not designed to allow the management of business functions and even less those of a fleet.

Digiparc's plusses: on the contrary, Digiparc does just that by being totally dedicated to the trades and processes involved in managing a fleet of vehicles. This implies an expert knowledge of business needs and a constant capacity to evolve.

No structured workflow: to gain in efficiency, it is important that certain tasks are managed via workflow for more efficiency and traceability. With Excel it is impossible to set up workflows because the software does not allow it.

Digiparc's advantages: it allows you to automate and track complex tasks such as the management and replacement of spare parts or the follow-up of repairs.

There is no concept of a centralized file for cars or drivers. This is very unfortunate because it is extremely complex to produce aggregated data from Excel for a vehicle or a driver for example.

Digiparc's plusses: this is another strong point of our solution since it allows you to visualize a vehicle in the form of an ultra-detailed file that behaves like a complete eco-system including basic data, related information as well as all events and alerts concerning this vehicle.

Management of attached documents: Excel does not allow direct management of attached documents, and even less so on the basis of an elaborate DMS.

Digiparc's plusses: on the contrary, Digiparc offers an EDM module dedicated to fleet management activities that allows you to centralize and digitize all the documents you need to operate your fleet.

Very limited interface: in Excel, the more information you want to record, the more columns or spreadsheets there are, which, with repeated use, leads to a loss of readability. Excel is even more limited as the information can only be read in the form of tables, the whole being cruelly lacking in statistics, reports or alert systems.

Digiparc's plusses: with V5, Digiparc has gained in ergonomics and simplicity of use, with priority given to business intelligence information and alert monitoring. This makes it one of the most user-friendly software packages on the market.

If you manage your fleet in Excel and you wish to compare your solution with Digiparc, we offer you a free demo version with a sample of your fleet data. This way, you will be able to visualize the concrete advantages that Digiparc can bring to you on a daily basis.

Olivier Lombart

Business Development Manager France