SME's Losing Productivity

An interesting article appeared on the Business Matters Website, explaining the RACs SME departmental figures that 3 in 10 business vehicle breakdown every year.

That is quite shocking figures really when you see that the British economy is made up of “Small Medium sized Enterprises”, in fact 99% are. When you factor in the amount of time wasted and loss of productivity, over the whole of Britain, it does send a message of how important having a service to visit a stricken vehicle is.

In fact when you average out call times around 30 mins as an inconvenience to private drivers, to businesses who need to get workmen or deliveries to a certain place by a certain time, it can be quit critical.

Of course many SMEs have no vehicles at all, so it does not reflect the total business community, but for those fleets of white vans going up and down the UK roads, clearly having a plan in place for motoring emergencies is important.

Things to bear in mind, is that commercial vehicles, are likely to do up to 3 times more mileage a year than privately owned and also, if we are being frank and honest, it is unlikely that a workman’s van will get the same care and attention, than the family car, whilst out on the road on a daily basis. Some have different drivers every day, as well as different loads and jobs, different fuel from different petrol stations etc.

Keeping That Vehicle Service Schedule

Regular servicing is the key factor and some are serviced, irrelevant of costs and with only genuine parts, but many are only serviced enough to keep them legal and running. So it should be no surprise that every now and again, a breakdown will occur.

Batteries and tyres are the 2 most common reasons for a callout, both of these have a limited lifetime anyway. Batteries can just fail, but tyres tend to need to be clipped on a kirb, or have a puncture to have an immediate deflation, if they are legal in the first place.

The argument is very strong, in the long run having some form of a business vehicle breakdown policy, can reduce costs massively, not just those costs to repair the vehicle, but that productivity or lost sales, getting that business back on the road again, in the shortest period of time..

Availability Of Parts

It is not just the price of reaplcement parts that may hit the pockets of SME's but the avialability too. A part that costs £25 more but can arrive a day earlier is worth more to the business, than the £25 saving in most situations.

That is why major prt suppliers like Eurocarparts do their best for a next day delivery service, as they know it can make he difference to thier business reputation.

Sometimes though a busines or garage servicing the vehicle, may need to shop arund to find the best price and delivery schedule, Carunited is a good place to start as it has new suppliers like Eurocarparts, CarParts4Less in one place as well as the breakeryard networds, such 247Spares and 1stChoice.