Daisy’s Garden Supplies sells landscaping and building materials to commercial, wholesale, trade and retail customers across Victoria. The business has been growing rapidly over the past five years, expanding from three to nine stores across Victoria.
As business grew, so did its fleet, which now has 100 trucks ranging from light rigid through to heavy rigid combinations. The fleet transports the majority of inbound stock supply whilst all servicing customer deliveries across the state.
Daisy’s needed a better way to keep track of its trucks, and ensure that their drivers arrived safely to a growing number of locations. For this they turned to Bestrane and Geotab solutions.
Results at a glance:
- Retrospectively claimed four years worth of fuel tax credits worth more than $100,000, which covered the entire cost of the fleet management system.
- Used driver safety scorecard data to create a driver reward system, recognising top-performing drivers and stores.
- Achieved primary goal of creating a culture of safe driving.
- Gained real-time visibility through GPS vehicle tracking, allowing them to answer customer questions about delivery times.
Watch the video HERE
In this video, see how a rapidly growing business used real-time GPS tracking, driver safety scorecards and smarter data to build a culture of safe driving, improve delivery visibility, and unlock unexpected cost savings.
The Challenge: Solutions needed to address growing pains
Up until two years ago, Daisy’s wasn’t using a fleet management solution. But as its vehicle fleet expanded, it was becoming increasingly clear that manual recordkeeping wasn’t going to be enough.
“Daisy’s has expanded rapidly over the past few years. And sustainable growth often requires new ways of doing things. Bestrane has helped them upgrade their systems using Geotab solutions.”
- Scott Hancock, Chief Technology Officer, Bestrane
Safety was the top priority. A number of costly incidents highlighted the need for improved driver behavior to limit risks and reduce maintenance and insurance expenses. Daisy’s needed tools that would provide real-time visibility and a method to reliably measure driver performance.
The company's fleet structure also presented challenges. The fleet was decentralised, with approximately 80 of its vehicles attached to nine different stores, operating on a "point to point" basis rather than on a planned, single route. This structure means there is no single person overseeing the entire fleet, making it harder to maintain visibility and control.
The Solution: Safety first, with other benefits
To address these issues, Daisy’s piloted a number of solutions from a variety of providers, including a 10-truck pilot with Geotab through Bestrane. Following the pilot's success, they decided to roll out Geotab across their entire fleet. Installation was simple enough for the business to handle themselves.
Daisy’s installed 90 units over six months, and the fleet is now close to 100% connected. They worked with Bestrane to use Geotab solutions. They made the choice for a combination of reasons, with driver behavior monitoring being a key differentiator. GPS vehicle tracking was the initial reason for adoption. But Geotab’s ability to use data on harsh braking, hard cornering and speeding to generate a driver safety scorecard was a dealmaker.
“For a lot of businesses that we work with, the major hurdle that we have to get over is that the driver is reluctant to adopt tracking. But when they offered incentives for the best behavior, they saw a sudden shift.”
- Scott Hancock, Chief Technology Officer, Bestrane.
Another important feature was the driver fob system, which allows multiple drivers to easily log their trips in a single vehicle, which is a common occurrence in their store network. It’s easy to use and does not require complex PIN codes or passwords for drivers in the cabin.
Daisy’s also began using Geotab data to substantiate fuel tax credit claims, a benefit they were not initially aware of.
The Impact: Pulling ahead with Geotab solutions
The combination of Bestrane’s service and Geotab’s solutions provided an immediate benefit for Daisy’s, including retrospectively claiming over $100,000 in fuel tax credit for the past four years, which covers the entire cost of the fleet management system.
Importantly, the technology has helped to create a culture of safe driving at the business. Armed with the driver safety scorecard, Daisy’s created a driver reward system, recognising the best-performing driver and store. Individual winners receive a $200 cash voucher, while the top-performing store also gets a team lunch paid for by the company.
“Putting some financials behind it just creates awareness. People are now interested in their score.”
- Stephen Cathie, CFO, Daisy's Garden Supplies.
In addition, the GPS tracking has given Daisy’s real-time visibility, allowing them to answer customer questions about delivery times. Geotab’s solutions also help with asset management, fault reporting and vehicle maintenance.
The road ahead for Daisy’s
Following from their initial success, Daisy’s is talking to Bestrane about deploying more Geotab solutions. Mr Cathie’s ultimate goal is to use the vast amount of data they are collecting to uncover more efficiencies and drive revenues. He is considering routing solutions, idling data and utilisation, all of which would help to drive both operational efficiency and cost savings.
He also wants to use the data to make operational decisions, such as choosing the most efficient quarries to pick up materials from. This is significant, because freight costs make up a large portion of the total cost of their products, which are mostly low-value, high-volume materials like soil, rock and aggregates.
Daisy’s is also interested in dashcams, particularly as Geotab has launched an all-in-one video telematics solution powered by AI, to take advantage of a single-source solution. This would provide another level of enhancement for driver safety and could potentially lead to reduced insurance premiums.
About Bestrane and Geotab
Through Bestrane’s partnership and Geotab’s innovative telematics solutions, Daisy's Garden Supplies has not only improved safety on the road but also created a culture of rewarding good driving behaviour, setting a new standard for fleet management in the industry.
Bestrane is headquartered in Melbourne, and brings together a unique combination of solutions, services and technologies to solve complex problems for our customers. We are authorised resellers of Geotab, Ltyx SurfSight and other AI powered solutions.
Discover how fleet assurance solutions can lead to a significant step forward in driver safety and contact us today.
