Many businesses operate in dynamic cycles, ranging from a holiday rush to harvest season on the farm, making maintaining a full fleet year-round a serious challenge, and fleet leasing a much more efficient option. In many cases, purchasing enough trucks to handle your peak times only leads to watching expensive and high-maintenance assets sit unused during slow seasons. This problem can make a huge impact on your year-end spending, leading to unexpected budget loss. Because of this, fleet leasing with Glesby Marks can help you manage your seasonal demand efficiently in order to keep your budget secure year-round.
This is especially true for a myriad of specifically high-demand, fluctuating industries. These industries include:
- Logistics and E-commerce: During the holiday rush and back-to-school times
- Construction and landscaping: Usually, spring and summer are the building seasons
- Agriculture and food or beverage industries: Harvest season or summer tourism delivery
- Utility and infrastructure: Post-winter season repair or upgrades
Use this blog to learn how we structure our leases to give our clients the most flexibility and budget control possible.
The Downside of Inflexible Fleet Ownership During Slow Seasons
When it comes to maintaining a fleet, the biggest question is whether to outsource through a fleet leasing agency like Glesby Marksor or handle it in-house. Many companies try to navigate fleet ownership and quickly realize the myriad of harsh realities that accompany the job. While the promise of total control is tempting, the truth is that it actually is the start of a huge depletion in your capital, manpower, and overall profitability – making a fleet lease the more economical and reliable option for dynamic seasonal needs.
Managing a seasonal or fluctuating fleet is difficult because of the weight difference between upfront costs and usage. Think of buying a whole fleet and the huge demand it has on your company’s resources, including things such as vehicle acquisition costs and ongoing insurance or registration fees for vehicles that only get several months of use.
Although many companies may think that their idle vehicles are simply sitting, waiting to be used, they can actually be a true profitability drain for several reasons:
- Depreciation continues regardless of the vehicle’s usage
- Vehicle storage, security, and upkeep maintenance are still required
- Your capital is not being used as an opportunity to make more capital
When you own your fleet, the bottom line is that you keep the fleet you choose until it gives out and forces you to purchase a new one. If a vehicle breaks down during peak season, then it could potentially wreak havoc on your profitable season. Instead, fleet leasing not only offers access to newer, higher-performing vehicles but also flexible lease terms so you only pay for what you need.
The Three Pillars of a Custom Seasonal Fleet Lease Structure
Inflexible fleet ownership costs you more than you expect simply because you aren’t using the vehicle during slow seasons. Because of this, fleet leasing with Glesby Marks is the best way to strategically restructure your finances. The three pillars of flexible, seasonal lease structuring are:
- The “When”: Duration and scalability
- The “How much”: Payment and rate optimization
- The “What”: Vehicle customization and upfitting
At Glesby Marks, our fleet leases can be instilled with surge capacity on your operating lease in order to offer protection for busy seasons without dragging the excess vehicles through the slow seasons, by choosing flexible term lengths for as short a duration as three months. This allows you to only pay for what you need, when you need it. By customizing your fleet lease contract, you can save money by having the exact number of vehicles you need during peak seasons.
Luckily, a fleet lease isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The option to optimize your rate through usage-based payment plans can help reduce front-end expenses during the peak months of your operation. This is essential for keeping costs low during slow seasons.
Finally, when you choose a fleet lease over fleet ownership, it gives you significantly more flexibility when it comes to vehicle customization and upfitting. This means we deliver your leased vehicles pre-fitted for your company’s specific needs, including modern telematics and branding.
How We Customize Your Fleet Lease for Your Peak
Now that you understand the immense array of benefits that fleet leasing can offer your seasonal operation, it is crucial to understand the specific industries that require these customizations. A lease stands apart from vehicle ownership because it custom-tailors solutions to fit each company’s unique needs, flexing easily as seasonal demands change.
The E-commerce or logistics industry can benefit from a customizable fleet lease due to the large surge in order volume during holiday seasons. A closed-end lease that includes complete maintenance reliability to ensure constant uptime makes these companies thrive. When deployment has to happen in an instant, a fast turnaround is vital. Customizing your lease makes your monthly spending more predictable and proportionate to your incoming revenue.
When it comes to the construction industry, the most essential element is oftentimes the weather – meaning that the start and end dates of projects are typically a dynamic variable. By choosing an open-end lease structure, otherwise known as an operating fleet lease, you can choose month-to-month extensions that can run past your initial end date, allowing you to mitigate early-termination penalties if your construction project runs over.
Landscaping and ground maintenance teams can benefit from fleet leasing during peak seasons by preventing their specialized vehicles from sitting unused during the winter. Leases allow the lessor to have zero walk-away risk, since the company takes full responsibility for vehicle depreciation. This is far better than vehicle ownership, especially for vehicles that take on large amounts of wear and tear.
Guaranteed Fleet Uptime with Full-Service and Telematics
During peak seasons, even a few minutes of downtime can lead to profit-depleting consequences. Because of this, the real competitive aspect of a fleet lease over fleet ownership is the operational reliability that comes with it. The biggest driver of this is the full-service fleet maintenance and real-time data telematics that are bundled together with a Glesby Marks contract.
You can leverage our real-time fleet telematics to accurately track things such as tire management and general proactive maintenance records. This plays a key role in swapping you from risky reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance that keeps your fleet on the road, 24/7.
Additionally, telematics forecasts the exact number of vehicles you actually need, helping your operation run smoothly from start to finish. This data can also be used to track driver behavior and routes to ensure that all drivers are operating their fleet vehicles safely and taking the most time-efficient route possible. Integrating all of these data points into your lease helps you have a productive, stress-free, busy season.
Using Fleet Leasing to Plan for Future Peaks
Fleet leasing doesn’t just offer more predictable payments, full-scale maintenance service, and risk-free vehicle usage; it also allows you to use what you need, when you need it. When your company faces busy seasons or slow seasons, the last thing you need is a warehouse full of vehicles just slowly depreciating in value. Swap to a fleet lease today to enjoy a lease that flexes and grows with you. Contact Glesby Marks today for a free fleet leasing estimate.