Fleet Financials, July/August 2018

16 FLEET FINANCIALS JULY AUGUST 2018 PRACTICES TO NEXT PRACTICES Whether you have seen the movie The Founder or were around in the 1950s you probably still do not know that Ray Kroc and McDonalds didnt invent the fast food industry White Castle came long before McDonalds and it was A W who took off with the franchising model What the McDonald brothers did was perfect the system for quick service with a smile Ray Kroc took the systems that the brothers invented and sold them along with the brand to franchisees across the country In a sense Ray sold the best practices of McDonalds to the franchisees and helped them prosper He created a new standard by leapfrogging the best practices of others More recently the explosion of smartphones hit the global market The iPhone was introduced about 10 years ago well after the Blackberry and Palm Treo Associations regularly use the sharing of best practices as a major benefit of membership Conferences and business groups often tout the perks of best practice sharing as their most valuable resources Truth be told there is no convention around what constitutes a best practice being labeled as such This in turn has resulted in some questionable practices and arguably some terrible practices being labeled as best One that comes to mind in our industry is the initial strong introduction of procurement best practices Strategic sourcing was born out of a manufacturing paradigm and when it was first introduced to the fleet industry it Fleet managers should be looking beyond current best practices and toward the steps that they can take to evolve their operations Technology will play a key role in advancing past current best practices By Michael Bieger MA Bill Elliot CAE