Mercury - Fleet Vendor and Contractor Performance / Cost Audit

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The ancient Romans conquered the known world. They also must have known a thing or two about outsourcing. The satirist Juvenal, who might have made a good fleet management consultant, summed it up when discussing the reliability of protectors of the empire: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” or “Who’s going to guard the guards themselves?”

If you are outsourcing any portion of your fleet management operation, that’s a question you should be asking yourself too.

Most outsourcing relationships that fail do so because of complacency and lack of accountability. It doesn’t matter if your contractor or vendor has a big name, has been with you for many years, seems to be doing a good job, and gives you reports that look complete.

To be certain you’ve made the right choice abut outsourcing, you need an independent, objective third party to interpret the reports and “get behind the numbers” to verify their accuracy. If you don’t have any way of holding your vendor accountable for meeting performance standards, you may be getting much less value for your outsourcing investment than you think.

Mercury consultants have served as that objective third party for many of our clients. We are not an outsourcing contractor. Our independence lets us be impartial in our evaluation of contractor and vendor performance. Our services in this area have included:

	Cost of service analysis using activity-based costing
	Auditing and verifying accuracy of contractor’s management reporting processes and systems
	Determining the types and nature of information reports that our clients should require from the outsourcing contractor
	Monitoring contractor performance, service quality, and adherence to service level agreements

Outsourcing management functions does not get your organization out of the fleet management business. It just changes the nature of the management responsibilities. Rather than manage the assets, you must be prepared to manage the asset managers. In other words, to guard the guards.

Supplier management is one responsibility that must never be outsourced. Mercury’s vendor/contractor performance and cost auditing services enable you to keep firm control of this important function.

Mercury Associates, Inc.
Professional Fleet Management Consultants
16051 Comprint Circle
Gaithersburg, MD 20877
301 519 0535 Office
301 519 0536 FAX
email: contactme@mercury-assoc.com

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