During the last several years of working with beverage fleet managers, few topics have shown a solid division between strategy and practice. While the wide variation of operations in the industry does foster a diversity of thought, it’s rare to find a topic on which managers are diametrically opposed. Leasing is one such topic. The number of fleets that lease 100 percent of their trucks is not much different than the ones that do not lease any of their trucks.
Drilling down a bit, one will find that among the largest distributors, those grossing more than $40 million a year, more than half of that group leases at least part of their fleets, and more than 20 percent leases 100 percent of their fleets. There is a good reason for this: The biggest operations have become big and stayed big by directing their efforts, attention and capital to the beverage business while leaving their trucks to the experts in the trucking business.