The Rise Of Access Over Ownership

Think about the things you use every day. How many of them do you actually own? You can listen to millions of songs through Spotify without purchasing an album and use Microsoft 365 without owning the software. We have become very comfortable accessing things without owning them, but the same distinction isn’t always reflected in how we think about physical equipment.

For a long time, the obvious way to deliver a service was to buy the equipment required to provide it. That makes sense when the equipment itself is the thing you need, but physical assets can make it easy to lose sight of what they are there to enable. A refuse vehicle is visible, tangible and easy to specify, so fleet discussions naturally start with the asset rather than the service it supports.

At Endurance, the starting point is the operation rather than the vehicle. Understanding what the service needs to achieve comes before deciding what equipment is required. That means looking beyond the initial specification to what the fleet will need throughout its working life.

Once the fleet is in operation, that thinking continues throughout its working life. Maintenance, compliance, vehicle-off-road issues and replacement requirements all affect the service the fleet is there to support.

The result is a different relationship with the asset. The rise of as-a-service models is changing what we expect to own and what we expect to simply have access to. For fleet, that raises a broader question: if the equipment is only one part of what a service needs, should ownership remain the centre of the decision?

💬 Considering what an Equipment-as-a-Service model could mean for your fleet? Our team can talk through how the approach works in practice.

With Endurance you get safe, reliable and efficient value from your vehicles, find out more about our Fleet Management Services.

Follow Endurance on Linkedin for the latest news, company updates and events.