Fleet Maturity in Vietnam: Why Most Fleets Are Still Reactive — and What Makes Them Change?

Nhất Điểm Hồnq — Tire & Fleet Management Insights

The Vietnamese Logistics Market is Growing, But Fleet Management is Not Keeping Pace

Road transport remains the backbone of Vietnam’s logistics sector.

According to data released in the Vietnam Logistics Report, road transport accounted for approximately 2.275 billion tons of goods, a 14.7% increase compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the country’s total volume of transported goods exceeded 3.027 billion tons.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade also estimates that Vietnam’s logistics services market is currently valued at around $45–50 billion USD, equivalent to roughly 10% of GDP. However, logistics costs remain high, regional connectivity is incomplete, high-quality human resources are lacking, and the transition toward digital and green transformation is still in its early stages.

The Paradox of Fleet Operations

This creates a distinct paradox:

• Fleets are increasingly expected to operate more professionally, yet the way many transport enterprises manage their assets remains fundamentally reactive.

A few typical examples include:

• A tire blows out, then it gets replaced.
• A truck breaks down on the road, then it gets repaired.
• Fuel prices rise, then drivers are audited.
• Tires wear out, then new ones are purchased.
• Maintenance costs increase, then the workshop is told to cut corners.

This is the very definition of Reactive Fleet Management. To understand why this approach is so widespread, we must look closely at the structural reality of the Vietnamese market.

What are your thoughts on the biggest hurdles holding Vietnamese fleets back from proactive management?

Why Reactive Fleet Management Is the Natural Starting Point in Vietnam

For many Vietnamese fleets, reactive management is not necessarily a sign of poor management. It is often the natural result of how the trucking market has developed. A large part of the market remains fragmented, with many small and medium-sized fleets where the owner, fleet manager, driver, and mechanic can all have a direct influence on day-to-day decisions. In this environment, experience often carries more weight than formal data. A driver knows when a truck feels different, a mechanic knows which problem usually appears next, and the owner knows which tire or repair shop has worked for the fleet before.

The priority is also straightforward: keep the truck running. When a vehicle breaks down, the immediate objective is to get it back on the road. When a tire fails, the priority is to replace it. When maintenance is due, it is handled according to experience, mileage, or an established routine. This approach can work reasonably well when the fleet is small and operational complexity is manageable.

The limitation appears as the fleet grows. With more vehicles, tires, drivers, routes, and maintenance events, experience alone becomes harder to scale. Without consistent historical data, it is difficult to identify patterns, compare vehicle performance, or manage assets based on their actual condition.

This is why Reactive Fleet Management should not simply be viewed as “bad management.” It is often the operating model that fits the current structure of the market. The real challenge begins when a fleet grows beyond the point where experience and individual judgment are enough to control its costs and risks.

Vietnam’s Tire Market Is Driven by Price

Vietnam’s position next to China has a major influence on its tire market. Chinese tire manufacturers have access to a massive manufacturing base and can supply the Vietnamese market across a wide range of price points. For fleets, this creates strong price competition and, more importantly, establishes a relatively low reference price for truck tires.

This changes the way tire purchasing decisions are often made. When a fleet can replace a worn or damaged tire with a new tire at a relatively affordable price, the immediate question tends to be “How much does the replacement tire cost?” rather than “How much value can we recover from the tire currently in service?”

The distinction is important. A low purchase price can make replacement feel like a simpler and more predictable solution than investing time and resources into monitoring pressure, correcting irregular wear, improving alignment, or extending tire life. When replacement is relatively inexpensive, there is naturally less urgency to optimize every kilometer from the tire already on the truck.

This does not mean that fleets deliberately choose short tire life. It means the economics of a price-driven market can make replacement easier to understand than optimization.

And that creates an important question for fleet management:

If the market makes buying a cheaper tire easy, what creates the incentive to make the tire last longer?

Tire Price Is Visible. Tire Loss Is Not.

For most fleets, the price of a tire is easy to see. It appears on the quotation, the purchase order, and the invoice. The financial consequences of how that tire is operated are much harder to see.

A tire may be removed prematurely because of irregular wear. It may lose part of its usable mileage because of incorrect pressure or alignment. A damaged casing may lose its retread potential. A tire-related breakdown can create downtime, while rolling resistance can affect fuel consumption. Yet these losses are rarely recorded together as part of the tire’s total operating cost.

This creates a common gap between tire price and tire economics. A fleet may know that it paid $X for a tire, but not necessarily how much that tire actually cost per kilometer over its service life.

The cheapest tire to buy is not necessarily the cheapest tire to operate.

This is also why reactive management can remain in place for years without creating an obvious reason to change. If the fleet only measures the cost of buying the next tire, the losses occurring between one replacement and the next can remain largely invisible. The fleet sees the transaction, but not the accumulated cost of poor tire performance.

The shift toward proactive tire management therefore begins with a different question: not “How much does the tire cost?” but “How much does the tire really cost us to operate?”

The Role of Tire Dealers in a Reactive Market

Tire dealers play a critical role in the Vietnamese tire market, but their economic incentives do not always perfectly align with those of fleets. For most traditional dealers, revenue and profit are closely tied to **tire sales volume**. More tires sold generally means more revenue, higher turnover, and greater commercial value for the business.

Fleets, on the other hand, want to reduce their overall tire costs. Ideally, that means buying tires that deliver longer mileage, fewer premature removals, better fuel efficiency, and lower total cost per kilometer. But when these performance factors are not consistently measured, the most visible and easiest factor to compare remains **purchase price**.

This creates a structural tension. The dealer has an economic incentive to sell more tires, while the fleet has an economic incentive to spend less on tires. When the fleet cannot clearly measure the value of longer mileage, lower rolling resistance, better casing performance, or reduced downtime, the purchasing decision naturally moves back toward price.

The result is a market that can become optimized for **selling and replacing tires**, rather than for maximizing the economic value of each tire throughout its lifecycle.

Ironically, this can work against the broader direction in which tire technology is moving. Tire manufacturers continue to invest in products that are designed to last longer, improve fuel efficiency, deliver more consistent performance, and reduce total operating cost. Yet if the market primarily rewards low purchase price and sales volume, the economic value of those improvements becomes harder to recognize and monetize.

The issue, therefore, is not that dealers are the problem. It is that the traditional economics of tire distribution can create incentives that are not fully aligned with the long-term objectives of fleet operators.

**As the fleet market becomes more performance-driven, the next question is whether the tire dealer can evolve from a tire seller into a tire performance partner.**

What Actually Makes a Fleet Change?

Fleets rarely change because they simply want to become more modern. In most cases, change begins when the existing way of operating becomes too expensive, too risky, or too difficult to sustain.

Five triggers tend to push a fleet toward a more proactive management model.

Cost pressure is often the strongest trigger. When tire, fuel, maintenance, or operating costs begin to erode margins, management starts looking beyond the purchase price and asking where money is being lost.

Fleet growth creates another trigger. Practices that work with 10 or 20 trucks can become difficult to control when the fleet reaches 100 or 500 vehicles. Experience and individual judgment no longer scale easily, creating a need for standardized processes and better data.

A major incident can accelerate change almost overnight. A serious tire failure, breakdown, accident, or prolonged vehicle downtime can expose the financial and operational consequences of a reactive approach.

New leadership can also change the direction of a fleet. A new owner, fleet manager, or maintenance manager may bring different experience, expectations, and performance standards, challenging practices that have been accepted for years.

Finally, customer requirements can force change from outside the organization. Safety expectations, service-level requirements, reporting, compliance, and increasingly sustainability requirements can push fleets toward greater control and visibility over their operations.

The common factor is simple:

A fleet does not change because it wants to be more modern. It changes when the cost of not changing becomes greater than the cost of changing.

This is what creates the pressure for a fleet to move from reactive management toward a more proactive and data-driven model.

The Four Stages of Fleet Maturity

The journey from reactive to predictive fleet management is not simply a journey toward more technology. It is a progression in how a fleet understands problems, uses information, and makes decisions.

The Nhat Diem Hong Fleet Maturity Model defines four stages:

Level 1 — Reactive: What happened?

At the Reactive level, the fleet responds after a problem occurs.

A tire fails, it is replaced. A vehicle breaks down, it is repaired. Abnormal tire wear is discovered during inspection, and corrective action is taken afterward.

Decisions are largely driven by experience, driver feedback, mechanic judgment, and immediate operational needs. Historical data may exist, but it is not consistently used to identify patterns or prevent recurring problems.

The primary objective is simple:

Keep the fleet moving.

Reactive management can work for smaller or less complex fleets, but its limitation becomes increasingly visible as fleet size and operating costs grow.

Level 2 — Preventive: What can we prevent?

The fleet begins to move from responding to problems toward preventing them.

Maintenance schedules are established. Tire inspections become more regular. Pressure checks, rotation, alignment, and replacement intervals may be standardized.

The key change is that the fleet no longer waits for every problem to occur.

However, Preventive management still relies heavily on time, mileage, and scheduled activities. A tire may be inspected because it has reached a certain mileage, rather than because its actual condition indicates that inspection is necessary.

The objective becomes:

Prevent predictable failures before they happen.

Level 3 — Condition-Based: What is happening now?

At this stage, the fleet begins managing assets according to their actual condition, rather than relying primarily on fixed schedules.

For tires, this could include:

• Pressure
• Tread depth
• Tire mileage
• Wear pattern
• Tire position
• Damage
• Removal history

The same principle can be applied to vehicles, maintenance, fuel consumption, and other fleet assets.

Instead of asking:

“Is it time to inspect this tire?”

the fleet asks:

“What is the condition of this tire, and does it require action?”

Data becomes much more important at this level because the fleet can identify risks, compare performance, prioritize actions, and measure the financial consequences of different conditions.

The objective becomes:

Take the right action based on what is actually happening.

Level 4 — Predictive: What will happen next?

Predictive management takes the next step.

Instead of simply identifying the current condition, the fleet uses historical data, real-time information, analytics, and increasingly AI to anticipate future outcomes.

For example, the objective is no longer simply to identify irregular tire wear. The fleet may seek to predict which tires are likely to experience premature removal, which vehicles are developing abnormal patterns, or where future maintenance costs may emerge.

The question changes from:

“What is happening?”

to:

“What is likely to happen, and what should we do now?”

At this stage, fleet management becomes increasingly connected to TCO, cost per kilometer, uptime, safety, fuel efficiency, and long-term asset optimization.

The four levels therefore represent more than four different management systems. They represent four different ways of thinking:

Reactive → respond to the problem
Preventive → prevent the problem
Condition-Based → manage the current condition
Predictive → anticipate the outcome

“Fleet maturity is not about adopting more technology. It is about changing how decisions are made.” Nhat Diem Honq

Technology can accelerate that journey, but technology alone does not make a fleet mature. The real transition happens when a fleet moves from experience-driven decisions to process-driven, data-driven, and eventually predictive decisions.

From Reactive to Condition-Based: How Fleets Actually Change

Moving from Level 1 or Level 2 to Condition-Based Management does not happen by simply purchasing new software or installing more technology. The first step is much simpler: the fleet needs to start measuring what it previously managed through experience.

For tires, this means turning routine inspections into structured information — pressure, tread depth, mileage, tire position, wear pattern, removal reason, and tire cost. Once this information is consistently recorded, the fleet can begin to establish a baseline for what good performance looks like.

This is where simple financial metrics such as Cost Per Kilometer (CPK) become useful. A tire that costs $300 tells management very little by itself. A tire that costs $300 and delivers 100,000 km can be compared with one that costs $350 and delivers 160,000 km. The question changes from “Which tire is cheaper?” to “Which tire delivers the lower operating cost?”

You can instantly compare tire operating costs using our free Cost Per Kilometer (CPK) Calculator

The next step is turning that data into action. If a tire is consistently losing mileage, the fleet can investigate pressure, alignment, load, position, or operating conditions. If a vehicle repeatedly develops irregular wear, the issue can be investigated before the tire reaches premature removal.

This creates the basic operating cycle of Condition-Based Management:

Measure → Establish a baseline → Identify deviation → Take action → Measure the result

The goal is not to collect more data. The goal is to use data to make better decisions about what needs attention, when it needs attention, and why.

Where Does the Motivation to Change Come From?

The motivation for this transition usually does not come from technology. It comes from business pressure.

A fleet begins measuring tire CPK when tire costs start affecting margins. It starts monitoring pressure more closely when premature wear becomes expensive. It begins tracking individual tire performance when fleet growth makes manual management increasingly difficult.

The pattern is usually:

Business pressure → Management question → Measurement → Data → Better decisions

This is why fleet transformation rarely starts with the question:

“What new technology should we buy?”

It starts with:

“Where are we losing money, and why?”

Once management can see the financial impact of poor tire performance, the value of better measurement becomes much easier to justify.

The same principle applies beyond tires. Fuel consumption, maintenance, downtime, driver behavior, and vehicle condition all become candidates for more structured management when their impact on the business becomes significant enough.

Ultimately, a fleet changes when the cost of remaining reactive becomes greater than the cost of becoming proactive.

The Role of Tire Dealers in Moving Fleets Forward

Fleet management does not happen in isolation. Tire dealers are already deeply connected to the daily operation of most fleets, which gives them an important opportunity to accelerate the transition from Reactive or Preventive management toward Condition-Based Management.

A traditional dealer may inspect a tire, identify a problem, recommend replacement, and supply a new tire.

A more mature dealer can go further:

Inspect → Diagnose → Measure → Recommend → Track performance

For example, instead of simply telling a fleet that four tires need to be replaced, the dealer could show that those tires were removed 25,000 kilometers earlier than the fleet’s normal performance and identify the likely causes.

That changes the conversation from:

“You need four new tires.”

to:

“Here is why these four tires did not reach their expected mileage, and what we can change to prevent it from happening again.”

That is a fundamentally different value proposition.

The dealer is no longer only helping the fleet replace tires. The dealer is helping the fleet understand tire performance.

This does not mean that dealers alone are responsible for fleet transformation. Fleet maturity creates demand for better dealer capabilities, while more capable dealers can also accelerate fleet maturity.

The relationship can therefore evolve:

Level 1 fleet → Tire sales

Level 2 fleet → Tire service and preventive support

Level 3 fleet → Tire data, diagnosis, benchmarking and performance management

Level 4 fleet → Optimization and predictive insights

This creates an important connection between the maturity of the fleet and the maturity of the tire dealer.

Why Premium Tire Manufacturers Have the Strongest Incentive to Drive Change

The transition from price-based tire purchasing to performance-based fleet management is unlikely to come from one part of the industry alone. However, premium tire manufacturers have perhaps the strongest economic incentive to accelerate it.

Their competitive advantage is built around technologies that are difficult to evaluate through purchase price alone: longer mileage, lower rolling resistance, casing durability, safety, consistency, and overall operating efficiency. When a fleet makes its decision primarily on upfront tire price, much of this value remains difficult to see and even harder to monetize.

This creates a strategic problem for premium manufacturers. They may continue to develop better products, but if the market continues to compete primarily on price per tire, the economic value of that technology is not fully recognized.

There is an interesting way to describe this through MMA.

A premium tire manufacturer may have an excellent striking game — sophisticated engineering, advanced compounds, casing technology, mileage performance, and fuel efficiency.

But once inside the octagon, competitors do not have to fight on those terms.

They can take the fight to the ground.

Grab. Takedown. Grappling.

In the tire market, that ground fight is price.

When the conversation becomes:

“This tire costs $300. That one costs $450. Why should I pay more?”

the premium manufacturer’s technological advantage becomes difficult to defend.

The answer is not necessarily to fight harder on price. It is to change the basis of competition:

Tire Price → Tire Performance → Cost/km → TCO

This is where premium manufacturers can use their broader technical capabilities to help create the conditions for change: digital tools, tire management platforms, Power BI reporting, benchmarking, technical training, fleet management methodology, and support for dealers and fleets.

The objective is not simply to sell a more expensive tire. It is to help the market measure the economic value of better tire performance.

You can explore real tire performance data and comparisons using our Tire Performance Insights

And this is where the interests of premium manufacturers and fleet operators can become aligned.

A fleet wants:

lower tire cost/km + lower fuel consumption + longer tire life + less downtime

A premium manufacturer wants the market to recognize the value of:

better technology + better performance + higher lifecycle value

If the market can move toward measuring these outcomes, premium manufacturers have a much stronger basis on which to compete.

The transformation, therefore, may not begin because the entire tire industry suddenly decides to change. It may begin because premium manufacturers have the strongest reason to change the rules of competition.

And if they succeed, they will need dealers capable of delivering that new value proposition at the fleet level.

That is where the next question begins: what does a mature tire dealer actually look like?

Conclusion: Fleet Maturity Is About Changing the Economics of Decisions

The Vietnamese fleet market does not need to abandon its existing operating model overnight. Reactive management has developed for understandable reasons: fragmented fleets, strong price competition, limited data, and an operating environment where keeping trucks moving remains the immediate priority.

But as fleets grow and margins become tighter, the limitations of this model become more visible. The next stage is not necessarily more technology. It is better visibility and better decision-making.

A fleet needs to know not only how much it spends on tires, but how much those tires actually cost to operate. It needs to move from purchase price to CPK, from replacement to lifecycle management, and from individual experience to measurable performance.

That transition cannot be driven by fleets alone.

Fleet operators create the demand for better performance.
Dealers provide local technical support, inspection, and execution.
Tire manufacturers can provide the technology, data, training, methodology, and expertise needed to turn tire performance into measurable business value.

Together, they can move the industry away from a model centered primarily on selling and replacing tires toward one focused on performance, efficiency, and total operating cost.

The future question is therefore not simply:

“How many tires does a fleet buy?”

It is:

“How much economic value does the fleet get from every tire it operates?”

That is where fleet maturity begins.

And this is where the role of the tire manufacturer may need to evolve.

The next competitive advantage may not come simply from developing a better tire, but from helping customers operate their fleets better — with better data, better processes, better training, and better decisions.

“Tire manufacturers should move from simply providing better tires to helping fleets become better fleets.” Nhat Diem Honq

Because the future of the tire industry may not be won by the company that makes the best tire, but by the company that helps its customers achieve the best fleet performance.

Nhat Diem Honq