Business
A Guide for Growing SMEs
Most SMEs don’t set out to run a reactive maintenance operation. It happens gradually — a delivery van gets serviced when something goes wrong, a growing fleet outpaces the informal system that worked fine with two vehicles, and before long, the business is spending more on emergency repairs than it would have spent maintaining the fleet properly from the start
Nobody decided this was the strategy. It just became the default.
The businesses that avoid this trap aren’t the ones with the biggest maintenance budgets. They’re the ones that understood, early, that vehicle costs go far beyond the purchase price and the odd repair bill — and that the difference between planned and reactive maintenance compounds significantly over a fleet’s lifetime.
Key Takeaways
- The purchase price of a commercial vehicle typically represents only 20-30% of its total cost of ownership over five to seven years.
- Preventive maintenance reduces the total cost of ownership by 15-25% compared to reactive, breakdown-driven approaches.
- Unplanned downtime can cost several hundred pounds per vehicle, per day, once lost productivity and emergency repair premiums are factored in.
- The in-house versus outsourced maintenance decision has a genuine break-even point tied to fleet size, not just preference.
- SMEs that track total cost of ownership by vehicle, rather than relying on instinct, consistently make better replacement and procurement decisions.
Why the Purchase Price Is the Smallest Number That Matters
It’s an easy trap for a growing business: budgeting for a new van or truck based on the purchase price, then being caught off guard by how much the vehicle actually costs to run. Industry data consistently shows that acquisition costs represent only a fraction of what a commercial vehicle costs over its working life — the majority accumulates through fuel, maintenance, insurance, and depreciation across years of operation. A complete guide to calculating fleet total cost of ownership breaks down every cost category that belongs in that calculation, and the hidden expenses that traditional budgeting routinely misses.
This matters most for SMEs specifically because there’s less room for error. A large logistics operator can absorb a poorly-timed replacement decision across a fleet of hundreds. A business running five or ten vehicles feels every one of those decisions directly on the bottom line.
The Maintenance Model Decision Most SMEs Get Backwards
One of the most consequential decisions a growing fleet operator makes is whether to build in-house maintenance capability or outsource it to third-party garages — and the right answer genuinely depends on fleet size, not just preference or convenience. Smaller operations often achieve better economics through outsourcing, since the overhead of facilities, equipment, and technician training rarely pays for itself below a certain vehicle count. Larger fleets eventually cross a threshold where in-house investment starts to make financial sense. A comparison of in-house versus outsourced fleet maintenance costs walks through exactly where that threshold tends to fall and the hidden overhead costs that catch growing businesses off guard when they build maintenance capability too early.
The businesses that get this decision wrong in either direction pay for it — either through the inflated cost of outsourcing at a scale where in-house made more sense, or through the overhead of building a maintenance department before the vehicle count justified it.
What Reactive Maintenance Actually Costs
The appeal of reactive maintenance is that it feels cheaper in the short term — nothing gets spent until something breaks. The reality is closer to the opposite. Emergency repairs carry premium labour rates, expedited parts costs, and towing fees that planned service simply doesn’t. Add in the lost productivity from a vehicle unexpectedly out of service, and the true cost of a single breakdown routinely runs several times higher than the same repair performed on a planned schedule.
For an SME running a lean fleet, this gap matters more than it does for a large operator with redundancy built in. A single van down for a week isn’t a rounding error — it’s a direct hit to delivery capacity, customer commitments, and revenue that a spare vehicle or extra driver would normally absorb.
Building a Maintenance Approach That Scales With the Business
- Track total cost of ownership per vehicle, not just the purchase price, from the moment a vehicle joins the fleet.
- Revisit the in-house versus outsourced maintenance decision every time the fleet grows by a meaningful increment, rather than assuming the original setup still makes sense.
- Budget maintenance as a fixed, planned operating cost rather than a reactive expense that competes with other priorities when it comes up.
- Calculate the real cost of downtime for your specific business — lost deliveries, missed commitments, coverage costs — not just the repair invoice.
- Review vehicle-level maintenance data quarterly to catch cost trends before they become replacement-timing surprises.
The Bottom Line
Fleet maintenance rarely feels like a strategic priority for a growing SME until a breakdown forces the issue. The businesses that scale their vehicle operations smoothly are the ones that treated maintenance as a planned, tracked cost from early on — understanding that the sticker price was never the real number that mattered, and that the difference between reactive and proactive maintenance compounds directly into the bottom line.
Business
Bonus issue alert! Last day to buy Goldiam International shares for 1:3 bonus reward. Do you own?
Only those shareholders who hold Goldiam International shares in their demat accounts as of Friday will be eligible to receive the bonus shares. Due to SEBI’s T+1 settlement norm, investors must purchase the company’s shares at least one trading day before the record date so they are credited to their demat accounts by that date and qualify for the corporate action. This effectively makes today the final day for investors to buy the shares to be eligible for the bonus issue.
All about Goldiam International’s bonus issue
While announcing its Q4 results back in May, Goldiam International said that its board of directors considered and approved a 1:3 bonus issue for shareholders. The company’s board approved the plan to issue one bonus share with a face value of Rs 2 each for every three shares of the same face value held in the company as on the record date.
Goldiam International will issue nearly 4 crore shares amounting to Rs 7.53 crore as part of the bonus issue, using its capital redemption reserves (CRR), securities premium account, free reserves, or retained earnings available as of March 31, 2026. On that date, the company’s CRR stood at Rs 5.67 crore, while the securities premium account balance stood at Rs 196 crore and free reserves at Rs 311 crore.
The bonus shares will be credited by July 25 this year. A bonus issue consists of free shares distributed by a company from its reserves and is often seen as a sign of strong financial health and growth prospects. While the issue of bonus shares increases the total number of outstanding shares, it does not change the company’s market capitalisation. However, it can improve liquidity and affordability, allowing more investors to add the company’s shares to their portfolios.
Notably, this is the first bonus issue announced by the diamond jewellery maker in around 21 years, according to data from Trendlyne.
Also read: Bonus issue alert! Goldiam International announces 1:3 bonus reward for shareholders. Check details
Goldiam share price
Goldiam shares tumbled more than 5% in one week but gained around 3% in one month to close at Rs 425.05 apiece on Wednesday. The stock is overall up around 17% in 2026 so far.
In the longer term, the shares of the diamond jewellery maker and exporter have delivered 22% returns over one year and a whopping 227% returns over three years. The company currently has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 4,784 crore.
Goldiam Q4 results
Goldiam reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 37 crore for the January-March quarter of FY26. This marks a 61% year-on-year (YoY) increase from the Rs 23 crore net profit reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. The firm’s revenue from operations grew over 18% YoY to Rs 235 crore during the quarter under review.The company said it delivered a superior performance in FY26 despite US tariffs and volatile gold prices.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
SK Hynix US listing more than seven times oversubscribed, source says
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DreamWorks SKG co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and WndrCo general partner Justin Wexler join ‘The Claman Countdown’ to discuss the AI revolution, rising cybersecurity risks and the surge of young innovators reshaping Silicon Valley.
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom is causing a fierce bidding war for some luxury homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, with dozens of homes selling more than $1 million above asking price last month.
Mike Simonsen, chief economist at Compass International Holdings, noted in a post on X citing the firm’s analysis of MLS data, that there were 44 homes sold in San Francisco that closed at a price at least $1 million above the final asking price. It showed the 44 transactions from June totaled over $60 million in total sales.
The June total marked the continuation of a recent trend after April and May each had a little more than 30 sales that closed at least $1 million over the asking price and totaled over $40 million, while March had 20 such sales that totaled about $30 million.
By contrast, from February 2024 through February 2026, some months saw zero home sales that closed $1 million above the asking price, and no month saw more than nine such transactions, which illustrates the rapid intensification of bidding wars in the Bay Area luxury market.
CHATGPT BOOM FUELS A LUXURY HOUSING FRENZY IN BAY AREA
Dozens of San Francisco homes sold for more than $1 million over their final asking price, Simonsen said. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Simonsen said in his post that the data was, “Absolutely BANANAS” and added that it “may be the most useful data in understanding the 2026 San Francisco housing market.”
Most of the homes sold at $1 million or more above their final asking price were sold in San Francisco’s 94114 zip code, which includes neighborhoods such as The Castro, Noe Valley and Dolores Heights.
San Francisco has long anchored the Bay Area’s tech economy, and Silicon Valley has surged amid the rapid rollout of AI software serving a wide range of consumer and business purposes. That has contributed to the uptick in demand for luxury homes in the city.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY UNLIKELY TO RETURN TO MORE FAVORABLE LEVELS OF THE PAST, ECONOMIST SAYS
The AI boom has fueled a surge in demand for luxury homes in San Francisco. (Getty Images)
Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, told FOX Business that the overall housing market in San Francisco is a “seller’s market” with buyers “competing over a smaller pool of listings, and homes are selling 18% faster than they were last year at this time.”
Across the overall market, the median listing price has actually declined 4.9% from a year ago to $1.137 million, though Berner noted that’s likely due to smaller homes coming onto the market.
“The luxury tiers (95th and 99th price percentile) of the SF market are seeing stronger price growth than the median,” he added.
CALIFORNIA TECH LEADERS CHALLENGE PROGRESSIVE POLICIES AS BILLIONAIRES, BUSINESSES FLEE: REPORT
San Francisco’s housing market is constrained by scarce, expensive land and burdensome regulations. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“This kind of uptick in buyer activity is consistent with a cash infusion on the buyer side, which we know is occurring as part of the AI boom and the IPOs of several of these companies with presences in the Bay Area,” Berner explained.
“Buyers have more money in their pockets, but they’re chasing after the same pool of homes as before as supply has not yet had the chance to meet demand.”
He added that because San Francisco is a “notoriously tough place to build new homes, with pricey and scarce land and high regulatory burdens for builders,” it is “unlikely that a new wave of construction comes to balance the market, so expect seller’s market conditions to continue and prices to start rising significantly.”
Check out what’s clicking on FoxBusiness.com.
Costco is quietly discontinuing two Kirkland Signature craft beers, including an award-winning brew fans have called “one of the best lagers on the market.”
The move will end sales of the highly prized Kirkland Signature Helles Lager and Kirkland Signature Vintage Ale, according to Craft Business Daily (CBD).
The beers were co-branded with Oregon-based craft brewery Deschutes Brewery. CEO Peter Skrbek announced the decision in an early July note to distributors, according to the outlet.
Production is slated to scale back as soon as this month, with the beers expected to disappear from most warehouse locations by September or October, according to VinePair. The wholesale warehouse will continue selling its already-brewed inventory until supplies run out, the outlet added.
COSTCO CEO SAYS 1 ITEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE SOLD IN THE STORE
Cases of Kirkland Signature Helles-Style Lager are displayed at a Costco Wholesale store on May 15, 2026, in San Diego, California. (Kevin Carter / Getty Images)
No official reason was given for the end of the two-year partnership. The two Deschutes-brewed products are the only beers in Costco’s current private-label portfolio.
According to VinePair, the beers were first launched in December 2024 and each sold in 12-packs for $13.99.
WHY COSTCO HOT DOGS HAVE KEPT $1.50 PRICE TAG SINCE 1985
Cases of beer sit stacked on pallets at a Costco Wholesale Corp. store in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., on Wednesday, May 30, 2018. (Callaghan O’Hare/Bloomberg / Getty Images)
Both products quickly became fan favorites, with shoppers praising their quality and low price point.
The World Beer Cup, one of the most respected beer competitions in the world, awarded Kirkland Signature Helles Lager a silver medal in 2025 and a bronze medal in 2026.
“This is one of the best lagers on the market, especially at the price and I’m going to miss it,” one Reddit user said on Monday.
Shoppers enter and exit a Costco warehouse location during business hours. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
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According to VinePair, the Costco-Deschutes deal helped the brewery recover from an 11% decline in sales volume in 2023. After launching the partnership, Deschutes saw a 9% increase in volume.
By 2025, Deschutes ranked as the 10th-largest craft brewery in the U.S., according to the Brewers Association.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| COST | COSTCO WHOLESALE CORP. | 953.13 | +5.63 | +0.59% |
Deschutes later fell within the top 25 grocery store vendors despite year-to-date dollar sales increasing 8.3% and volume rising 9.3% compared with last year, according to VinePair, citing Circana market data.
FOX Business reached out to Costco and Deschutes Brewery for more information.
Brent crude futures rose 78 cents, or 1% to $78.8 a barrel by 0054 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 74 cents, or 1.01%, at $74.26 a barrel.
Both crude benchmarks, WTI and Brent, rose more than a dollar in post-settlement trade on Wednesday after the U.S. military began launching fresh strikes on Iran.
Before that, the benchmarks had settled at their highest in over two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened fresh strikes against Iran as soon as Wednesday night.
The U.S. military said it was launching fresh strikes on Iran aimed at keeping the critical Strait of Hormuz open to traffic, hours after President Donald Trump declared that an interim agreement to end the war was “over”.
The rush of oil that passed through the strait in recent weeks is over for now, with shipowners expected to take a more cautious stance, IG analyst Tony Sycamore said in a note.
The U.S. said its latest round of attacks was in response to Tuesday’s assault on three tankers transiting the strait. The U.S. attacks rattled several cities along Iran’s southern coast and left some areas without power. Iran said on Wednesday it attacked U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to earlier U.S. strikes on infrastructure.
Some war underwriters have advised shipping companies to pause voyages through the Strait of Hormuz, and others are reviewing their policy terms after Iran’s renewed vessel attacks, insurance industry sources said on Wednesday.
In the Nifty200 pack, 9 stocks’ closing prices crossed below their 200 DMA (Daily Moving Averages) on July 8, according to stockedge.com‘s technical scan data. Trading below the 200 DMA is considered a negative signal because it indicates that the stock’s price is below its long-term trend line. Traders use the 200 DMA as a key indicator to determine the overall trend in a particular stock. Take a look:
Smithsonian head says White House report unfairly characterized US history museum
WA Labor has selected a senior federal political adviser and author Georgia Tree as its candidate for the upcoming Secret Harbour by-election, following the retirement of Paul Papalia.
Major consulting companies will have their audit firms investigated by the corporate watchdog in an inquiry triggered by allegations surrounding KPMG.
Why Indians Feel More Financial Pressure Than Europeans | Firstpost America | N18G
US launches new airstrikes on Iran and Tehran targets Gulf states
Bonus issue alert! Last day to buy Goldiam International shares for 1:3 bonus reward. Do you own?
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