Telematics trends 2018
- Shift from offering pure telematics services to offering business optimization consultancy
Some great sales people have been pushing fleet management as expenditures decrease for an organization; less successful folks were simply selling “a dot on the map.” The former guys sometimes succeed in closing the deal but struggle to give the real effect, the latter — earn less than what’s required to stay on the market. The devil is in the details: implementation of telematics is often the question of adjusting fleet management service to the existing business processes of the company. Sometimes that could be enough, but more often — that’s the point when you start losing the customer. What’s expected on the contrary is that a system integrator takes on a consultant role, analyzes business processes of a fleet owner, identifies weak spots and potential threats and starts the optimization process before even breathing a word about fleet telematics. After all the things have been put in order one should put telematics and fleet management on top of it as a cherry on a cake. Sounds challenging and perhaps even impossible but that’s the “new” way of winning customers and keeping them with you. You can get a foot inside the company if you offer quality monitoring and fleet management services, but you cannot stay there long enough if you do not plunge and understand the fleet owner business as your own.
2. Driver: collaborator and not a foe
A couple of years ago we were evaluating driving behavior and activities because we genuinely believed the only way to stop the vicious pattern is to identify the “bad guy” and penalize him. Now technology is moving in a different direction — the driver is no longer a foe but rather a collaborator and a friend. There are two ways to deal with human beings: punish them for wrong deeds or praise them for right actions. At last, we’re creating apps that help the driver choose the optimal route and give him advice if he got off the route rather than sending an immediate alarm to the dispatcher assuming the driver did it on purpose. Finally, we’re giving both the driver and a dispatcher a notice when temperature mode inside the truck is no longer suitable for the goods transported — there’s faith that the driver wants to solve the problem not less than a dispatcher thousands of kilometers away. We’re alerting the driver on his harsh braking/cornering on the spur of the moment because his life is at risk too — we acknowledge the value of a person and truly believe in their collaborative and constructive attitude to their job. Surprisingly enough by changing our approach to people, we make the most of telematics thanks to a simple shift from a vehicle to a human being.
3. Video: meeting place for security and vehicle telematics
For years video features have been a prerogative of security solutions and vehicle telematics has been concentrating on other things: maintenance optimization, fleets KPIs, fuel management, etc. Now security and telematics meet in one place — video. Most security platforms lack fleet management features, and most tracking platforms lack video options. That gives us all a thrill and a collaboration place. Market demands are expanding all the time, and we see many business endeavors happen. Thus, if you are a provider/ developer of fleet management software you are expected to add more security options including video in the first place, and the fastest way to do so is to start cooperation with existing market players who have that functionality already and share the customer base openly. Sharing is caring after all.
4. All things integrated
There’s no single fleet owner company nowadays that has one software that covers all needs in one place: tracking fleets, registration of all payments, expenses (preferably in an automated way), evaluating employees’ performance, data on fuel use, costs of all maintenance works, costs of car parts, etc. In real life, each company has their specific accounting system, own logistics (IMS and WMS) modules, and then they get a tracking platform while the intent is to get all things organized in one interface or at least ensure these systems exchange data and complement each other. Naturally, fleet management system providers are expected to connect all the dots and ensure systems integration. Moreover, integration of all fleet owner platforms becomes a must-have option in most markets and can get even beyond one organization when some data should also be forwarded to an outside system of, e.g., customs, toll road operator, etc. Needless to say that fleet management and tracking software providers should become more open for such opportunities and interact fearlessly with other systems and sometimes even competitors on the API level.
