In June SG Fleet presented at the Morgan Stanley 2016 Australian Emerging Companies Conference on the topic of Innovation, Technology and Competitive Advantage. They outlined four demand trends that drive fleet industry innovation.
The first was – Efficiency drive requires more sophisticated solutions. Which relates to optimising your fleet by maximising utilisation and adopting new solutions to increase productivity. In the SG Fleet presentation they admitted that fleet optimisation is not a new concept but the number of solutions available to fleet managers to achieve their objectives is expanding.
Finding the right fleet expertise is the other challenge faced by organisations that manage some of the fleet functions in-house. And as technology changes it requires significant investment which can’t be justified for an operational area that’s not core business.
Second was – Cost vs return remains paramount for customers. This referred to investments in technology and the pace of change that can render hardware, and software, obsolete before it’s implemented.
The third demand trend for innovation was – Don’t just source and deliver the box; use the data. They highlighted a point raised by ORIX CEO Reggie Cabal in an interview with Fleet Auto News that there’s a difference between big data and analytics.
SG Fleet explained that installing the telematics hardware won’t delivery any benefits or increase productivity. You need to use the data to provide a solution to customers. Other solutions like Apps need to do more than replace manual forms; and organisations must apply their expertise to the data they collect to deliver value to customers.
The last demand trend highlighted by SG Fleet was – Mobility solutions and data flow / transaction frequency. The points raised here were interesting because they hinted a change in the way fleet management organisations make money as companies adopt different methods of transportation.
Mobility is looking at alternatives to get from A to B for business trips. If this means less vehicles, than the traditional fleet model of charging per vehicle will need to change. The opportunity for suppliers in the fleet industry is to find ways to aggregate all transport costs and then charge for this solution per transaction.
At the end of the presentation SG Fleet listed the key areas that gave it a competitive advantage.
- A structure and culture that supports disruption leadership.
- In-house innovation creates permanent differentiation margin.
- A track record of high value-add and customer service excellence.
- First to market with mobility solutions.
