So much going on!

Simplytrak, the bespoke vehicle tracking and M2M specialists are to demonstrate our latest generator monitoring suite of software and hardware at the Middle East Electricity show in Dubai on 7th Feb. 2012.

Simplytrak will be demonstrating our integrated generator solutions to the energy world and offering a one stop shop for customers looking to purchase and remotely monitor their generators online. The solutions are integrated with major control board manufacturers allowing both usage and automated alert information to be fed back to the customer in real time.

Customers can now purchase the generators directly from Simplytrak complete with onboard monitoring systems or have existing units fitted to provide an overall monitoring solution.

Data from many peripheral units can be fed back via various onboard protocols making bespoke solutions straightforward. Simplytrak monitor entire telecom cellsites on various continents using this structure and feeding the data back to command centres.

Whatever your remote power monitoring needs, Simplytrak can help. Our new software suite is the latest in the line of cost saving solutions for industry worldwide and we look forward to demonstrating this at the show in February.

Simplytrak are pleased to announce two new S.American distributorships, expanding our overseas operations further in the region. SimplytrakBrazil and SimplytrakColumbia offices both open before Christmas 2011. Both countries will be selling the full range of vehicle tracking, asset tracking, generator monitoring and other GPS tracking related products.

SimplytrakBrazil has been a long time coming as it is not the most straightforward country to become established in. However, perseverance has won through and we look forward to a rapid rollout of operations in the country through 2012. SimplytrakColumbia is being run through our USA offices in Florida and Colorado.

Expansion into additional continents is always an exciting time and we look forward to supporting our offices in these new markets through 2012 and on.

Simplytrak recently completed a major trial of our new driver behaviour monitoring systems in Europe with a blue chip document management company as part of their green initiative. The results were astounding – surprising even us!

The new system is geared around encouraging drivers to ‘drive green’. It utilises a set scoring algorithm to determine the most efficient driving style and then scorecards this to promote competition between employees to improve the efficiency of the whole fleet.

The initiative, which took place over a three month period across three European countries, was so successful that the company immediately ordered the whole fleet to be installed with the system across the board. This is now being rolled out internationally.

We are not revealing full trial details at this time in order to maximise the return on our investment and safeguard against plagiarism. Suffice to say that any company would be delighted with the 18% savings on the fuel bill that resulted from the systems use during this trial.

Companies interested in such savings should contact Simplytrak as soon as possible. The system is now fully integrated into the new software suite available to customers from Sept 1st 2011.

Simplytrak are currently the only company in the market to have mastered a fully fledged green driving initiative and integrated it into our solutions for all customers. It is an amazing breakthrough and will form the bedrock for all additional innovations moving forward into 2012 and beyond.

The Simplytrak Green Driving and Monitoring solution is available for preorder now.

Well, we are back hiring again. This time looking for additional App developers for Android and Iphone (initially). Growth of the group continues apace and these hires are for the rapidly growing Appmaze business.

Appmaze is the division of Simplytrak that aims to demystify the world of Apps for the business community. Almost any business can benefit from and app whether it is for marketing, getting messages out to their customer base or a myriad of other reasons. Appmaze developers have a deep pool of experience in all kinds of apps from gaming to social media, football fan clubs to stopping spam on your mobile phones. There is not much they haven’t developed or been exposed to as a team and this experience we are offering out to the world through the Appmaze division.

Applications for the posts above should be sent to james@simplytrak.com

Outside of Appmaze, Simplytrak are seeking additional resellers to compliment our UK distributors team plus resellers for all overseas territories. So if you are looking for an end to end solution provider who manufacture their own units, write all software in-house, support in-house and lease entirely in-house then get in touch at info@simplytrak.com . Only by controlling all aspects of the system can we provide the best customer experience bar none.

Simplytrak – simple isn’t it.

Social media has become part of the daily routine here at Simplytrak. The business world is ever changing and, as a technology company, we rapidly change with it. Telematics by it’s very nature is constantly adapting as new niche markets spring up and we consider all before dismissing most as uneconomical or not the best use of finite resources. Whatever niches we do go down though we need to get our messages heard. In 2011 social media is a big part of this.

It used to be that we specialised in GPS tracking and remote generator monitoring. Now we also have Iphone and Blackberry tracking App’s for personal and lone worker tracking. We used to write vehicle tracking software for PC’s. Now we write cross platform programs for multiple operating systems. We used to rely on Google to provide new leads. Now we use multiple new media methods (yet still get a large proportion of leads from recommendations).

Finding the time to promote our business used to be more difficult than it is today. But if you have a passion for your business, embrace change, recognise when the goalposts have moved and welcome the advances and opportunities that social media brings then speeding up the world can take on a good form.

But it also makes business more accountable. It is harder for poor service providers to hide when social media brings instant accountability. (Have you seen the Twitter feeds on Google’s first page?) And that’s a good thing.

Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin and Yelp! are out there for all to see. The power is with the people and service levels should rise in across industry as a result.

As accountability becomes ever more instant, we need to embrace that as a good thing. An unsatisfied customer used to tell 10 others. Now they can tell the world.

So we embrace social media as a force for positive change in our industry and our business. Change is good and social media the latest white knight.

Launching new GPS tracking and asset tracking products is always an exciting time for us – especially when these products are game changers. If they are protected under US and European patents then all the better.

Software innovations are generally rapidly copied by competitors anxious not to give any disadvantage to their sales teams. Hardware innovations are less easy to reproduce. For example, when Simplytrak launched our green strategy back in 2009, complete with CO2 reduction calculators and driver behaviour modification suggestions, it was rapidly mimicked. When we brought out our OBDII device though, copying it took a little longer.

That device wasn’t without it’s issues. In the USA, where ideas can be patented without any kind of working product, our unit was faced with a choice of fighting a lawsuit by a major US corporation or simply not selling in the States. It is not great to be on this side of a patent. Much better to be on the favourable end. Which brings us nicely to our latest vehicle tracking innovations.

Whilst I would be premature to announce the first of these actual products until it’s official launch date in a week, I thought it might be interesting to whet the appetite by announcing that both the USA and European patents are in place and will be vigorously defended. We believe that this is a game changer for the industry and should be treated as such. Why? Because it removes the part of the traditional hardware that causes the most issues and relies on 3rd parties to keep service constant. Something that has proved ‘taxing’ for them to do over any consistent length of time.

Take away as many 3rd parties as possible and service levels can inevitably improve. If we can control it, we can manage it.

Launching in about a weeks time, the first of the new generation hits the market. In the USA and Europe initially, other territories will follow after testing is completed in each locale.

We live in exciting technological times. More to follow.

Over the last few weeks Simplytrak have been working with Sustainable Travel Solutions Limited (STS) and the NHS on a solution for tracking their fleet of Bristol-based electric bicycles.

The bikes which make up part of the fleet of low emission vehicles run by the NHS have been fitted with Simplytrak GPS trackers to allow the NHS’s online booking system to be aware of their positions at all times. The bikes, which compliment the existing fleet are used extensively by the NHS as part of their efforts to work greener and lower CO2 emissions.

Simplytrak worked closely with STS throughout the project which is now due for a more extensive rollout following the successful trial. David Coleman, CEO of Simplytrak commented ‘STS have created a great concept which fits well with our own Go Green Initiatives. They are a pleasure to work with and Simplytrak enjoy being involved with progressive companies of this nature’.

Sustainable Travel Solutions Limited are a Bristol based green service provider with clients including the NHS and BVS. They are an approved seller of Giant bikes – the worlds largest bike manufacturer. Simplytrak would highly recommend them for all of your electric bike needs.

Bespoke work is a speciality of Simplytrak and we can utilise our cutting edge manufacturing facility to compliment our in-house R&D department for all of your bespoke asset tracking needs.

We look forward to working closer with STS in the coming months as they continue to roll out their environmentally friendly transport solutions across the UK.

STS can be found via http://www.sustainabletravelsolutions.co.uk

Recently we have seen an upsurge in interest in alternative ways to finance vehicle tracking systems in all territories. Traditional lease models (historically the most popular option) are becoming less popular. This is partly due to providers continuing to hide costs in an effort to take customers out of the market and partly due to the increasing attempts to commoditise what should always be a service industry.

In the UK the SIM card is traditionally part of the lease package. Most other territories in which we currently sell do not do this. More often than not the SIM is locally sourced and the GPS tracking system purchased outright. However customers now appear to be looking to alternate ways to do things and as a progressive company we need to be flexible to a shift of this nature.

Across 5 continents, falling hardware costs are encouraging suppliers to offer one off deals with no ongoing costs. This must package up license fees for mapping, server running costs and other fees that the supplier has to pay as an ongoing into expected lifetime costs. Should an asset tracking provider not do so then it is behaving little better than a Ponzi scheme – with new sales paying the fees for existing customers units. To ‘hope’ that your customer doesn’t use your system for more than a couple of years seems a poor way to run a business.

However it is possible to offer one off payment deals that do stack up – and still not hide ongoing costs. We are managing it successfully now in 14 countries so far. But it takes careful structuring and a real depth of local knowledge to do it with integrity. Simplytrak are leading the way on this and many other areas of GPS tracking and the telematics arena.

Customers should be aware that providers could be selling systems with short warranties in order to get around the length of service issues. It isn’t right but there will always be rogue elements in any paradigm changes of this kind.

Stick with providers with long histories and strong customer bases and you should be OK. But there are no guarantees- which is really the point in a lot of ways.

Simplytrak, the Gps tracking, generator monitoring, cellsite monitoring and asset tracking specialists… are expanding again. The group, which already encompasses tracking and telematics, a media arm, M2M sim specialists, a property company and a generator monitoring specialist division is to add cross platform app development and SEO arms.

David Coleman CEO of the group believes that these additions will round off our software offerings nicely to cover all areas of our business and give our customers a ‘one stop shop’ for all their media and software requirements.

‘The model will produce a great deal of cross market opportunity for the group which until now has been largely composed of independent divisions. The move should bring it all together to better serve our new and existing customers’.

Simplytrak can be contacted via http://www.simplytrak.com

Blu-Media can be contacted at http://www.blu-me.co.uk

All divisions will shortly be under the new group structure which will be announced shortly.

OK, so it has been a while since I blogged and there is certainly some catching up to do. When I last checked in Simplytrak was still predominantly a vehicle tracking and lone worker tracking company. We had interests in a lot of countries but integrated generator monitoring, mobile phone tracking and mobile phone apps were fairly new to us.

In August 2009 we were yet to start our largest contract to date in Ghana, yet to let our full ‘green’ credentials run riot and yet to join with the Carbon Fund to help companies become more environmentally friendly. We were yet to add 10 further international distributors making the total number of countries 31 (32 as of today with Malawi) in which we operate. And we were yet to work with the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer to track bikes in the UK and Europe. It is hard to believe that at that time we hadn’t even signed Blackbox Telematics as our UK distributor.

A whole lot can happen in the Telematics and GPS tracking arena in 18 months. So it is time to start informing everyone about it again.

And then there is Blu-Media Limited, which specialises in all kinds of media buying and lead generation for a wide range of industry. From Bluetooth Marketing to Radio airtime solutions, the company (formed around the time of my last post) has quickly become a real powerhouse for its customers and a great contributor to the groups progress.

Watch this space for more regular updates – starting today!