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.

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!

We live in turbulent times. Very many vehicle tracking companies are finding that the business models that they have relied upon for years are build on sand and work only in boom-time. Damage limitation is the key for so many¬†today. So what are the problems faced by the CEO’s?

1) By far the biggest issue has been the ready availability of credit to lend to almost anyone. The lightness of the regulation and the pressure to meet/exceed targets by the finance houses has led to every shaky business being lent money to purchase a vehicle tracking system. Vehicle and asset tracking companies made hay whilst the sun¬†shone and sold third party leases by the thousand. Pay nothing now but commit to ING or Shire Leasing for 3-5 years.¬†Tracking companies took the whole lease value up front from the lender – and spent it. Post credit crunch, the finance houses have¬†applied the brakes in no uncertain fashion and companies are now left with little new income from leases, no pot of money to dip into to self-finance and no way to pay their fixed costs. The lesson from this is simple – if you make hay whilst the sun shines then you had better store some away for when it rains. If you didn’t then you are done.

Now it is raining, the tracking companies are struggling at best and closing at worst. And their clients will be paying for years for their greed or short-sightedness. (Leases are payable regardless of the system working or not – ING an Shire lent only money not the system and are not responsible if your system no longer works).

2)¬† Economic downturn. Whilst vehicle tracking and fleet management are, done properly, a way to save a large amount of money for a client company, it is often seen as an expense! Systems are sold on price rather than value. The perception is that all systems do basically the same things. The reality couldn’t be more different. Asset and vehicle tracking companies need to come out of the ‘double glazing’ mindset and establish clear benefits with a consultative approach, long term commitment from them and serious customer service. Until they do this, the ‘cost’ of the system will be the killer for the provider. Sell for nothing and you gain nothing.

3) Barriers to entry. The market is busier than ever. Almost anyone thinks that they can make money from tracking these days. But sound businesses are not built on shaky foundations. The companies established over 7 years ago that are still around are still there for a reason. Very many have fallen by the wayside in the interim. Those that have prospered and grown have done so through sound business models (public companies excluded as the evidence is completely the reverse). The bottom end of the market is flooded and the participants drowning. Barriers to entry used to be the very technology which has now become mainstream. But they are re-establishing themselves now. Advances in technology offer added benefits to clients and the long term winners are embracing the new technologies to offer new features and benefits. Selling on price is the way to destruction, the smart companies are moving to selling on value and the worthwhile customers look for value.

So what is the CEO’s job throughout all this?

CEO’s of tracking companies need many¬†skills to cover all areas of the business. Their job is to steer the ship through the choppy waters of change. Set the sails right and they sweep ahead of the flotsam and jetsam that sells basic systems on price. Set them wrong and they¬†sink in the melee.

Simplytrak have long been established as one of the most adaptive companies in the industry. In fact, this industry moves so quickly sometimes we wonder how any of the larger companies in the marketplace can ever expect to make any money at all – with the speed at which the leviathons take to turn.

Back in the day, GSM and GPS were the way to go for the originators of this industry. Add to that basic locally held mapping software, dedicated PC’s and single or multiple dial up modems and it might as well have had a hamster running in a wheel shouting instructions to the user. But back then it was all that there was. Then came broadband and GPRS. With broadband came faster Internet and with GPRS came multi-unit updating. ‘Live’ tracking became more, well, live – though many companies charged extra for faster updating. Faster than the 10 minutes that you got when you signed up to headline rates anyway!

Customers changed from logistics companies to white van man, from the courier to the service engineer. Nowadays sales fleets and landscape gardeners are just as likely to have vehicle tracking as Eddie Stobart; Peninsula Business Services as likely as UPS. But it is not just about vehicles anymore either. All kinds of assets from trailers to generators, horseboxes to caravans are tracked too.

Software is expected to be 100% web accessible now. Google maps and Virtual Earth with satellite and street views are more likely to be found than maps held on local computers. Everyone logs in via username and password protected web pages. Software is old hat and java rules the waves.

Third party lease providers, ING, Shire and GE Capital have had their cake throughout the history of tracking. Now that credit is crunched and companies that relied on up front income have fallen thick and fast. It is the sort of radical change that big companies can struggle with, yet the smaller and more agile quickly adapt.

CanBus has become more standardised too. Over-revving, harsh braking and impact sensing are all possible. Now Formula 1 telematics is starting to hit the mainstream. If this pace keeps up then you can expect to be dialled in to on-board camera action before you know it.

And all this has happened within a few short years. Sea changes in methodology, hardware and software, financing, data delivery and in-vehicle information. Faster, everything must be faster. And that is the key and the reason that the big players will always struggle. What they do best is sales. However, with so many niche players offering specialised services now, their traditional market is squeezed and adaptation is difficult.You cannot turn an oil tanker around on a dime.

The old business models no longer work now. Only the swift will survive. Consolidation has been mooted as the way forward. But we don’t think so. Specialisation is the way to go. The market is more likely to be dominated by niche players than leviathons by the end of this decade… and the end of this decade is just around the corner.

If you think you have seen the last of the big names disappearing then think again. Watch out for the specialist providers. They are the ones to fear.

Following on from a number of recent distribution contracts signed for individual countries on the African continent, Simplytrak have recently signed up a Master Distributor for the whole region.

Africa and Simplytrak are developing a long and fruitful relationship based on distributors meeting strict criteria for representing the company in their individual countries. These criteria include minimum standards of customer service, price levels, authorised use of the Simplytrak brand name and minimum quarterly order levels. “The model had far proved successful in seven African countries and so we felt it was time to bring them together under one umbrella” said David Coleman, joint CEO.”We were already active in Ghana, Nigeria, Libya, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa and Tunisia. It made sense to sign a Master Agreement to allow for more efficient distribution of products on the continent and to assist in supporting our successful regional resellers” he continued.

In signing the new agency, Simplytrak aim to increase penetration of the continent by both selling in additional countries and increasing sales in those already established. The new Distributorship will cover all Simplytrak products from the stolen vehicle systems through to the advanced fleet management and generator products that have all been developed in house. Simplytrak Asset Managers, the new Master Distributor, are based in a number of African Nations and have strong relationships with a number of Government agencies and industry groups. They are particularly strong in the oil, banking and mining sectors.

Simplytrak Asset Managers can be contacted via the website www.simplytrakassetmanagers.com

Simplytrak can be contacted via www.simplytrak.com

Simplytrak CEO Andrew Johnson was quoted today by Fleetnews in their article about the state of the telematics industry. It states that very many vehicle tracking companies are now going bust because of their poor business models. The two models that are coming to the forefront now are ‘in-house leasing’ and ‘pay as you go’ as opposed to the traditional ‘3rd party lease’ model preferred by so many previously.

We were quoted as supporting the only really viable business model out of the three above – the in-house lease. Unsurprisingly we have been championing this for four years now whilst companies around us have been taking all income upfront from lease companies, then having no impetus to look after the customers and nothing to support the tracking provider in a credit crunch situation like we face today – hence why they are now falling over like dominoes. The reality is that leasing companies are beating a hasty retreat from the doors of telematics providers as telematics customers pile on the pressure when they are forced to pay the lease companies for non working systems, often for years. Quite right too. We have always believed that there should have been laws against providers getting paid upfront. However, in the bad old days of the credit boom, pretty much anything went.

Except for the credit boom, telematics should have moved out of the pioneering stage years ago. The cowboys should be long gone and the reliable, service based companies should have come to the fore a good while ago. However, the proliferation of 3rd party lease companies in the industry has slowed the natural progression of the industry and kept the scallywags in business.

That is all about to change now. This long awaited clearout will leave two new models in place. PAYG, which is resource hungry for the provider and good only for SME’s with a short term view, and in-house leasing which is cheaper in the long run and sustainable for both customer and provider alike.

It has been a long time coming but we welcome the change.

The Fleetnews article can be found at -

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/story/TELEMATICS-LATEST-carnage-in-the-industry/50756

Simplytrak can be contacted at www.simplytrak.com