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.

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.

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.

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.

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