by Lisa Guerriero
Managing fleets of vehicles and employees can be daunting for service-based businesses. As a global provider of mobile workforce solutions, Fleetmatics helps clients meet the challenge. A software as a service (SaaS) vendor, the company helps clients with fleet management, productivity, and business intelligence. It has over 25,000 customers, and over 552,000 subscribed vehicles worldwide.
“Fleetmatics’ mission is to arm customers with the highest quality data and insights to save them money and make them more productive,” says Jonathan Durkee, VP of product management, Fleetmatics.
The publicly-held company generated $177.4 million in software and services revenue in fiscal 2013, a 39.2 percent increase over the previous year. It ranked 224 in the 2014 Software 500.
Established in Ireland in 2004, Fleetmatics added locations in London, Sydney, and six American cities. In February, it announced plans to expand into France by acquiring Ornicar SAS, an SaaS fleet management company. Ornicar will add 15,000 vehicle subscriptions to Fleetmatics’ portfolio.
The company works primarily with small and mid-sized businesses, in a variety of industries. It focuses on local, service-based fleets and workforces, but its solution scales to meet the needs of large, complex enterprises.
Mobile Management
Fleetmatics offers Web-based solutions to provide fleet operators with information on vehicle location, fuel usage, speed, and mileage. The company uses the data to provide insights into the customer’s mobile workforce.
“Companies with a mobile workforce have unique challenges, most of which stem from the basic fact that employees are in the field and on their own. Managers and business owners have limited visibility into essentials such as current team member location and status, and progress on work throughout the day,” explains Durkee.
One of the SaaS vendor’s key products is Fleetmatics REVEAL, which offers customers actionable business intelligence (BI) from real-time and historical vehicle and driver behavioral data. Focused on the management and productivity of the workforce, the system works with a user-friendly Web interface and special features including mobile applications (apps).
A sister product, Reveal+, targets customers with larger fleets. The scalable solution enables customers to manage a high volume of vehicles and staff members, with advanced reporting and integration with back-office systems.
In addition, the company utilized its analytic capabilities last year to introduce FleetBeat, a study of the industry over a five-year period. Fleetmatics pulled billions of data points from thousands of commercial fleets, using the information to offer insights.
“The report outlined the economic impact of telematics adoption by commercial fleets and provided key benchmarks for fleet operators, as well as quantifiable benefits of BI-driven fleet management,” comments Durkee.
Making It WORK
In February, the company released a new product, Fleetmatics WORK. The solution provides tools for field service companies to manage changing schedules, simplify paperwork in the field, and collect payment faster. Customers access their information using a smartphone, tablet, or computer. The goal, explains Durkee, is empowering the field worker and speeding the job completion process.
Supervisors can instantly see when a field worker views and accepts a new job, and send workers Google Maps directions to a job site. They also have the option of staying in touch with employees via SMS, email, or push notifications.
A mobile app component is included with the solution, allowing field workers to update customer files, upload photos and information in real time, and digitally capture customer signatures.
Fleetmatics WORK integrates with popular accounting programs including QuickBooks Online in the U.S. and MYOB AccountRight Live in Australia and New Zealand. Client updates and invoices for completed jobs flow between WORK and the customer’s accounting system, making sure data stays in sync.
A new payment tool is key to accelerating time-to-cash for the enterprise. A payment link, powered by Stripe, is embedded into the emailed invoice when it’s generated. It enables the user to invoice jobs instantly from the field via email, and also process transactions securely in real time.
On the data side, users can track field workers—tagging them by skills, locations, and groups— and then assign jobs accordingly. Fleetmatics WORK also shows users where customers are coming from and which jobs drive the most revenue.
Like other Fleetmatics products, WORK focuses on the unique challenges of managing a mobile workforce, with the overarching goal of increasing productivity. “For many field service businesses the challenges run deeper when dealing with changing schedules, completing paperwork in the field, and trying to collect payment from customers,” notes Durkee.
The company offers free training and support to show customers best practices for transforming data into actionable intelligence.
Growth Market
The research firm MarketsandMarkets predicts the fleet management market will grow to $35.35 billion by 2019, at a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent from 2014 to 2019. Fleetmatics is at the forefront of the burgeoning market.
The company’s new WORK product extends its portfolio of mobile workforce solutions, offering capabilities and features that target field service management. SW
