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Masternaut, one Europe’s largest provider of telematics solutions, has been working with logistics firm Currie European since October 2008, delivering both vehicle tracking and driver behaviour monitoring functionality to the business.

The deployment has generated a marked uplift in the productivity of Currie European’s fleet, which operates across the whole of Europe and was awarded the Transport News Scottish European Haulier of the Year award for 2014.

Masternaut’s system has facilitated improved fleet planning, with at-a-glance visibility of every vehicle enabling the organisation to cut down on wasted journey time while sharing exact whereabouts of vehicles and expected arrival times with customers. The driver behaviour module has also allowed Currie European to monitor the safety of its drivers, highlighting habits such as speeding or vehicle idling in order to deliver preventative measures and issue training where necessary. As a result, Currie European has recently renewed its contract with Masternaut for a further five years.

Steve Walls, Business Systems Director at Currie European, comments: “Masternaut’s system has had a huge impact on our business. Since bringing on the solution in 2008, we’ve been able to significantly improve the operational efficiency of our fleet.”

“Improving our productivity has had a knock-on effect on customer service; we can ensure we always reach our customers in time, while keeping them better-informed en-route. What’s more, we share this fleet intelligence directly with customers, allowing them to view exactly where our vehicles are on a map-based interface generated in real time by Masternaut’s data, via our customer portal.”

Martin Hiscox, chairman and CEO of Masternaut, adds: “Managing the efficient coordination of a fleet the size of Currie European is no easy task.  By using our solution, Steve and his team are exemplifying how telematics can be used to not only drive tangible business benefits back to the organisation, but also to deliver significant service improvements to its own customers.

As Currie European goes from to strength to strength, we look forward to a continued successful partnership as we enable the business to keep tabs on its ever-expanding fleet.”

Trimble Field Service Management are set to release a new report following on from a research project they have be conducting looking at how field service organisations need to transform their service delivery to remain competitive in today's market. Ahead of the release of the report Field Service News spoke exclusively with Trimble FSM Managing Director Mark Forrest. 

FSN: You report that customer service is widely regarded to be the number one priority for field service organisations. How are organisations adapting to meet this priority?

MF: The correlation between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability is proven and we know the most common customer complaint is when a technician does not resolve the problem first time. As a result, field service organisations have to strive to get it right first time to meet customer expectations. A return visit is not only significant in terms of time and cost but can also be damaging to the brand and reputation from a customer view point.

Recent studies show that over a quarter of dispatched jobs fail to be resolved first time, requiring two or more follow-up visits. Making sure you get the right people with the right skills with the right assets to the right place within a set time is therefore essential. Work management technologies can help with this. They incorporate technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is the person who can resolve the issue first time.

FSN: Your research found that 1 in 10 field service organisations still collect data from the field via paperwork and some collect no data at all. Is there a cost to field services of collecting data in this way? If so, what can be done to address it?

MF: To pick up on a finding like this was a real surprise considering, with the advancements in workforce management technologies, that some organisations are still relying on paperwork to manage their field service work and some are not collecting any management information at all. Not only are there immediate implications for, and restrictions on, the day-to-day management of the work in terms of efficiencies, scheduling and productivity, but if you don’t have a real-time understanding of what is happening, there is little scope to then apply this information and identify trends for longer term business planning.

With customer expectations at an all-time high, field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. More organisations are beginning to recognise that they need to manage their work more efficiently and effectively and adopt intelligent scheduling which allocates the right technician to the right job. As a result we will see organisations move away from the traditional methods of data collection and look towards automated learning tools to accelerate this process.

FSN: The importance of measuring service performance and that you ‘cannot manage what you cannot measure’ is discussed in the report. What metrics should field service organisations use to measure service performance effectively?

MF: While some organisations aren’t collecting data at all, for those that do, time taken to complete a job, customer satisfaction and the number of jobs completed were the three main metrics used to measure field service performance. For most businesses, measuring and improving just three key metrics will offer meaningful and significant improvements so it’s fundamental that businesses chose the right three to keep an improvement project manageable and on track. The emergence of Performance Management Analytics (PMA) can help considerably in the measurement process. Such tools provide the visibility to analyse the productivity of a field service operation and showcase key metrics. These metrics can range from how often SLAs are met, total tasks completed, distance travelled and utilisation in terms of actual tasks completed against total time of the working day. This can be seen at an organisation, region, team or even individual level, allowing businesses to drill down to the areas of concern or opportunity and make the necessary changes.

FSN: The report states that the ability to make sense of ‘Big Data’ can make the difference between a business that is good enough and one that stands out from the pack. What hurdles do field service organisations face in tackling ‘Big Data’ and how can they overcome these?

MF: Due to the sheer scale of data being created in everything we do, field service organisations can be overwhelmed by the amount of information coming in from multiple sources, in various formats and through an array of tools. Our research found that around a third of field service managers believe that their organisation is ineffective at using the data they collect to make decisions and the main concern with using data from the field was the reliability of the information.

The key is to firstly use technology that you trust to provide you the data you need. The next step is cutting through the amount of data and identifying the trends and metrics that really make a difference to your operation. Starting with a benchmark is key so you can track improvements as you start to measure the impact of change. Using field service data correctly can give vital insight to field service managers in areas such as identifying the most productive performers and those which need training, determining how long job types take and predicting peaks and troughs in capacity based on previous trends.

FSN: You report that more than 90% of the change programmes rolled out by field service organisations in the last year improved their operations. What is the key to rolling out change well and how can other organisations achieve this?

MF: We’ve worked with a number of large organisations in the roll-out of very large programmes of change and organisations that implement change well, can be seen to do so because of the culture of their organisation, employee engagement and having the right processes and strategy in place. It is also of the utmost importance that change is driven by the Board of Directors and that they keep on top of it to ensure that all processes and people remained aligned with the set goals. I cannot stress enough the need to really engage the workforce in a technology roll-out. Organising workshops in order to educate them on a new technology is essential and will give them the opportunity to ask questions and understand the overall value attributed to change. Using a new technology can be daunting so providing that on-hand support after implementation is also, just as important.

FSN: What are the most important considerations when implementing new technology?

MF: Our research found that many field service managers still believe the most important factor in choosing new technology is ease of use. This was closely followed by integration into current systems. We know from the companies that we work with, that field service organisations are increasingly seeking modular, scalable and easy to integrate solutions that allow them to deliver on their business objectives and which they can easily roll out to employees, is easy to use and offers them an enhanced work experience.

Organisations that understand how to strategically leverage new and existing technologies stand to drive efficiencies, profits and improve their customer service. Some of the most important developments to look out for include integration of M2M, leveraging of mobile apps, profit-driven analytics and cloud-driven transformations.

FSN: You conclude your report with a section on ‘What the future holds for field service management’. In your opinion, what will be the most significant trend to shape the industry going forward?

MF: It is an exciting time for the field service industry as we’re seeing a different kind of field service worker emerge. Those entering the industry are more proficient with technology and tools and that is already having an impact on not only the increased adoption of mobility and apps but also the way in which we, as customers, are communicated with. Gamification is a developing step for this tech savvy workforce as it offers a more interactive, competitive environment for the mobile worker, increasing productivity. From a wider technology point of view I see M2M as having a significant effect on the industry with predictive and preventative maintenance growing to make up a significant proportion of service work; potentially with service companies taking the place of the customer as the instigator of a service visit, having been alerted to a potential issue by the machine or device they are going to fix – a huge step change for our industry.

Trimble are hosting a virtual summit on the Third of April which will be discussing this report and the industry at large and you can register for this event here 

Background

Travis Perkins plc is the UK’s largest supplier to the building and construction market, with a national network of more than 1,900 branches and annual turnover of £5 billion. The organisation is home to businesses including Travis Perkins, Wickes, BSS Industrual, Toolstation and Tile Giant, and has supplied building materials to the trade and home improvers for over 200 years.

The Travis Perkins Group uses Masternaut’s technology across its 3,000-strong commercial fleet.

Masternaut has been an integral part of the Group’s day-to-day fleet operations for some time. The telematics system is used across the fleet to improve fleet efficiency and customer service, cut costs and reduce emissions. Since using the technology, Travis Perkins has seen a reduction in fuel costs of over £1.4million to-date, a 70% daily reduction in vehicle idling, as well as reduced depot turnaround times from 45 minutes to an average 25 minutes.

The organisation is constantly looking for new ways to improve its performance across all divisions of the business.

The Group’s Transport department has implemented a number of initiatives to improve the safety of its drivers. One of these initiatives is the Driver of the Year award, an annual nationwide competition open to all drivers in all businesses across the Travis Perkins Group. The competition aims to identify and acknowledge the organisation’s safest driver. More recently, the company has introduced a Group-wide ‘Safer Roads’ policy to further improve driver safety awareness and identify drivers who require additional coaching.

Challenge

In order to introduce these initiatives, Travis Perkins needed a way to accurately monitor and record the behaviour of its drivers and determine those who are exhibiting the best driving performance across the group.

This information needed to be available in real-time, to promote and enable improved safety and driver awareness ‘on-the-job’, as well as being recorded in highly detailed retrospective reports. With thousands of drivers across the organisation involved in both initiatives, these reports needed to offer the functionality to drill down into individual driver performance, as well as providing top-level visibility into overall trends in order to develop ranked league tables.

The focus on safety awareness associated with the Safer Roads initiative meant that fleet and HR managers also required a system that could highlight individual driver habits, such as harsh braking, speeding or idling.

Solution

Working very closely with a Masternaut consultant, the Travis Perkins Group has developed both initiatives with the help of intelligence generated by Masternaut technology.

For the Driver of the Year award, a shortlist of suitable drivers is drawn from each Group business before benchmarking these drivers against each other during an intensive two-month monitoring period. This period relies heavily on Masternaut’s telematics systems to monitor each driver against set criteria in order to compare driver performance. Each criterion carries a certain weight, and Fleet and HR managers can modify the emphasis placed on a driver ‘event’, tailored to the particular business requirements of that business or Division.

Similarly, the Safer Roads initiative also uses data provided by Masternaut technology to identify drivers that show signs of requiring one-to-one coaching.

All information generated by Masternaut is transmitted from the vehicle in real-time, as well as being compiled into reports which are delivered back to the Group’s Head Office for full retrospective analysis.

Results

Together, the two initiatives have led to a significant increase in health and safety awareness and driving best practice across the Travis Perkins Group, and helping to improve the safety of the organisation’s drivers and other road users. Those exhibiting habits such as speeding, idling, harsh braking and accelerating are quickly identified so that the appropriate ‘on the road’ coaching sessions can be arranged with one of the Group’s 16 dedicated risk assessors.

As well as receiving formal coaching, drivers also receive real-time training via Masternaut’s in-cab light bar, which instantly alerts the driver when they need to alter what they are doing – whether they need to slow down or brake less harshly.

As a result, accident figures over the last 5 years have reduced.

Using Masternaut’s technology as the backbone for these initiatives also means that, where previously HR policies around driver safety monitoring and training were very siloed to particular divisions or areas of the business, the whole organisation now has one consistent, consolidated approach.

Commenting on the success of the partnership Richard Horton, Head of Transport Development, Travis Perkins said: 

“We have worked closely with Masternaut for a number of years, and the organisation has become an integral part of our business. And it’s not just our transport department that sees the benefits. We have seen tangible benefits across the whole of the organisation and direct impact on our bottom line, with significant cost savings year-on-year.

The ‘Driver of the Year’ and ‘Safer Roads’ are two examples of initiatives based on Masternaut’s technology which go way beyond straight forward vehicle tracking. The two initiatives are allowing us to raise awareness of driver safety, and the importance of responsible driving across the business – from HGVs through to light commercial vehicles.

Our drivers are not only more conscious of how they are performing behind the wheel, they’re motivated and incentivised. When the Driver of the Year award comes around each year there’s a great sense of healthy competition among the whole team – and that’s fantastic to see!”

Masternaut, one of the largest European providers of telematics solutions, has launched Masternaut Tax & Expense, offering customers automated and completely accurate mileage logging to support expense claims and compliance regulations.  

The module is the latest in a series of new applications announced by the telematics provider, following the launch of Masternaut Connect last year. Masternaut Tax & Expense is specifically designed to benefit the whole business from the finance department to individual drivers, enabling driver authentication of business and private mileage, while storing data for regulatory compliance. Benefits include quicker and more efficient processes due to automated mileage logging. Masternaut’s patented technology reports exact vehicle odometer which revolutionary compared to GPS-based calculations.

Tax & Expense can be used as a wholly independent module or as a component part of Masternaut’s Connect platform which includes ecoDrive, Live tracking and Business Intelligence as companion modules.

Delivered via the new platform’s core, integrated web interface, the application is available to all customers using Masternaut Connect, removing the need for lengthy bespoke deployments, and enabling rapid take-up.

The new Masternaut Connect functionality also offers improved privacy options, enabling customers to select map-based routes or data-only services, in order to protect employee privacy outside of working hours.

Martin Hiscox, Chairman and CEO of Masternaut, says: “Telematics has gone way beyond simply tracking vehicle whereabouts. The benefits span a wide range of business departments, and finance is no exception.

“For many of our customers, handling tax and expense claims – often for thousands of drivers, and across multiple regions – can be a complex and time-consuming task. Masternaut Tax & Expense automates the processes involved, delivering intuitive reports quickly and easily. Above all, these reports can be modified to support customer priorities and local requirements – and in the minefield of local compliance and regulation, for many of our customers this will be where the true benefit lies. ”

Masternaut’s CTO, Alex Rothwell, adds: “It’s been an extremely busy year of innovation and development for Masternaut. We invested millions of euros and the largest telematics R&D workforce in Europe into bringing Masternaut Connect to market; it’s very exciting to be at a stage when we can begin introducing the various applications of the platform – and Tax & Expense is just one of these applications.”

In the third and final part of our exclusive interview with Telogis UK General Manager Sergio Barata, we find out what Sergio's thoughts are on the impact of smart phones on field service software and what he thinks is the next stage for the field service industry...

FSN: Given your such a fan of the iPhone, do you think that the consumerisation of mobile devices has led to a major shift in the design of the interfaces you and your competitors are designing?

SB: Telogis never really developed heavily in a Windows Mobile development - we just never felt it was right for us. Our belief was that these things would take care of themselves.

There were companies that would have 20 engineers just developing an environment [for Windows mobile]. We just felt that this was never a model we could get behind, however, we were always happy to partner and integrate and take a more open approach.

Now with the newer iOS and Android systems we can take advantage of the situation and have some pretty compelling technologies. Just downloading an application and updating it now is completely seamless whereas previously companies had to throw thousands of pounds at project management to get an update out to the field. So we are big believers in what’s happening with the mobile handsets and tablets. 

FSN: What is the biggest trend in solutions that you are seeing come to the market? What are your clients most commonly looking for today that they weren’t asking for two years ago?

SB: Today the market is asking for our platform. Two years ago we were pushing a platform and the benefits because we believed it was the right way forward, even though the market wasn’t necessarily asking for it. There were some organisations that were interested in that conversation - today we are finding that most of the market is asking for it.

One objection I have heard on a number of occasions is why would I deny the company the opportunity to have best of breed in all particular elements?

That’s an interesting discussion in that a large part of our platform, if you took it individually, is best of breed anyway. ABI Research last summer rated us as the most innovative telematics solution you can buy anywhere today. Even if we ranked third or fourth in each of those disciplines, it’s all about leveraging the data that each investment creates, rather than the sum of each of those pieces.

Now customers know what they are trying to achieve and ask us to present our platform. Often they may have a requirement for one of the elements, but it is now a very easy conversation to show the benefits of the whole holistic approach.

FSN: What do you think the next biggest technological advancement in field service will be?

SB: I think that bringing more Big Data to the field service individual, to the actual agent, is something we will see. I have seen it with driver behaviour for example. The traditional driver behaviour solution is that you put a unit in my vehicle, I drive and if I violate the rules then my line manager prints it out, confronts me and then hopefully I improve.

We have a solution called Telogis Coach, which has all of those same elements but does it in a very non-confrontational way.  It gets the driver to buy into the process through a portal on his phone, which just creates a different dynamic and environment for him to digest the information. I personally think treating agents in this way will engage them more positively.

People are ready for more information as long as it is done in a way that the employee can say, “okay this is positive, it’s not big-brother, they’re not policing me”. The trends towards more efficiency will probably add more benefits for the agents as well, whether profit sharing or incentives.

FSN: What is the biggest difference between when you started in the industry and today?

SB: I think the biggest difference between when I started and today is now we have new devices and tools to deliver the level of information required, which along with more platforms mean you can bring more and increasingly diverse data together and interpret it better. As a result we are seeing greater understanding both from agents working in the field and in the central offices alike, helping organisations work smarter and better.

Missed the first parts of this interview? Find part one here and part two here

Want to learn more about Telogis? Find more news, features, videos and resources in the Field Service News directory 

 

In part one of this exclusive interview with Telogis' Sergio Barata we learnt both about his personal background and the background of the company. In this second part of this three part series we discuss the growth of Telogis and the technology that makes Sergio tick.

FSN: With the launch of progression a few years ago Telogis stepped much more firmly into the field service software arena rather than solely fleet management. We have seen similar moves from other companies with a fleet technology background such as Trimble and TomTom, are the lines blurring between mobile workforce management and fleet management technologies?

SB:There is no doubt that telematics on its own is a pretty competitive space with a low barrier to entry. I think Trimble, TomTom, Telogis, companies like this, have taken that next step of investment in terms of R&D in trying to develop a more holistic approach. I do think that the companies that win will be those that offer true value to any organisation.

FSN: Since 2009 Telogis has been on the acquisitions trail with the purchase of Darby, Remote Dynamics, Integris, Onboard Advisor, Maptuit and Navtrak across just three years. How have the acquisitions of these companies shaped Telogis’ own development both as a company and also in terms of your product lines?

SB: We have been fairly aggressive in our acquisitions, having secured companies for either market share or for more depth in a particular segment of the market place. For instance we acquired Maptuit as a very dynamic navigation technology that we have integrated into the rest of our offering. We are always monitoring the UK market to see what makes sense.

FSN: One of these acquisitions, Onboard Advisor was a risk reduction product and you subsequently partnered with Travelers Insurance on their IntelliDrive fleet safety program. How important is technology in improving driver safety?

SB: The telematics driver-profiling element is essentially a tool for our largest customers, the enterprise fleets, to help bring in behavioural change that will increase opportunities to save on fuel and insurance costs.

We look for technology that allows us to engage the drivers directly in an innovative way to help manage and improve their driving behaviour; the idling, how they drive - sudden braking, acceleration, their speed. We then needed tools and dashboards to take that underlying data and the driver profiles to help large organisations change business practices to make improvements.

Certainly Onboard Advisor and the tie up with insurance telematics has been very important for us and our largest accounts, which have global fleets that deal with these issues and can now take advantage of this approach.

FSN: What was the first piece of technology that made a huge impression on you both personally and in a work environment?

SB: I think the biggest impression on me personally as well as the workplace, has been my iPhone.

Working in a technology led industry I got into smart phones and the Internet early. I’ve always been an early adopter but I don’t think anything has changed the way I think as when first picked up my iPhone. I had Nokia N70s, Blackberrys and so on, but nothing has been as complete, as easy to use and as seamless as the iPhone. 

 

Read part one of this interview here

Find out more about Telogis in our online directory here

Having become a regular member of the Deloitte Fast Track 500 Telogis have become a firmly established leading provider in the US. Field Service News caught up with Sergio Barata, the man tasked with leading the charge into the United Kingdom.

FSN: You have been involved with Telogis since they launched in the UK. Firstly could you tell us a bit about your own background and also the approach you took when introducing what was a successful US product to the UK market?

SB: I moved to the UK just over ten years ago when first working for a mobile start-up and have worked in the LBS (location based services) space ever since. 

Initially starting in pure Geo Spatial technology, I find myself now immersed in the sector. I joined Telogis back in 2008, having just come from another US based software company where I had spent time localising and refocusing their key capabilities for the UK.  On joining Telogis, I had some specific views on how we should launch the company here – the leadership team understood and bought into the fact that we would have to localise correctly if we were to launch in such a competitive environment.

We initially started with our GeoBase product, thinking that if we could correctly localise and licence this within the UK as we have done in the US, we would have a strong platform to build upon. Once the underlying technology was in place, we could introduce the rest of our SaaS solution which is all built around this.

Since the early days Telogis has grown rapidly both in the UK and wider.  When I started at Telogis we had around 120 people in the whole organisation, now we have nearly 500. In the UK we have just moved into our new facility, which will allow us to continue to grow substantially.

FSN: With Telogis only being founded in 2001, you are in relative terms still a young company within the field service industry. Do you think this gives you an advantage in being able to build a cloud based solution from the ground up rather than having to adapt a legacy solution?

SB: We launched as a SaaS company, which in 2001 was quite a brave thing to do. Browser adoption, both as a way of working and technologically still wasn’t quite there - but that quickly shifted. The vision our founders had clearly worked. Around 2005/6 all our competitors had essentially become organisations supporting their customers in the field - not black boxes but servers with their software running on them, so their ability to innovate was hampered. Being cloud-based has meant we didn’t have these issues.

The other critical decision we made was not to develop our own hardware and to remain hardware agnostic. This has meant that our R&D budgets have been focused on the data, the software and our platform, which we are now selling as a strategic approach.

I think not having an incumbent legacy, adopting the hardware agnostic approach and choosing to be SaaS from day one has allowed us to remain innovative and scalable, which has been a key part of our success to date.

FSN: You recently wrote an article for Field Service News in which you talked about the platform approach, something we are hearing more and more of within the industry. Do you think this model, i.e. working with one provider for multiple solutions is likely to be the future for field service software?

SB: We certainly see the benefits of it!

When we meet customers we find many burdened with costly overheads and challenges of integration, even to the extent that they are not meeting the ROIs and initial business case. The costs that it takes to get systems to talk to each other can be significant.

There are also other elements: different companies have different commercial models - our telematics is a subscription model, making it straightforward to cost and manage. Other systems often have capital expenditure costs upfront and deploying different systems and suppliers efficiently can be very challenging.

We think starting with one part of a solution and then integrating other elements is the right approach. We never advocate the ‘big bang’ approach to implementing a complete solution - it’s not commercially or even technically feasible to embrace a whole system at once. Our strategy is based around ‘lets put one piece of the solution in and then work with you on building a longer term strategy and at the end you will come out with a holistic approach.’

The other question we address is the integration of our systems - the telematics, the routing and scheduling - with the customers’ systems that they have already deployed. We have some interesting platform tools, middleware/application programme interfaces that are essentially self-help modules that we can offer our customers to help this integration.

 These may be scripted alerting, customised reporting on driver stats or just workflow management that actually allows them to translate data between our solutions and their other systems. Integration can become seamless – there are even situations where they don’t even need to log into our system, they are just communicating with the cloud and getting the data straight out of it.

Look out for the next part of this exclusive interview coming soon...

Want to know more about Telogis? Check out their page in the Field Service News Online Directory here

Due to their recent research on the fleet management market Frost & Sullivan have presented Masternaut with their 2013 award for Competitive Strategy Leadership. Masternaut were selected after successfully differentiating themselves from their competition through a mix of product quality, up-to-date functionality, unique offerings and significant cost savings delivered to their customers.

Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Latha Rani commented:

“Being adaptive and resilient is a key success factor in the fiercely competitive fleet management services industry, and Masternaut has designed its strategies around offering better value to its customers”

“Masternaut’s product offerings help minimise the carbon footprint of fleets, improve safety, and augment efficiency, which ultimately translates to unparalleled customer value.” Rani added.

In particular it was Masternaut’s desire to collaborate with customers to establish a deeper understanding of their needs whilst simultaneously having their finger on the pulse of the latest market trends that went a long way to securing enhanced customer value. Leveraging market experience to innovate on an ongoing basis, developing truly customisable solutions that meet their clients demands and offering best-in-class after sales service were also key factors for them receiving the award.

With an investment of over €20 million to take forward their technology , their platform  Masternaut Connect is designed to employ the latest advancements in telematics, with the aim of delivering superior real-time tracking and communications to improve driver behaviour and fuel efficiency, whilst reducing reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It is through this platform that Masternaut have helped their customers employee management and vehicle expenses, while giving them greater visibility into trends and strategic business data.

Delivering quality end to end service which ranges across hardware, software, communication gateways for data collection, data hosting, server hardware and technology and QA and web-delivered software, Masternaut also has highly experienced in-house customer service teams who specialise on specific sectors.

The company also has a deep pool of satisfied customers using their solutions who will vouch for their services and the fact that many of them have achieved savings as significant as 20% whilst benefitting from the added security fleet management provides.

"Masternaut currently holds an impressive market share in this highly competitive space," noted Rani.

"With over 300,000 vehicles across Europe, the company has achieved an excellent compound annual growth rate of 30 percent from 2009 to 2012."

Of course this would be expected with Masternaut being the largest fleet management services company in Europe, in fact they are now providing services across 32 countries. As the first telematics company worldwide, and with 16 years of experience in telematics, Masternaut have established an excellent brand presence in the market and made the most of their early-mover advantage. With a strong reputation and wide reach the company have built themselves an enviable position from which they can thrive in a competitive market.

The award is handed out each year Frost & Sullivan presents this award to a company that has utilised competitive intelligence to successfully execute a competitive strategy resulting in stronger market share, competitive brand positioning and customer satisfaction.

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

Many congratulations to Masternaut for achieving this award. A shining beacon for the telematics industry.

Demolition contractor and asbestos removal expert Maylarch have opted to use Masternaut’s full telematics solution across the entirety of their fleet in a move to reduce costs, lower fuel emissions and improve driver safety.

The decision to work with a telematics provider was made by the company in a bid to optimize their transport management system and having installed the Masternaut system they have seen benefits impact not only on its fleet division but also in a number of other business areas as well.

Nick Williamson, Managing Director of Maylarch commented:

“We chose Masternaut above other telematics providers because the solution was more user-friendly for our staff and offered far clearer, more detailed reporting – particularly from a driver behaviour point of view”

“Since implementing the solution we have seen a wide range of benefits across many areas of our business.” He continued

“Fuel costs have been reduced by 7% in addition to lowered vehicle wear-and-tear thanks to improved driver behaviour, which in turn has led to a reduction in emissions. When it comes to compliance and insurance, we are now able to identify both the location and driver of any vehicle at any given time, enabling us to prove or disprove a driver’s involvement in an incident. Finally, driver behaviour monitoring with a focus on speeding has helped improve driver safety and awareness of best driving practice amongst our employees – which truly is invaluable.”

The system Masternaut have implemented by Maylarch not only allows for the them to report on drivers whereabouts but also includes the ability to score drivers based on vehicle economy and driving behaviour.

With built-in, localised speed limits for every road network, this offering includes tailored real-time speeding alerts, as well as comprehensive reporting.

A direct result of this is that Maylarch have launched their Safer Driving Scheme, which aims to improve driving standards across the organisation by monitoring drivers and incentivising good driver practise. Based on the reports generated by Masternaut’s data, the scheme has already seen a reduction in speeding by 9%.

Martin Hiscox, CEO and chairman of Masternaut, commented:

“Nowadays, the benefits of using telematics are no longer restricted solely to the fleet department – and Maylarch is the perfect example of how businesses can be using our solutions to achieve results across all areas of the organisation.

“We’re delighted that Masternaut’s technology has formed the backbone of the Maylarch Safer Driving Scheme, and look forward to working very closely with Maylarch in the future to support similar initiatives.”