It’s estimated there are 118.4 million connected fleet vehicles in the world today. In this crowded market, fleet companies are racing to differentiate their fleet tracking solutions with innovative features and services. like driver safety monitoring and dash cams. One fleet tracking software company, Telemax, took a different approach by delivering a new business model to fleet managers.
Typical fleet tracking solution vendors in the Pacific region, where Telemax operates, require fleet managers to “bring your own SIM.” That meant fleet managers had to worry about the cellular connectivity of their fleets on top of managing their vehicles. They had to negotiate contracts with mobile network providers, allocate resources to troubleshoot connectivity issues, and manage telecom bills. Most rental car fleet managers do not have a background in telecom, and this responsibility took time away from leading a successful fleet business.
Telemax wanted to remove that complexity for their customers in the rental car and care-sharing market. Instead, they wanted to offer a fully connected end-to-end solution, by bundling the connectivity with their software and providing that as a subscription service. Telemax dreamt of a “plug and play” product that let fleet managers get immediate connectivity, and access to valuable telematics data.
To make their dream a reality, Telemax needed to get up and running quickly, and a way to predict how much cellular data would be consumed by high bandwidth services. Without the ability to understand data consumption of its solutions, Telemax had no way to understand their telecom costs. Having insight into connectivity costs would help Telemax determine the tiered pricing model of their subscription service.
More importantly, however, Telemax found itself in uncharted territories as they navigated the cellular world. From pre-launch to fleet management, they needed an expert to guide them through selecting the right rate plan as well as troubleshooting connectivity issues.
Leveraging Twilio’s expertise in cellular communications, Telemax developed a business model and a connected product that led to a differentiated solution. Fleet managers no longer needed to manage their own cellular connectivity services to make their fleets smart. With Telemax, they didn’t have to learn about the complex world of telecom nor did they have to manage additional vendors. Instead, they spent their resources on increasing the efficiencies of their fleets.
Their new business model was a massive hit with customers—and it wasn’t long before Telemax earned almost 50 percent market share of the rental car and car-sharing market in the Pacific region.
“Twilio fueled a 10 percent growth in our monthly subscriber base by helping us create a differentiated fleet solution which includes connectivity,” said Ash Phayer, general manager at Telemax.
Through guidance from Twilio’s IoT specialists, Telemax leveraged a pay-as-you-go rate plan that would give them the flexibility they needed to manage their telecom costs. Once they launched their product, Telemax used APIs to pull usage data and integrate with the rest of their business intelligence systems.
“The ability to look deep into the SIM behavior and pull data from Twilio’s console allowed us to predict 100 percent of our telecom bills and better manage our customer experience,” Phayer said.
Another critical aspect of the Telemax dream was delivering high quality service. Leveraging Twilio’s APIs and console, Telemax was able to increase its time-to-resolution of troubleshooting communication issues.
“Getting a telecom expert on the phone when we needed it allowed us to troubleshoot connectivity issues 5x faster,” said Phayer.
Bringing a complete end-to-end connected fleet tracking solution to the fleet industry is how Telemax won the hearts and minds of fleet managers. But they don’t want to stop here and aim to continue to innovate. Relying on Twilio, Telemax continues to quickly test and validate new business models and features.