This blog is Part 2 of a 5-part series focused on what fleets really want in 2021 and beyond, and the elements impacting the path forward for fleet management solution providers.
We will continue to stress the point that businesses who choose to ignore customer needs and the trends impacting the industry will miss opportunities to remain competitive and grow in 2022 and beyond. Throughout this series, we dive into six key areas that providers of services and solutions to commercial fleets should address, to better meet the needs of fleet customers within a saturated and competitive market:
- Part 1: Relevance & choice
- Part 2: Integration
- Part 3: One-stop shop
- Part 4: Single pane of glass
- Part 5: Engagement & advice
Why do fleets want multiple solutions and applications to be integrated?
Fleets are increasingly pushing their solution partners to provide integration between their systems and applications for a number of reasons:
Many solutions can provide additional value by leveraging data generated by other solutions.
A routing application can compare planned routes with actual routes if it has access to a vehicle’s actual location from a telematics provider. A maintenance service can provide prescriptive and predictive solutions with access to diagnostics data. A fleet management company can help prevent fuel theft by combining its location data with fuel card data, and there are many other examples where data from one solution could help another solution create new value for fleets.
Make more intelligent, data-driven decisions.
Siloed data results in fleets making sub-optimal business decisions based on limited information available at any given time. Integrating siloed datasets from disparate sources gives fleets a much more holistic view of their business, and allows them to make more intelligent, data-driven decisions.
Most fleets don’t have the resources to do integrations in-house.
In almost every part of our lives, connectivity and integrations are available to streamline our day-to-day responsibilities and tasks. There is unparalleled value to be gained with integrated data, so it’s no surprise that fleets today want to move to an open architecture world where integration of multiple apps can be achieved more easily (FreightWaves). However, in many cases fleets don’t have the expertise or bandwidth to implement useful integrations in-house. This means they will seek help from you, the fleet management solution provider. According to the SMB Group, “to reduce friction and cost, more SMBs will opt for pre-integrated solution suites built on extensible, open platforms.”
Are you in a position to deliver integrated solutions and meet their expectations? How much effort and resources would it take?
The current state of integration in the fleet management industry
Today’s fleet management solution providers are not well-positioned to address fleet integration needs. In fact, most fleet management solution providers have a backlog of customer requests for integrations that they realistically can’t handle themselves, for a few key reasons:
- Solution providers are busy working on their core products. As companies must continue to prioritize development and IT resources for their own products, they aren’t able to provide ongoing support for their integration aspirations.
- Fleets are different and therefore require different integrations. Because fleets vary by vertical, type and size, they have varying needs that require different integrations. Keeping up with many different integration requirements requires even more resources.
- Solution providers’ tech platforms were not designed for easy and quick integrations. The technology platforms used by solution providers in the fleet industry were designed to solve some specific product needs of each solution provider, but were not built from the ground up as open platforms to support the unique needs of integrations in the commercial fleet market. This means that each integration requires significant and unique tech investment.
Overall, the level of effort and resources required of fleet management solution providers to meet integration expectations from customers just isn’t always there and unfortunately, there really has been no comprehensive integration platform as a service available…until now!
How to streamline integrations – and even make it a profit center – with Roadz
Roadz helps companies in the fleet management ecosystem build and harness the value of integrations quickly and with minimal resources.
Why use Roadz to handle your integration needs?
‘Integration Platform as a Service’ for the commercial fleet industry
Roadz provides an ‘Integration Platform as a Service’ built uniquely for the commercial fleet market. As Roadz expands its integration network, you reap the benefits as new integration partners are added to the platform. As the platform grows, so does your number of integration options, at no additional cost to you.
Save time and money
Roadz can save you time and money by not charging for time and materials. For a fixed monthly fee for the integration platform, Roadz includes access to the currently available integrations on the platform plus new integrations based on your needs.
Roadz helps you empower your fleet customers to improve their operations and decision making through integrated data and powerful visualizations
Through seamlessly integrated data, fleets can:
- More effectively generate actionable insights
- Foster better decision-making
- Decrease operating costs
- Increase the ROI
Integration won’t just be a check off your list for customers; it can also become a profit center for you
Many think of integrations as something that they have to do just because their customers want it. This may be true, but the current way of approaching it costs money and the only yield in return is customer retention. This is certainly important, but what if you could spend less, make more, and boost retention? Roadz wants you to think of integrations as a potential profit center, with the capability to monetize integrations powered by the Roadz platform, charging your customers for it. Most fleet management solution providers have not been able to operationalize integrations in this way before, and the Roadz platform and model can help.
Roadz offers its integration platform and service as a standalone solution or in combination with its “Marketplace as a Service”
Together, the Roadz ‘Marketplace as a Service platform and the Roadz ‘Integration Platform as a Service’ become a powerful tool to attract and retain fleet customers. You can also support data permissions and rights, contracts, billing, and more (you can learn more here about launching a Roadz-powered marketplace).
Ultimately, the goal of the Roadz integration platform and service is to help fleet management solution providers meet their fleet customer integration expectations, while positioning themselves as market leaders. Avoid a passive, “business as usual” approach and start thinking about how connecting with an integration platform service can help you and your fleets grow in 2021 and beyond! Make integration a new value-add service, not a source of friction with fleet customers!
Interested in learning more? Schedule a free demo with Roadz here. In our next post, we’ll cover the importance of providing simplicity and ease to your fleet customers through a one-stop-shop ecosystem of solutions. In the meantime, click here for more information about What Fleets Want in 2021 and Beyond.
