Empowering global fleet visibility with Fleetsu

Hologram powers fleet tracking and visibility platform to grow from local to global

Fleetsu’s vision is to create a world-class, innovative, fleet management platform that is user-driven and scalable, enabling their customers to hit efficiency targets, grow their businesses and achieve outcomes they haven’t even thought of yet.

The Perth, Australia-based maker of fleet management software in just five years has carved out a position as a leading fleet telematics provider in Asia Pacific. Now the company is in the process of expanding internationally with Hologram helping to pave the way for growth.

Cloud-based fleet management is a category of transportation software that gives fleet owners the ability to monitor vehicles and drivers with fine-tuned precision, gathering data that’s useful for everything from meeting maintenance schedules to detecting driver fatigue. Fortune Business Insights expects the market to more than triple to $46.6 billion by 2026.

Mobile devices are fueling much of that growth by enabling owners to track time, location, speed and even weather conditions remotely. The ability to issue updates to drivers and revise itineraries in real time cuts down on waste and the fine-grained data capture capabilities enable improved efficiency and regulatory compliance. Using specialty devices, fleet owners can also monitor details about engine performance to improve fuel efficiency and troubleshoot problems before they trigger a breakdown.

Fleetsu’s market is competitive, but the company has distinguished itself for its “scalable, flexible and customizable web platform that allows customers to do a lot more customization than competitors,” says Adam Ricketts, Head of Product for Customer Success. Fleetsu leverages the Amazon AWS IoT cloud for analytics and uses Hologram’s Dashboard to coordinate connectivity management among a team of people scattered across the Asia-Pacific region. “We’re very much an agile business,” Ricketts says. “We’re able to move a lot quicker than many of our larger competitors.”

Going global

Fleetsu has deployed more than 6,000 mobile assets across Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, but its expansion ambitions aren’t isn’t stopping there. In 2018 it undertook a major initiative to expand into the Pacific Islands, India, Europe and North America, betting that the relatively low penetration rate of fleet management systems (globally, less than 40 percent of non-privately owned commercial vehicles use them) presents an opportunity for rapid growth.

Geographic growth can bring geometric complexity, however, when dealing with carriers. Fleetsu’s business depends upon reliable and manageable cellular data connections; expanding into new territories introduces multiple new pricing models, contracts and platforms for managing the SIM cards in the devices.

Whether the customer is in Fiji or India, we can ship them a device, they power it up and it’s online. Adam Ricketts, Head of Product, Fleetsu

‍“We don’t want to have five people managing 20 different SIM platforms and the development team trying to work with all these different systems,” Ricketts says. The operational overhead would slow the company down.

Seeking a simpler solution, Fleetsu invited wireless vendors to bid for its SIM business. Hologram’s responsiveness won it a seat at the table. Test SIMs reached Fleetsu within a week and, despite the 13-hour time difference, Hologram staff made themselves available to answer questions that would make the pilot successful

“We got to speak to people at the most senior level,” Ricketts says. “That’s how our business works as well. We felt there was a synergy there.” Hologram won the bid.

It just works

Fleetsu was looking for operational efficiency so it could focus its resources on customer needs. That made Hologram’s straightforward contracts and consolidated pricing a plus. “The others required a lot of back and forth because of tiered pricing and contractual details,” Ricketts says. “Hologram’s contract was a lot simpler and more transparent.”

The ease of working with a single SIM across all geographies has saved time, money and aggravation. “Whether the customer is in Fiji or India, we can ship them a device, they power it up and it’s online,” Ricketts says. “We haven’t found a carrier that Hologram doesn’t support, and if we did we can reconfigure over the air.”

I’d recommend Hologram both for their platform and their people.

Fleetsu also appreciates the convenience of getting just a single invoice for all its devices. “Data is one of the highest-cost items in our business,” Ricketts says. “Knowing what the cost is wherever we want to deploy a device makes our life easier.”

Hologram SIMs are now standard in every device Fleetsu deploys. In addition to Hologram’s Dashboard and convenience of connectivity, a big part of what sealed the deal between the two companies was the human element - excellent customer service.

“The team is very responsive,” Ricketts says. “I’d recommend Hologram both for their platform and their people.”