GPS Tracking ROI

I’ve written before about how live GPS tracking systems are not only profit makers for business in the usual GPS tracking ROI sense … that is they help a business save money on wasted trips and other vehicle problems, but the same GPS tracking applications can be a great tool for generating more business.  Here’s one example that shows you taxis in San Francisco live, on screen and, as I’ve pointed out can provide a lot of information for other business planning, far and away more than the simple GPS tracking “bread crumbs” seem to offer at first.

One of the bloggers I read regularly is a fellow by the name of Matt Cutts.  I doubt I’ve even mentioned him here before because he is a software engineer and a senior Googler on the team that helps combat web spam for Google.  Interesting work but very seldom having any relationship to GPS tracking issues.

However, yesterday Matt made a super post with the idea of encouraging people to think up new online phone applications. There is a tendency to sit back and look at the fantastic panoply of sites and services we have on the web and think, perhaps, that we are “there”.

Matt’s contention, and certainly mine is that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what the web can do for us.  Here’s a sample idea Matt through out to the world, just as one off a huge number of ideas that could be built today, 100% from existing services and components, and would produce a tool useful to the average guy’ …. and, (something all too often ignored) provide a way to make a profit with existing tools.

All you need to do is look at that screen and you can think of a dozen ways it could help you if you were traveling in San Francisco with a web-enabled, GPS-enabled phone … like, perhaps the iPhone“.

The taxi and shuttle information is already available online in ‘web digestible’ formats.  The phones are on the market with processors, memory space, SDK’s (Software Development Kits) that allow anyone to build applications that run on the phone … and the network of communication exists and is already being paid for by the people who line up to buy the phones.  Sounds like the bases are pretty well covered to me.

What is keeping you from producing a GPS tracking application that gives a personal ROI and a business ROI as well?

They say you can’t make money with GPS.  They say that the subject is too geeky and the mover and shaker trend-setters of today’s sophisticated world won’t use it, let alone pay for it.  They say people won’t allow themselves to be tracked.  they say … well, why bother?

Most of you who read this column have heard all these negative thoughts before, and likely quite a few more.

I have one answer.  http://www.loopt.com/

Hmm, Dave, let me follow you through on this.  You are saying that someone can start a business by:

• Asking people to register their phones
• Letting others watch them on line
• Meeting up with others via the service
• Opting in or out of activities And more of the ‘privacy invasions’?

Yep, I am not only saying they can make such a business, I’m saying they absolutely have … and it looks great too.  Is the future bright for Loot and perhaps competitors or clones with similar services?

I don’t know,  I’m not the venture capitalist here.  I’m not allows to handle anyone’s money aside from my own.

But someone has invested and is reaping the payoff.  Just don’t say it can’t be done, it certainly can.  Not only is GPS tracking a way to get an ROI for you business, GPS tracking is clearly something you can make a business out of.  I love it.

Thanks and a tip of the blog hat to GPS World for tipping me off to Tourality:

Tourality, a multiplayer GPS game for mobile phones, has gone from the beta stage to a free downloadable game. The player’s task is to reach predefined geographic spots before opponents do. Game modes include individual, player versus player, and team versus team mode for up to 40 people. The game was created by specialists of Creative Workline, an Austrian-based IT company…

A very nice application of GPS Tracking that does something not directly related to making money.

Fun and learning and an active pursuit.

Where’s the ROI in this my regular readers may ask?

The Tourality company is only operating in Europe … and not all of Europe at that.  What about the US?  Canada?  Japan … wow this would be big there .. Australia?  The Philippines?

You name it, this can make a business.  The cell phones or USB/Blue Tooth receivers and the cell phone networks do the work … who is smart enough to reap the benefits?

There is an axiom of business planning and marketing which states that the formula for success is to "find a hungry market".  Here’s a guy who followed that advice and is making a nice business from a hungry marketer:

June 26, 2008, 09:22 PM —  ITBusiness.ca — 

Some like it hot. In fact most people do.

But consistently satisfying customers’ need for hot meals posed a bit of a problem for food delivery entrepreneur, Cameron Reid.

As the operations of his online meal delivery company — Orderit.Ca — expanded, getting food to customers, while it was still hot became harder to manage.

Orderit.Ca’s customer base extends across Toronto, Richmond Hill and Markham. Customers choose their restaurant from a list on the company site, add menu items to their online cart , and then checkout. The food is delivered to their doorstep.

Timely delivery hinges on effective and timely communication with the company’s fleet of drivers.

Time was when Reid relied on voice communications via Mike phones from Edmonton-based Telus Corp. to keep in touch. This method worked when the business managed between 50 and 60 drivers at a time.

But as the business grew this changed….

What changed was this:

• The more drivers you have on the road the more time is wasted
• The more drivers you try to manage with voice the harder (less profitable) your business gets
• Tracking delivery vehicles by automated GPDS Tracking doesn’t cost, it pays!

How long will you wait?

A few days ago I wrote about the problem of government … and commercial ones as well … pointing out just how many fleet operations are sucking the life out of companies and agencies without any aspect of control.  The huge spikes in fuel prices bring the problem to some people’s attention, but it isn’t the price of fuel that is the problem.  It is failure of basic management that is killing so much profit in today’s world.

Peter F. Drucker was famous for many sayings but perhaps none more important than, "You can not manage what you can’t measure."  For years I have beaten the drum about the advantages to business in measuring the performance of vehicles with GPS tracking systems.  Perhaps I started to far up the food chain.  Wouldn’t almost everyone who reads this agree with me that before you seriously consider measuring the performance of your fleet you might want to get a handle on how many vehicles are even in your fleet?

I highly recommend reading this article, one segment of which focuses on California’s attempt to get a handle on what they need to manage.  The title "Green Fleet" intended to convey an effort to make the state more environmentally responsible … certainly a worthy goal … but I submit it also refers to the "green" of operating expenses.  Learning how many vehicles you need to manage is worthwhile even if you never save a gallon of gas or a pound of CO2 emissions:

Green Fleet
California law requires state government agencies to cut energy consumption by 20 percent by 2015. The California Department of General Services (DGS) intends to meet the mandate by collecting information that gives the department new insight into state operations. That insight will be used boost efficiency and conserve resources, said Will Semmes, chief deputy director of the DGS.

For example, the department - which negotiates all statewide vehicle procurement contracts - is implementing fleet management changes that will provide better data about the use of state vehicles.

The 119 California agencies that own at least one state vehicle will upload fleet information into a centralized DGS database. The solution will offer the DGS an unprecedented breadth of information for calculating carbon emissions and other factors, said Semmes.

"If you multiply by 50,000 vehicles, we’re going to get information that we’ve never had before about the use of our fleet in different aspects: the actual disposition of the vehicle, whether it was used appropriately and whether it was used enough to warrant having that vehicle," Semmes said. "How are the emissions? How much fuel did we use? Are we buying the right fuel? Where did we buy it from, and therefore what kind of alternative fuel infrastructure can we get in those places where we seem to be buying the most?"

Semmes said the database will give the DGS a comprehensive view of all state vehicles, making it easier to see if unused vehicles could be shared among agencies. The project could potentially reduce the number of cars the state owns and maintains, thereby cutting costs and reducing consumption.  Full green fleet article here.

There you have it … the cat is out of the bag.  Even with the strictest emissions laws in the US, even with the "Gubernator" in charge of state affairs, even with the world’s largest concentration of technology companies on the face of the planet, the great state of California is only now, in mid-2008, deciding to actually count how many vehicles they operate and thus set the stage for making better use.  I am sure your state or your business is doing better, aren’t they?

It’s Not the Four Dollar Gas Kicking Your Butt

There isn’t much in the transportation news or on a fleet manager’s minds these days aside from the cost of fuel … and the consequent general down turn in business.  I would call it as it is, a true recession, even the nibbling’s at the gate of a depression, but George Bush is reading every word of this with Carnivore and he’ll probably have me arrested if I don’t say, "just a minor down-tick".

Politics aside, fuel prices in the US are finally heading toward the reality that the rest of the world has been paying for years.  And when you fill up that H2 that seemed like such a bargain last year, it hurts, right in the old wallet.

But fuel costs are only a drop in the bucket that most companies, and government agencies carry around labeled "fleet costs", and (mistakenly) feel is unavoidable.

This article today shouldn’t even be news-worthy.  It is, only because it fits under the "man bites dog" area of journalism.  There are so many fleets out there, sucking up the operating resources (read profit) of their parent entities that the news of even one moderate size operation putting someone in charge who actually realizes that controlling dollars and cents is not only possible, but ids their job is praiseworthy.

County overhauls car-fleet policies

Harford County will no longer hang on to a 10-year-old car with high mileage and higher maintenance bills. It will consolidate usage of its more than 1,000 vehicles among departments and trim as many vehicles from its fleet as practical.
The new fleet management plan takes effect July 1, with $11 million budgeted for the purchase of 202 new vehicles and to help county agencies make the transition from owners of vehicles and equipment to lessors.
Fleet management gives ownership of the property - everything from cars and trucks to bulldozers and trailers - to the Department of Procurement. Bringing all vehicles under the purview of one department offers a centralized management and better utilization of the entire fleet, said Deborah Henderson, county director of procurement…. read the rest of the Fleet Management article here, I recommend it.

This issue has inspired me to get busy and write a new series of articles on the subject, because this subject is just way too complex  for a single blog post.  I’ll try to get on a more regular production schedule here.  But I can give you the bottom line of the whole series right now … and I speak from nay years experience selling into and letting and monitoring GPS tracking systems contracts in both the commercial and government fleet management areas.  Think this through:

In the vast majority of fleet management there really is no fleet management.  There is typically a person or an entity with that title but they mostly turn out to be the person who finds the cheapest bids for tires, buys fuel from the lowest bidder, etc.  They all too seldom ever have any say in the size, composition or business contributions of the fleet.  May be a bold statement, but I can prove it, and I’ll illustrate many examples over the next few articles on how to use fleet management that, especially GPS-enabled fleet management to convert your fleet from a cost center to a profit producer.

Here’s a news items that came across my desk in the past few days.  They all seem to point up just how far some people will go to make their life harder, instead of working smarter.

Trucking protest a waste of time

Thursday, 22/05/2008

Plans for a national trucking shutdown have been dismissed by South Australian truckers as a stunt.

Up to 1000 people from the transport industry will meet in Townsville this weekend, to plan a mid-July industry shutdown, because of the planned introduction of work diaries.

The diaries replace existing log books, and introduce more severe penalties for anyone breaching fatigue management rules… full article.

I had to take a second look at this one to make sure it wasn’t some news article from 1968 or some other pre-digital era that had slipped back into the news queue by mistake.

Better tracking of trucks, especially with regard to fatigue management rules (American readers substitute Hours Of Service rules) is a worthy goal.  In general, the only truckers who really object are those who would break the law or those who are ignorant of the law and don’t want to learn.

But in this case it seems the government is most certainly the ignorant party.  Simplistic logbooks are indeed no good in today’s age.  We don’t call them ’swindle sheets’ for no good reason.

But diaries?  More laborious, prone to mistake and interpretation pieces of paper, creating more mountains of paper?  Come on, folks, it’s 2008!.  A simple, tamper proof sunder $500 "post mission" GPS tracker in each truck subject to the rules would eliminate the waste of time, eliminate the potential for fraud and, as a side-benefit, allow each truckling company or independent owner operator to save an easy 10% to 15% on his/her operating expenses.

Anyone ever consider the idea that the goals of business and the goals of regulatory agencies do not have to be in opposition?