Fleetcare builds on its point of difference

At the time, the state had developed a reputation for producing business ‘cowboys’, and Mr Malcolm also felt the tyranny of distance would be detrimental to gaining business from the east coast.

Now, 20 years on, Fleetcare is a successful company car service provider managing a fleet of more than 30,000 vehicles nationally, with almost 50 employees.

“Prior to launching Fleetcare, I spent six months researching the fleet management market, through talking to business owners about their needs, and what they truly required and wanted from a fleet management company,” Mr Malcolm told WA Business News.

“I found that the market would really benefit from a company that wasn’t focused on the finance component of the product, but on providing optimum customer service through innovative products and technology.

“I was determined and passionate that a fleet management system should focus on customer service, and Fleetcare could best fulfill the needs of the client as well as its suppliers and any other business relationships.”

Mr Malcolm recognised that the first step to delivering tailor-made customer service was by offering innovative products and technology no-one else in the market had the capacity to offer.

He said the challenge was to deliver outcomes to clients that specifically met their needs, not just adapting an off-the-shelf product.

The solution was to develop Fleetcare’s own customer portal – Fleetmanager – which Mr Malcolm claims is the leading fleet management software in Australia.

By investing in IT, the business was able stay ahead of competitors – particularly those based on the east coast that had not adopted new technology – and was able to provide meaningful solutions for clients, including reduced costs and increased efficiency.

“Our latest innovation is the launch of our fully integrated GPS fleet tracking system,” Mr Malcolm said.

“The premise of Fleetmanager was to reduce the time clients spend capturing and analysing information about their fleet, and in turn creating significant cost savings.”

These solutions are achieved through real-time reporting and analysis of fuel card activity, kilometres travelled, real-time incident reporting, notice of service and registration due dates, and fuel analysis.

Clients can directly access Fleetmanager as a simple online interface, allowing them to obtain the information they need at all times.

“Starting a national business from Perth meant we really had to prove ourselves and come up with something no other fleet management business on the east coast had, to be taken seriously and be heard,” Mr Malcolm said.

“Technology and customer focus were the two areas that we had to prove ourselves in to show we could compete with the big players and financiers.”

Mr Malcolm said to do that, Fleetcare made its product offering unique in the Australian marketplace by allowing clients to take control of their own fleet rather than relying on a set inflexible service.

He said clients were always looking for new ways to keep their fleet drivers more accountable and to cut costs, and that if his business did not constantly offer value in this regard, it would lose competitiveness very fast.

“It was clear that we needed to design a cutting-edge fleet management system giving greater control to the fleet managers, letting them access all necessary fleet information from one point, in real time and at any time,” Mr Malcolm said.

Fleetcare achieved this by creating an in-house IT team to stay at the cutting-edge of fleet management technology.

Having in-house developers meant that the company could create software systems tailored exactly for its customers’ requirement.

As a result, Fleetcare has grown its IT workforce from one to five, more clients are now keen to upgrade their fleet, and new clients are willing to sign on as a result of the GPS tracking system.

“In the fleet management sector we are definitely ahead of the competition in terms of fleet management technology and the added value associated with implementing such systems,” Mr Malcolm said.

“Because we offer the only fully integrated fleet management service we are also ahead of the companies that solely provide GPS fleet tracking.

“Many of the latter claim to be fleet management companies but in reality only provide GPS tracking and none of the other services that are essential to total fleet management, such as fuel, or maintenance.”