In our conversation today, Mark Thomas will be discussing the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud and how it can revolutionize fleet operations through its unique digital transformation capabilities. He will also explain how the solution stands out from other fleet management options.
https://ridecell.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ridecell/
https://twitter.com/ridecell
In our conversation today, Mark Thomas will be discussing the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud and how it can revolutionize fleet operations through its unique digital transformation capabilities. He will also explain how the solution stands out from other fleet management options.
https://ridecell.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ridecell/
https://twitter.com/ridecell
Stacey Papp:
Welcome to the Mile Marker podcast. My name is Stacey Papp, and I'll be your guide taking you on a journey into the world of fleet automation and shared mobility focusing on innovations for businesses with fleets.
I am always excited to get behind the mic with this guest because his stories are prolific and his insight invaluable. That's right. I'm talking about our very own Mark Thomas, EVP of Marketing Alliances here at Ridecell. Today, Mark joins me to talk about the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud, how it sets Ridecell apart from other fleet automation and management solutions, and how deep its impact runs when it comes to digitally transforming fleet operations. Mark, welcome back. It's always great to chat with you.
Mark Thomas:
Thanks, Stacey. That's great to be back chatting with you and our listeners.
Stacey Papp:
So let's start off with a simple but impactful question. What exactly is digital transformation?
Mark Thomas:
Digital transformation for fleet businesses is using the latest technology to improve the customer and employee experience, to find ways to reduce costs by making jobs and work simpler. And in the case of fleets get higher utilization and higher uptime, so better service, cheaper service, happier customers. It seems like a panacea, but that's the benefit of fleet transformation. Is that it really improves in benefits all parts of an industry.
Stacey Papp:
So thank you for clarifying that because I think a lot of us hear the phrase digital transformation and we automatically think of IT systems, the computers we use, the technology we use, that plugs us into data, which I guess really is no different from what fleet managers are using to operate and manage their fleet. So thank you for that explanation. This is not an IT based conversation. This is a fleet based conversation, so it really does help just delineate the talk tracks here. So thank you for that. On that same path, explain to us what the Ridecell fleet transformation cloud is and how it's unique to Ridecell when it comes to digitally transforming fleets.
Mark Thomas:
Absolutely. So the fleet industry has had no shortage of tech technology innovation. There are systems that manage the vehicles. There are vendor systems that manage delivering vehicles, upfitting vehicles, reselling vehicles. There are just a proliferation of systems. What doesn't exist, especially in the fleet industry, which McKinsey, BCG and others have said, automotive and mobility industries are amongst the most backward when it comes to a unified, digitally integrated set of IT systems to help with their transformations. So the Ridecell Fleet Transformation cloud is a set of core components and software solutions that are targeted to integrate the disparate systems that companies have and automate the responses that are necessary so that they can essentially do that trifecta of benefits, having a better customer experience, having a more efficient and higher uptime for their fleets, and having reduced costs through automation.
Stacey Papp:
So you touched on a word I want to go back to and that was unification. And I know that you have your ear to the ground with industry news and trends. What are the common problems that a lack of unification of data across, like you mentioned, disparate fleet management systems, what are those causing fleet managers? What kind of headaches and heartburn and really what can they do about it outside of the Ridecell fleet transformation cloud? This is probably a really large challenge. How can they get around that?
Mark Thomas:
So this is a problem that's actually up at the C-suite level. It's far beyond the fleet manager's job. But, when we look at the digitization efforts that have been in place, because there there's no shortage. I think most of our listeners will understand that, "Hey, I've been, I've put in this system and that system. What do you mean? I'm doing a lot to digitize my business." When you add a bunch of different systems, part of the challenges are just getting them to talk to each other. So we found that there are really three categories of digitization efforts. So there's driver and vehicle monitoring. These are the systems that are being used for fleet management system, GPS tracking, cabin monitoring, telematics, the OG fleet management systems that are designed to understand the state of the vehicle health.
When you just had a single fleet management system, that was your single source of truth. But as you add more and more different systems, you end up having these systems send alerts a blinking red lights on a dashboard, maybe it sends you a text message if it's urgent. So one category of digitization for fleets is around driver and vehicle monitoring. Another category of digitization is around the part or the life of the vehicle when the vehicles aren't necessarily being used or monetized this. These are called lifecycle and operations. These are the things, the steps that are involved for vehicle purchase, getting the vehicles up fitted, having transport to get them from one place to another. Maybe it goes into a storage facility until the customers are ready for it.
So these level of steps are the part around lifecycle and automation. And for these, it's actually very tough to unify, because you're probably dealing with a number of different vendor systems. So having a unified system, very, very different when you're talking to a shipper and their system and the upfitter whose system will then blink green when the vehicle is ready to be used.
And then I think the third category for digitization are around business units. And so these automation and fleet transformation is certainly the most relevant and the most powerful for the largest companies. These are companies with multiple different business units, different countries. Having the ability to have oversight and insight between business lines and between country general managers is something that today is still relatively difficult when it comes to fleet based businesses. And as we'll see and talk about in a bit, just having the ability to take a vehicle that's in one business line and move it into another seems simple enough, but understanding the need for transitioning vehicles to their best and highest purpose is not something that most companies today are set up to be able to do.
Stacey Papp:
So it sounds like the Ridecell Fleet transformation cloud was built to be that unifier of all of this disparate information coming, which is no doubt, mountains of it, and it's really hard to decipher. And as you said, just from fleet managers all the way up to the C suite, this really does impact the entire organization. So what are the main principles or building blocks of the Fleet Transformation cloud?
Mark Thomas:
Absolutely. The Fleet Transformation Cloud fundamentally is built on the premise that you can use automation to change and transform how your businesses are officially run. So when we look at this driver and vehicle monitoring, the current approach to the IT systems is that their whole job is to turn raw data into Fleet Insights. You've got fleet management systems that are checking to see how many miles it's been driven, what kind of driving. So if you add a predictive maintenance solution, it will recommend when this vehicle in particular needs brakes done. Yet all it does is recommend that it needs something. Having the ability to turn those fleet insights into automated actions becomes the next step. Which means that the more systems you get, if you get an EL per driver, DVIR system or the vehicle inspection reports, where they driver reports. Hey, the fire extinguisher's missing, or it's really hard to work the seatbelt. They're getting one set of requirements for that vehicle that needs some remedies.
The vehicle itself is going to be putting out information on the can bus saying, oh, low tire pressure, I'm out of washer fluid. And the more systems you get and we're getting more and more systems, the ability to triage those kind of activities becomes incredibly important. If you're in a role where you're managing the vehicle life cycle, the current approach is you use your own internal systems and you use vendor systems and fundamentally you cut and paste information between them or you put the information manually into a Google sheet or an Excel spreadsheet. The digitally transformed lifecycle and operation is about automating the operations flows using lightweight integrations between these disparate systems. One of the things that's really unique about the fleet transformation cloud approach is that unlike 20 years ago when people were digitally transforming their businesses using ERP, those were times when you had to hire Anderson Consulting and bring in SAP and have a considerable amount of time and money spent to rip out the systems you had in place and put one massive unified system together.
That is no longer the modern approach to digital transformation. The modern approach is continue to use the existing systems that you have in place, whether they're your own or vendors, and use simple API calls to automatically pull the relevant information out of those systems and automatically use that to provide this lightweight integration between the systems.
And then I think the last section also very similar, the business unit management or the current approaches, essentially each region and business line optimizes itself. The digitally transformed business has visibility across business lines that really help them capitalize on market opportunities, and on the ability to put vehicles up to their best and highest use.
Stacey Papp:
So it's safe to say that without something like this, without this fleet transformation cloud or even kickstarting a digital transformation, you're just adding confusion to chaos or vice versa without having that level of unification that fleets are probably starving for using several different management systems?
Mark Thomas:
Having the ability to automate is a dramatic change. Automation is very, very good in two different things. Automation's amazing when it comes to the routine, the boring that your digital employees, the code word for these automations don't mind doing the exact same thing all the time, every time, whether it's going in into a system, figuring out what's wrong with the vehicle, and then issuing a work order to the person that's in the yard that can resolve it themselves, or whether it's scheduling service for safe light to come and replace the windshield. It has the ability to painlessly cut and paste automatically the VIN year, make and model, organize and orchestrate, getting the appointment done, and then ensuring that nobody has to go from seeing there's an issue and doing something to start to resolve those issues. Having the ability to have these steps interconnected means that people who are managing fleets then only look at the exception cases and the standard ones are just being done relatively automatically. Something that I think speeds up the process and eliminates opportunities for errors and mistakes.
Stacey Papp:
So outside of unification, you talked about three solutions and four pillars that make up the Ridecell Fleet transformation cloud. What impact does the cloud have on a fleet that is either currently undergoing a digital transformation journey or about to begin one?
Mark Thomas:
Yeah, let me explain kind of the building blocks of the fleet transformation cloud. We talk about the benefits that it accrue from intelligent automation. So there is a low-code, no-code visual automated workflow builder that lets the employees who are offloading their drudge work onto this system. It lets them create and tune the automations so that they're able to use the building blocks. We don't believe that we have the answer to how these things should be resolved, but we have the technology that lets the customers easily create the automations. What we also have is we have a keyless vehicle control element to the platform. What we understand and realize is that the automations that you can do become unbelievably more powerful if you have a digital key experience in the vehicle. So the simple act of moving the physical key fob into the cloud, digitizing that allows you to not get rid of a vehicle key, that's the key is associated with the vehicle.
And instead you can assign people their employee badge, their employee badge with the NFC, that can become their digital keys. So the keys are credentials are associated with an individual, with a driver, and in the cloud you can assign them access rights to whichever vehicle is the piece that they are going to be driving today. Which means no more lost keys, which means no more having to bring your keys back, because you've been assigned a different vehicle. Transfer them, get them to the right driver, means no more getting locked out because even if you for some reason lock your employee badge in the vehicle, you're able to call headquarters and have them over the air unlock the vehicle. So understanding the impact of keyless vehicle control is a huge element. It's not a required element, but it's a big element for helping companies move on to the next step of their digital transformation.
The third pillar is really about flexible systems integration, and that means that companies with just a few API calls, we're talking two or three, are able to pull just the relevant information out from their own internal systems and vendor systems to create these workflows so that you pull out the year, the make, and the model. You pull out the availability for scheduling and then use that content in order to generate a work order that's automatically dispatched to bring somebody to the vehicle or send a delivery vehicle, transport company to pick up a vehicle from an upfitter and deliver it to a customer.
And then the fourth pillar is our entire premise is that companies have invested so much in systems to take raw data and turn them into insights, that all we need to do fundamentally is listen to those insights and turn them into automations, turn them into triggers for automated workflows. But in the case where a company wants to put a workflow together but doesn't have the appropriate insight, then we have an AI and ML insights team that is responsible for interpreting big data, coming up with the insight which can then be monetized.
Stacey Papp:
So Ridecell is synonymous with the phrase fleet automation, and we've said it a lot during this podcast episode, in previous episodes and all of the content that we put out for people to learn about what we do and who we are. How does the Fleet Transformation Cloud really augment automation of manual tasks for fleets? I know you touched on this earlier about the digital workers, but could you dive a little bit deeper into really what the augmentation of having this technology does to fleets?
Mark Thomas:
We have several collections of automation solutions that are targeted for different industries and different use cases. We have one set called Operations 360, and these are targeted for companies that are using fleets, not necessarily to monetize them, but just because they're necessary for their business. And so for these, we automate the process of getting the vehicle from where they've purchased it to the upfitter, to the storage facility, to the customer, and then back to the remarketer. Turns out there are over 40 steps-
Stacey Papp:
Geez.
Mark Thomas:
... to getting a vehicle prepared to the one step of then delivering it to the customer, and when you start monetizing it. And because these vehicles in the past, if you're a leasing company and you leased it for four years, five years, the fact that you had to wait three or four weeks, it's not a huge deal. But when you're starting to use these cars and turn them for a three-month lease or for a subscription that is open-ended, having the ability to rapidly get these vehicles from one customer to the next becomes incredibly important when it comes to optimizing and growing your revenue base.
The operations 360 set of solutions are focused on letting fleet management companies and other companies with vehicle fleets to rapidly shorten the time between monetization events, which is a really key capability in their future. If you take a look at other kinds of fleets, we have for last mile delivery fleets, we're able to use automation in a very different method. When you combine the power of keyless with the last mile delivery vehicle, what you can do is set up proximity awareness of the driver in relationship to the delivery van. And when they leave and they're say 10 feet away, the vehicle can automatically lock itself.
And beyond that, having the ability then to set up some rules that say, hey, as long as the temperature is above 40 degrees and less than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, please turn off the vehicle also, in case they leave it idling, having the ability to provide intelligent idle control as well as lock the vehicle, and getting rid of the vehicle keys so that they're just using their phones Bluetooth connection or a dongle that they wear a proximity dongle with NFC means that there's no more getting locked out, no more losing keys, no more having to fumble in their pocket with their hands with packages to try to lock the vehicle.
It eventually ends up saving certainly about 20 minutes a day in delivery time, which means three or four more packages get delivered, and it absolutely reduces the excess idling. That's frequently an issue that's wearing out vehicles.
Stacey Papp:
I'm still stuck on that 40 tasks to one. I know you mentioned that earlier in your response, but my brain's still stuck on that. That's just a lot. In order to keep that vehicle or get that vehicle on into a monetization phase, which is exactly where they want that vehicle to be in order to prove it's worth, but also to keep generating revenue. My brain's just stuck there. I'm sure yours probably goes there and then figures out how do we solve for that, because that's a really long time of 40 tasks rather than 40 days, but that's a lot.
Mark Thomas:
It is. And again, the conventional wisdom about the future of automotive and mobility that both Deloitte and PWC have written about this year, is that the model that an OEM has typically had man you a vehicle, sell the vehicle, manufacture the next vehicle, sell the next vehicle, or lease it for four to six years. That model is not the model that will allow them to get the next generation of profitability. Because vehicles are so much more reliable and last longer, especially if it's an e-vehicle. Getting vehicles that are on leased returns and leasing used vehicles is an important new horizon. Then offering these vehicles for subscription so that you have the ability to let somebody essentially pick up a lease with no fixed end date. They can keep it for three months or for six months or end it whenever they want.
And then taking these mostly fully depreciated vehicles that the company has now kept for multiple years and putting them into car sharing fleets, where frankly these are being used by people who don't have a car. They're no longer really status symbols. What they care about is, is the vehicle clean? Is it in where it says it would be? Is there gas or is it fully charged? That means that they can monetize a vehicle by the day, by the hour, or even by the minute where they would ordinarily just remarket that and sell that right off the bat.
We're powering services from Toyota's Quinto brand that allow for subscriptions, vehicle rentals and car sharing, station based style car sharing that you can reserve ahead of time, and which is a part of Toyota's efforts and initiative to do more with their vehicle fleet and to offer more flexible usership models to a customer base that may not be interested in purchasing a vehicle or taking a commitment for four to six years to lease a vehicle.
Stacey Papp:
So staying in that same vein of lifecycle management, we hear a lot about that topic, especially as fleets continue to navigate the supplying chain issues from acquiring a vehicle to even upfitting and past that. Talk about how Operations 360 can help navigate those phases of a vehicle's life cycle and really help... We talked about monetization, but really help circulate them through those phases so that the vehicle stays in that monetization phase for as long as possible?
Mark Thomas:
Yeah, so the operations 360 has two dimensions. So one of them is speeding the vehicle with automations between vendor systems so that the instant that a vehicle is ready, the vendor that delivers the vehicle or upfits the vehicle or the customer that's going to start using the vehicle, it has the dramatic ability to take and shorten the time by automating the communications between two vendor systems that may never understand or know about each other. It's not about creating integrations from one vendor system to another. It's about using an automation layer with a few APIs to pull the information that one system needs out of the one vendor system and into the other. All the while having a dashboard that's populated with the current state, with the expected delivery times. And what that lets companies do is rather than have it be one day a week where somebody has updated the current status of the vehicles where they are, those companies know literally they understand the status of their fleet once a week.
And if you can automate that so that at any given time you have the ability to see where everything is and have complete and total visibility. It makes it much easier for you than to decide things like, well, which customers should get which allocation of vehicles. If you don't have enough vehicles to meet demand, you have that knowledge ahead of time and can schedule delivery from regions maybe where there's a surplus of vehicles. Having the ability, even within a single service to reallocate vehicles within regions is a smaller example of the example that we gave earlier. Which is, Hey, if a car is in a lease and it's returned, rather than just remarketing it, putting it up for auction, the car sharing division may need additional vehicles. And having the knowledge and insights to be able to automatically transfer vehicles to their best and highest use is an absolute critical element of what Operations 360 brings to the table.
Stacey Papp:
So let's enter the world of mobility for a moment. How do operations become simpler for shared, rented, or pooled fleets using the Ridecell fleet transformation cloud?
Mark Thomas:
For mobility, the keyless elements are fundamentally one of the great underpinnings. And our experience as a pure SaaS platform, we don't make any hardware. It means that we have collaborated with some of the best companies in the industry with their keyless technology initiatives, including Geotab and their keybox, including DENSO with their mobility cloud and hardware boxes that ensure that there are no conditions where a user who has a keyless system will ever be locked out of that vehicle. Because early generations of keyless technology have meant that when somebody pulls into a parking garage and there's no internet service, suddenly they're stuck, they're locked out. That's just a horrible, horrible experience for anybody. But having the ability to have a ultra, ultra reliable zero lockout situation is one of the first underpinnings that you'll need for essentially any of the mobility customers. What we're seeing for our rental solution is we've been able to digitize existing paper contracts and allow companies that have their own internal legacy or active rental systems that would be incredibly difficult to transition off of.
We've allowed them through a light integration approach, we are allowing them to take their same process and let the customer reserve a vehicle from an app that lets them pick up the vehicle with the app and lets them return the vehicle with an app, meaning that they can then just walk to the vehicle that's parked outside of the gate. They can pick it up during non-business hours. Which is a huge benefit, means they're not waiting in line. And as far as the rental company is concerned, because the app does things like verifies their driver's license, you could also do things like do a driver's license driving check. And if you have some criteria that says, hey, if you have more than three points on your driver's license or you have a DUI or you're on the government watch list, we're going to deny you the ability to rent from our company.
And this is far superior, the digital effect here. Digital transformation means that instead of somebody going to the counter with a valid driver's license and the clerk looks at it and goes, yep, that's you, and then you sign a piece of paper. You can have a much tighter level of security and visibility into your drivers than you would with the existing method, which means that this whole experience of digital transformation, it's better for the customers because they can pick up the vehicle and drop it off without having to wait in line, especially when the counter is closed and it's better for the rental company because they now get additional checks and balances over the quality of the drivers. And they're not needing to replace the system that they already have in place. They can set up a special fleet that are designed to be picked up after hours, that are on the outside of the fence rather than the inside of the fence. So it's about digitally transforming the rental industry as well as providing one of the best possible car sharing experiences in the market.
Stacey Papp:
So we covered a lot of information today, which is amazing, and I continue to learn more about this every time you and I have a conversation, which I am grateful for. But if you could ask listeners to remember just one thing about the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud, what would that be? What is the one thing that you think you want to land really hard to say this is what is of the most impact when you guys are thinking about Ridecell?
Mark Thomas:
I would say that it's incredibly important to understand the value of automation. Industries with fleets have been focused on connectivity and they view that as their digital transformation solution. The next horizon for fleets is automating all of the activity that these different systems that they've put in place that are generating, in order to better use the systems that they have in place to initiate automatic work using the Ridecell Fleet transformation cloud.
Stacey Papp:
And I think it's worth mentioning briefly that this automation is not replacing human beings. It's just augmenting the fleet team and allowing fleet managers to reallocate resources to more critical tasks that don't include combing through mountains of data or sorting through Excel spreadsheets. Hopefully no more Excel spreadsheets. But it's not trying to replace the human aspect of this.
Mark Thomas:
No, it's absolutely not. It lets the people do the part of the job that they're more interested in doing and lets them delegate to these digital employees the part that they're less interested in doing.
Stacey Papp:
So last question. And it's my very favorite one to ask. If you had a crystal ball, how do you see the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud really impacting and affecting fleets in the next 5 to 10 years?
Mark Thomas:
Certainly. So digitally transformed businesses are going to operate at a much higher velocity. Having the ability to rapidly create new business models with the fleets, having the ability to put vehicles to the best and highest use, responding to the changing demands of consumers who want to use vehicles for short periods of time, aren't interested in long-term commitments, digitally having the ability to transfer drivers to the best vehicle for their job rather than the one that they always drive, or the one where they have the keys in their pocket, change is coming. Change and this velocity of businesses moving faster than ever. And so when you put in a transformation layer that lets you respond to these, that lets you move drivers and keys and vehicles around creating more interchangeability between people and vehicles, this is what's going to allow businesses to thrive when we cross the chasm into these next generation business models.
Stacey Papp:
Mark, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today about the Ridecell Fleet Transformation Cloud, and even just as important, explaining what digital transformation is. The abilities, the impact, and the effect really on operations for fleet based businesses, no matter what size fleet they have. It was really cool to learn from you. I have no idea how your brain doesn't explode with all this information, so thank you for sharing it with us and allowing us to learn from you and really look forward to what the evolution of fleet management and mobility will be like in the future. Really appreciate it. Thanks again.
Mark Thomas:
Thank you, Stacey. It was a pleasure to be here.
Stacey Papp:
Absolutely. Until the next time, keep moving the world better. Thank you for listening to The Mile Marker podcast. Stay tuned for another episode full of insights and ideas to keep the mobility industry moving forward. In the meantime, follow us on social media and be sure to like, comment and share today's episode.