By Janice Sutton
The integration of Element Fleet and GE Capital Fleet Services has been a closely-watched endeavor in our industry. We interviewed Mark Hayes, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Element Fleet to find out how they have collaborated with their clients to make the integration of these two power house companies successful .
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Mark, give us a sense of the value that Element Fleet Management offers its clients.
At Element Fleet we provide our customers a wide range of value from helping them decide if they need a fleet management company to every aspect from acquisition to disposition of the vehicle. At the core of the Element Fleet value proposition is the quality of our people, the sophistication of our technology and the commitment and expertise that we have to our business. We can help our customers both improve the productivity of their operations, improve the cost effectiveness of their operations and more importantly improve the safety of their drivers.
There were some concerns in the industry about the integration of GE Capital Fleet Services and Element into this powerhouse company. How have you put those to rest?
Element Fleet is committed to continuous collaboration with our customers and it’s something that we take pride in. After the transaction closed in the fall of 2015 we established an Integration Client Advisory Board made up of 20 diverse clients with varied fleets. Through a series of face-to-face workshops, they sit at the table with us where we share progress on pending business decisions and have them use the latest fleet technology applications – and then we listen and collect their feedback to help refine the suite of tools that will enhance their user experience.
In early 2016 we embarked upon The Listening Tour and invited all of our clients to come and visit with us at half-day sessions in 16 different cities across North America. We hosted an exchange of information covering topics related to integration, our technology platform, and our mobile app development. And most importantly, we asked our clients questions and listened to their answers – What do you think? Does this make sense? Will this work? What would you do differently? How can we make your job easier? And the great part about that collaboration is that our customers told us what we were doing well and they told us some things that we could improve upon, and we did! In addition, for those who couldn’t attend we hosted a Virtual Listening Tour with several hundred customers on the phone with the same opportunity to share their responses to our questions.
What are your clients telling you about the pace of the integration?
Our clients are very excited about the integration of Element Fleet and GE Capital Fleet Services. They look forward with great anticipation to what this fleet powerhouse can deliver for them in the future, specifically the technology solutions to empower extraordinary results for them and their business.
It’s no secret that an integration of multiple companies can create challenges so we acknowledge there will be bumps in the road. Through our transparent and open channels where we share what we’re doing and what can be expected, we bring our customers along with us so they can be a part of the initiative rather than feel like something is going to happen to them. Our clients are with us through this process and that is incredibly powerful and at the same time humbling.
How is Element collaborating with customers to, as you say, “confidently conquer tomorrow”
Today’s fleet professionals, whether they are full-time fleet managers or whether their role includes fleet as part of it, are faced with more challenges than ever before. For Element to be successful with our customers we have to help them conquer those challenges through our products, services, and consulting expertise. The day-to-day service and the expertise that is resident within Element — that is what we strive to exceed, every day, to help our customers confidently conquer tomorrow.
Your slogan “empower extraordinary results” is intriguing. How does Element do that?
Every day our clients, our fleet professionals, they are the heroes. Every day they face challenges and every day they have a new set of opportunities to make a big impact on their business and as their fleet management provider, we help them do that. It’s a role we take seriously. Whether that is to improve safety to never-before levels, to reduce collision level incidents; whether it is to drive cost out, or whether it is to use data in a way it enhances the productivity of a service technician. As an Element team member, this is what we live for and love to do, to empower extraordinary results on their and their organizations’ behalf.
We’re so passionate about how the fleet manager can empower extraordinary results, we’ve built an entire brand campaign around it because fleet professionals don’t often get the credit they so justly deserve.
Finally, what are some of the trends that you are seeing in our industry?
When it comes to data and information, I think the industry is facing the most incredible change to date. Think about the evolution and proliferation of apps on our phones, services available to us on the web, and the vast amount of information that we process, respectively, just to do our job. Now, magnify that across millions of vehicles and those vehicles creating millions and millions and millions of rows of data. The companies that are prepared for this disruptive change are going to be the winners.
Whether you are a customer of Element or in the fleet industry in another capacity, you have to prepare for a future where data drives every single decision. The massive amounts of data that I’m referencing can become crippling if you are not ready. Element is ready. Element will be state of the art in terms of its ability to manage, integrate and leverage data to anticipate, and solve our customers’ problems.