Teaching fleet clients to plan better can yield very positive results when it comes to asset management and cost management.
AlphaCredit Sales Director, Gaëtan Vercruysse
AlphaCredit, the Belgium-based consumer credit arm of BNP Paribas Personal Finance, has implemented the Miles software solution from Sofico as it launches into the small fleet and business market for the first time.
AlphaCredit has a market-leading position in the Belgian consumer finance market, while some 35% of its business comes through point-of-sale retail car finance to dealers and white-labelled finance products to manufacturer-owned finance houses and leasing companies.
However, AlphaCredit wanted to find other routes to market and offer finance leasing and associated products to the smaller end of the corporate market – typically businesses with five cars or less - as it looked to diversify its product offering and spread its risk.
When it comes to the skill sets that fleet managers need today, the ability to report and communicate clearly to upper management are more important than ever.
In crash testing it's called time zero: the moment an accident begins. When we think about vehicle safety, we tend to think about what happens after time zero. Crumple zones engage. Seat belts cinch tight. Airbags erupt. And after the violence ends, ideally the passenger cell remains intact, the humans inside unharmed.
Those fractions of a second at the onset of an impact are crucial. But so are the ones that come before it. And the quest for safer cars runs in two directions—not just surviving a crash but trying to stop the clock before it ever gets to time zero.
There are apps to manage passwords, but many of us are looking past the password itself to some other means of user identification. Apple added a fingerprint system to recent iterations of the iPhone, and one new company wants to tie logins to your heartbeat.
According to Patently Apple, Ford has filed a patent application to add similar features to future automobiles. Ford envisions a vehicle equipped with sensors embedded in the steering wheel and the car seat. Those sensors would measure heart rate, temperature, and other biometric data.
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