The Australian division of global automotive finance, leasing and fleet software provider, Sofico, has celebrated its 15th birthday with a special forum themed ’The Future of Fleet’ for fleet operators in the region, followed by a sunset cruise around Sydney Harbour.
The forum was attended by representatives from major Australian fleets with more than 350,000 vehicles under management, who heard news of exciting new developments for Sofico’s Miles software platform.
Sofico Services Australia was established in 2002 to better service fleets finance, leasing and mobility providers in the Asia Pacific region and has since grown as the leading solution provider in the Australian leasing and fleet management industry with further expansion to Japan and other countries to follow in the coming years.
The day began with a look at the roadmap for Miles, Sofico’s mainstream world-leading software platform which is responsible for the management of more than 1.5m vehicle contracts worldwide.
To stay on top of the ever-changing nature of the leasing, mobility and automotive finance markets, Sofico developed a next generation services platform to complement its market-leading Miles software system. This provides enhanced services to customers including end-to-end delivery of mobile applications, improved web portals and increased data powered solutions.
This next generation services platform complements Miles and uses cloud-based micro-services architecture techniques that will enable the handling of the large amounts of data that many clients’ existing day-to-day operations generate, including data from third party applications such as telematics.
Delegates were given an insight into the new developments, as well as being provided details of Miles’ next generation architecture and the enhanced functionality levels and new services that it will be capable of providing.
The first application to make use of the new services platform is a mobile app making driver centric information available to on-the-move users such as drivers thanks to an intelligent context based information delivery system. Available as a native app for both Apple and Android devices, the driver companion app enables a selection of powerful features for company car drivers and mobility users, including service reminders, online service booking, incident reporting, and details of leasing contracts, including mileage forecasts, and end-of-contract handover details.
Sofico is also preparing a new generation of web portals: customizable portals for fleet and business customers with higher levels of functionality and integration with Content Management Systems. The new portals will reply on the new services platform to offer high availability features and integration with third party data services leveraging powerful business intelligence capabilities.
The forum gave delegates a detailed insight into these exciting new developments plus an opportunity to discuss them in detail with senior members of the Sofico management team.
The day then concluded with a sunset boat trip around the iconic Sydney Harbour, taking in many of the renowned features for which the world’s largest natural harbor is famous.
Koenraad van Grimbergen, Head of Sofico Services Australia, said: “Our thanks to the major fleet operators who attended our Future of Fleet forum and helped us celebrate 15 years of Sofico Down Under.
“The day was voted a great success by our fleet customers, and we were able to strengthen existing relationships as well as holding useful and valuable discussions around our plans for the future.
“Sofico Services Australia is committed to helping our customers reach their strategic goals as well as offering additional services and strengthening our position in the Asia Pacific region. We look forward with every confidence to the next 15 years!”
