It's never too late to learn (3 / 6)
A strategy guide by Paul Gumienny of Cosmic Cat Group
Part III / VI – Reading time: 5 minutes
Author: Paul Gumienny
Today – STEP 3
It's never too late to learn
We understand the platform economy and the lock-in effects it creates. Winners take all, and oftentimes they originate from vast funding activity in the US or China, followed by aggressive worldwide expansions.
Will we see the same in mobility? We see it already in the massively funded Ubers and Didis of this world. However, there is more to mobility than being a ride-hailing alpha with experiments and acquisitions in other mobility verticals.
Digitization in mobility is accelerating and growing increasingly mature. Various third party, white-label solutions have emerged that ease market entry for late adopters.
Digital mobility impacts the B2C vehicle-sharing economy, as well as corporate carpool management, the car commercial rental business, and utility vehicle fleets. We can now see various digitization levels in these verticals. Vehicle sharing companies and upscale car rental companies reach high digital sophistication, whereas pen & paper or an Excel spreadsheet are still being used in a wide range of car rental, corporate carpool, and commercial/utility fleet spaces. Some players also own further sub-verticals, running separate business units with associated tech platforms, and end up owning different levels of digitization under one company roof.
Many pioneers failed in the early years in favor of observing other adopters – and have left a digital legacy that late market entrants and digitizers can now benefit from. Utilizing re-packaged software can provide shortcuts to accelerated business launch in the mobility space.
What IT means to the young digital FLEET Service sector
Digital rookies can enter the market now faster than ever, giving them time to focus on the operational ramp-up instead of the technical backbone.
Over recent years, numerous mobility companies have evolved who also license their software in white-label formats. Benefiting from these available fast solutions enables them to focus on operational ramp-up, rather than starting at the basics of SCRUM-based software development and faulty reengineering of best practice solutions.
Here is our Free Advice of the day
Flex Your Integration Muscle – AND LEARN TO MERGE YOUR in-house legacy architecture with A future-proof machinery.
Some call themselves the operating system for fleet management; some call themselves tech enablers for vehicle sharing, some providers don’t claim either position. Many of them offer a wide range of services at scale - we are talking one to six-digit assets. Some of these platforms come with a broad, interconnected in-house portfolio, for example, for fleet management, ride-hailing, parking management, etc., some offer extensive billing functionalities and - highly crucial for established players - a granular modular architecture allowing for integration with existing systems. Integration capability is a must for many digitizers to get their (often challenging to migrate) in-house legacy architecture merged with the new, future-proof machinery.
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called, yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.”
Conclusion
There are, happily, plenty of examples in the market which recently started but came to stay. It does not matter which mobility vertical has to be migrated towards performance. Market entry or digitization still means learning quickly, adapting new operations, and understanding digital sales funnels, but there is no need to dig a deep hole for the digital fundament anymore. Software will help you get up to speed even faster, just as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, or supply chain management software has already helped to design better processes in businesses.
Want to learn more about the next generation of digital fleet services?
Study SUCCESS TRIGGERS FOR DIGITAL FLEET SHARING SERVICES.
Here is your chance to access specific expert knowledge and best practices from the sector. Our upcoming webinar will give essential insights to success drivers and service differentiators in the very special industry of digital fleet sharing services.
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