Fleet software in the news
Face2face - Van FleetWorld June 2009
"The catalyst for Jaama's creation was that we had a very old product and we couldn't get any funding to update the software," explains managing director Jason Francis. Jason and the original directors all worked for CFC Solutions, originally a division of Evans Halshaw, acquired by the Pendragon Group in the late 1990s. Jaama was established five years ago.
The name Jaama is the initials of my old management team at CFC and we had a very clear vision of which direction we wanted to go, how we wanted to develop the software, the target audience - very much asset based and aiming for the commercial vehicle market, rather than the car market," continues Jason,
"It was all web-based or web-services technology and once we'd spent six or eight months developing the framework and getting something we could bring to market, we developed the first module, which was the vehicle management module, then we developed the workshop module, then we developed the rental, the contract hire and then finally the accounts module. Five years in, we're now on version three of our system."
From the beginning, the software was designed to integrate with other office systems and is now available as an entry-level package for managing small fleets. From there the system can be scaled up to offer a complete business software package.
About 10 years ago, Jason predicted that fleet software would become a hub that communicates with other systems. How far has that process of integration progressed and how does he see it developing in the future?
"It's come a long way," he says, "There's a high degree of integration among systems. The barriers between systems have become more blurred because you don't necessarily know where the data is coming from. My view is that data should be entered at source and once only. By that I mean if you have drivers doing mileage returns, they complete those on-line, or on a PDA or on a company intranet system and that feeds all the way to a payroll deduction or reclaim system.
"The next step is integrating those more into the end vehicle - so telematics. It's quite straightforward to capture mileage information. So, you can capture that from a black box and you know you're keeping your mileage up to date. But there's more to it than that because there's so much data available. The trick is actually utilising that data in a way that drives down costs, improves efficiency or improves service levels.
"So take telematics for example. In addition to capturing mileage data, you can capture information about the vehicle and the way the driver is driving it. You can therefore predict maintenance spend, plug that into an authorisation module, so that when a vehicle goes in for a service and it needs a new clutch cable, it can say, 'I know that this clutch cable is going to go in this number of miles because of the way it has been driven.' We're clearly some way off that, but that will happen. Then it's reducing the cost of the maintenance and authorisation process but also feeding back into the driver's behaviour which says, 'Well actually, you've been driving it fairly harshly and therefore, you need some driver training.''
Jason has no doubt that in the current economic climate; it is cost control that is currently driving software development. How is Jaama therefore developing products for the future?
"It's still on the integration," says Jason, "It's not just with internal systems but with external systems. For example, a recent integration we've done is with HMRC, in terms of submissions for P11D’s. With the DVLA, we can do on-line driver licence checking. Now they've got their systems sorted out, it can be turned around in 24 hours. It's going to be more and more integration with external systems to produce data that's required to run the operational side of the business."
Jason believes that once the recession is behind us, customers will also focus on driver information, risk management and duty of care, spurred on by Government initiatives to reduce road fatalities, "The focus will come back round. There will be more test cases for the new legislation that's gone through and that will be a significant driver, there's no doubt in my mind. It tends to be the smaller fleets that have yet to implement robust systems to manage that and I think the spotlight will definitely come back on them."
About Jaama
Jaama is a fleet software and occupational road safety specialist. As a certified Microsoft® development partner, Jaama uses the latest technology to provide customers with greater integration, control and automation. It brings innovative vehicle management software to fleet operators, contract hire and leasing companies. And Jaama is the first to combine fleet management software and risk management services to help customers meet their driver health and safety responsibilities under occupational road safety regulations.
http://www.jaama.co.uk
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