Fleet Support :One-Stop-Shop for Fleet Management

The European market is witnessing a tumultuous time with recession hitting the continent. This crisis has compelled organisations in the automotive sector, including the long-term vehicle rental companies and their end customers to redefine their ways to organise their internal cost structure while reducing the fleet management costs and controlling the CO2 emissions of vehicles. To achieve this feat, organizations needed a strong internal knowledge associated to data processing in the automotive and vehicle rental sector. The continuous demand for a dynamic platform that could integrate all the data and allow organizations to access it from external sources prompted Rome-based Fleet Support to build automotive fleet management software.

Fleet Support was founded in 2001 as a consulting and Outsourcing Services Company in the automotive field. Eventually, the company started developing automotive fleet management software for long-term and short-term car rental companies. Today, the company caters to organisations with large fleets, insurance firms, large networks of companies involved in technical management of vehicles, financial leasing companies, and car manufacturers.

For nearly 15 years, its automotive fleet management software were utilised for internal use to manage outsourcing customers and constantly developed to respond to the services management requirement.

The company’s suite of flagship products includes full fleet management software (FFM) and repair full management (RFM).

“FFM is a centralised software designed for companies of any size and covers activities related to vehicle management— rental, leasing or property,” begins Simone Costantini, CEO of Fleet Support. FFM has an automatic recovery process to collect data from the suppliers with an aim to integrate and consolidate the information produced internally, enabling the fleet managers to concentrate on park optimisation. Over 125 companies with parks from 30 to 15,000 vehicles today use this software.

Currently, the FFM software is available in its third version (FFM) and will be upgraded to its fourth major release in November this year under the name: SUPfleet. Fleet Support is focussing on developing integrations with BI software, simplify the use of the program and expand integration with Advanced Plug, and Track real-time tracking terminal systems or data provided by the “black boxes” embedded in the car by manufacturers to receive prompt data from cars to control consumption.

As the use of mobile technologies is increasing in everyone’s lives, Fleet Support is taking advantage of the opportunity and has developed an application—myFleet Support, which allows drivers to get information about the vehicle as well as interact with a repairer in real-time to make an appointment, call roadside assistance, and simplify the management of vehicles.

Both FFM and RFM have gained popularity in the automotive domain due to their easy-to-access and simple-to-use feature. When a major Italian leasing company, wanted to managed its repair activities, it approached Fleet Support. In collaboration with QUATTRORUOTE, major Italian car magazine and data provider that provided an estimated repair cost of mechanical and bodywork, Fleet Support worked for about a year to build and test a model of management and control of repair activities. The model included central and/ or peripheral spare parts order handling, allowing total governance of the whole process. As a result, the major Italian leasing company witnessed increased efficiency and gained control over all the processes and facilitation in relations with all partners.

Currently, the company is working with other multinational companies in the European region, and is anticipating expansion beyond the Italian territory with the proposition of its software by 2020.