GPS Insight are a GPS fleet tracking company based in the United States. GPS Bites caught up with their marketing manager Ryan Driscoll so he could tell us more about the company, their solution, challenges in the GPS tracking industry, and his thoughts on what the future holds for the company in terms of product innovation.
1. Hi Ryan, and thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by GPS Bites. What does your day to day role involve at GPS Insight?
I am the Marketing Manager at GPS Insight. I oversee all marketing activities from go-to-market strategies, advertising, lead generation, content creation, to PR.
2. As a company, what is your mission statement and overall aim when it comes to serving business customers who are looking for a GPS fleet tracking solutions?
GPS Insight’s mission is to deliver the most technologically advanced product in the GPS Fleet Tracking space to our customers. That means it does the most for our customers, is the most adaptable to their exact requirements, is the fastest, and the most reliable in the industry. That is truly what we have managed to deliver.
GPS Insight is constantly pushing the envelope in terms of new, innovative, and extremely helpful technologies which help to make it the most technically advanced, powerful, and useful product in the space. The founder and his technology team continue to ensure the company is “light years ahead”.
3. During your time working in the GPS tracking industry, what have been the biggest changes and challenges that the organization company has had to adapt and react to and why?
GPS Insight is the last major entrant to the GPS Fleet Tracking space. After we entered and managed to survive, the economy shut that door to any other potential competitors. As such, we are the youngest, and at 7 ½ years and 40,000 devices, are smaller and younger than many major competitors. Those major competitors are now beginning to consolidate other smaller players, and have significant funding. We have gotten to 40,000 devices with very little in outside investment. The largest competitor has 250,000 devices and has taken roughly $50 million in outside investment. Many competitors have burned through hundreds of millions of dollars and still only have 80-120,000 devices.
That said, with deep pockets, they pose a risk that they could somehow fund development of their products to better compete, or could begin charging significantly less in order to beat us in sales.
Thankfully, while our product generally costs more ($33 vs. $22 monthly, typically), the return on investment we provide when properly used is more like $300 vs. $50, and those competitive offerings do not scale to large organizations, so we have continued to win even in the face of better funded companies with lower pricing.
4. How has your company had to adapt to the ever changing world of technology, and in particular the proliferation of devices such as smart phone which are now GPS compatible?
There is some competition we run up against with smart phone-based tracking. It has the potential to take away some of our customers, but because it is not installed in the vehicle, cannot cure idling, stolen vehicles, or driver behavior issues. They and other large companies remain threats to some extent, however, because those customers are looking to track the employee and not the asset.
5. How was GPS Insight originally conceived and started, and where do you see the company developing over the next few years?
In 2005, Rob Donat did some consulting for a local trucking fleet. They needed a GPS tracking software that would meet their specifications and provide customizations. After doing extensive research, Rob found that no company out there could quite fit the mold. He then decided to start his own business with the mindset that he would create a fleet tracking software that was better than any other on the market. With very little backing, over the last 7 years, Rob has built GPS Insight to be a leader in the space. We currently track over 40,000 vehicles and have 40+ employees.
We expect the next few years to be quite exciting. We aim to double our subscriber base as well as our employee count. Our goal is to be the industry leader in software technology and viewed as reliable consultants for fleets looking to cut costs.
6. Which is the best selling product and solution that GPS Insight has and what are the most compelling features that it comes with?
GPS Insight offers 1 product. The GPS Insight Fleet Tracking Solution. The most compelling feature for Enterprise fleets consisting of 100+ vehicles, would be our Organizational Hierarchy. GPS Insight Hierarchy Capabilities significantly improve the way customers manage large groups of vehicles.
Many enterprise companies have divisions and branches, as well as multiple types of vehicle function. These hierarchical structures can be easily modeled and historically assigned to vehicles, users, drivers, and landmarks within GPS Insight and used to simplify reporting and alerting.
7. Is there a particular customer testimonial or piece of feedback you have received from the users of the GPS Insight solutions that is particularly interesting that you could share with our readers? For example, stories where your products have really made a life-changing difference?
Wright Tree Service saw an estimated $80,000+ in fuel savings just in reduced idle time. This idling reduction alone equates to almost 200% return on investment in year one.
Another example of how WTS has seen significant fuel savings is when they recently implemented an idle time accountability project for their Central Illinois fleet.
“Management reported that they are able to get 100 miles more out of a tank of gas just by reducing idle time. 100 miles / 15 mpg * $3.89 per gallon = $25.93 savings per tank of gas. I have fourteen general foremen and they fill up at least twice a week. This is a total savings of $726 per week just in gas for our pickups. The ROI is there”
“My company chose GPS Insight because we knew they were striving to achieve greatness in all facets of their industry. After speaking with several people in their company we were sure that GPS Insight wanted to be the best and had plans in place to make this a reality. Technology is a constant evolutionary process and we felt GPS Insight was staying ahead of the curve. They react and change quickly to meet customer needs both in the present and the future. I felt their customizable Dashboards were better than anything else I looked at. The integration with Google Earth was seamless and caused no issues, unlike other products we tested. GPS Insight has a top notch customer service department that handled any questions and concerns in a timely manner. This is a major requirement for my company. If something needed to be addressed they need to show us that the issue would be handled immediately. This is where GPS Insight stood out amongst the crowd yet again.”
Quote courtesy of Shawn Huff, Wright Tree Service – click here to view full case study.
8. Do you have any future innovations or products in the pipeline that you could tell us about, perhaps just a quick glimpse into what’s coming next from GPS Insight?
GPS Insight will be releasing an EOBR device that will monitor Hours of Service for fleets that must be compliant with FMCSA regulations. We can expect this to be fully functional by 2013.
Want to Know More? For more information on GPS Insight please visit their website on www.gpsinsight.com.
