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TomTom and Shell Collaborate for Integrated Telematics Services and Fuel Card Management - Analyst Comment


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TomTom and Shell Collaborate for Integrated Telematics Services and Fuel Card Management

Frost & Sullivan Research Manager, Sathyanarayana Kabirdas, explains why this partnership model will create multiple benefits to the entire telematics ecosystem

LONDON, UK -- November 11, 2015: TomTom Telematics, one of the telematics giants across the globe and the biggest in Europe in terms of subscription base, partners with Shell, one of the world’s leading Oil and Gas companies to jointly promote telematics services in the European region.

TomTom Telematics will be able to offer a combined solution for the monitoring and reporting of fuel data to reduce fuel consumption as well as CO2 emissions. This non-exclusive partnership aims at adding value to the fleet operators by providing unique product-service integration, i.e., fuel card data from Shell integrated onto the TomTom Telematics WEBFLEET platform. This will see euroShell Fuel Card data processed by WEBFLEET, allowing businesses to access all fuel management information in one system. euroShell Fuel Cards offer cashless payments for fuel and non-fuel transactions such as road tolls and breakdown services. This deal gives customers a complete solution by combining a rich reporting suite with fuel card expertise and one of the largest petrol station networks in Europe.

In 2015, fuel cost and driver wages remain a key challenge for fleet operators accounting for over 50% of the total operating expense. By providing fuel purchase reporting information in WEBFLEET, fleet managers can access driver, vehicle and fuelling data in a single fuel management solution. Historically, fleet operators would monitor and review separate data sets from their telematics system and fuel card provider. This integrated solution helps to streamline the process, reducing time-consuming administration. Having all fuel information in one place also makes the reconciliation of fuel purchase and consumption data easier, helping businesses to identify any potentially fraudulent activity and reduce overall costs.

TomTom Telematics has initiated a robust partnership ecosystem to fulfil the changing demands of fleet operators, thereby providing an opportunity for new participants to enter the value chain through partnerships and address existing industry challenges through vertical focused expertise. This partnership will enhance the value proposition of the existing offerings while adding newer revenue streams into the existing telematics business portfolio. To reiterate, this partnership will benefit fleet operators and customers in the following ways:

Improved driving behaviour, resulting in reduced fuel spend and increased safety

Transparency of fuel spend across the entire fleet

Secure payment of fuel and non-fuel transactions such as road tolls and breakdown services (cashless payment which can be easily tracked)

Reducing the risk of potential fuel card misuse This strategic move will help TomTom Telematics promote their products and services to a comparatively larger addressable market in Europe, while Shell can offer a more competitive and larger product/service portfolio (now including best-in-class telematics) to their customers. TomTom Telematics will leverage 5 million vehicles connected to Shell’s business. Going forward, this partnership will provide the end user with an integrated application interface that would streamline the processing of data from the telematics service provider and the fuel card provider, thereby reducing administration time.

Frost & Sullivan believes that core competencies of Shell and TomTom Telematics will mutually benefit the companies to offer integrated value-added services, helping them move northwards with respect to customer base. The road ahead for 2016 is interesting with this partnership as the combined expertise will create an innovative portfolio for the Fleet Management Solutions market, leveraging the specialist knowledge and capabilities within TomTom Telematics and Shell. Frost & Sullivan expects this partnership model to create multiple benefits to the entire telematics ecosystem. Fuel usage with innovative reporting and connected vehicles with smart guidance will enable more non-exclusive partnerships between universal fuel card vendors like Shell and premium telematics service providers like TomTom Telematics to accelerate the penetration of fleet telematics.