How to Sell More HVAC Units through Warranty Changes?
The primary goal of a manufacturer is to enable more revenue, through product sales, and whenever possible, through services and service contracts. With standard quality products, dependable service is always a winner in the manufacturing sector. Selling more products becomes easier when your company builds the reputation for reliable, cost-effective services for the products. This is true especially for HVAC products, which need servicing almost every year. Opportunities in the HVAC sector The HVAC sector has huge aftermarket opportunities. Service is required frequently. If you supply heating and ventilation products to offices and homes, you are part of a market growing at 3.8% annually since 2010. That is a trend expected to continue till 2020, during which the US GDP will be growing at 2.2%. Market experts unanimously say the demand for service from HVAC companies is likely to go up very noticeably. There is no doubt 2010-20 is an important time to elevate your brand image by providing efficient services besides quality products. Where do you stand now? Long-term service contracts, especially with businesses, might be fetching you service opportunities and product sales regularly. However, it is important that you improve your service and its efficiency to increase your reliability. It is not beneficial that some customers get repairs done through independent mechanics and choose another brand when they want a new HVAC system. Most domestic HVAC owners prefer to call neighborhood maintenance services, because they are quicker. The question that every business should ask itself is, “Are we positioned to address that gap?” If you want HVAC customer to use your warranty system, you have to position it locally and closer to customers. You then need to have an online system accessible to customers. That will surely improve revenues, especially with the support of localized marketing channels. Can you feasibly improve your warranty services? Improving your warranty service usually seems unfeasible. Estimates tend to discourage manufacturers from taking steps to improve service turnarounds and revenue opportunities. However, customer experience is the crux. It is essential to build your system around customers to meet all their needs. Overheads can be reduced with the help of a technology-driven solution, which verifies claims accurately and facilitates cloud-based mobile communication between your service teams and headquarters. This can mitigate the very cost required for quick and dependable aftermarket services. Solutions that technology can offer Reduction in service delays and overheads are important to achieve for HVAC manufacturers to ultimately sell better. The total warranty-service cost incurred can be reduced by technology through automation of claims-validation and cross-functional integration. Long-term savings can be achieved through continuous improvement with the use of system data. Parts replacement and repair turnarounds must shrink to allow better customer experience for HVAC users. Cloud-based warranty systems will help manufacturers as customers increase. Cloud-based systems have many advantages: They are easy to scale up or down according to business fluctuations. You just need to pay according to the volume of use. You don’t have to invest heavily in infrastructure or tools. The vendor takes care of them. You will get access to the latest technology without having to invest heavily on R&D. Your vendor will take care to provide the newest technology. Cost-effective service can be provided when you have local service units, seamless connectivity with them, real-time updates, lower travel overheads, and integration with sales, service, and management. This also helps in achieving better understanding and evaluation of performance. An example of how warranty technology can reduce costs In 1992, warranty costs at our company for replacement, IAQ, and accessories installation work were about 2.5% of installation revenue. Beginning in 1993, we implemented a comprehensive installation quality control process for our retrofit work and realized immediate and dramatic improvement in our retrofit installation warranty costs, as well as in all of the areas noted above. By the end of 1994, we had reduced our installation warranty cost to just over 0.5% of revenue and had added a full percentage point to the bottom-line profitability of our retrofit installation work. – Jackie Rainwater, writing for Peachtree Heating and Air Conditioning Cost-effective implementation of technology The warranty technology or system should have low implementation cost and quick deployment turnaround. Implementation of ‘surround-not-replace’ and agile development practices have made IT implementation affordable. The already-existing software systems with HVAC manufacturers need to be “surrounded” with features and resources that enable cost-effective and high-quality warranty improvements; they need not be replaced. That is the first step to making warranty improvements feasible. Once better service is easier to provide, brand value and sales will see quick improvements Note Register for our upcoming ‘Building a Best Practices Warranty Management Program for 2016 – And Beyond!’ webinar by Bill Pollock and Rohit Lohan to learn how to manage your warranty costs better.
Top 6 Retail Trends to Look Out For in 2016
The retail industry has been gradually expanding over the years and has reached around $24 trillion. This number is expected to reach $28 trillion by 20181. Brick-and-mortar retailers are expanding their sales channels and moving towards building an omni-channel retail solution. This has been made possible by the emergence of connected devices and the internet of things. All these connected devices produce a huge amount of data which can be used to make informed decisions about inventory management and stock replenishment. Mobile-based retailing and the rise of a new generation of tech-savvy shoppers has boosted the industry and pushed retailers to open new channels to provide a seamless customer experience. The major retail trends in 2016 are: Internet of Things (IoT): Connected Devices to Dominate: Sensors, digital signage, location-based beacons, and innovations such as smart price tags appeal to customers demanding a seamless experience. The IoT component in the retail market is expected to grow at 20% CAGR from $14.2Bn to $35.6Bn by 20202. A major challenge for the IoT industry will be the availability of internet security as well as privacy and data protection. Data Getting Bigger: Data from sales transactions and social media enable retailers to know what and where customers buy with a great level of certainty. According to McKinsey, a retailer using big data to the fullest could increase its operating margin by more than 60%3. These insights help retailers customize their services to satisfy the shoppers’ desires and forecast the stock levels with improved accuracy. Omni-channel Retailing to Boom: Despite the complexity, integrating online and offline channels will be key to retaining customers. A study by MasterCard found that 8 out of 10 consumers now use a computer, tablet, smartphone, or in-store technology while shopping. Forrester also predicts that cross-channel retail sales with reach $1.8 trillion in the U.S .by 20174. With omni-channel retail growing, fraud management also becomes a key challenge for retailers. Forrester Consulting conducted a study on how retailers are managing fraud across channels and found that 65% of retailers believe that they lack the tools to effectively manage omni-channel fraud; which will drive more investment in fraud management. The Rise of the Millennials: Tech-savvy millennials have enormous purchasing power, are vocal about their preferences on social media, and favor a multi-channel shopping experience. By 2025, millennials are expected to make up 75% of the global workforce. 63% of millennials stay updated on brands through social networks, and 89%5 would prefer a store with advanced mobile capability. “Mobile” – Search & Shop on the Move: Mobile apps, expanding beyond basic research, purchase and payment, have made tablets and smartphones into “shopping assistants”. Forrester Research reported that commerce transacted on smartphones today comprises 10% of all ecommerce, up from 6% in 2013 and 3% in 20126. Flexible and Visible Supply Chain: With customers wanting to buy from different retail channels, retailers are investing in technologies such as RFID to build a system-wide visible and accurate supply chain. Studies suggest that retail companies invested 29%7 of their capital expenditure in omni-channel fulfilment, indicating its importance. Retail Sales Worldwide Will Top $22 Trillion This Year, emarketer, 2014. IoT in retail market to surge at 20% CAGR by 2020, imc, 2015 Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity, 2011 eCommerce Forecast, 2014 To 2019 (US), Forrester, 2015 Three online retail trends for 2016, smart insights, 2015 Forrester Research eCommerce Forecast, 2014 To 2019 (US) April 22, 2015 Making omni-channel fulfillment processes profitable is imperative for CEOs, says JDA report, logistics management, 2015
Strategy and Approach for Successful CMS Migration
Many big publishing houses that use custom, propriety or even open source implementation of Content Management System (CMS) admit that their CMS is not good enough to keep pace with their current needs. But most of them are not looking for an alternative as they doubt if a new CMS would make any difference. While this concern is genuine to a certain extent, upgrading or migrating to a new CMS is a step worth considering. Here are few facts to consider while you upgrade. 1. Explore and Evaluate maximum possible options. Choosing an alternate CMS is the biggest hurdle, hence one has to be extra cautious. Always hire or involve a non-biased agency or vendor for CMS evaluation. Ensure that the comparisons are quantifiable and not subjective. Make sure that all stakeholders provide their expectations of the new system before the evaluation exercise. These expectations should form the basis of the evaluation matrix. 2. Always do a short discovery before full-fledged development Do not rush for an implementation, CMS migration is slow and should be planned through. For a publisher, the new CMS requires new content strategy, new feeds, new syndication, new integration, etc. Discovery phase is a stage where all risks should be identified and proof of concept should be developed for feasibility. End of discovery phase should be a broad level release plan for different phases. 3. Ensure CMS users and all stakeholders are engaged from the initial stage of development The users of CMS, who are most vociferous in raising concern about the existing system, usually turn out to be excited as well as skeptical during kick off. Change is natural and good, but People’s reaction to change is unpredictable and irrational. Managing change means managing people’s fear. The best way to address the change is to ensure that they are part of this journey. The image below depicts the classical psychological reactions to change. It has been observed that the projects where users are involved very early, have high propensity for acceptance. 4. Follow the agile methodology for CMS migration Though there could be another methodology for other type of system, for Content Management system migration project, Agile is a must. Migration to a new CMS is always an evolving process where new ideas, basic requirements, must have features & good to have features – all kinds of expectations need to be addressed and managed simultaneously. Any project team which follows the principle of agile as a sprit is very unlikely to fail.
Super Bowl Ads 2016: No, it’s not Housing Apocalypse 2.0
Super Bowl Ads 2016: No, it’s not Housing Apocalypse 2.0 It’s difficult to say who walked away with the biggest limelight: Von Miller or #puppymonkeybaby or “Here’s what we were thinking”. No, the last one is not Housing Apocalypse 2.0. It is Rocket Mortgage’s sheer convenience, nothing less, nothing more. Quicken Loans’ first Super Bowl Ad begins with a rhetoric: “Here’s what we were thinking: what if we did for mortgages what the internet did for buying music, and planes, tickets, and shoes? … “If it could be that easy, wouldn’t more people buy homes?”. It sparked an immediate backlash all across the country, and the Detroit-based company had to come out and clarify that the ad was meant more to showcase the convenience of applying for a mortgage than anything else. Indeed, that was the goal. But it got lost in what may now be construed, in retrospect, as a poor script and an ambitious attempt to save a housing economy through a funneling effect just because it’s now convenient to buy a home. Even CFPB could not help. CFPB’s tweet, though completely precise and pertinent, came in at a time that did little to alleviate the fears. At least, it did not mislead. You have a right to Know Before You Owe! So how fast is too fast a mortgage? To all those that found the advertisement a little unsettling, please be assured that you are not going to get your mortgage funded in 8 minutes, irrespective of who says what. It still takes way more than four weeks in most of the cases and maybe 3-4 weeks in some exceptional cases. And to all those lenders and other participants in the industry, here are five key things that we should remember: 1. Let’s not confuse a potential home buyer: The borrower wants to buy a house and that alone is the end product. Mortgage is just the means. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a “Digital Mortgage” like Guaranteed Rate’s or it has a “7 day processing” like Movement Mortgage’s or it can be “approved in less than 8 minutes” like Quicken’s, this kind of messaging may be great achievements for the mortgage industry or even greater marketing vehicles, but is not helping solve the confusion in the borrowers mind and we, as an industry, are leaving a door wide open for an alternative lending and disruptive company to come in and swipe the market. What matters to an end consumer is how soon and how conveniently you can close a loan end-to-end from the initial touch point. 2. Digital Mortgage, nothing to brag about, it’s an expectation: A digital solution is a challenge to the mortgage industry. Neither do people outside the mortgage industry know why it’s a challenge nor do they care. It is an expectation that you provide as much of a digital solution as you potentially can. But in the end, what matters is how you have helped them through the process, doesn’t matter whether the help was provided through a purely digital channel or partly digital channel. Strike the right balance so as to create a great customer experience. 3. Let’s not downplay the role of advisors in an otherwise intimidating process: The mortgage process is perceived to be cumbersome, arduous and intimidating. There are some people that know it all and are willing to take a mortgage process completely on their own through digital solutions. But most of us, know very little to make an informed decision. We need to talk to someone experienced to ensure that we are taking the right course, selecting the right products and leveraging our profile to ensure the best deal. The process is so documentation heavy that most of us do not want to go through those endless pages. Having someone to talk to during this process still plays and will continue to play a big role in such a lifetime investment. And that’s what CFPB was trying to do in their messaging of Know Before You Owe. 4. Leverage the entire eco-system: What matters most is how you leverage all the possible touch-points in a rehearsed and well-orchestrated manner. It does not have to be completely digital if you cannot provide a good experience. The focus should be on how we are bringing together all our micro-channels to project one brand to the customer when she tries to reach the loan officer, realtor, call center or her mobile device. Companies that are able to tie all these dynamic pieces into one will be able to create compelling user experiences. The journey to a house still takes more than 30 days for all practical purposes. It’s a long process where communication and transparency is key. 5. Focus on streamlining operational efficiencies: The behind-the-scenes operational aspects of a mortgage process require tremendous focus and attention to the details. The cost of producing a loan has been skyrocketing and we are still unable to put a real time countdown to how many days are truly remaining in a typical mortgage application-to-funding life cycle. It’s kind of unsettling that we haven’t gotten our arms around this as yet. Lenders probably need to invest a little more on leveraging business analytics to detect and eliminate those operational inefficiencies. This will be critical to getting a tight grip on the underlying processes, providing transparency and real time status update to the end borrower and thus help create a great customer experience. So, in short, lets demystify the mortgage process and make it as easy for the end borrower as possible, which was anyways the real intention of Quicken’s Ad. So let’s move on to the real Super Bowl. Even though the Super Bowl may not have been the most gripping, it was one of the classiest displays of defense. But if you still cannot unsee the #puppymonkeybaby, please have a gatorade while you are thinking deep, then kiss Papa John and then drink Budweiser till you crash. Yes, those were the 3 masterstrokes of
Predictive Modeling for Advanced Audience Targeting
Media advertising in this decade is superfast and all about accurate customer engagement. Smartphones, iPads, and the internet bring unprecedented access to information, and publishers are facilitating carefully customized content that caters to old-fashioned as well as new-age audiences. Content is developed with focus on customer needs and brand loyalty. Tailored product or service information is vital. Predictive analytics help publishers understand customers better across all services and brands. With predictive modeling, audience data is sorted for in-depth and actionable insights. That provides recommendations on how to target audiences and engage them whenever required. The objective is always more revenue and greater customer loyalty. Challenges that brands are facing without predictive modelling: Lack of incentive in sharing information across channels and brands Generic product-based information which doesn’t benefit like audience-centric information can Expensive rates for integrated internal database of multi-channel users These cause inaccurate marketing and lead to failure in audience engagement. With cloud-based predictive modeling, brands can achieve what they need. They can target their audiences better and achieve higher ROIs. Here are the reasons: -Analytics reveals customer preferences to develop marketing engagements with exclusive data sorting. This results in tailored inbound and outbound interactions with the most relevant contextual data. -Data-driven mechanics can analyze those elements that drive customer loyalty and customer spend at the micro level. Publishers can invest in customers having the highest potential towards lifetime value. -Analytics can optimize decisions about customer service to improve measures of customer satisfaction and retention. Using historical data, the technology can sort information to identify those elements that churns and retains customers. It further provides the insight that can help in offering proactive service or offer required for customers moving out. – Predictive modelling comes with features like integrating survey information. A similar approach is used to deliver customer experience across all channels. This not only helps in capturing customer responses to enhance the models continuously, but also towards relevant and consistent audience journey. Audience engagement in the digital market has to be relevant, consistent, and personalized. Real-time data is no doubt expensive, but hardly useful without predictive modeling software. Developers can provide technology as well as real-time data cost-effectively, but data alone makes very little sense in terms of cost-to-benefit in the market.
Content Management Solution to Enable Easy Ad Inventory Access
Enterprise content management systems are now using the features of ad inventories and helping publishers generate high ROIs. You no longer need to spend much time responding to requests for proposal (RFPs). You now have an ad inventory that’s extremely user compatible and helps you identify the right package for your prospect. With an enterprise content management (ECM) system, you can reduce huge layers of spreadsheets and translations. You can focus solely on whatever you sell best and provide ready explanations to your customers. Understand and classify your inventory Software can be designed to understand your inventory and make smart automated decisions based on understanding. You no longer have to sit with queer acronyms and naming conventions. You can actually report, prioritize and push a campaign in real-time. Using predictive analytics and intuitive workflow, you now reduce human error using multi-selection fields that can be customized. With ECMs you can now classify your inventory with the same concepts used for selling it. The software can provide an innovative approach to describing inventories using natural language. You no longer need to use complicated conventions to name the ad servers. Moreover, with workflow and UI, less time is spent on operations and more time on generating revenue. Configuring complex pricing structures The ad industry has a complex pricing structure. The more you mix the media inventory involving different currencies, the more complex it gets. To price every advertisement accurately, especially within a robust inventory, a price management solution may be required. This solution has to be capable of catering to the complex demands from the big publishers that manage a wide range of advertisements. Even with the most motivated team in product management, it’s mostly difficult for managers to find out which product makes maximum sales and which one works best when collaborating with another product or service. Custom content is now using price configuration modes to easily create and update different rates. Content management solutions can also adapt to different rate cards where different rates and currencies can be assigned. This actually leads to much faster and specified content distribution, capable of targeting a niche audience. It is a good decision to look for software that uses comprehensive ECM solutions to collect invoice, inventory information, sales and customer relation management (CRM) in an integrated way. This helps analyzing the inventory’s value with easily made reports and properly direct your cost criteria.
RTB Integration for Better Savings and Enhanced Media Experience
Real-time bidding or RTB became possible with inventory access and big data. Now the strategy is to enable media buyers with access to audience data, and third-party data suppliers have had some success. Simultaneously, technological advances in digital marketing have made online inventories more accessible. The benefits of RTB have been around for media buyers, irrespective of their size and experience. When data and inventories merged earlier, they offered quite a few options among sites for running display ads. That is why selecting specific audiences from different sites was an incredible task. Even for selecting a small audience from a few sites, buyers needed to define their audiences for every site based on individual campaigns. Media buyers felt it necessary to ask every site to construct a universal set of criteria for targeting their audience, but that was obviously impossible. However, with RTB, audience data is already segmented. Using audience scaling, the objective is to display the ad to those audiences that have maximum probability of responding. Features that make RTB the most convenient option today: Almost 30% of all conversions in RTB happen with just one-time display. Influences 50% of conversion in paid search. Influence 40% of conversions in natural search. RTB’s influence has the highest impact on assisted conversions. Cost saving with RTB For saving money and enhancing customer engagement, RTB creatives prove economical for pay per click (PPC) campaigns and they work even better. Media buyers are attempting to retarget their target audiences based on their past responses to RTB display ads. RTB is empowering media buyers to find lots of options that help in specific audience targeting. The audience specificity actually helps in huge cost savings and also enhances the end-user’s media experience. Additional information: Your software technology supporting media buying and brand marketing should be tested regularly for the best outcomes. If you want to improve convenience, resource utilization and savings from media operations, make sure you are offering a better user experience through technology and gaining an edge in predictive analytics regularly.
Operational Efficiency and Excellence with Media Planning Software
Media planning can be quite a Herculean task. Cross-channel communication using multiple mediums like social media, mobile, email, etc. is difficult. Additionally, understanding and meeting the media needs of a business is not easy. Therefore, for success, it is vital to plan the entire media campaign. To meet challenges, media planners take a consolidated approach towards managing a campaign. Software solutions help them in this effort of running sophisticated campaigns for brands globally. These Media Planning Software solutions use data from 1st party and 3rd party on premium inventory and cater to all formats, devices and channels. The real-time metrics in the software enables tracking of the economic impact, investments and performance of all the products during a campaign’s data-run optimization process. The entire software is consolidated keeping in mind the following benefits: Robust planning The media planning software delivers functionalities and tools that businesses need for programmatic buying. There are a host of partner segments created from the integrated data that can effectively target audience. These segmentations of digital format consider the key performance indicators (KPIs) according to the requirement of the given campaign. Buying design The software is designed to simultaneously process and execute the analytics and workflow of an inventory. It can instantly access open premium exchanges and/or import reserves from programmatic inventory in the software. This enables optimized measuring of the inventory streams from the same folder. Measurement metrics Measurement of different metrics may vary depending on the means used for creating them. Some can add together huge number of brand metrics available in a single folder. This is done to evaluate the audience, creative performance, inventory, and visibility in real-time. Optimization The purpose behind creating such advanced algorithms is to continuously monitor the performance of campaigns. This helps in optimized delivery of content in an effective manner to meet or go beyond the campaign’s expected goals. The tools are capable of increasing efficiencies and dynamically optimize these campaigns. There are wide ranges of choices available with web publishers to partner with ad media networks and generate revenue. Recent emergence of exchanges has provided a more optimized and effective channel to sell media content.
Optimize Ad Server for Lower Costs and Higher Throughput
Ad servers need to be fast—so fast, that users do not notice any lag of external content being loaded. Typical ad servers select, serve, and track ad impressions in milliseconds. They offer seamless experience with lightning fast response times, even when handling thousands of ad requests and event-tracking operations every second. It is crucial that you optimize your ad server for excellent throughput (number of requests per second). Make sure your system architecture is well planned and agile. Use small components that gel together for fine performance. The advantage is, even if you find the system to be slower than expected, you can identify and replace the module that is not fast enough. That helps you remain efficient and quick, rather than having to rework or replace huge modules. Test it for performance by bombarding your application with massive traffic. When it stops being responsive or starts throwing exceptions, verify the logs, identify problem areas, and then fix them. Ad servers can be optimized by using highly concurrent event-driven technologies. Let us consider a few like Akka, ZeroMQ, and Spray. Using such technologies helps to keep the cost of ownership low. Akka (http://akka.io) is a toolkit and runtime for building highly concurrent, distributed, and resilient message-driven applications. ZeroMQ (http://zeromq.org) is a high-performance asynchronous messaging library. It comprises high-speed asynchronous I/O engines in a tiny library and is backed by a large and active open-source community. Spray (http://spray.io) is an open-source toolkit for building REST/HTTP-based integration layers on top of Scala and Akka. Being asynchronous, actor-based, fast, lightweight, modular, and testable, it is a great way to connect your Scala applications to the world. Scalability Scalability is another important aspect that affects performance and throughput. Scalability implies the system’s ability to avail new resources, so that the application runs smooth. Adding server machines for the application is horizontal scaling; and upgrading existing server machines is vertical scaling. Horizontal scaling may create problems for applications with server affinity; but vertical scaling works well independent of application design. Being concurrent in nature, Akka, ZeroMQ, and Spray enable horizontal scaling down of ad server solutions to achieve higher throughput with similar server configurations.
5 Reasons Why Tavant Fleet Solution is the Answer to Common Fleet Management Problems
Every company owning a large fleet has a challenging task of effectively keeping track of assets, utilizing assets, keeping the maintenance costs low by predicting pitfalls in business and taking corrective action. Tavant Fleet Management Solution (TFMS) provides ways to manage these fleet management problems effectively. Some key areas of challenge Tavant customers have had while using their legacy systems were: Fleet Maintenance Managing Service Contract System Integration issues and Scalability on resources Globalization Reports, uploads and dashboards 1. Fleet Maintenance The bigger a company, the more assets it needs to maintain in top condition. To maintain huge fleets, you need relevant inputs such as engine diagnostic information and assets history. These are essential to plan periodic maintenance schedules, create and track work orders, record detailed maintenance histories and other relevant reports. TFMS helps pin-point assets that need frequent servicing thereby improving the performance of the asset and prevent damages. TFMS has customisable alerts which can help fleet managers’ make quicker and smarter decisions. Some of the advantages include: Proactive reminders for preventive maintenance activities such as tracking service records, maintenance performed, date of completion, the service technician etc. which thereby helps reduce repair costs. Engine diagnostic alerts for early signs of asset problems Progressive dashboard for data analysis to improve fleet health and lifecycle maintenance. Real-time troubleshooting: a step-by-step guide to asset users on how to fix issues. If the user cannot find a solution a Service Request can be manually created. TFMS self-diagnosis will then capture the fault code which helps fix the issue faster. Self–diagnosis can reduce the creation of excess service requests. Sample Maintenance Report 2. Managing Service Contract Service contracts are the revenue generators for businesses. Most IT solutions will have an option either to create the contract from outside the system or within the system. The challenging part will be on maintenance and understanding what should be covered and what not to be covered under contract. TFMS has an option tocreate contract within the system and from outside the system where contract will be synced through integration and managed in TFMS. Along with contract we capture cost category level details which specify what should be and what should not be covered under contract. The Google API helps to calculate the travel distance. 3. System Integration Issues and Scalability on resources Enterprise fleet managers work in companies that are large, handling thousands of assets, and that often experience rapid growth, particularly when they acquire new businesses. Managing the profit/loses are very difficult. For an enterprise that is growing at a fast pace scalability issues related to database, system integration and restriction on number of users are common. Tavant not only has the infrastructure to support the unique and challenging requirements of larger enterprise fleets, but supports them in every step of the way. Easy-to-use cloud-based solution allows reporting on huge amounts of data across their fleet. TFMS enables quick communication /integration between existing systems and fleet management software via Tavant APIs. Tavant APIs can be used to integrate with ERP systems or integrate driver performance for employee grading, allowing paperless timesheets and notifications. 4. Globalization A globally distributed fleet needs information on effective utilization of assets, fleet positions, routing plan, information on regulatory zones and other KPI reports for analysis. A good fleet management software should enable the frequent exchange of information with distributed stakeholders via multiple modes of communication. TFMS provides multi-language capabilities to support a global workforce and supports a web-based system to interact, communicate and track fleet-related KPIs efficiently. Notification capability to inform fleet managers with warning signals on vessel movements. Customizable reports and dashboards provide KPI-related information. 5. Reports, uploads and dashboards One common problem in fleet management is managing huge data and generating real-time reports or scheduled reports. Updating or taking action for huge data is one more challenge. Customer using manual processes to generate reports and tracking progress of a job is a tedious task. TFMS resolves this problem by providing upload facility for the huge data insert to the Fleet system. This feature offers claim filing or raising bulk service request in the system. TFMS provides customized report creation both real-time as well as periodic reports. TFMS provides download capability on search engines where customers can customize on their search and extract reports. TFMS provides each and every progress reports on resource tracking and task performed. Progressive dashboard information helps analyse comprehensive service reports to improve fleet health and lifecycle maintenance. Sample Fleet Management Dashboards: Dashboard -1 Dashboard-2