Cut-price telematics lose credibility, warns vehicle tracking expert

17 Aug 2009

The low-cost pricing structures being increasingly adopted in the telematics industry undermine the customers' perception of the true value of the service, said David Isom, managing director of V-SOL vehicle tracking.

According to Isom, vehicle tracking can transform a business's operations, improving efficiency across the board, boosting performance and generating major cost savings - all elements that, in the current market, most companies would relish.

"The problem we have as an industry is that over the last four to five years pricing, rather than performance, has become the main selling tool, and tracking technology is now too cheap", he pointed out and stated, that these low prices, and particularly the advent of the pay-as-you-go business model, have made organisations in all markets lose sight of the true value of the tracking services now available.

While telematics technology has undergone major advancements over the decade, allowing it to co-ordinate and direct developments across a business with a wide reaching impact, Isom said the industry has been under-pricing its at all levels, and warns that the industry is in danger of positioning itself as a low-cost business partner with no real value placed on the service and expertise it can offer.

"In most other areas, business technology is charged at a premium, particularly for the latest generation solutions," adds Isom. "As an industry, we need to develop greater awareness of what our technology really offers, and the positive impact a quality system can deliver on business performance. If we continue pricing ourselves too cheaply, nobody will take us seriously."