Vehicle Tracking Evolution In India

By Author: itrack india
Total Articles: 4
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After havind spent a better part of 7 - 8 years in the Vehicle Tracking Industry with i:track I can truly call myself a veteran of the Industry. In the past 8 years i:Track GPS Systems has seen more than 500 companies go and come and each wave of new companies opening and shutting has been a learning curve for i:Track business strategy. I find it hard to recall more than 2 or 3 companies you have either survived and exist after 8 years or whose business strategy yet resolves primarily around Vehicle tracking systems

Early Wave: Concept selling as the word GPS was new. A typical sales call first involved explainging the technology with customers having queries on how the technology works and critical time explainig how each component works .Most of the early customers who too the plunge were visionary where they wanted to improve their fleet management and wanted to bring about change. Once the customer was convinced that the technology worked he was ready to work with the concept seller. Price was a barrier but the ROI's as explained by most GPS tracking companies ...
... made it a no brainer to scale up as soon as possible.
However the twist in the story was that most GPS Vehicle Tracking companies were using cheap Chinese Vehicle Tracking Devices an adhoc web based software which had no reliability or security, poor GSM coverage and inadequate maps. Infact most GPS companies had a model of develop as per customer and learn at customers expense. Resultant all GPS projects within the early wave failed leaving large customers like Maruti/ LG/ Indian Oil red faced and licking their losses of investment and time. Resultant all the early wave GPS Vehicle Tracking companies have either disapeared or sold out or just simply shut shop. e- logistics, Reliance GPS from the Reliance Group, ORG to name a few exited the business leaving thousands of customers in the lurch with the hardware and no place to go.

Mid Wave: BY now the quality of maps had become better, GSM coverage had drastically improved, the software has gone thru testing on scape goat customers The concept selling had moved to explaining ROI's, quick depolyment, multitude of reports and choices,and the standard Indian customization process. How cheap was important as the customer did not know better. The customer could not get to differntiate between a good vehicle tracking solution and a not so good one.The mobile market boon was at its peak and all customers assumed simply that a hardware device like a mobile phone would work. Customers based their decsion purely on financials and there seemed to be no bottom. Vehicle tracking Vendors agreed at any price and the buyers thought they had a deal. Anything and everything was possible at any and every price was a possibility. . Companies like itrack, arya omni talk found this to be toughest phase to survive as entrants had access to cheap hardware, pirated software codes from the fall out of early wave employees who walked away from their sinking ships plundering whatever they could. Santsh Pandey of ORG Info was a key technology provider to a hosts of start up selling them the source codes for vehicle tracking software of ORG Info. Vehicle Tracking Business models were based on excel sheets and every Indian Vehicle tracking company dreamt of valuations. Unfortunately Mr Lehman walked out and came the 2008 crash.Between 2008 and 2010 most of the start ups had disapearead. Sancharnet, Tracker, Trackon, Trackin, Dhanush and and just keep counting. All of them disapeared. The so called cheap became phenominally expensive for the customer. Some of the survivors like itrack survived and thrive.

Growth Wave: Vehicle tracking industry is in the mindst of a growth stage. The boys and men have been differentiated. Even though the mass entry and exist continues companies that have survived the previous evolutions have enough references to provide to be the differentiators. i:track has soley relied on its reference to grow its business. The customer now has heard the horror stories and the success stories. More and more companies now have Vehicle tracking systems as part of their DNA. Sales are easier and more and more established companies continue to gather a larger market share. Early times but there seems to be a consolidation towards the 4-5 larger players which provides the industry with more stability and a future base to expand. With the low penetration levels the growth stage is definitely going o remain for the next decade or more.