5 Apr 2024 | 4 min read
Among the many innovations currently transforming the car rental industry, connectivity to cars emerges as a key element in redefining the way cars are rented, managed, and used. In an increasingly connected world, where digitization drives change in every sector, telematics offers tremendous potential to improve the customer experience, optimize operations and open up new business opportunities.
Some companies are embracing this type of technology, but there is plenty of room for growth, and today we will address how 2hire solution is the ultimate combination between reliability, efficiency and quick scalability for any car rental fleet.
Telematics is now an integral part of any digitization strategy for car rental fleets. However, not all telematics solutions lend themselves easily to fleets.
Fleet rotation in a car rental company refers to the practice of regularly replacing cars in the inventory with new vehicles. This process is aimed at several objectives, including maintaining a modern and reliable fleet, offering customers the latest technologies and features, maximizing the residual value of cars, and effectively managing operating costs.
Rental companies usually maintain a regular turnover of their car fleet. This rotation may vary from company to company, but it usually involves selling or retiring older cars and adding new models to ensure that the fleet is always competitive in the car rental market.
Regular fleet rotation allows rental companies to perform regular fleet checks and preventive maintenance on cars. This helps reduce the risk of unexpected breakdowns and ensures that cars are safe and reliable for customers.
Rental companies often update their fleet with newer models to offer customers the latest technology and comfort.
Fleet turnover can also be influenced by market demand and seasonal variations. For example, during peak periods tourist demand is at its maximum, and rental companies may increase their fleet to meet demand, while during low periods the demand is less and they may reduce it to avoid overcapacity.
So here we are, can a classic car sharing solution be applied to the digitization of a car rental fleet?
Considering the intensity of operations revolving around fleet rotation, we decided to break down some key reasons why this is not feasible with just a carsharing solution but a more comprehensive solution, such as 2hire one, is the best.
2hire solution is tailored to the wants and needs of a rental company that wants to digitize, and here we explain why.
Many telematics devices take hours to install and launch on the market. The device setup process itself is also very often long and cumbersome. The necessary installation time of some solutions inevitably becomes a difficult lever for companies that want to connect their fleet in a short time and scale up quickly. The cars in the fleet cannot sit idle waiting to be installed without immediate action, the stalling of cars and consequent stop of rentals would cause a huge loss of revenue that rental companies cannot and don’t want to deal with.
Devices available on the market are very often complex and invasive to install, which is why a professional installer is needed to install them in every vehicle. The installer itself has a cost for each installation requested and works according to its availability cross-checked with the availability of cars.
Not an easy combination.
The only alternative would be to take the car to a workshop or opt to ‘sacrifice’ the vehicle’s physical key to facilitate installation. A risky and expensive choice.
Moreover, at every infleeting and defleeting cycle the procedure would be repeated both in terms of time and cost, the setup would be rerun causing operational disruption to the business and significant revenue loss.
A not easily scalable strategy for large fleets!
Even though the world is increasingly moving towards a software-oriented approach in which connected vehicles are projected to be 95% of the total by 2030, the car rental market is still very much looking for hardware solutions for its non-natively connected vehicles. Although it may seem like outdated reasoning for modern times, today’s car rental has many more non-connected cars than connected ones, so it strongly needs a hardware solution to support the digitization of its fleet, today’s needs require this and 2hire is the most in-line player to fulfill this need.
The telematics solution offered by 2hire goes against the grain. It does so by leveraging: speed of installation, ease of installation, reconfiguration without constraints, and straightforward scalability.
2hire solution gets installed in 10 minutes. No need for professional personnel to install the devices, but rather a quick initial training directly provided by 2hire to kick-start the installations fully autonomously.
Considering vehicles’ rotation in a fleet, 2hire’s device can be quickly reconfigured, ready to be conveniently reinstalled on any other vehicle in the fleet.
2hire’s solution has as an asset a radical scalability over large volumes, from small to medium-sized fleets up to large fleets with thousands of vehicles.
2hire is the only ad hoc player to digitize rental in a radical and scalable way, making it a highly profitable, intuitive, and fast business by having a device that can be easily reconfigured and quickly reinstalled on any other vehicle.
Digitisation is made easy at 360 degrees, with 2hire technology. We will make a quick switch off of the 2hire devices and an immediate switch on of car embedded connectivity, the integration will be exactly the same with no further effort required.
Curious to know more about the topic? Stay tuned for the next episode and follow us on LinkedIn to be updated on how 2hire helps car rental companies on the path towards digitization.
Digital Content and PR Specialist at 2hire
I love running and daydreaming losing count of the distance I’m covering, cooking (and especially eating) and Drake is my spirit guide.