Cut-price telematics lose credibility, warns vehicle tracking expert

"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," says Isom, who launched V-SOL in 1997.

"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."

Isom said because of these low prices, and particularly with the advent of the pay-as-you-go business model, organisations in all markets have lost 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."

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