John Graham likes to think in nautical terms. This much was apparent during his opening remarks at the Omnitracs Outlook user conference on Feb. 9 in Dallas, Texas.
CLICK on the photo to watch a quick VIDEO of highlights from the 2015 Omnitracs user conference. John Graham, chief executive, gave the opening address.Graham, a former Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy, took the helm of Omnitracs in November, 2013, after Vista Equity Partners purchased the company from its founder, Qualcomm, for $800 million in cash.
Omnitracs came with a bundle of related technologies. Besides getting a mobile fleet management platform, Vista took command of the predictive models of FleetRisk Advisors and the cloud-based transportation management software and load board from Sylectus.
As the new chief executive officer for Omnitracs, Graham said his first task was to “steady the ship.” Communication was critical in the early stages; employees had to know where they were going. He and the new management team also immediately got to work moving the data center and corporate headquarters out of San Diego.
One of the main reasons for moving the office to Dallas was to put the company in closer proximity to its customers in the United States and in Europe, Asia and South America.
The next step was to “set the rudder” by expanding the company’s profitability. This was necessary to increase staff and obtain funding needed to grow by way of acquisitions.
In December, 2013, Omnitracs purchased Roadnet Technologies, a provider of fleet management software solutions to private fleets. Less than a year later, it purchased XRS Corp., a publicly traded entity, for $178 million to deepen its reach into fleets seeking in-cab and out-of-the cab, smart device-based applications.
During his opening remarks, Graham emphasized that Omnitracs is working as “one team” and is “stronger together.” Now that the acquisitions are complete, the team has its sights on executing a long-term objective to “transform transportation with technology insights in a rapidly changing world,” he said.
“I’m really proud of our employees,” he said. “I could not have imagined us accomplishing more as a team.”
The 30,000 customers of Omnitracs are using its technology to manage one million assets in more than 60 countries around the world. It has offices in San Diego, Minneapolis, Toronto and Baltimore that operate as “centers of excellence” for engineering and customer support. Employees are also stationed in the field for sales and implementation.
Going forward, Graham said Omnitracs is focused on developing applications that fit into five themes: productivity, safety, security, compliance and analytics. Some of the future applications to be developed for each theme are shown below:
Productivity
Omnitracs has productivity applications that include workflow, in-cab scanning and routing. Future developments will focus on extending productivity outside the cab. The company also will add more predictive models through Omnitracs Analytics (formerly FleetRisk Advisors), said David Post, chief operating officer.
Later this year, for example, Post said that Omnitracs Analytics will be able to predict the severity of accidents for a fleet. Its models currently predict accident frequency along with driver turnover and workers compensation claims.
As two examples of the kind of insights these models uncover, consider:
- Drivers that have three prior employers are 250 percent more likely to be in a wreck than those that have five prior employers.
- Drivers that send less than five free-form messages per week are 60 percent more likely to quit than those who send seven messages per week.
Safety
Omnitracs is also investigating a hands-free interface for its in-cab platform that uses voice recognition technology to help drivers keep their hands on the wheel, he said.
Security
Omnitracs has developed a lot of security applications for its customers in South America to prevent cargo and fuel theft. In this region, theft is often confrontational with a large concern over personal injury and loss of life, said David Vice, chief sales officer. Omnitracs can remotely shut down and lock a truck in the event it is under attack, he said.
Compliance
Omnitracs has always been able to respond quickly to changes in hours-of-service regulations and has been an active participant in defining the technical specifications for the current rule on Electronic Logging Devices, said Jordan Copland, chief financial officer.
Analytics
Companies are seeing their data grow by 40 to 60 percent a year. Without having business intelligence and analytics to process that data, companies are leaving performance on the table, said Kevin Haugh, vice president and general manager of Roadnet Technologies.
Successful companies are using real-time predictive analytics to deliver relevant, timely and actionable information and create a competitive advantage in the marketplace, he said. “We are focused on this. We want to empower you with information to allow you to be more successful.”
When concluding his remarks, Graham didn’t use nautical terms to describe the new Omnitracs but the effect was the same:
“Our hands are on the steering wheel. We are driving to the future and I think we’ve got a great team that we’ve brought together,” he said. “We are all interested in Omnitracs. We are all interested in winning, interested in growing, and staying focused on this industry which I think is one of the most exciting industries on the globe.”
