By Lucas Lowden, Escalent

Insights Consultant, Automotive & Mobility

Program Lead, Fleet Advisory Hub

The business to business commercial vehicle and fleet sector of automotive is unique, to say the least. A traditional space built on legacy knowledge and symbiotic relationships, it has arguably evolved more in the last five years than the last fifty.

These statements should resonate deeply with anyone who has been working in this space for longer than a cup of coffee.

Product and service evolutions, and recent events not previously experienced in our lifetimes, are causing ripple effects on how business gets done. Technology and data are playing a more highly visible role in this new period of dynamic change.

The reality is there are always both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ forces for products or services to be successful in the market. These are not necessarily opposable forces; done well, they can work in harmony. But, it is critical to listen well in order to understand the market.

Frequently, the pull force is what brings new offers into the market. The “business”—those operating and using vehicles—identifies a need, and the industry—OEMs, suppliers, dealers, upfitters, service providers, etc.—responds with a solution accordingly. Today newer solutions seem to be coming from more of the push effort from the industry side, and often, the results are proving to be less than hoped for.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

It seems we’ve had a breakdown in communication.

In both these groups, one thing remains constant over all the years and change–the human element. And in each case, there’s a whole lot of people involved, who have a lot to say. But who’s making sure that the customer is being asked what they want and need? And who’s really listening? And wouldn’t it be great if this could be a holistic dialogue?

The key to accomplishing that goal is understanding the human perspective from each side—using language that connects with one another, translating and aligning the needs of business with the solutions of industry.

This is where Escalent—a research and consulting company with decades of experience in the sector can come in. Escalent has partnered with Work Truck Solutions and Comvoy to give voices to all those in the ecosystem through our one-of-a-kind Fleet Advisory Hub (FAH) Community.

Together we want to bring stakeholders into a shared dialogue and mutual understanding. By leveraging relationships and contextual understanding, we will get all of us much closer than would be possible without this new tech-supported effort.

Here is an example of the end results from an Escalent research project, where we wanted to understand what resources fleet decision-makers and influencers leverage for information about Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs).

And here is an example showing time-trended data for adoption of various technologies.

Both of these graphics illustrate the opportunity for the industry to be trusted advisors to the business side. It’s vital that the industry listens to why businesses are, or are not, taking actions today, in order to prepare for tomorrow.

With new solutions comes a learning curve, where education and experience are critical. The business end users do not want to be talked at or sold to. They want partners to come on the journey alongside them—help them to help themselves by thoroughly understanding both their business and objectives—together aligning products and services that ultimately meet the needs of that business.

The speed of business slows down for no one. If anything, it is only accelerating today with more new technologies and an explosion of data. It is in this spirit that Comvoy, Work Truck Solutions, and Escalent have partnered to create the FAH Community.

We invite you, along with referrals among your network of relationships, to join us in this new way to chart the path forward. Together we will listen intently to what the sector needs to ultimately be as successful as we all want to be—a true “win, win, win”.

What are you doing to keep up?

Click here to join the FAH Community by telling us about yourself and your business (use this one for sharing).

Click here to learn about Comvoy, Work Truck Solutions, and Escalent partnership on the FAH Community.

Click here to take a short survey to let us know how you feel about Electric Vehicles for business users.

Please feel to share these links with your customers so that they know how important it is to YOU to help them…