ERM Advanced Telematics to Establish Assembly-line in India

Dataquest interviewed Eitan Kirshenboim, Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Business Development at ERM Advanced Telematics in order to know how the company plans to expand in India. ERM Advanced Telematics designs, develops and manufactures vehicle security and GPS/GSM tracking and telematics solutions.

What does ERM Advanced Telematics do?
As a company, ERM is based in Israel and we focus on designing, developing and manufacturing device-based telematics solutions for vehicle tracking and vehicle security. We bring our solutions to market through partnerships with local telematics service providers. Our partners install our devices on the vehicles of their business and individual customers and then leverage the telematics information generated by our devices for the telematics services that they provide.

Our telematics devices and solutions are being used by fleet management, stolen vehicle recovery and other telematics services providers around the world. Our devices enable our partners to provide not only advanced location tracking services, but also offer innovation new services covering driver behavior and vehicle diagnostics.

We have a strong presence in South America, where there is high demand for anti-theft solutions. We are also very active in Sub-Saharan African countries, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe, and we are constantly getting involved in new markets. India too holds a lot of potential for us.

What are the innovations that set you apart from the rest in the Vehicle tracking system space?
We see two distinct competitive advantages to our device-based telematics solutions.

First off, there is a constant need to add new features and support new technologies. To meet new market requirements and support the ongoing business needs of our telematics service provider partners, we intentionally designed our devices to be modular. This means that on top of our base tracking device additional features and accessories can always be added. Examples include various types of measurement sensors for monitoring vehicle diagnostics, such as fuel levels, engine temperature and tire pressure, and vehicle operations, including driver identification, navigation, task management features. We also have a unique add-on accessory that monitors driver behavior and alerts on specific driving maneuvers that are considered inefficient or dangerous, such as overuse of brakes or unnecessary acceleration. Some of these features are provided by third parties and others we have developed ourselves. However, what is important to highlight here is the fact that additional features can be added at any time, even after a device has been installed on a vehicle.

Second, we have designed our devices to gather telematics statistics according to configurable, predefined rule-based models. This means that our devices are gathering only the information that is relevant to services that our telematics service provider partners provide. Alternative methods, gather and send raw data and leave the analysis process to the servers. Transferring data in this method can be expensive and makes reporting and analysis extremely difficult.

The collection of telematics statistics according to rule-based models along with the modular design of our tracking devices enables us to efficiently customize solutions to support the business logic of nearly any telematics service.

What are the business opportunities do you see in the vehicle security and GPS/GSM tracking and telematics solutions areas?
There are a lot of new business opportunities for telematics applications of emerging technologies and use cases of IoT and vehicle-to-vehicle communications.

For example, we recently introduced a patented anti-theft solution that uses jamming mitigation techniques and location networking capabilities. This anti-theft device that we developed knows when its location signal or cellular communication is being interfered with and can send alerts over a dedicated open frequent to similar devices installed on other vehicles in the vicinity. This unique use of vehicle-to-vehicle communications can significantly improve stolen vehicle recovery rates and is the base method for many future V2x initiatives.
IoT is also enabling many use cases for the location tracking of moving objects. These applications are not limited to telematics and involve a range of applications in other sectors, such as utilities, logistics and human resource management. We are currently expanding into this space.

What are your plans for India market?
We have been involved in the market in India for three plus years now. Most of our initial efforts involved educating the market on our value proposition and expanding the awareness of our brand. The past year, we began generating our initial sales and we have strong expectations for triple digit growth.

We are also currently establishing a local assembly line and expect to be performing full production in India within two years. This local assembly and production will support sales activities in India and has the potential to support sales activities across the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Can you name a few customers who are using your solutions in India?
We are not in the position at the moment to disclose specific names, although we can say that we are currently working with many of the top telematics service providers in India as well as some interesting telematics service providers that serve niche markets. Today, our devices can be found in many types of vehicles across India, including passenger cars, taxis, buses, trucks, tankers, cold chains, heavy mining machinery and even in motor bikes. We also have a strong pipeline and are in advanced negotiations with an equal number of new telematics service provider partners.

What's your total strength in India - employee-wise and business-wise?
We currently have a sales and supports teams in Bangalore and Pune. Our storage and assembly team is located in Delhi. In the coming years, we expect that our operation in India will grow significantly to support the sales activities in the country and region.

We have positioned ourselves in India as a very smart vendor and offer a full range of entry level, mid-range and high end solutions. Our telematics service provider partners in India know that quality and innovation are part of everything that do. They are relying on us to support their business growth and become leaders in their markets.