Roadsmith to Create an Online Marketplace for Small Fleets

Approximately 98 percent of the commercial fleets in the U.S. operate fewer than 50 vehicles; however, these companies account for more than 15 million vehicles nationwide. Combined, these companies represent a $110 billion market in vehicle-related goods and services. To serve this untapped market, Avis Group will launch in fall 2000, Roadsmith.com, a website specifically designed to serve the small- to mid-sized fleet marketplace.

“The site is designed to expand a small fleet manager’s local service and maintenance vendor network, streamline fleet maintenance and administration, and to source vehicles and parts on a national basis,” said Richard Borts, vice president of finance and administration for Roadsmith.com. This website will provide smaller fleets with ‘one-stop shopping’ by bringing together a community of fleet vendors and content providers in an open virtual marketplace. In addition, Roadmsith.com has built into the site sophisticated web-enabled fleet management capabilities specifically tailored to provide vehicle lifecycle management for companies operating smaller fleets. Roadsmith, headquartered in Portland, ME, will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Avis Group.

Three Components to the Site

When a fleet manager logs on to www.roadsmith.com, the home page will be organized around three components. They are: information, a virtual marketplace, and a web-enabled fleet management tool. Users will be able to customize their homepage on Roadsmith.com to their specific needs similar to Excite or Yahoo. Roadsmith.com will offer two levels of access. The first level will allow all users full access to the Roadsmith.com virtual mall and information content. Paying subscribers will have access to these services, plus the web-enabled fleet management tool.

Information Content: The information component of the site will provide SIC-specific news about a user’s industry. This section will also include a fleet manager chat room to allow users to interact and share data with other fleet managers.

Virtual Marketplace: The second component is a virtual marketplace open to all vendors, even if they are competitors to Wright Express or other Avis Group business units. The open marketplace will function as a virtual mall where vendor partners will have customized storefronts providing users one-stop shopping. Users will be able to conduct electronic transactions and vendors can offer them e-coupons providing discounted prices for advertised products. Companies will be able to advertise their products on the site using banner advertising or medallion advertising or users can click through to the advertiser’s website. Also included in the virtual marketplace is a comprehensive fuel and maintenance locator, which contains information on 40,000 fuel and service locations nationwide.

Fleet Management Tool: The third component to Roadsmith.com is a comprehensive fleet management tool. Using this tool, fleet managers are able to track expenses by vehicles or drivers. Exception reporting will be available, plus users will have the ability to customize their exception tracking to receive e-mail alerts if, for instance, drivers are purchasing items out of policy or if a vehicle’s odometer reading indicates it is overdue for preventive maintenance. In addition, users will be able to conduct online motor vehicle record checks on drivers and to electronically re-register vehicles with the state DMV via the Internet.

How the Idea Began

Wright Express first started exploring the idea of using the Internet to meet the needs of smaller fleets in early 1999. “We wanted to be not just a portal, but a comprehensive destination site,” said Borts. Shortly after a business plan was developed, Wright Express was acquired by Avis Group on June 1, 1999.

However, Wright Express continued to work on the business plan and ultimately presented it to Avis Group management later that year, which was wholeheartedly endorsed. Once given the go-ahead by its new parent company, Wright Express held five focus groups in Boston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles from September to December 1999 to gauge interest in such an Internet site. The focus groups consisted of seven to 12 randomly selected managers of fleets with fewer than 50 vehicles. “We used aided and unaided techniques to validate the proof of concept, to prioritize which products and services they would find most compelling,” said Borts.

In addition to the focus groups, Wright Express surveyed more than 100 fleet managers by telephone. Out of these focus groups and telephone surveys emerged three needs: a need for fleet-related information and news; the desire to conduct fleet transaction in an online virtual marketplace, and access to a web-enabled fleet management tool. The surveyed managers said they wanted time-saving services to manage their fleets.

“They wanted the ability to easily get a ‘snapshot’ of their fleet, so they could devote more time to their core business,” said Borts. “Even through fleet was recognized as being important, these managers want to concentrate on their core businesses and they wanted to be able to spend as little time as possible with fleet.” After receiving this feedback from the focus groups, Wright Express employed web programmers to begin developing the site content and construction based on this information. Currently, Roadsmith is beta testing its site and conducting acceptance testing among prospective users.