Sierra Wireless today announced that Arval, a full service vehicle leasing, fleet management, and usage-based insurance provider owned by BNP Paribas, has selected Sierra Wireless device-to-cloud technology to build its new global telematics solution.
The Arval telematics solution leverages the Sierra Wireless AirVantage cloud, enabling Arval and its customers to monitor and manage a vehicle’s usage through a telematics on-board unit wirelessly connected to the cellular network with Sierra Wireless AirPrime embedded modules. Targeted at enterprise fleet managers, the service enables them to track mileage, fuel consumption, driver behavior, and maintenance, as well as utilize usage-based insurance (UBI) models for cost savings, according to the companies.
“Arval is an industry leader with a clear vision of how a connected service model can enable the company to better serve its customers and enhance its core business,” said Emmanuel Walckenaer, senior vice president, Enterprise Solutions for Sierra Wireless. “This collaboration demonstrates the value of a device-to-cloud solution in accelerating innovation in transportation and fleet management, but the model works across many industries and applications. We enable an organization to focus on developing the portion of the solution that is unique and tailored to its customers, knowing that the wireless connectivity and communication functions are already integrated and tested.”
Arval said it selected Sierra Wireless because the AirVantage cloud provides an accelerated development path – the cloud platform was already built and integrated with AirPrime embedded modules, and was able to easily connect to third-party application servers and their own web applications. With the wireless integration and management already covered, Arval was able to focus on the portion of the solution that offers value and differentiates it from competitors. In addition, AirVantage leverages standard device protocols, making it compatible with a wide variety of connected devices and future-proof in terms of compatibility with additional devices and services as Arval expands its service offering to its customers.
“We were looking for a technology partner to help us enhance our business and our customer service offering,” said Paul Gourlet, technology director for Arval. “Sierra Wireless delivered the expertise and global scale we needed, delivering a full solution that integrates the devices, the device data, our mobile network operator’s infrastructure, and our back-end IT systems. This solution vastly simplified the process of bringing our new services to market and will enable us to scale rapidly as we deploy internationally.”
The AirVantage cloud is an integrated platform of services that enables organizations to quickly build and deploy IoT solutions, managing devices, subscriptions, and application data through a single interface worldwide. AirVantage provides the data services to securely collect, store, and organize data streams so they are easily available to web and mobile applications, enterprise systems, or analytics tools. AirVantage also helps customers manage large deployments with dashboards and APIs to monitor the health of machines in the field and update them when required.
The telematics solution is currently available in the UK, and will be launching in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Czech Republic starting from September 2015, according to Sierra Wireless.
