A telematics company that only launched four years ago has fitted more than 30,000 vehicles with a device, which has been designed in-house by its own R&D team and manufactured here in UK.

Trak Global was founded in 2009 with a vision to be a leading supplier of telematics to the insurance and car rental industries.

It boasts a suite of products all based around the same device, but with tailored solutions for particular industry needs.

Its Rentrak product provides a telematics solution for vehicle rental companies, while Risktrak is its insurance telematics offering.

Meanwhile, Fleetrak provides a telematics solution for company fleets driven by company employees and Swiftrak is a Thatcham approved security telematics product, distributed in partnership with dealership groups and vehicle manufacturers.

Alan Cottrill, commercial director at Trak, said: “We’ve built a box to suit the markets that we operate in, rather than simply buying a box and making it work for the markets that we operate in.

“It’s about understanding the business problem for the sectors you operate in.”

A rental background for members of the senior management team has helped the company gain traction in the daily rental market with its Rentrak product, with 80% of the 30,000 units fitted being used within the rental and credit hire sector.

However, it is eyeing growth in other sectors of the market, where its other products could provide a solution. “When we started, driver behaviour was less of an issue, it was more about utilisation, but the common theme in all of our sectors is now insurance,” said Cottrill.

Risktrak offers Trak’s experience and technology to insurers and brokers that want to launch a telematics insurance product, while the company is also about to launch a self-installing unit that will give driver behaviour scores.

It’s working with brokers, for example, where they don’t look at driver behaviour for the individual person, but not look at it for the complete fleet.

Dave Turnock, operations director at Trak, said: “I think that’s a concept that’s going to grow in the next six to eight months.”

Cottrill continued: “The company car sector is the least penetrated sector in the fleet sector.

“We’ve had a number of conversations with company car fleets that haven’t employed the technology because they don’t want to upset the people that drive their revenue - the commercial team.”

Turnock explained that they have seen an example where the HR director and fleet manager have signed off installation, only for the sales director to intervene and stop devices being fitted.

However, Cottrill still sees it as a major area of growth for the company. “For cars in the traditional fleet sector, it’s the biggest area of opportunity,” he said.

“The future for us is expanding the rental opportunity outside of the UK, and global contract hire and leasing opportunities as they arise in other markets, but I think another huge area of growth will be insurance.”

However, the Cottrill told Fleet News he recognised it was only a matter of time before the technology they build will exist in cars at the manufacturing stage.

“Whether they buy our boxes or somebody else’s, we see our business as a solutions business,” added Cottrill.

“We’re building solutions that react to data, where that data comes from is immaterial.”

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