Chevin simplifies software offering and adds new app store

Chevin has restructured its Fleetwave Core fleet management software to make it simpler to use and easier to pay for.

The strategy focused on making Fleetwave Core user-friendly to the point of being self-service, benchmarking the level of intuition offered by the likes of Facebook. At the same time, Chevin has switched from perpetual licences, upfront pricing and annual support fees towards monthly fees on a software-as-a-service deal. Chevin hosts the software; the customer rents it.

Ashley Sowerby, Chevin founder and managing director (pictured above), said: “We get less revenue initially, but it will be a more regular and guaranteed revenue stream.”

He added: “As a business, I don’t want us to sell training days or professional services; we sell software. So increasingly, our training will be on-demand videos that are embedded within the application.”

Switching Fleetwave Core from a “heavy-lift delivery” to a monthly fee-based, less complex product also opens up the SME market. With the company looking to double its revenue by August 2021 against 2018 figures, the huge volume of smaller fleets will be a major factor in achieving those aspirations.

“In the past, Fleetwave didn’t make economic sense for a small fleet – they could buy cheaper, smaller products,” Sowerby says. “But with Fleetwave Core, we can focus on any size of fleet – it’s cost-effective for the client as well as for Chevin. We see this market being a significant driver of growth going forward.”

Customers can also take advantage of the new Fleetwave Store, a self-service ‘app store’ dashboard that enables fleets to click on new services they like the look of for instant updates.

Apps include workshop, MoT, tax, fuel and electric vehicles – between 50-100 in total. Intriguingly, they aren’t restricted to those designed by Chevin’s own programmers; they could be developed by its fleet customers.

“We host the store, but anyone can put something on the shelf and any customer can take it off. We ensure it is fit for purchase and tweak it if necessary, but it means we have thousands of users contributing to this ecosystem,” Sowerby says.

• To read the full interview with Ashley Sowerby, look out for the January print and digital edition of Fleet News, out January 21.