The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies to adapt. This was one of the key takeaways from a recent webinar on the use of location technology to improve productivity and safety of drivers.

During the discussion, “Improving Driver Safety and Productivity with Location”, held on the 20^th of April by HERE Technologies in partnership with GeoWorks, speakers were asked for their views on accelerated digitalisation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clockwise from top-left: Abhijit Sengupta (Director of South East Asia and India, HERE Technologies), Aston Chia (CEO / Founder of OverDrive IOT), Mithran Balakrishnan (Commercial Director of Custella) and Ricky Loo (Deputy President of CDAS).

“Suddenly we were forced into situations which we had never imagined,” said Abhijit Sengupta, of industry professionals and society. Mr Sengupta, who is the Director of South East Asia and India at HERE Technologies, said that businesses had to make quick decisions and “had to transform”. “There were no choices given to many enterprises not to go to digital transformation. Those decisions were expedited.”

Aston Chia, CEO / Founder of OverDrive IOT, said that his company had to digitalise quickly and created a service within a week to monitor drivers through their mobile phones. “Since then, we had about 400 users within the first two weeks… Just because chief operators wanted to know and have a better understanding, a better view of where the drivers were even during lockdown and they were unable to do so. So, I think it is going to be the new norm. Everyone's going to be looking at their phones more than ever just to get information even within their own organisation itself.”

Ricky Loo, Deputy President of CDAS, said that there are now more requests for solutions such as electronic payments and fast transfers. “This pandemic has woken everyone up to look at the whole logistics (system),” he added.

Mithran Balakrishnan, Commercial Director of Custella, said that while the initial reaction during the pandemic was a “wait and see kind of approach”, many companies used the downtime during the early stages of the pandemic to think about some of their processes and what they wanted to automate such as managing paperwork without returning to the office.

During the hour-long webinar, speakers also addressed the use of location data to increase fleet safety, ways to help fleet owners retain safe and efficient drivers, trends impacting the fleet industry and a roadmap for the fleet and logistics industry. “Lack of early visibility into road restrictions, hazards or changing external conditions can leave drivers oblivious to problems ahead. It is also difficult to really understand the cause of accidents and assess driver performance accurately without access to rich contextual data such as weather, speed limits, traffic laws and zone restrictions with location data,” said Alvin Lee, Head of Government Relations – APAC at HERE Technologies who moderated the session. “With location data, now we can better understand driver behaviour and ensure driver productivity and safety in an on-demand last mile world.”

View the webinar recording here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUu3sBfmqto