As Targa Telematics ramps up its plans for the UK, country manager Thomas Smith spoke to Natalie Middleton at this year’s Great British Fleet Event about how the company is leveraging its global expertise in fleet management, mobility and insurtech to bring proven solutions for fleets.

Thomas Smith, UK country manager for Targa Telematics, will be present at the Great British Fleet Event to reveal how the company can support fleets’ electrification and mobility work

Targa Telematics may be a fairly new player in the UK, but its global background stretches back much further.

Founded in 2000 under the UbiEST innovation laboratory, the Italian tech company is specialised in the development of digital solutions for asset management, insurance telematics, and corporate and public car sharing.

Its solutions and services can be seen in wide-ranging market segments, including rental and leasing companies, large corporates and OEMs. Customers include Leasys, the leasing subsidiary of FCA Bank, and Piaggio, both of which have deployed its connected fleet management solutions to enable innovative new mobility services.

As part of a process of growth and expansion into further markets, Targa established a UK office in late 2019, supported by the appointment of Thomas Smith – initially as UK delivery manager and, as of February 2022, country manager.

No stranger to the sector – he was previously head of IT & project delivery at Tracker Network UK – Smith’s remit is to develop new business and assume overall responsibility for all commercial and operational aspects.

He explains: “My work now is to strengthen and build the team and to really accelerate our growth and our brand presence here in the UK.

“Although we established Targa UK in late 2019, without focusing on the negatives, obviously late 2019/early 2020 was a challenging time to be starting a business and building a brand in the UK.

“We had specific plans and a roadmap and then things very rapidly changed due to the pandemic. So, some of those plans were put on hold, such as attending events, but we now think that 2022 will be a great year for us to start to help people in the UK understand what we do and have those conversations face to face.”

This includes leveraging some of Targa Telematics’ existing relationships globally.

Smith explains: “We work with a lot of the bigger rental and leasing companies and corporate fleets, many of which are international brands with a global footprint. So naturally, these are companies that are happy to work with us in other regions in Europe and we’re confident that once we have the opportunity to speak to them here locally in the UK, we can also help them here with those services as well.

“We have some great references from the contacts and the projects that we’ve been delivering internationally. So really, it’s about bringing that here to the UK.”

As with its existing global work, the business is focusing in the UK on larger corporates as well as mobility, leasing firms and manufacturers.

Asked about the company’s core market and Smith explains: “We have to be slightly pragmatic in terms of the fact that we’re a new player here in the UK market and therefore we need to find our feet but if you look at what we do internationally, our core speciality is focusing on rental and leasing companies while in terms of core fleets, it tends to be the larger businesses that we work with. Ones maybe with slightly more specialist requirements.

“Our product lends itself well. It’s a very wide-ranging product and we have a lot of solutions that are focused more towards the larger fleets.

“Also, the consultative approach that we tend to take with bespoke development and solutions that we can refine and codevelop with our clients lends itself to larger fleets generally. So that will be the primary focus.

“But of course, we have customers across the size range, from medium to large and everything in between. So that’s really what we’ll be focusing on.”

The company’s solutions also lend themselves to a wide-ranging market sector – its products include insurtech services and technology aimed specifically at smart mobility providers; including off-the-shelf and white-labelled solutions based on a comprehensive technology stack.

Smith continues: “That’s the beauty for me actually; I’m not boxed in, in terms of a specific segment that we need to focus on. We have a really wide range of solutions and that’s part of what we need to do here in the UK; to identify those specific segments in the UK, where we think our solution will deliver maximum value.

“It means that really there aren’t many doors that are closed to us. So, part of what we’re doing over the next few months is identifying exactly where we want to take our solutions to.”

A focus on building sustainable fleets

Targa has just been awarded the Ecovadis Silver medal for its achievements in corporate sustainability

A current key focus, including at the recent Great British Fleet Event, is on targeting businesses with solutions for sustainable fleets.

This reinforces Targa’s existing work on sustainability in Italy and across Europe – work which has just earnt it the Ecovadis Silver medal for its achievements in corporate sustainability.

Its sustainability solutions for customers include the Targa4Electrics system, created to support the shift to electric and enabling fleet managers to analyse their entire fleet to identify opportunities for efficiency and to evaluate vehicles that can potentially be replaced by electric models.

“The solution that we have can help ease that transition to EVs,” explains Smith, “and it’s something that we’ve seen a big demand for. Because the reality is that most companies won’t make a wholesale switch of going from ICE completely to EV straight away. There’ll be a transition period, and it will involve selecting, over time, the specific vehicles and the specific use cases that they’ve got to fit that profile.”

He adds: “We’re at that cusp now where action is needed, and companies need to start planning it, but we recognise that many don’t have that expertise. So that’s where we come in, with our consultative approach. We can help them analyse their fleet and help to guide them in that process sensibly, so they’re not making rash decisions that cost them money; either from going too early or going too late in their transition to EV.”

Smith continues: “I don’t want to say it’s just the largest fleets that are thinking about this. There are responsible smaller fleets too; it’s not just an ESG thing, there’s a cost benefit there to be had as well.”

Once the shift to EVs has been optimised, Targa’s solution also continues to support the fleet manager by providing a suite of tools to enable the effective management of EVs in the fleet. This includes insights and data related to battery usage, recharging events and infrastructure, and optimal driver performance.

Another particular focus at Targa is corporate car sharing; the firm’s keyless technology enables companies to share their company vehicles safely and efficiently amongst authorised employees. This helps deliver a reduction in the Total Cost of Mobility and CO2 emissions, whilst ensuring the employee’s journey requirements are fully met.

A consultative approach based on an open mobility platform

All of Targa’s solutions are backed by a consultative approach that enables it to deliver a bespoke service, tailored to meet a company’s exact needs.

Smith outlines: “One of the key aspects that enables us to do that consultancy is our open mobility platform, as we call it. And that really is a modular platform that allows us to deliver specific micro services for customers.

“So, we recognise that, certainly with the bigger companies that we deal with, they often have an incumbent solution, but it doesn’t necessarily have the scale of services and options that our system does.

“Actually, what we’re able to do there is, rather than come in and say, ‘Okay, you need to get rid of what you’ve got and implement a completely different solution,’ as a lot of other telematics solutions providers do, we can go in and supplement what they have already with additional services that we could offer. Be that hardware, software, or operational type services – we have that whole gambit there, across the piece.

“It’s been very successful as part of our work across Europe. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution that we offer. It’s a solution that enables us to come in and act as true consultants to understand the business and the pain points of our customers and help deliver quickly some components of our solutions that can help them.”

New and flexible forms of mobility

Using its keyless access technology, Targa also enables various forms of shared mobility services for companies, public mobility operators, and short-term and long-term rental companies.

Examples include with aforementioned customer Leasys Miles, the long-term rental brand of FCA Bank, which uses Targa’s technology across Europe and now in the UK to support its pay-per-use proposition effectively. Rather than using its own telematics hardware, Targa’s solution is integrated with their data platform.

“That’s an example of a true bespoke solution,” Smith explains. “And that isn’t something that you can just deliver off the shelf. You need integration with OEM data streams. You need to be able to have a platform that can analyse and normalise that data. And then you need to be able to deliver it in the correct format to enable our customer to invoice their customers with variable billing. That’s a really interesting solution there, certainly for the younger audience.”

With its UK office now firmly established, Targa is also in a prime position to roll out other such solutions here, supporting the expansion into smart mobility with global solutions tailored to meet local needs.

“Now that we have a local team here that’s able to truly understand the market and its nuances, and also to deliver the solutions and help manage them, there’s no barriers to stop us taking these excellent solutions that we’ve developed elsewhere in Europe to the UK and roll them out.”

Deep expertise and heritage

The company’s extensive background in Europe is also key to allaying any concerns that customers might have about working with someone who seems to be the new kid on the block.

“So, Targa as a brand is very well known internationally and in some of the regions. Here in the UK, not so much,” Smith admits.

“Part of it is a challenge because if you come to the UK with no brand presence, there are so many smaller players here who are more transient in the market that it can be a bit of a put-off to work with a company without a strong brand presence.

“Fortunately for us, that’s absolutely not the case with Targa. We are not a transient company, we are a company with in excess of 500,000 connected assets and annual revenues in excess of €40m.

“This is not a small company. This is a major player, just one that some companies in the UK may not have heard of yet. Hopefully we’ll be pushing on an open door; now that we have the physical capabilities to get out and start speaking to people again.

“It’s a really good story to be able to tell. You can’t make up that heritage that we have.”

Smith sums it up: “I think our message to the UK market is that if you could benefit from additional insights to help you optimise your fleet, Targa Telematics is a trusted technical technology service provider with deep expertise in delivering fleet and asset management solutions and bespoke mobility solutions across Europe, and we’d love to have a conversation with you in the course of the next few months.”