Organic growth, acquisitions and the conquest of partners in the automotive world are at the heart of the strategy of the Aix-based SME Optimum Automotive. They should allow it to chart its course to become an international French group in the field of connected services for car fleets.
A few weeks ago, Optimum Automotive, a specialist in fleet management, opened an “international business center” in Barcelona dedicated to the recruitment, assistance and animation of its partners in Europe and Africa. This establishment, accompanied by the recruitment of 15 multilingual account managers, is intended to support the system for conquering SMEs in Aix-en-Provence announced during its last fundraising of 14 million euros carried out at the end of 2019. A conquest resolutely focused on the international market while continuing to establish itself on the French market.
A FRENCH INTERNATIONAL GROUP
This roadmap, started at the beginning of 2020, allowed Optimum Automotive to achieve 15 million euros in turnover last year, up 30%. “We hoped to go faster, around 20 million euros. The plan written in 2020 is not the one we would have liked to write, but the health crisis has passed by there and has slowed down some acquisition operations and impacted some of our customers who have requested adjustments while they are ready to move on. Nevertheless, we are aware of our luck”, underlines the director Daniel Vassallucci, who founded Optimum Automotive 15 years ago.
“We have a great base to unfold the story we want to write, while maintaining our innovation, agility and responsiveness.” Daniel Vassallucci, CEO of Optimum Automotive
This growth has only just begun for the boss of the Aix-based SME, who intends to “build an international French group in the field of connected services for car fleets.” As such, he is aiming for 20 to 25 million euros in turnover from 2021, then 200 to 300 million euros in turnover, then 200 to 300 million euros within five years. “It's ambitious, I am aware of it. We have won contracts, partnerships that allow us suggest that we are well on our way on this path. Our plan will not be a highway, but it is the ability of a company to use load shedding routes that we judge its strength. We understood the difficulties, as well as the opportunities on different continents, and we have a great base to unfold the story we want to write, while maintaining our capacity for innovation, our agility and our reactivity”, adds Daniel Vassallucci.
A DATA PLATFORM LINKED TO PLAYERS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE WORLD
Since its creation in 2006, a time when the company is still called Mapping Control and offers a service of geolocation of vehicles, Optimum Automotive weaves its web, while enriching its database. This allows it to manage and optimize the financial and environmental management of its customers' fleets. “Over time, we have enriched our solution to offer various services around the vehicle, the driver and mobility in the broad sense.”
“We are in a race against time.” Daniel Vassallucci, CEO of Optimum Automotive
The platform of geolocation has in fact accumulated a lot of data, such as actual fuel consumption, real mileage, technical problems, “allowing us to understand the entire ecosystem, from the manufacturer to the lessor through maintenance operators, tankers, tankers, insurers or even tire manufacturers. All these players, with whom our platform is connected, have one thing in common: they have contracts with companies that have a car fleet”, details the entrepreneur. More recently, and to integrate the latest developments related to mobility, the Aix-based company has also been interested in alternative devices such as bicycles, scooters, scooters, but also trains or planes, and in new models such as the carpooling or carsharing to look at the overall mobility cost of its customers.
These data, gathered in the same software, constitute the core of Optimum Automotive and allow the hundred employees of the SME, consultants and sales representatives in particular, to understand all the transport problems of their customers in order to review their “car” policy and make recommendations, which will meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
A STRENGTHENED PRESENCE IN AFRICA, EUROPE AND AMERICA
This service was deployed in France until 2015, before the Aix-based company seized the first opportunities in Africa, in Casablanca (Morocco) and in Abidjan (Ivory Coast). “In Morocco, we won the tender from the main insurance company in the market (Saham Assurance). This contract allowed us The Optimum Automotive platform offers connected services to reduce costs, minimize the carbon footprint and promote the adoption of new mobilities. to establish ourselves there in less than two years and our local structure now employs more than 15 people.” The acceleration on the continent will be strong in 2021, with Optimum Automotive hoping to be present in 25 to 30 African countries by the end of the year. “The conclusion of partnerships, the active search for distributors.”, the creation of an office in Kenya are as many paths that we are exploring in order to forge a leading position on this gigantic and promising continent, and thus provide a unique response to large groups, such as Total or Bolloré, present in several countries at the same time.”
Optimum Automotive's playing field has also expanded to Europe, with two recent acquisitions in Spain and Germany, and others that are in the pipeline: an operation is being finalized and concerns a company present in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with contacts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, contacts have also begun in Italy and Poland. Then, in the second quarter of 2021, the SME will take its first steps across the Atlantic with the opening of an office at ©DR Canada, a good way “to achieve a soft landing in North America.”
“In Africa, we are exploring all channels to develop”
We have been present in Africa for five years, through the creation of two ex-nihilo subsidiaries, in Casablanca, Morocco and Abidjan in Ivory Coast. These two entities, for which we are currently recruiting around twenty people, have allowed us to acquire experience and to now have 10,000 connected vehicles in these two countries. We have won the trust of customers, such as Compagnie Ivoirienne d'Electricity or Orange in Côte d'Ivoire, the rental company Hertz or the National Broadcasting and Television Company in Morocco. From Côte d'Ivoire, “our African hub”, we also manage customers in Cameroon, Ghana or Senegal. We operate by opportunities to explore different channels. This first involves recruiting distributors, directly or via missions organized by Business France, which has already allowed us to extend our coverage to a dozen French-speaking and English-speaking countries (the “2 Congos”, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Conakry,, Benin, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria). At the end of 2020, we also hired a VIE (International Corporate Volunteering, Editor's note), based in Kenya. We are also looking at some acquisition projects and we are in the process of finalizing a partnership contract with a major French group, which should open the doors to twenty countries for us. Experience shows us that the key is to build a network, to make yourself known, to be represented and to rely on institutions, like Business France, whose advisors know the local fabric well. Africa, with its 1.3 billion inhabitants, is a market with great potential, and the dynamics are impressive. There we meet particularly creative people, entrepreneurs who have built great success stories. We have a real card to play, especially as our platform, both financially and environmentally, is beginning to have a small name.
The Optimum Automotive Coonect Driver app is dedicated to the driver and allows him, depending on the services purchased, to control his mobility plan.
A PARTNERSHIP POLICY
“Today, we are in a race against time, just like what the various players in the telephone industry experienced when mobile phones were democratized. In France alone, there are 7 million professional vehicles. Across Europe, there are 25 to 35 million. The connected vehicle market is huge, but we have to go quickly,” says Daniel Vassallucci.
The SME, a member of the Bpi Excellence network, currently operates 115,000 vehicles for 6,000 professional customers. It aims for one million vehicles in five years. “The objective is modest compared to the global potential, and achievable in a market dominated by two heavy trucks, one American and one Japanese. Our strategy is to disrupt the market through innovation and an original approach, one of the keys to which is the signing of partnerships”, explains the CEO.
These partnerships, established with rental companies, distributors, manufacturers or maintenance players, are at the heart of Optimum Automotive's history, because “they have given us and still give us indispensable momentum and credibility while being part of a win-win logic. Our data has real value for all these actors: for a rental company, for example, it makes it possible to anticipate a service proposal, for repairers, to intervene before the failure. For all, they ultimately make it possible to improve their service offer in a context of market change, where ©DR companies no longer consume the purchase or rental of vehicles, but more on travel,” explains Daniel Vassallucci.
Arguments that hit the mark, “global partnerships having been concluded with Renault, Toyota or Peugeot, with AD Distribution or fuel card players”, adds the manager. These partners, assisted and animated on a daily basis by the teams of the Barcelona International Business Center, constitute the cornerstone of the development of the Aix-based SME, allowing it to be in contact with fleets operated by international players in the automotive world in the broadest sense.
Hélène Lascols
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