Daniel Bland, Founder, Fleet Mobility Today, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Daniel Bland, a Business Insight Specialist, Corporate Communication Communication and Founder of Fleet Mobility Today. An analyst and writer, tells us about Fleet Mobility Today as a communication channel for Corporate Fleet & Mobility management. https://fleetmobilitytoday.com and LinkedIn

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Talk to Brazil with TomRioch, the business connector to business in
Brazil. Talk to Brazil is aleading business podcast talks with business experts throughout
the world. I'm Tom Rioch,an America known as the King of Networking,
connecting people from my studio in Brazil. Today's guest joining us from San
Paulois Daniel Bland, a business insightsspecialist corporate communication in the Americas and founder

(00:28):
of Fleet Mobility Today. So Daniel, as an analyst and writer providing in
depth business news, tell us aboutFleet Mobility Today as a communication channel for
corporate fleet and mobility management. Okay, well, hello Tom, so first
of all, thank you so greatto be here again on Talk to Brazil.

(00:53):
Well, I guess flea Mobly Todayis like you said, as a
communication channel, and what we dois publish fleet and Mobile the insight in
Americas and basically focus on the Bto B market, so mainly on the
larger countries. You know, thereare a lot of countries in America,
so so United States, Mexico,Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and maybe Chile

(01:18):
in you know a couple other countries. So we support of course with by
dissemining information with video and also writtenmaterial and audio. So audio is coming
up soon. And our goal,I don't know what I what I want
to do is I seek to reachfleet managers that deal with a corporate fleet.

(01:40):
You know, they got manage thatoperate one hundred cars, a thousand
cars, five thousand cars, butalso the supplier of these cars, so
they could be auto automakers, maybeleasing companies, and then you know the
suppliers other companies that have other productsand services that are related to fleet and
mobility. So right now I'm kindof focusing more on video. With three,

(02:07):
we have the snap shots and theexpert talks and then the Charla con
Amigos the snap shots. Yeah,the last one is in Spanish, so
Charlotte Amigos is chat with friends,kind of like what Tom does here.
He's chances with friends and business people. So for the snapshots, I just

(02:28):
focus on, like, you know, a specific country could be. The
first one was about the United States, and I talked a little bit about
you know, it's a little videoclip talk about the economy of the country,
the fleet profile, maybe the energymatrix, the pricing of energy in
that country. So that's the snapshotsand it gives people an idea of,
you know, kind of a profileof a specific country. Then the other

(02:51):
one is expert talks, so it'skind of like what Tom is doing here,
where I interview someone it's like maybea procurement a vehicle, an expert,
maybe a fleet manager or like Isaid, maybe someone that's supplying cars
or other products and services. Andthen the last one, which is Charla
Conomigos means childwood Friends. It's almostthe same thing, but it's in Spanish

(03:14):
and it's done out of Mexico witha colleague of mine and his name is
HAIMI bringus. When you look outinto these countries Mexico, Brazil, Argentina,
Columbia, and Chile, le's theUnited States, say, the Spanish
speaking and Brazil. There's a lotin common our fleets. Is there a
commonality amongst fleets and fleet management?So I know here in Brazil we have

(03:37):
large fleets. You have the energycompanies, you have the telephone companies,
they have huge fleets of cars.Is that typical in these other countries?
Yeah, the fleets are pretty huge. I would say if you compare to
North America, in Latin America,they are more focused on benefit cars.
So if you have like an executiveor maybe not even executive, like a

(04:00):
salesperson or maybe someone that's like,well, basically, the benefit cars there
are more in Latin America than likewe would see like in North America,
United States, because the unit sayswe have the capacity, you know,
we can just get the cars area little bit more accessible, and you
know, we have a salary littlebit higher, so we can just buy

(04:20):
our own cars. So people likethe benefit cars in Latin America's it's like
a it's something interesting that's an additionto your salary. And so as I
work also with the leasing of thesevehicles, I guess the difference would be,
like the Mexico they kind of followthe same type of leasing model as

(04:43):
they have in the United States,which is kind of like an open end
leasing where you have more flexibility atthe end of the contract to maybe buy
the car, but then you takeon more risk of the residual value.
So it's a different type of model. So but that's in Mexico. So
the rest of the Latin America,I guess they would follow more like the

(05:05):
European model, so the terms aremore fixed and then also who assumes the
residual risk would be the lesser orthe company that's leasing the car, not
the not the company that's the lesser, meaning like you know, like here
in Brazil, be local Lisa inthe United States would be Hurts rental cars.

(05:26):
Something at that company would take onthe risk. So that's for the
rest of South America south of Mexico, including South America and Brazil. Yeah,
and when we get to the manufacturers, obviously the manufacturers of automobiles,
they're keenly interested in fleets. Sobesides making the car, they want to
make a car that's acceptable to thefleets. Yes, you're saying that the

(05:53):
that they're focused on the fleets aswell as to the the the regular consumer.
Right for example, it's using thatas an example or Hurts recently in
thinking Hurts as an example in theStates, they obviously they were one of
the first to use the electric vehiclesand all they've decided to give them all

(06:13):
back because they felt that there wasa resell value to drop. So there's
there's interest because they're leading with thousandsof automobiles. So one thing is the
purchase on how you purchase it.The second thing would be maintenance and how
you keep it going. And thenthe third what you you mentioned is a
resell you how do you what's theafter cell value of any of any car.

(06:38):
Yeah, yeah, so when you'redealing with the corporate fleet, of
course, you need to consider theresell value. And like you said,
Hurts they I believe they're selling offabout twenty thousand vehicles. They bought a
huge amount from Tesla, And Ithink in general, like what's happening maybe
in the United States around the worldis that the electric transition fever hit.

(07:00):
But it's maybe not as good asthey think. It's. You know,
I'm not against it. It's they'reinteresting vehicles, but they are such so
like hers is selling them up,So you need to Yeah, I think
about the residual value when you becausefor the electric cars in general, they
lose value more than a combustion enginevehicle because you know, you got new
technology coming out, new batter technologies. So so yeah, this is something

(07:24):
that you have to consider in yourpurchase price. Besides, they are more
expensive upfront. Of course, youknow when they when you operate them,
the cost to drive per mile orper kilometer is less. They have much
less parts inside the car, soless maintenance. We don't have to put
oil in the car and stuff likethat, except for transmission oil. So

(07:46):
yeah, this is something that youhave to consider for a corporate fleet.
We talked I think the last timeI interviewed you was several years ago,
and one of the points we talkedabout at that time when electrical vehicles were
coming out. But in today's worldtalking twenty twenty four, for a fleet
manager, it's more complex than itwas five years ago. They're more variables

(08:09):
amongst the purchase, the type ofvehicle, let's say, the shelf life
of a vehicle, the operational part. So their job's not easier, is
it. Yeah, they're they're they'rethey're becoming like mobility managers. I don't
know, because you know a lotof the younger generation maybe they don't even
care as much as I do tohave a car, so so maybe they'll

(08:30):
just take a uber or lift orwhatever something like that. So, yes,
more complex, they have more thingsin and then you think about and
with the onset of electrification, alot of them they don't understand all the
aspects of it. In the UnitedStates as well, but even maybe more
so in Latin America, which isa little bit behind, So yeah,
more complexity involved. Well, inBrazil, for example, we've seen massive,

(08:54):
and I'm in massive, I thinkrecently massive amounts of investment by the
auto mobile manufacturers. And what I'veseen in several of these announcements, they're
not necessarily focusing on increasing production.Many of them seem to be focused on
research and development and innovation. Sois that changing the ball game? Yeah,

(09:20):
so you need to do research anddevelopment electrified vehicles and like you said,
in Brazil, we got Stilantis boastingabout thirty billion ray eyes in investment,
Toyota with eleven billion ray eyes.So if you're outside Brazil, that's
you divide that by five to getan idea of what it is in dollars
more or less five. And notonly electrified cars, but coming out maybe

(09:45):
not in Latin America that much,but we have autonomous vehicles. So you
need to do a lot of researchof that. Taking place more so north
and the United States, we havelike in California, we have companies like
way Moh. You can like geta car, there's no driver in the
car, it just picks you upand so and then yeah, you have

(10:07):
to. I think people get moreused to that. You know, maybe
some people a little concerned about that, but you know, in reality that
you might have like a human driverthat would drive worse than an autonomous car
if they're having problems with their spouseor something like that. But to the
fleet manager here throughout Latin America,they're in charge of all that they have.

(10:30):
Their thinking process takes everything into account. The they're in charge of the
sorry, what do you mean,charge of what the acquisition of the of
the of the vehicle, the maintenance. So they're the boss for the vehicle
once they decide to buy it andthey fleet, Yeah, it depends how
they so they can take care ofeverything or or they can they can outsource

(10:52):
part of it, so they canthey can buy the cars outright and they
manage everything in house within the company, or maybe they might you know,
they want to focus more on theirtheir you know, on their main job
or I mean the company's core businessand then outsource it to like a leasing
company and then they would take careof the maintenance for them and for a

(11:15):
fee. Lots of time. Thefee is reasonable, but it really depends
on the on the company and howthey want to deal with their management.
So again that's that's a business decision. So a fleet manager is part of
the business decisions of any corporation.Yes, yes, the business decision.
And also in Latin America they deala lot with with it's with the human

(11:39):
resources and because it's related to twovehicle benefits, right, And I think
that's the change because historic when you'retalking about the benefit car uh, that
decision sort of resided in the humanresource, right and obviously the financial part
of core rations. But when you'retalking of the hardcore management the vehicles that

(12:05):
are service oriented and not benefit oriented, that could change within an organization,
right, Yeah. So the servicelike you're saying, like maybe like a
person that has like a truck thatdoes maintenance maybe on the on the on
the le the light poles or somethinglike that, that's that that's the other
side. That's not the benefit side. And yes, use it with this

(12:31):
one. You you need to focusmore on. This is related to the
actually actually how the company makes money, So it's a different you need to
like I'm just saying, I'm thinkingabout pricing of the vehicles need to be
the right price. You know,we we we we like, if you're
like a CEO of a company,maybe you'll you'll buy a more expensive car.

(12:54):
But if you're related to the businessoperations yet keep this in mind about
buying a costs cost effective vehicle.But it's a business decision either way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, verygood. Well Daniel, what are your
expectations for fleet Mobility today? Whatcan our listeners and what can your reviewers

(13:18):
and persons coming to your site expect? Okay, well, I told you
about the videos that we got takingplace. Of course, besides that,
you know, I've been writing fora long time, so I write articles
as well, and we have anewsletter that goes out twice a month and
we have almost five thousand subscribers.I think it's about four thy nine hundred,

(13:39):
so they can expect that they canreceive that in their email. So
that's interesting. But for the future, I mean, I got some other
stuff too, like as we workat Fleet Managers, I'm working on actually
I already have educational courses, butI'll probably expand more upon that and as
the year goes on. And thefirst one is related to because I also,

(14:01):
you know, work with English,so it's an English course specifically for
fleet and mobility players. So uh, and then so we talk about industry
topics, but also it's kind offocused on those who are maybe not that
good in English, so that sothat they can improve in English, but
also in the you know, inthe fleet and mobility industry, so that

(14:22):
they can compete better on a global, global market like a global fleet manager.
So that's what what I want todo to help, like maybe people
in Latin America or maybe in Brazilwhere I am at. And besides that,
also in the pipeline, I wantto do something like what you're doing,
like kind of like a radio program. Maybe that would be interesting,

(14:43):
but I need to figure out howto do that maybe. But I know
and generating. What you are isa content generation person and what we do
is generate content and then eventually somecorporate events. So that's nice to get
me get people to come together andmeet each other. So that's another thing.

(15:05):
So but that's I'll let everybody knowas a as the months go by,
it see what's happening with that.So how can our listeners find you?
So we can you can find meon well, I'm very active on
LinkedIn, so I have a companywebsite Fleet Multi Today website on LinkedIn or
or under my own name Daniel Bland. Then, of course our our new

(15:26):
website website just launched like a weekago, so it's fleet Mobility Today dot
com. So I guess those arethe main places. Very good, and
I'll see I don't know. I'llprobably meet up with people as a months
go by. Very good. Thanks, thanks for being up, Thanks for
being with us. I want tocongratulate you on what you're doing in success.
Okay. Thank you for having meagain, Tom, good to be

(15:50):
here, my pleasure okay, andagain for our listeners. You can find
more about Daniel Bland. It's dA n I E L the last name
b L A n D. Findhim on LinkedIn and his site which is
Fleetmobilitytoday dot com. Fleetmobilitytoday dot com. Talk to Brazil is brought to us
by Focus and my market intelligence.Focus had my specializes in market research for

(16:15):
the Brazilian agricultural market. We're aboutthem on their site which is f O
C U S M I dot com. Remember when you talk to Tom,
you talk to the world. Goodbye, and thanks for listening. Thanks for
listening to Tom riok on Talk toBrazil. The business connector to Brazil