Amit Panday
Pune: Lithium City Applied sciences, the most important fleet operator of electrical automobiles (EVs) in India, has acquired 100% stake in SmartCommute, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that gives end-to-end transportation companies to company workers, a senior firm govt informed ET Auto in an interview.
The acquisition allows the B2B fleet operator foray into the SaaS area as a brand new enterprise vertical to scale up its presence within the multi-billion greenback company worker transportation business. Nevertheless, Sanjay Krishnan, founder, Lithium City declined to disclose particulars of the deal dimension.
“Till now, the crew at Lithium was into analytics because the know-how was used as a way to attain environment friendly logistics for our fleet. We by no means offered software-as-a-service to our shoppers. We are actually foraying into SaaS as a brand new vertical that may assist us higher capitalise on the potential of EVs in company worker transportation as soon as the market bounces again to regular,” he mentioned.
In accordance with Krishnan, whereas the demand for shared mobility is down as folks proceed to do business from home amid the Coronavirus pandemic, it is a good time to plan and construct the product and consolidate on required applied sciences in an effort to be prepared when the demand comes again sooner or later.
Based in 2014, SmartCommute was developed for simplifying worker transportation companies for the corporates.
“SmartCommute was managing about 30,000 – 35,000 worker rides each day earlier than COVID-19. We’ve greater than 3,000 automobiles on the platform and we have now dealt with worker transport for a number of giant IT firms throughout greater than 10 cities in India,” Ajit Patil, co-founder, SmartCommute, mentioned.
With this acquisition, SmartCommute may have Lithium City’s EV fleet on its platform enabling it to supply the corporates emission-free rides. Lithium City will achieve entry to the SmartCommute’s prospects and to new segments together with freight and speedy bus transit, and a big fleet of inner combustion engine (ICE) automobiles. These will consolidate its presence within the B2B transportation companies.
Notably, this comes when a number of firms throughout sectors, like IT, banking and finance, e-commerce, manufacturing and others, want to deploy electrical automobiles for transporting workers and transferring freight to chop down their carbon footprints. Furthermore, EVs used for business purposes are being recognised to be less expensive than diesel automobiles.
“Nothing adjustments for the businesses which might be already utilizing SmartCommute. The acquisition will allow EVs on the SmartCommute platform. We’ll combine our personal techniques with SmartCommute in order that it is ready to supply and handle rides throughout electrical and non-electric automobiles,” Krishnan mentioned.
How SmartCommute works
SmartCommute was developed to watch automobiles deployed for worker transportation to offer security and safety to the ladies workers working via the day and evening, Patil informed this publication.
Nevertheless, it later grew into a posh know-how platform offering a number of essential capabilities to its shoppers.
“Sometimes one centre of a giant IT firm may have about 20,000 – 30,000 folks. As a company, it has to organise the commute for all of them effectively and conveniently. Whereas the IT firms are usually not specialists in transporting folks, it is a large process at hand,” Patil mentioned, including that worker commute is the third or fourth largest funds merchandise for these firms.
Working as a commute organizer, SmartCommute performs automated routing, whereby analytics and algorithms are processed to optimise routes, transit time, deployment of automobiles for back-to-back duties, quantity and sort of automobiles required for particular shifts, passenger information, and different particulars.
“The platform optimises the variety of seats required, distance travelled amongst different areas to convey down the fee considerably,” Patil mentioned.
“For the IT firms working throughout late hours, if the worker reaches late at work, shoppers impose a delay cost. It is rather costly and is difficult in high quality and repair. To repair these points, SmartCommute offers automated delay-risk administration whereby not solely the time is estimated but when a car is caught then alternate preparations will be made rapidly,” Patil mentioned. He additionally highlighted the essential operate of the smartphone app-based platform, which is fashionable amongst 1000’s of company workers in India.
The transition
In accordance with the senior govt, the management crew is presently transitioning to Lithium City.
“It consists of workers throughout operations and know-how. Other than India, we have now prospects in Malaysia (manufacturing) and Japan (logistics). They may even transition to Lithium,” added Patil, who plans to step again from an lively function however would proceed to help as an advisor in scaling up the utility of the platform.
Worker transportation to bounce again
Lithium City, which has greater than 1,200 electrical automobiles in its fleet, is having solely 30%-40% capability utilisation owing to the COVID-related disruptions. A number of EVs in its fleet are deployed for transferring important objects, meals, medical provides, oxygen concentrators in addition to to take workers for vaccination.
“The market has been down for nearly 14 months now as principally the company workers are working from dwelling. We’ve about 470-480 EVs operational 24X7 presently,” Krishnan mentioned, including that present capability utilisation in general shared mobility area is about 15%.
Whilst a number of business veterans argue that demand for private mobility will proceed to realize momentum, as folks would chorus from utilizing shared rides and public transportation, Krishnan firmly believes that company worker transportation just isn’t going to fade away.
“It’s not a discretionary selection, it’s business-critical. It’s not possible for everyone to make use of his or her personal mode of transport,” he mentioned.
In accordance with him, the IT business alone employs about 4.5 million to five million folks throughout India, who work day and evening. He estimates that about 50%-60% of those workers would begin going again to workplace in a staggered method and the ratio may climb to 70%-75%, as increasingly individuals are vaccinated.
Nevertheless, he anticipates that the car kind issue may change. “For instance, extra automobiles or 16-20-seater travellers might be deployed than buses, as occupancy per experience would cut back to make sure social distancing and different security protocols. In any manner company transportation will bounce again quicker than the everyday B2C ride-sharing,” Krishnan mentioned.
