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Shifting Views
After giving a history of Scania, which dates to 1891 in Sweden, Mark looked to the future and the trends that are changing the nature of the industry. Shifts in emphasis in his own company are also seen in many others. “Scania is shifting from a product view of the world to a service view of value creation. Of course, Scania will always make trucks, but we are doing far more than that in providing services to our customers that will help them become more efficient and more profitable.”

An Interconnected World
‘Connected’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘efficient’ were words that all three speakers repeated many times. Mark believes the transportation system of the future will be totally interconnected and sustainable. “The road will be connected to the truck, to the traffic lights, to the freight and to the home office,” he stated. “This is not a vision of a distant future, this is happening now. The changes that are happening are coming at you like a freight train.” “Every Scania vehicle is already totally connected,” said Mr Cameron who sits as Chairman of the Commercial Vehicles Committee for the Singapore European Chamber of Commerce.  “Scania has 300 000 totally connected vehicles in the world.”

Domestic Delivery
Arun Mambully, Director of Domestic Operations at DHL eCommerce Asia Pacific, was the next to take the stage.  Arun, who joined DHL in 2012, is responsible for developing the domestic delivery footprint of DHL eCommerce across Asia Pacific. He oversees the implementation of new market entries, the launch of new product features, and the operational systems that support domestic delivery business in Asia Pacific.  The domestic delivery business was the main focus of his speech. DHL eCommerce is part of the global division Post – eCommerce – Parcel (PeP), formerly known as the DHL Global Mail division.  Mambully talked about ‘Last Mile Delivery’ and the growth in this segment with Millenniums buying a lot on-line. The challenges are many as Asia Pacific is the world’s biggest and fastest growing B2C e-commerce region.
 
Optimized Network
Arun sees the future as being ‘An optimized network where the underlying assets are utilized across modes of transport in a highly ‘urbanized’ environment.’ “The city would be divided into zones and each zone contains elastic fleets comprised of vans, bikes, scooters, etc and alternative modes of transportation such as AVs, drones and walkers.”

Total Fleet Management
Shell’s Kaushik Burman, Country Business Manager, SG, was the final speaker of the day. Mr Burman heads the retail commercial fleet business for Singapore. The commercial fleet business offers B2B road transportation customers with a comprehensive “Total fleet management” solution, embed with technology enabled fleet card, telematics solution and driver training. Shell’s fleet management solution has helped customers focus on improving fleet efficiency thereby leading to higher performance, and overall lower total costs of ownership.

More with Less
“How can we help our customers do more with less? It is all about efficiency,” Kaushik explained. “We are developing new fuels that are cleaner, that are not only good for the environment but for the efficiency of the engine. We are developing products to meet the current and future needs of the fleet. With rapid changes happening the customers’ needs are changing too. “We help them with total cost of ownership, with speed to market, in improving driver behavior. We have demonstrated to fleet owners that by improving driver behavior they can realize a tangible improvement in fuel savings.” Across a large fleet this can be a very significant saving, such as the simple practice of ensuring that all trucks have the correct tire pressure.”

Fleet Managers are Critical
The role of the Fleet Manager is critical in deciphering and delivering the best value to customers. “We can help with driver training,” Mr Burman continued. “Telematics are driving the efficiency of the fleet.” Keeping track of where vehicles are and how they are being driven can contribute to a much more efficient operation.” Burman asked the audience how many Visa credit card transactions took place in 2016. After a few inaccurate guesses, he said that it was 25 billion. “At 44 000 Shell retail sites, our customers completed four billion transactions in 2016.”

Shell Card Benefits
The Shell Fuel Card provides the tools to reduce your operating costs anywhere in the world and you can save money with Shell’s innovative fuels, lubricants and fleet management technologies. Fleet Managers can easily manage their account with the Shell online portal, which provides fuel spend information, centralised reporting and simplified e-invoicing.  They can protect their business with real-time fraud detection and round-the-clock card blocking. The Shell Card allows you to establish clear driver limits for fill-up frequency and size. And Fleet Managers can receive personalised, actionable email alerts regarding unusual or suspicious activity on their account. You can reduce risk for your drivers with Shell’s comprehensive onsite security measures, including CCTV.  

With three very interesting speakers talking on a subject of interest to them, many people in attendance felt that the event that included a buffet lunch, was well worth their time.