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LONG TERM PARTNERSHIPS FOR FIRST-CLASS SOLUTIONS Over nearly two decades, Bestrane has forged deep and lasting partnerships with its clients and valued technology vendors like Geotab and The Descartes Systems Group. David Sanders and Adam Welch explain how they use telematics to derive new insights into driver behaviour and improve the efficiency and safety of heavy vehicles.
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avid Sanders co-founded Bestrane 18 years ago with a focus on creating long-term relationships with select clients and using best-in-class technology to maintain and best serve their evolving interests. “We’ve grown our business substantially, and one of our key KPIs is to deepen relationships with clients and offer relevant solutions to other opportunities that have popped up,” David says. Having long-term customer relationships also means having longterm supplier relationships. Bestrane achieves this by finding suitable vendors from around the world, securing the rights for them, and bringing them into the market with a full-service model to sell, implement, support, and operate. David notes Bestrane’s longest relationship has been with the publicly listed Descartes Systems Group (DSGX), which started more than 13 years ago. David says Bestrane helps Descartes by being its eyes and ears in Australasia – with a focus on dedicated fleet route optimisation and execution, and management of third-party transportation. Bestrane is always searching for ways to deepen its relationships with customers and to identify new sources of value, in line with its tagline introduced last year as part of the company’s re-brand: ‘Solving Complex Logistics Problems’. Importantly, David notes that by
engaging in ever-deeper work with a particular client, there often arise new insights and solutions that have relevance and applicability for other clients. “A few months back we launched a new website together with our rebrand,” David says. “A key motivation for doubling down on our web presence was that – working as we do with customers on a long-term basis – we wanted a channel to tell user stories and share what we’ve learnt along customer journeys. “The real story is always how a customer manages to achieve spectacular outcomes. Take, as an example, BC Sands, a landscape supplies company located in Sydney, which has a modest fleet of trucks. It may not be the biggest company, but is one of the world’s best users of route optimisation technology. It’s also received accolades in the United States.”
ASSURANCE SERVICES David says he is always looking for complementary service lines or solutions that can add value to route optimisation and execution processes. “We assist many clients to develop routes and track how the routes are being executed in real time,” he says. “But there’s a whole regulatory framework that sits over the top of that, which means the development of routes and how they are executed need to comply with relevant legislation, company policy, etc.,” he adds. “We
David Sanders, Owner and Managing Director at Bestrane.
Adam Welch, Manager – Assurance Services for Bestrane.
found that there was a real opportunity for us to sort of grow into a space we term ‘Assurance Services’.” In short, Assurance Services refer to the use of telematics technology to ensure organisations can demonstrate to their stakeholders – internal and external – that they are managing their vehicle fleet in accordance with relevant legislation and regulations. MHD MAY 2022 | 23
