The intensity and nature of urban mobility is changing at a rapid pace. Continuing urbanisation, the digitalisation of modern society, new modes of transport and transport services are, among others, all developments that are influencing our mobility and transport choices. Appronto serves various customers in the mobility sector. On this page, we will inform you about the most important trends in this sector. We’re also going to take a look at our own experiences and those of our customers.
In the modern, highly globalised world, we are becoming increasingly intertwined with each other and with the impressive plethora of smart technologies that we use. Digitisation is used, among other things, to support themes such as urbanisation and the sharing economy. Digitalisation also has a profound effect on production processes. In the field of mobility, renting and leasing cars is becoming more and more common. When we look at mobility from a global perspective, we can distinguish three themes within this digital transformation process: smart mobility solutions, the manufacturing industry and the economics of sharing.
The mobility of the future will be predominantly digital. This trend is an irreversible one. With the help of state-of-the-art digital solutions, all modes of transport have enormous future potential when it comes to significantly relieving consumers, the environment, infrastructures and resources. New mobility solutions are the result of two contemporary consumption trends: less ownership and more simplicity. The combination of these two developments is the driving force behind major changes in the mobility sector.
Logistics and mobility are big in the Netherlands. But this segment is currently dominated by a fairly limited number of major players. New cars are mainly produced abroad and then brought to the Netherlands by factory importers and a few independent importers. Smart solutions play an increasingly important role in this process. For example, our customer VDL Nedcar continually uses quality measurements on the production line. By cleverly combining this data with other insights, they continuously work on the faster delivery of ever-improving, high-quality products.
Companies, but also a growing number of consumers, regularly lease cars, bicycles, boats, caravans, campers and other means of transport. Buying is becoming less and less fashionable. Many people and companies start to realise that renting stuff offers many advantages. The cars are new and not your own property, which means that you gain additional flexibility and don’t have to deal with unpredictable maintenance costs. Our customer Autohopper is the largest car rental company in the Netherlands. In order to meet the demand of both the end customer and franchisees, we set up a digital portal for the company that enhanced the user experience to the desired level.
Digitalisation is an absolute necessity if you want to respond effectively to modern customer demands and the rapidly changing world around us. Moreover, it is a tool that allows you to face and outperform the competition. A good IT strategy is an absolute must if you want to be and remain a trendsetter in the mobility sector. Would you like to know more about how Appronto helps customers in this field? Then take a look at the following customer cases.
Appronto has built a comprehensive and fully-functioning software factory for the well-known Dutch car manufacturer VDL. We optimised the existing application landscape and expanded it with a diverse spectrum of new applications. In addition, we’ve trained our own VDL Nedcar software development team on Mendix. Under the guidance of Appronto, this team will eventually form the heart of the VDL Nedcar low-code factory. The main advantage? The company is now fully ready for further digitisation of its business and production processes.
Together, we managed to build applications for all the supporting processes (visitor registration, security round and idea box), as well as applications for the production processes. Good examples are the sophisticated planning app for VDL’s 5000 production employees and a smart production solution that digitises the paper communication about cars on the production belt. This allows the manufacturer to communicate more accurately and optimise the production process.
Autohopper is the largest car rental company in the Netherlands. Appronto has developed a nice application for this company that ensures that both the fleet managers at head office and Autohopper’s rental sites can do their work quickly and efficiently. Before we started out with the innovations, we first took the existing application to the next level.
First of all, Appronto improved the foundation on which the application was built. This made the application more stable and therefore more accessible. An important improvement, as the old version often went offline at peak times (at 8:00 in the morning). In addition, numerous functionalities have been added. The new reporting interface is a good example. If someone now adds a number of the same new cars to the fleet, the fleet manager no longer has to register each individual car manually to inform third parties, like the insurance company. This flow is now fully automated.
Also working in the mobility sector?
Curious how we can help your organization in addition to VDL Nedcar, Autohopper and Urban Arrow?
Make an appointmentFor our customer Urban Arrow we have created a customer portal that ensures that sales from the dealer channel are administratively processed in the ERP system. In addition, dealers mainly gain more insight into delivery times, associated accessories and all completed orders. Change orders, add references and see when an order is delayed; with the customer portal it is all possible in an instant.
Thanks to the customer portal, dealers can better serve their customers and manage expectations better. In addition, less contact is required between dealers and Urban Arrow, because the customer portal enables dealers to arrange many things themselves.