PacTrac Telematics Launch at Paccar

Paccar Leasing Company (PacLease) provides commercial truck leasing and rentals of class 6, 7 and 8 commercial trucks with a presence in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Unlike competitors including Penske, Ryder, and NationalLease, PacLease only works with commercial private fleets within a variety of industries.

Leasing services include vehicle maintenance, fuel tax reporting, licensing and permitting, toll payments, fuel discounts, and more. The company sells its programs through company stores and truck dealership franchises with support of a national sales team and region managers. The national sales team works with regional sales people to acquire enterprise clients spanning multiple regions. 

Many national fleet managers had mixed fleets of different makes/models, owned, and leased trucks. While they used fleet management software to manage their owned vehicles, they did not have GPS and telemetry devices installed on their leased and rented units. Therefore, fleet managers could not track routes, drivers, vehicle performance, and remote diagnostics of these vehicles.

There was an opportunity to provide a needed service while increasing recurring revenues associated with SaaS licenses. We developed a cross-functional team to evaluate the telematics opportunity and the various suppliers in the industry. This included customer surveys, and interviews with customers and franchises. After deciding to move forward with the offering, we evaluated industry solutions and partnered with PeopleNet (Trimble) to develop a PacLease specific solution.

After negotiating the exclusive agreement, I conducted a product positioning and naming project. We named the product "PacTrac" to align with the suite of services including PacFuel, PacTax, and PacToll. I also developed product messaging and value statements to help differentiate our offering from other leasing providers.

After developing product branding, we need to prepare the organization for launching the new service. One of the biggest hurdles to a successful launch was the sales channel.

The PacLease sales approach leveraged a team of national sales executives and region managers. The region managers were responsible for operations through the franchise network, and worked to ensure all locations could support the product.

While national sales executives had the expertise to sell the technology, most local franchise salespeople did not have technology sales expertise. They were uncomfortable speaking about telematics and answering questions during the sales process.

Marketing worked with the region managers to develop training materials and sales videos. The region managers conducted training while we worked with the national sales team on the go-to-market strategy. The launch plan included case studies from our beta group, sales collateral, and outbound communications to customers, prospects, and industry media.

When we launched PacTrac, social media was not as prevalent as it is today. We developed targeted customer communications and broad industry announcements. The commercial launch plan included educational webinars, press announcements and outreach with industry media, email sequences, and our company newsletter. 

PacTrac sales exceeded first year goals and helped position PacLease as a technology leader in the leasing marketplace. Even today, PacLease remains one of the only full-service leasing providers to offer an integrated telematics solution.