Whose data is it anyway?

By Torsten Brose, Business Development Director – Echo, Magenta Technology

Ever had difficulty getting hold of your own data, building reports that you need to run your business or finding a way to test pricing models before you take the plunge? If you have, you make up the vast majority of private hire companies in the industry.

Easy access to data and detailed reporting has always seemed to be the prerogative only of companies large enough to employ IT departments and own their own software.

Magenta wants to change this by offering customers a range of exciting new options dependent on their own resources, business requirements and budget.

Whatever your preference, we believe that making the right decisions for your business should always be based on experience and gut feel, backed by solid supporting data. Now our customers will have this opportunity.

Many of you know that a significant part of my working life has been spent in front line operations in a variety of different logistic environments. It was only when I started to work outside of private hire that it really sank in how badly we use the data that we have in this industry. We have a huge amount of data collected from every source in the system, and it’s all recorded for you to better understand, analyse and improve your business – if only you could access it easily.

In case you’re not already excited at this prospect, let me give you a few ideas about what you might want to consider doing with the data:

• Customer or passenger SLA reports showing exactly how successful you are at doing what you have promised. Look at the same data for each controller and see who is best at managing the effective performance.
• Ever wanted to test a new business or pricing model before you put it live? Now you can without risking the loss of passengers or drivers.
• Run detailed in depth financial modelling to understand where the profit comes from within each component of your business

Then there is the one that’s really close to my heart: You already know we have the most advanced auto-allocation technology in the marketplace, but how do you fine tune this to get the maximum efficiency from your system when making incremental changes that are not obvious to the naked eye? Use efficient data and reporting – set up in such a way that you don’t need a degree in number crunching to figure it out.

Whether it’s integrated dashboards, reporting or anything else you want to do, the data is yours. Let us help you use it.