Market growth in fleet management systems will remain flat in the short term in the wake of the global economic recession, but will stage a return to healthy growth starting about 2012 as the market dynamics and trends shift to scalable end-to-end solutions, driver management applications, and regional strategic ecosystems. FMS revenues are expected to reach $9.5bn in 2015, according to forecasts just released by ABI Research.

Telematics practice director Dominique Bonte says, "As a recession begins, costs (in this case particularly fuel costs) become increasingly important, and failure to reduce them can be fatal for some smaller businesses. Survivors squeeze every penny out of a fleet management service, focusing on small things such as driver behavior, route navigation efficiency, routing, vehicle diagnostics, and preventive maintenance. Most of these are machine-to-machine applications that have very little to do with human beings.

"As recovery kicks in, emphasis will shift from cost-reduction to workforce productivity. Now, the industry is moving towards empowering humans to drive profits rather than machines to reduce costs."

This effort is supported by increased awareness and adoption of technological solutions, and falling hardware component and wireless connectivity costs.

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