Interviews
10 Oct 18

Easy Carros, Fernando Saddi: Growing in Latam’s largest car market

The portfolio of corporate car fleet solutions provider Easy Carros in Brazil has gone from zero to nearly 85,000 cars in less than four years.

Although some of its clients include big players such as Localiza, Azul Airlines, and Volkswagen, the 44-month old company is still set on growing its portfolio even more, according to founder and CEO Fernando Saddi. In our one-on-one with the executive, we discuss company activities and objectives, but also a bit how the company grew so fast. 

Global Fleet: Could you first start by telling me about Easy Carros?

Saddi: We have a web-based and app-based platform which helps fleet managers better manage their cars.

Easy Carros reduces up to 30% of fleet management costs through our two main services. We are an Uber for car services: a network of independent auto service providers that do in-company services such as drywash, battery changes & oil repairs, servicing the cars inside their own parking lots or distribution centers while the cars are parked in order to increase operational efficiency.

We also digitalize the entire fines (multas) and documentation parts for fleets, being connected to all transit departments in the country in order to bring the process of receiving fines, identifying drivers & submitting and paying for all licenses completely online. This product in one of a kind in the market and has been growing greatly.

Global Fleet: What is your coverage area and about how many cars are in your portfolio?

Saddi: We currently operate in 86 cities throughout 18 states and I would say that we cover about 75% of the fleet market in Brazil. In terms of cars, we manage 84,108 vehicles.


Main Easy Carros loctions in in Brazil (Source: Easy Carros)

 

Global Fleet: Considering you were founded at the beginning of 2015, that’s a good number of cars. Could you give me an idea of how you grew so fast?

Saddi: Well, first of all, we have no hardware so it was easy for us to grow. We just needed to partner up with the right companies. Among the larger companies we work with are Brazil’s Ticket Log and Israel’s Pointer.

We have also partnered up with Brazil’s first and third largest vehicle rental and leasing companies, Localiza and Movida respectively, and car sharing company Zazcar. Although many of our clients are rent-a-car companies, we serve other types of companies such as Azul airlines, Pro Seguro, Danone, Bimbo, Volkswagen, and Duratex.

Overall, we have about 80 large-scale clients and many more small-to-mid-sized ones. I think we have a lot of cars but not that many customers. There is much room for growth.

In terms of car rental companies, we manage 18,000 cars and 6,500 cars for our two top clients alone, followed by several which have more than 2,000 in their fleet. I’d say that the top 10% of our clients represent about 80% of our portfolio.

Global Fleet: As you don’t install hardware, you must not have your own telematics. What is your main focus then?

Saddi: No, we don’t have our own telematics, but we do collect data by connecting our software to telematics networks. What we do is focus more on the intelligence behind the data being collected and then develop predictive maintenance measures.

Finally, I'd also like to mention that we streamline documentation processes such as those related to vehicle licensing and traffic tickets. We are connected to all the necessary government authorities and can actually notify our clients of tickets even before the authorities do. 

Authored by: Daniel Bland