Discover Germany | Interview | Konetik
Szabo. Photo: © Konetik Oberbaumbruecke. Photo: © Berlin Partner-Wuestenhagen
Fleet management with Konetik from Berlin Mobility has changed dramatically in recent years. Especially for companies, there is a great deal of potential for improvement and innovation. With his company Konetik, entrepreneur Balazs Szabo has developed a plug and play vehicle management product for companies with fleets enabling them to profit from this potential. Discover Germany spoke to Szabo about the origins of Konetik, its diverse potential and the company’s new location in Berlin. TEXT: THOMAS SCHROERS
Let’s start out with the origins of Konetik. What is your personal background? What were initial thoughts and inspirations, which led to Konetik? Szabo: I am a serial entrepreneur. I have been working in the digital industry since when I was 19. I have a business and technical background and I also held positions related to start-up fundraising. After working on a few start-ups (and failing forward) I turned my interest to Internet of Things in 2014 and this is how I met my co-founder, Peter. Our third co-founder, product and design expert Gergö, joined 38 | Issue 47 | February 2017
us soon after and together we created a vision that it would be amazing if we could make mobility and transportation smarter by leveraging the intelligence, derived from the data that can be gathered from vehicles themselves. We developed a prototype, secured financing from industry-shaping investors (such as Andras Ferencz, the CTO of Mobileye), validated and stepped into the B2B market to disrupt the fleet management practice with a smart fleet product for Small and Medium Enterprises. Now we are on the market with our product in countries such as the UK, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary.
Take us through the functionality of Konetik. How does it improve decision makers’ daily work? Szabo: Cars are probably the most underutilised assets for companies. With Konetik, decision makers can understand how the company vehicles are being used. They can benefit from our automated logbook solution, insightful statistics about the fuel consumption, engine diagnostics and so forth. We deliver insights about client visits, time spent at a prospect to help improve customer satisfaction or sales results. With the knowledge gathered with Konetik, decision makers can further optimise or reorganise their fleet based on their real mobility needs. We can also take care of the shared cars within the company. Our goal is to make company mobility more efficient and safer while contributing to better business results for our customers. We further develop our product to make it smarter and smarter to help