Leadership insights
5 Questions to Markus Deusing at Alphabet International
posted on 11.05.2021
The first year of the pandemic (unfortunately not the pandemic itself) is over and has affected each of us individually and in every part of our lives tremendously. But as difficult as these trying times have been and still are, they have also brought opportunities to accelerate change, especially when it comes to digitalisation. Markus Deusing, Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer at Alphabet International, has talked about what’s to come in the future for fleets and the mobility sector in general, and how he sees the much-discussed topic of sustainability in this field.
Markus, in your opinion, what will fleet management look like ten years from now?
This depends on many influencing factors. I personally believe that there will always be a need for mobility in the future, but much more sustainable, flexible, and not only focussed on cars as the only means of transport. We know that our customers really want flexibility in their individual mobility, convenience and a temporary commitment at the best possible conditions. These are more important and preferred over a full dedication that limits them. That is what we as a full-service provider want to enable – now and in the future. One of the, or maybe the best way to achieve a higher level of flexibility is, of course, a digital approach to fleet management.
What role does digitalisation play for you and Alphabet as a whole?
As most other industries, the fleet and mobility sector is getting heavily digitalised recently. Much more data is available now and needs to be processed for future decisions on how a fleet should look like. All processes will be fully automised. Our AlphaGuide will play a significant role both for the driver and the fleet decision maker, and for us at Alphabet, too. In this respect, the pandemic has definitely accelerated developments that would have happened and were necessary though – but much later. This progress will bring us closer to a more digitised and sustainable mobility.
What does sustainability mean to you?
For me, sustainability is a mindset rather than just a trending topic. Authentic sustainability has huge potentials, but it does come with sacrifice and relies on the openness to change. As a fleet and mobility provider, we play a significant role for our customers to support this change in a focussed way to achieve their sustainability goals. But in any case, fleets will stay democratised – fleet managers will always be able to decide on what to implement while we are there to help and provide the best possible consultation.
How does a fleet become sustainable?
Electrification is a good first step towards a sustainable fleet, but there are many more options to make your fleet more sustainable – in the short but as well as in the long run. Take, for example, driver trainings, CO2 compensation, green electricity, or gamification concepts for the drivers, just to name a few out of our portfolio. These are all options to help make a fleet “greener”. Or take a look at the mobility budget concept – if you think about it, nothing makes individual, sustainable and flexible mobility as easy as this.
Why and how does Alphabet extend its digital product range?
All of us are surrounded by flexible and digital offers in our daily lives. Alphabet wants to digitise the interface to the drivers to take out the complexity of the processes and focus on easiness. Get notified when your car needs service, book an appointment and a courtesy car, and receive a notification when your vehicle is ready again. This is one of my visions for the AlphaGuide. We are heavily investing in it. In the next two years, we will launch many new functions to make the lives of our customers and drivers easier.
Claudia Bauer
International Marketing Communications Manager