Route Optimization Software - Then... And Now!

Copyright Route4Me Inc.
Route Optimization Software
Then... and Now

Something Really Big
Happened On June 29th, 2007...
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● The first iPhone was a Smartphone which took the iPod to the next level
● You could use it as a cell phone, send and receive emails, listen to music, and
have access to mapping and navigation
● But the most important thing about the iPhone (and later the iPad) was the
Apple App Store
● The Apple App Store had very few apps at first, but grew very quickly, even
though Apple had to thoroughly review and approve each app
The First iPhone Came Out
on June 29th, 2007
http://route4me.com/
Copyright 2015 Route4Me, Inc 3

● About one year after the iPhone was released, Google made the
Android Smartphone available for purchase
● The first Android Smartphone (and for the next few years) was not as
critically acclaimed as the iPhone because the phone was not as good
looking or easy-to-use
● Android also launched an app store (Google Play), but the biggest problem
with the Android Smartphone was that anyone could upload apps to Google
Play and they did not have to go through a security review process (and still
don’t) like with the Apple App Store
The First Android Phone Came Out
on October 22nd, 2008

Let’s Draw a Line in the Sand...
And Categorize All Routing
Companies Older Than 2009
as
“Legacy Route Optimization Vendors”
5

Because Before 2009,
“Legacy” Vendors Did Not Architect Their
Software for the Cloud or the Smartphone
What is Legacy Software?
In computing, a legacy system is an old method,
technology, computer system, or application program,
"of, relating to, or being a previous or outdated
computer system."
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● Legacy route optimization vendors have hidden pricing.
● This means that you can spend one hour browsing their website and
you will not find out how much their software costs to purchase.
Pricing Is Almost Impossible To Find
How To
Easily Spot
a Legacy
Routing
Software
Vendor:
● Good luck getting someone on the phone. Independent studies
show it takes days to get a response to a sales inquiry!
● You know you’re dealing with a legacy vendor if you have to go
through a comprehensive proof-of-concept or pilot that spans
many months - or even years!
● You don’t get to try their software before you “prove” to them
that you’re “good enough” for them to take you on as a client.
This usually means disclosing your company’s financials to them.
● Legacy vendors really like to bring in a “sales guy,” a sales
engineer, a project manager, and as many people as possible to
justify their increased pricing.
● Ask legacy route optimization vendors to define their mobile
strategy and you’ll likely hear that they have an “add-on” for it or a
“partner” that they’ve integrated with - that’s because mobile isn’t
part of their core product
Buying Their Software Is Time Consuming
7
Mobile… An afterthought For Legacy Vendors

“Like The Mafia, Once You’re In…
There’s No Getting Out”
● Legacy software vendors are like car salesmen - they want to sell you this year’s model and want you
to buy a new one in three years - while your competitors are already using something newer.
● The only problem is that software evolves so much faster than cars, and waiting three years for a
software improvement is way too long.
● So the legacy software vendors scare you into buying “Yearly Mapping” and stability upgrades that
you need an entire IT team download and install on all the computers in your company.
● Legacy vendors feel that you owe them this three year commitment because they spent so much
effort convincing you to buy in the first place
Once You Buy Their Software,
You’re Locked In… Usually for 3 Years
8

Legacy Vendors Love:
Enormous Integration Fees
● There’s a big difference between ready to go and custom integration.
● Most legacy vendors don’t have seamless plug-and-play integration with Google,
Dropbox, or other systems you’re already using in your business...
● This is because if the integration is too easy to use and get started with, they
couldn’t charge you upwards of $2,000 per person per day to integrate with your
system.
● Those who have ready-to-go integrations only make it available only with systems
that have a starting price of 6 or 7 figures...per server!
9

Vicious Cycle:
Cumbersome Legacy Software Vendors
Almost Always Requires Paid Training
● Legacy vendors love to make software so complex it requires weeks or months of
paid training.
● Legacy software vendors give the illusion that comprehensive route
optimization software has to be complex and unusable without training
● Ask Yourself: How many weeks of training did you need to learn GMail or
Microsoft Outlook?
● Adding insult to injury, some legacy vendors charge you extra training fees on top
of exorbitantly high software fees for every person they train in your company.
10

Can Legacy Vendors
Really Do What They Claim?
● Legacy vendors make many claims about what their software can do...
● But their sentences almost always end with this wording: “...with the help of this partner… an
expert in this area....”
● Partnering with other companies is really important, but when’s the last time you heard
Google partnering with someone to improve Google Search?
● Basically, many legacy vendors take a bunch of software from different companies and
bundle it together - selling it to you for way more money
● Others try to “custom build” a one-off solution, because their software is so inflexible
● Many are nothing more than middle-men, sitting between you and the actual companies
who make the GPS trackers, the route optimizer, the mapping system, the mobile app, the
mobile device, the navigation device, some even outsource training too! 11

● Where’s the pricing on your website?
● Do you offer a free trial that I can start immediately?
● Do I have to wait 3+ months for any “ROI”?
● Do I have to disclose how much revenue my company is making?
● Do I really have to pay per driver, per user, or per anything?
● Do I have to sign a long term contract?
● If business isn’t that great, how big is the penalty if I cancel my contract?
Next Time You Speak With a Legacy
Routing Software Sales Person, Ask:

● Do you have a mobile app in the App Store my drivers can easily download?
● Do the changes I make to routes on the website instantly appear on my driver’s
smartphone?
● Do I need to buy a server or other hardware to run your routing software?
● Do I need to put this server or hardware into my own datacenter?
● Do I need to buy a mapping license key even after I buy your routing software?
● Do I need to pay extra for training my team?

● Can my executives, planners, and dispatchers use the system as a team?
● Does your software work on Mac, PC, the iPhone, iPad, Android smartphones?
● Do I have to download a file and install it on all my computers?
● Does your routing software work in 10 language so my employees can use it
more efficiently?
● Are you really a routing software company or are you just a middleman (reseller)?
● Do I have access to improvements made to your software on a weekly basis?

Most Legacy Vendors Are Throwing Your
Good Money At Old Technology
Just like cars or homes built in years past, older doesn’t necessarily mean better.
● Changing headlights on your old Chevy Pickup doesn’t give it Corvette
performance...
● And changing headlights on an old Corvette doesn’t make it look or feel like a New
Corvette
● That’s why you need to look at New Route Optimization Companies, built for
today’s high-speed requirements from the ground up.
● You may want a vintage collectible car for fun, but definitely not to run your business!
15

Most Legacy Routing Software
Doesn’t Know The Real World Exists
● Legacy Route Planning Software assumes you plan your routes once at the beginning of the
week or the beginning of the quarter and that your routes never change:
⚬ But customers cancel deliveries, pickups, and service-calls ALL THE TIME!
⚬ And some customers, like VIP customers or those at-risk of cancellation, need to be visited
unexpectedly
● Legacy Route Planning Software assumes you want to spend time sitting around “configuring
your fleet” and expects you to wait hours for your routes to optimize:
⚬ But you just want to throw in the number of drivers you have, the driver skills, your customers
orders, get your routes created automatically in a few minutes (or seconds), and have them
appear on your drivers smartphones right away.
● Plus most Legacy Route Planning Software wasn’t designed for mobile, GPS tracking, or
modifying routes for your drivers many times per day.
16

Legacy Routing Vendors Have So
Many Problems...
What’s Better About Modern
Route Optimization Software?
17

In April 2009,
Route4Me Launched
The Very First
Mobile Route Optimization App
19

20
As of 2015,
Route4Me’s iOS & Android Mobile
Apps Have Been Downloaded Over
1,000,000 Times

With Modern Mobile Route Planning Software
What Took You So Many Hours…
Now Takes Less Than 10 minutes
High-Quality Modern Route
Optimization software tests
billions of scenarios in less than a
minute to plan your optimized
route!
Ask yourself: Can my IT team
integrate with the online route
planning software without
spending months on expensive
coding?

Modern Software Incorporates Real-World Scenarios
● Modern route optimization software like Route4Me
permits dispatchers and managers to modify routes and
have them updated over-the-air in real-time to drivers.
● Real-world conditions like traffic delays, weather, declined
customer credit cards, or dangerous onsite hazards may
impact your the routes of your drivers
● Something as simple as adding an extra break for your
driver on a hot summer day is easy to do and takes just
one click - drivers appreciate it and ultimately have
increased performance.
● Sending multiple-drivers to meet at a specific location, or
to help another driver is almost impossible without
modern routing software like Route4Me
Because many legacy software vendors expect you to put your head in the sand when it comes to
dynamic routing and re-optimizing routes by pretending that routes never change after they are
planned.
Route4Me’s Mobile Phone App Gives You &
Your Drivers All The Tools Needed

The Tool You Need Is Already On Your Smartphone
With the emergence of the smartphone, users have the ability to see their routes instantly.
Route4Me is leading the way in how drivers
of any business size can optimize their day!
● With over a million downloads, drivers around the
world are saving hours of work every day.
● Business owners can plan multiple routes in
seconds, whether they have 10 or a 100 drivers.
● Keep your drivers safe and legal by using phone or
tablet mounts in their vehicles.
● The startup expense is minimal. Just have your
drivers use their personal phones.
● Route4Me piggy-backs on the most powerful mapping
programs in the world…including Google Maps.
● Whatever changes you create in the
office…automatically synchronizes on your driver's
phone, even during the middle of a drive.
● Specific time windows, avoiding traffic hot spots and
more, you can customize each route as much as
needed.

Easy & Powerful Route Planning Done For You
● Select your stops from a map and optimize the sequence
in which your drivers will go about their day in seconds.
● Add specific time windows for stops, time spent at
location, avoid certain roads, and more…
● Instantly calculates the driving time, including traffic
delays, between hundreds of locations at once.
● Easily plan multiple routes for all your drivers with just a
few mouse clicks…even if you have hundreds or
thousands of stops each day.
Gone are the days when only mega-enterprises had the cash to use route planning systems.
Route4Me is designed to scale to your needs & accurately plan routes in seconds while still
exceeding the power of legacy software systems.

Automate Route Planning, And Put Parts of Your
Business On Autopilot With Modern Software
● Plan your employee routes, automatically synchronize them with their
smartphone, and track them in real time - something legacy vendors
are offering as pricey “add-ons”, not a core part of their offering!
● Keep all of your customer addresses in the centralized online system,
exporting annoying Excel files to and from MapPoint, and other
systems - not required..
● When you need confirmation of completed work, Route4Me allows
drivers to upload images, videos and signatures…straight into the
route - for easy searching.
● Track your driver locations in real time without buying any new
hardware, so you know exactly where they are and whether they are
off the path set by you.
Route4Me is a modern route optimization software at its core…
but it also offers you so many other benefits for saving your own precious time.

Important
Things To Keep
In Mind About
Modern Route
Optimization
Software Before
Spending Your
Hard Earned
Money
Does It Require You To Purchase New Equipment?
● If you have to shell out thousands of dollars for new equipment, make sure it's
worth it to your business. Some route planning software runs through a website
or as a mobile phone app…significantly reducing your costs of purchase.
Does It Come With a Free Trial and Free Setup?
● Setting up an account can be a lot of work, so you want to be sure that you
either get a free trial or the account is setup for you, ready to be used.
Is the Pricing Digestible or is it Outrageous?
● Many route optimization companies charge extra by the vehicle or driver
instead of a fixed monthly cost.
Does the route planner software have ways to track your drivers?
● A great route planning system should also be a tool for improving driver
efficiency and accountability. Having the ability to track every driving expense
automatically should be a key component of any route planner.
Is the Route Planning Software Simple to Use?
● Make sure that you or your employees have the capacity to use the software to
it’s fullest potential.
● The software should be very user friendly, hiding all the complex math
equations totally out of sight
Copyright 2015 Route4Me, Inc

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Route Optimization Software - Then... And Now!

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Route Optimization Software - Then... And Now!