When your running a field service, fleet management, or commercial landscaping company, every dollar matters, and every dollar needs to work as hard as you do. Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) helps make that happen by not requiring you to pay for GPS hardware upfront. It’s a much smarter way to get the latest GPS equipment you need to monitor your vehicles, equipment, and crews. 

HaaS lets you lease GPS tracking hardware on a subscription basis, rather than shelling out a big chunk of change upfront to buy it. For small to medium-sized businesses, this makes a big difference for your cash flow. 

Use Your Capital to Grow

When you buy GPS hardware upfront, you’re locking up money that could (and should) be used for things like: 

• Marketing
  Instead of buying hardware, invest in marketing efforts like Google Ads, social media campaigns, local ads, or direct mail to grow your customer base—and your company.
• Upgrading Equipment
  If you’re a commercial maintenance landscaper, instead of buying GPS hardware, use that money to upgrade your old mowers, blowers, and other equipment to new more powerful and efficient models that get the job done faster. GPS tracking is critical, but with Momentum’s HaaS model, you can have it without sacrificing all the other important stuff.
• Employee Retention
  Want to keep your best workers around? Use the money that was going for GPS hardware for employee incentives, bonuses, or better benefits. Employee retention in field services can make or break your business in a tough job market. And it always seems to be a tough job market…

OK, let’s say you are a commercial maintenance landscaper with 10 trucks and you want to add 24/7 GPS tracking. You’re poking around the internet and see Momentum’s monthly price of $20/month and another company at $17/month. It looks like that other company will be $30 a month cheaper. But wait, be sure to read the fine print.

Most GPS companies require you to purchase the GPS trackers upfront or sign a three-year contract. That changes things. There is also an “investment in growth” penalty when you buy the hardware because it means you are tying up money that could have been used to grow your topline (Marketing, equipment, etc.).

Here’s a chart for the example we talked about above. The assumptions are:

1. You have 10 trucks.
2. Momentum charges $20/month per asset with no upfront costs, requires no contract, and offers a 30-day free trial, so in the first year you only pay for 11 months.
3. The other company charges $17/month per asset, you have to buy GPS trackers for $100 each ($1,000) as an upfront cost and you pay for all 12 months.
4. The return on your growth investments (marketing, new equipment, etc.) would have been 25% of the $1,000 or $250. It goes up every year 25% of the missed return on investment (ROI).  

When you factor in purchasing the equipment upfront, and the money lost by tying up working capital in GPS hardware rather than growth drivers – you can see Momentum is $1,090 cheaper the first year. Even after three years, you are still spending less money with Momentum IoT, $7,000 versus $8,073. AND with the other company, you are on the hook for a minimum of  $3,040. What if you hate it? 

With Momentum, we are so sure you will love us that we charge you month to month, you can cancel anytime, and we even pay for shipping the equipment back to us. Also, the first month is a free trial so there is no financial commitment to try it. Now which company makes more financial sense?

Yes, tracking your fleet and equipment is really important to your bottom line. But why make a huge upfront investment when you can get the same (or better) thing without the financial pain?

Why a Hardware-as-a-Service model makes sense:

• No Upfront Costs: No big upfront cost to start. Instead, you pay a small monthly fee for the GPS hardware, keeping your cash for other things.
• Lifetime Warranty: Since you don’t own the hardware, if something goes wrong with it, it gets replaced – FREE. If you own it and something breaks, you have to pay for a replacement.
• Flexibility: If your needs change over time, you aren’t stuck with hardware you no longer need or want. A HaaS model lets you scale up or down as necessary. Easy.

GPS tracking should be an asset to your business, not a financial burden. With a robust Hardware-as-a-Service model, you will always have a cutting-edge fleet management solution without locking up your cash.

Don’t spend your working capital on hardware when you can put that money to work growing your business. Whether it’s new equipment, marketing, or keeping your employees happy, there are a bunch of ways to keep your money working for YOU.