‘The target is full digitisation’ – Direct Tyre Management’s growing fleet tyre influence

An ice cream van was parked in front of the door when Tyres & Accessories visited Direct Tyre Management’s (DTM) new Blackpool headquarters in mid-May. At the same time, staff were presented with sticks of rock, buckets and spades and were enjoying food together. The reason? The DTM team were celebrating the official opening of the company’s Blackpool HQ and executives were welcoming staff to the new location a few miles up the road from the previous offices in Skelmersdale. Beyond the team-building benefits of the celebrations, the relocation itself illustrates how DTM has developed from a niche player into a fast-growing digital fleet technology business. Tyres & Accessories met with chief technology officer Dominic Clark and sales manager Simon Makin in order to find out more.

DTM was founded by Stephen Richardson in Blackpool in 2004. Nine years later, the company merged with specialist commercial leasing business NRG. At that point, DTM transitioned to Skelmersdale where NRG is still based. Around 18 months ago private equity fund Palatine got involved in the business, something that culminated in the acquisition of Basingstoke-based TyreWatch in mid-July 2021. The addition of the TyreWatch and TrailerSmart technology to DTM’s business coincides with the ongoing growth of DTM as a whole. Moving DTM out from the physical NRG premises reflects the ongoing strategic direction DTM is now taking towards increased focus on its core business and on return-on-investment for its private equity backers.

Reinforcement of DTM’s management team is something that else that illustrates the company’s ongoing development. Towards the end of March, DTM announced that the company had appointed Leigh Goodland, who brings with him 25 years’ experience in commercial transport, as managing director. Founder and former managing director Steve Richardson remains with the business as executive chairman.

In addition, Dominic Clark – founder of Tyres on the Drive, which is now owned by Halfords – has joined the company as chief technology officer. As well as pushing the company towards the complete digitisation of its operations, his remit also includes certain marketing responsibilities.

Sales manager Simon Makin joined the company before Christmas 2021 in a further example of the company’s ongoing expansion. Makin transfers into the fleet tyre technology side of things from a background in commercial vehicle sales, specifically with the likes of MAN.

The new additions join customer service director Sally Atkinson and operations director Kelly Wayman to make a significantly broader senior leadership team.

According to recently appointed CTO Dominic Clark, “the target is full digitisation” and the acquisition of TyreWatch was the entry point into the wider process of full digitisation. A customer’s first interaction with DTM has historically been with a call centre. There the team manage tyres and know how to address issues. However, the goal is to manage needs before the customer knows there’s a problem.

Bringing tyres into the Internet of Things

At the centre of DTM’s current technology is TAMS – a bespoke in-house system that links real-time vehicle-based data with mapping technology, DTM’s call centre, service providers and the cloud.

The addition of TyreWatch has been a key tool in the drive to help tyres get up to speed with the telematically-equipped, Internet-of-Things (IoT) world of commercial vehicles. This addresses perhaps the biggest technology gap, vehicles record lots of data, but vehicle sensors are all based on the chassis and therefore they say nothing about the real-time performance of the tyres and wheels. Considering the fact that tyres account for “a big percentage” of fleet vehicle breakdowns, DTM/TyreWatch’s tyre-to-cloud integration is key.

As well as updating systems with tyre pressure and temperature data every minute, DTM representatives report that three other modules are coming: loose wheel-nut warning, wheel alignment and predictive tread wear. Together with the already operational pressure and temperature readings, this represents a significant package that is enhanced by the fact that DTM operates as a third-party to tyre manufacturers, as Dominic Clark explained:

“DTM is significant enough in scale to have good relations with all major tyre manufacturers. And likewise with a wide range of independent service providers in the commercial vehicle sector.”

On the car and van tyre side of things, DTM likewise has relationships with all the major tyre manufacturers, but can also name some of the national tyre retail chains along with a broad range of medium and small independent retailers.

This broad range of retail and service providers means DTM has historically interfaced its systems with everyone from those using the most modern technology to those still using carbon paper. Moving forward, technicians and retail partners will also be invited to interface with DTM digitally. This process follows a similar line of development to other well-known technology businesses such as Just Eat, which works with a large number of small, independent takeaways as well as all the well-known names.

What Just Eat and DTM also have in common is that both are facing a point of scale and maturity that means the bar for input data is rising. DTM’s contribution to closing the technology gap between large and small tyre service providers is to develop a smartphone application that interfaces with DTM’s already functioning web-based portal. Such a solution could be rolled out relatively quickly, but DTM is taking its time to get everything (not just the new app) integrating correctly. And therefore the goal is complete integration by full-year 2023.

With that in place, DTM’s already-present ability to show fleets what their real-life tyre experience is and to connect fleet managers and service providers in real-time is helping businesses to meet their efficiency, financial and sustainability goals.

Tyres & Accessories met with chief technology officer Dominic Clark and sales manager Simon Makin on the day of the new Blackpool location’s official opening (Photo: Chris Anthony; Tyre Industry Publication Ltd)