Bridgestone looks to set up ‘mobility tech’ business in North America

Tokyo - Bridgestone Corp. is strengthening its tire-centric and mobility capabilities in North America with the planned launch of a ‘mobility tech business’ in North America.

The business will bundle Bridgestone’s offerings of tires; tire-centric solutions such as retreading and tire maintenance; as well as the group’s mobility solutions such as fleet & driver management.

As part of this, the Tokyo group will “enhance and expand” its ‘Fleetcare’ service which it launched in Europe last year to offer “everything in a single contract as a package”.

The contract covers fleet management, tires, tire management, and maintenance, explained Bridgestone in a 9 Aug mid-term strategy update.

As part of the process, the group will reinforce coordination between fleet management services – Webfleet Solutions in Europe and Azuga in North America.

From there, Bridgestone said it planned “scale up” Fleetcare in North America, where it has “strong business foundations, placing Europe as a strategic starting point”.

Overall, the strategy will see Bridgestone focusing on creating "end-to-end value", by understanding customers’ “pain points” through real time data monitoring.

This will translate into coordinating tire & vehicle maintenance solutions with monitoring capabilities for tire pressure, road conditions and safety.

In addition, the group will look to improve energy-saving operations and transportation efficiency for customers while helping them “visualise” fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

Furthermore, Fleetcare will aim to build data analytics capabilities to allow a “centralised management of multi-brand vehicles” and digital platforms.

This, Bridgestone said, will offer a ‘one-stop’ shop for OEMs and fleets for information provision.

The operation will also look to link with 1,200 service solutions sites in North America for truck & bus tires to strengthen services to customers.

In addition, Bridgestone said it would aim to respond to a shift in demand for electric vehicles (EVs) by enhancing service solutions networks for EVs.