Motive Targets Spreadsheet Pain With New Data Tool
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AUSTIN, Texas — The trucking technology company Motive took aim at spreadsheets for being inefficient and impractical .
Motive Analytics is an integrated data analysis tool that provides fleets with real-time responses and reports. It’s designed to be accessible to people across a fleet regardless of their expertise. The tool was revealed during Vision 25 — The Motive Innovation Summit.
“Fleet managers should not have to moonlight as data scientists in order to answer basic questions,” said Jaimie Weinberger, a strategic sales engineer at Motive. “All of us have been there. We’ve all lived in spreadsheets, many of your hands shot up very quickly, battling version control, having to stay up late and build reports, or having these excessive email chains trying to answer a simple question, what is going on in my fleet. You’re not alone, we hear it all the time.”
Motive data shows 33% of fleet managers still rely on manual spreadsheets to answer questions. More than 50% of them feel this approach limits their ability to solve real problems. Weinberger warned this could result in other tasks being deprioritized.
“So forget driver coaching and effectiveness, or improving the driver experience, or preventative maintenance planning, cross-department collaboration, all of those things are deprioritized when you are stuck in the weeds,” Weinberger said. “That’s why we built Motive Analytics, to shift your time from reporting the past to shaping the future.”
Motive Analytics aims to eliminate the reliance on rigid, pre-built reports so fleets can do more with their data. Users can build, customize and access tailored reports in seconds that address their specific needs and questions.
“We’ve all heard and understand these pain points, and this is really just scraping the surface,” said Emily Parsons, senior product manager at Motive. “The key takeaway here is that we don’t want you having to jump around between tools. We understand if there’s processes that, if you need to use a [business intelligence] tool here or something else there, we totally support that. But with those easy questions that you want to get answered, how can you do it faster.”
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Parsons stressed that the platform was built to make data analysis easier for everyone. It’s designed as a streamlined system that doesn’t require users to learn complex processes. The point is to allow users to get insights easily and on their own terms.
“But that data alone isn’t enough,” Parsons said. “It’s really critical that you’re able to connect the pieces across the platform to take that data and make sure that it’s leading to action. With Motive Analytics, you can zero in really quickly to be able to drill down across, for example, cellphone events, but really any type of data that you have within your events.”
Motive Analytics features a search bar where users can request information and construct data reports. Examples range from simple requests for safety events in a specific region to more detailed analytical reports.
“No need to dive in or try and tweak even further,” Parsons said. “You have that information where you can continue the conversation and drill down and actually edit the report in real time. And then once you have it in the state that you like it to be in, you can actually pin it to a dashboard, share it with the rest of your team, and really kick off that further conversation.”
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Parsons explained that the platform serves as both a simple way to review topline data and a tool for deeper analysis. Users can explore key performance indicators relevant to their business or request actionable reports focused on proactive data applications.
“We already have about 60 or 70 reports in there, and we’re continuing to build and expand our data model surface area so that you can have more data to look at there,” Parsons said. “The second piece is dashboards, where all those reports come together. We’re talking about all of those cross-platform insights and how we can get them into one single unified view. That’s where really all of that becomes one.”
