By the time you read this, the Work Truck Show will be only a fond memory for those who attended it. Held annually, this event is THE trade show in North America for companies like Expertec to learn about new tools and technologies that are available in the world of upfitting and outfitting work vehicles.
The Work Truck Show covers a wide area when it comes to these tools and technologies – especially when you deal with so many pieces of emerging technology for connectivity in fleets, timekeeping, ordering, and, of course, the actual products that we use to purpose-build vehicles for commercial use.
What many people who don’t attend trade shows often ask us is “why travel halfway across the continent (it’s in Indianapolis, Indiana this year) to see commercial van shelving or a slide-in cap for a pickup?”
It’s so much more than that!
You see, in the skilled trades, technology continues to revolutionize how business is done. Long gone are the days of just bolting on hardware to upfit a truck or van – today, connectivity is at least as important and project management software and in-vehicle computers are the way that successful companies are deploying service vehicles. Believe it or not, there are many companies with fleets of commercially upfitted trucks and vans that have no central garage or depot. Employees take the vehicle home with them and, through inventory and timekeeping software, the entire billing and ordering system is automated through the cloud.
That’s why we choose to join thousands of attendees and over 500 vendors in Indianapolis for The Work Truck Show – to stay abreast of this new technology and bring that right to our clients. One of the most important parts of being a part of events like this is to see how the commercial vehicle market is expanding and changing. Year after year, we see innovative new ways that these new technologies and tools can impact our own clients in Alberta and beyond. At the same time, we’re able to meet face-to-face with many of our vendors to maintain a strong relationships with existing ones and gain the chance to build new ones – again, bringing a worldwide knowledge base to every one of our own clients at home.
Just as importantly, events like this also allow us to continue our education for our installation team and for them to offer real-world guidance for our customers. Whenever you have commercial vehicles on the road, there are costs involved. Insurance, the actual cost of the vehicle, and, of course, maintenance and fuel. Our ability to effectively assist you in your own purchase and outfitting of a service vehicle is critical to our mission at Expertec.
And these are the sort of things that we, as industry insiders, learn at events like The Work Truck Show to bring back to serve our own clients in western Canada. Making sure that you have the properly equipped vehicle for the job and the jobsite is our primary focus and, given the investment in even the most basic of work vehicles, you deserve to know that every aspect of your truck or van is optimized for today’s commercial environment.
