Mobility 2019: Diverse mobility services

SOS International’s business area Mobility had an annual revenue of DKK 1,018 million. 2019 counts for 1.75 million calls to our roadside assistance alarm centres in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Despite a very competitive landscape and a significant price pressure in the market, SOS International has succeeded in gaining new customers in 2019 and expect to increase its market share significantly in the coming period.

In 2019, the roadside business area changed name to Mobility - a name that is more accurate for the future path of this business area with focus on much more than traditional vehicle assistance on the roads.

Through the rebuilding and strengthening of customer integrations as well as launch of platforms for both receiving data from external digital platforms and the ability to return real-time data from the assistance vehicles during the assistance, SOS International has taken a vital step into the future of mobility.

Scalable and dynamic

The mobility industry is subject to rapid and disruptive changes and 2019 has been no exception to this. Various megatrends such as electrification, automation, diverse mobility and connectivity are all factors that have had and will continue to have major impact on future business models.

In the end of 2019, SOS International has implemented new agile product teams with the purpose of strengthening and speed up business optimisation and launch of new products. In addition to this, several new initiatives were launched during the year to respond to market changes.

In terms of electrification, there has been a major focus on ensuring electric vehicle expertise at the alarm centres and in the Nordic network through training and competence development. Additional services within the field of electrification are the launch of mobile chargers in the service vehicles in Norway and Denmark and technical support to users of charging stations for electric vehicles from the alarm centres.

Diverse mobility

But mobility does not only involve cars. Diverse mobility is a growing market in many countries, and in Norway SOS International is now servicing electric bikes. This includes training of assistance workers and providing the right tools and spare parts in the service vehicles in order to help as many as possible onward on their electrical bike.

Investigation of fraud in connection with car accidents is another example of a new service launched in 2019. Attempted fraud constitutes a significant expense for the insurance industry and with this new service, that has obtained major interest from customers, SOS International is able to influence the customers’ level of claims costs in a positive direction.

These new services are examples of how SOS International’s dynamic and scalable organisation can offer 24/7 customer support and services tailored to our customers' needs simultaneously with the market changes.

Sustainability – more than environment

Sustainability continues to be an important focus area, and again this year, SOS International has succeeded in increasing the volume of phone fix on both national and international assistances.

This has a substantial positive impact on the number of driven kilometres and thereby the company’s carbon footprint. Phone fix, repair on spot as well as the number of driven kilometres are all areas subject to measuring with the purpose of enhancing the company’s sustainability.

Moreover, SOS International is the only assistance company in the Nordics with an environmental certification.

But sustainability is not only about the environmental impact of a company. In order to run a sustainable business, employee engagement and satisfaction are crucial parameters and in 2019, although it has been a very busy year, the annual employee engagement survey revealed a positive development in terms of employee satisfaction.

SOS International also, once again, increased the level of end-user satisfaction across all the Nordic markets.

Read more about SOS International’s sustainability efforts in the Sustainability Report 2019.

Ambitious future

Looking forward, SOS International’s mobility business area will disclose new services and new markets in correspondence with the market development.

Mobility is no longer a traditional roadside or towing assistance, but a matter of operational and network optimisation, digital end-user experiences and sustainable and smart partner solutions that respond to the needs of the market.

SOS International is Nordic market leader in terms of both technology and volume and the company will contribute to defining the market agenda going forward.