Car thieves are becoming cleverer by the day in evading hi-tech vehicle-tracking devices - it takes them just minutes to steal a car and strip it down.
For the year ended 2006, hijacking numbers edged up by 3,2% to 12 825 nationwide, according to the SA Police Service.
But Altech Netstar, the tracking and recovery group, is measuring up to the challenge. It now spends less than an hour recovering a car. "We try to reduce recovery time every year," says Harry Louw, sales & marketing director at the wholly owned subsidiary of JSE-listed Altech.
It may be quieter about its successes than some competitors, but Altech Netstar claims it has recovered more than 29 200 vehicles with a combined market value of about R3,5bn over the past five years. This has led to about 2 300 arrests.
One factor behind the company's success is that its products are relatively affordable.
The group has two primary communication platforms for its products. One is its proprietary radio frequency system, which has about 500 sites that relay messages to and from vehicles. The second system makes use of the latest cellular or GSM technology.
Altech Netstar markets two products in the GSM arena. The first is Vigil, a fleet management product that is GPRS-enabled. In recent months the company has been awarded tenders to install this product in more than 9 000 vehicles. The second product, Cyber-Sleuth, allows users to access vehicle positions and trip replays through the Internet.
"Our competitive edge is the low cost of hardware and services brought about by local development expertise and our own radio frequency network," says technology development manager Bernie Bowers.
The company, which employs 600 people, wants to use this to gain market share. At the moment, it holds 41% of the local market.
It helps that motorists are taking more responsibility for their car security. "More people are installing tracking devices to prevent their cars from being stolen," says Antoinette Louw, a senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies.
Short-term insurance companies also recommend or insist on vehicle-tracking technologies. " These greatly improve the chances of recovery," says Vivienne Pearson, stakeholder relationship manager at the SA Insurance Association.
Ian Jurgensen, executive GM of business services at insurer Mutual & Federal, confirms this trend: "Tracking devices work."
The portion of the premium that covers car crimes (about 25% of the total premium) has dropped by 60%-70% as a result of the devices, he says.
However, the market is competitive and Altech Netstar has to stay on its toes. "To keep the marketing edge over our competitors [such as Tracker, Matrix and DigiCore] we need to continually upgrade our products and introduce new features," says Bowers.
It's also important to get to market ahead of its competitors. "We spend significant time and money on studying components and trends, and acquiring new, state-of-the-art components for test and evaluation." These are employed as soon as they become available, he adds. The company has a substantial research and development budget. "This is allocated to the technology development division to develop new products ahead of market requirements," says Bowers.
Engineers propose new product ideas to management at strategic planning sessions. Its takes between three months and two years, depending on the complexity, to move from conception to the final product ready to be delivered to customers.
The sales and marketing team and their engineering colleagues regularly hold brainstorming sessions that help sound out fresh ideas.
The interplay obviously works. The company is highly profitable. "We have an extremely high return on investment," Bowers says.
Global expansion is under way. In Asia it has a 12% slice of the market. Altech Netstar has licensed its technology to a Malaysian company.
Not content with just vehicle recovery and fleet management, Netstar is exploring opportunities in new sectors, protecting assets like computers, TVs and cables.
- Finalists: Intelleca; Syspro; NamITech
