Sam is the Chief Operating Officer of Karmo. This Brisbane-based car subscription service is redefining car ownership with a service that can help private individuals up to large organisational fleets. Karmo provides flexible and affordable terms that can help fleet managers easily scale up and down their vehicle fleets every few months to match the requirements of the business whilst taking fleet costs off the balance sheet.
Whilst he’s not trying to get you into your next new car, Sam enjoys spending weekends with his family especially teaching his two young sons the joys of fishing around the coastal waters of South East Queensland.
What is something you are working on right now?
At Karmo, we provide flexible and affordable alternatives to car ownership and long-term leases. This is something we’ve heard heavily with fleet managers who are grappling with flexibly scaling up and down their fleets whilst retaining high-quality new cars for their stakeholders.
Like lots of organisations, we’ve been grappling with supply issues and delivery delays. However, we’ve been lucky to build up relationships with some amazing dealers across the country who understand our model and have helped keep us stocked with new cars. So lots of our focus over the last 12 months has been in that direction, however as we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we’re focusing on iterating on our fleet subscription service, which will help procurement teams and CFO’s realise the cost and efficiency benefits of having a fleet that can be scaled up and down in line with business needs.
What is your dream vehicle?
Can I only choose one? I probably have a more utilitarian taste when it comes to cars. I’m a big fan of older 4×4’s – so a 60 series Landcruiser or an swb landrover series III would be great. In cars that are a bit more recent, I’ve really liked the Ineos Grenadier and have been watching the development and marketing journey closely over the last few years so it will be interesting to see them in the flesh – on the EV side – of course, the Rivian’s or Cybertruck’s will be very interesting if they make it to our shores.
What is something you are proud of?
Although probably a cliche, it’s hard to go past my kids on this one. I’ve got two sons aged 7 & 5, who are just awesome little humans. Getting to take them to footy or fishing on the weekend is definitely one of the highlights of my week. Professionally, however, I’m really proud of the team we’re building here at Karmo. We’ve been lucky to find some great people in operations, software, product, marketing and finance, so its a joy turning up to work each day knowing you get to work with some amazing people.
Fleet managers have a tough job – What are you guys doing to make their life easier?
One of the biggest challenges we see for fleet managers is that they can have some amazing software which tells them about the utilisation of their fleet, but due to their procurement guidelines, they can’t necessarily take advantage of it. It’s no good knowing that you have excess capacity if you can’t do anything about it.
One of the main benefits of short to medium-term subscriptions for fleet managers is knowing that it is fairly easy to flex up and down your fleet to align with strategic goals and seasonal requirements. A subscription lets fleet managers get more cars quickly as well as reduce the fleet quickly in line with business requirements meaning fleets should never be oversized or undersized at any point in the year.
With our pricing model, there is no extra cost when it comes to flexibility compared to long-term leases, so organisations can get the benefits of flexible subscriptions without any additional cost.
What do you think the fleet industry will look like ten years from now?
It’s interesting to think about how EV’s, car share schemes and autonomous vehicles will change the fleet landscape. As we see ownership preferences change, there will be more centralised fleets serving more people than ever before. These changes will have significant implications for manufacturers, software/ service providers, fleet management, and procurement teams. Whilst technology will ultimately decide this timeline, it’s easy to see things heading in that direction.
To get in contact with Sam or Karmo you can find them at Karmo.co.
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