The digital route to success

Jenny McQuaid, managing director of Motia, tells how the newly named DCC plc business brings Fuel Cards and telematics together to help fleet managers save money and time

“With the rapid pace of change in the energy industry, digitalisation presents exciting opportunities, from optimising fuel operations to building the foundations for cleaner mobility,” says Jenny McQuaid, managing director of DCC’s fuel card and telematics businesses, now brought together under the Motia brand for better customer insights and product development.

Fuel Card Services is one of the largest businesses of its kind in the UK. “Our best relationships are with customers who already understand the benefits of insights that fuel-card data gives them,” says Jenny, who worked her way up through Certas Energy and Fuel Card Services before becoming MD of Motia.

“So, we weighed up what it would take to go beyond fuel and offer more complex and beneficial fleet management tools.”

“When supported with accurate and insightful data, fleet managers aren’t making guesses or working on gut,” she says. “It allows them to take a strategic rather than a reactive approach.”

“We decided to bring a telematics product into the centre of our business so we could develop new, data-driven products to help customers optimise every aspect of their operations,” says Jenny. “Our research proved there was a real need out there. Covid showed how important fleet managers and drivers are to the entire fabric of our economy but it’s an industry which has been underserved in terms of modernisation. Giving fleet managers powerful tools and insightful data will enable them to focus on the really important things – making fleet operations cleaner, safer and more efficient.”

How Motia brings Fuel Cards and Cubo together

DCC plc acquired telematics and fleet communications company Cubo in July 2024. Whereas the fuel cards side of the business was generating one million data points a day from just under 60,000 customers, Cubo with around 1,500 customers was already generating 17.1 million from their telematics offering. Harnessing the power from this level of data will help customers make better decisions and act quickly to support them as they grow.

“Cubo has a very similar culture to Fuel Cards,” Jenny says. “They addressed a similar market – not always huge enterprise customers, but big enough that they should be treated seriously. And they had a great product. When you tied all that together, it was a great fit,” she says.

At first Fuel Cards operated as Fuel Cards and Cubo as Cubo. “We soon realised that was missing the point and that we needed to mesh together so we aren’t just selling products but are helping customers decarbonise, digitise and optimise,” says Jenny.

They rebranded as one integrated business – Motia. A fresh, cohesive brand presence to signal the change in offering, build a feeling of unity and create a buzz.

“My background is in finance, but I’ve never liked just being that person who keeps score and says if you’re winning or losing,” says Jenny. “I like it when you can apply your financial and commercial skill set to real-life drive in a business.”