Electric vehicle adoption is still a few years away from the inflexion point. However, there is steady growth and over 18 countries have reached adoption of over 5%. With ever-improving battery chemistry and the price-performance ratio, the inflexion point will soon arrive. More electric vehicles on the road will also require matching charging infrastructure, meaning a significant business opportunity for charge point operators and utility companies. While charging services presents a huge growth potential, profitability will depend upon delivering an excellent customer experience. The backbone of charging infrastructure is a robust CMS platform that must deliver on its promise of providing exceptional customer experience.
Whether you are a new entrant or already running a Charging Service business, careful selection of CMS platform is vital for your business to be profitable in the long run. Following are some factors you should consider in making the proper selection.
Maximize your revenue with seamless Billing and Payment.
Simplifying the payment process and making it frictionless for EV drivers goes a long way in establishing your credential as a company. Whether your payment system supports multiple payment options or various business models gives flexibility to your customer to choose the wallet-based payment, and NFC will be necessary. Your Billing System should also allow you to charge a differential rate during peak hours. Does it allow you to charge for parking time? Whether it supports the minimum fee, you charge even if the customer abandons charging after starting the charge session. It would help if you had all the flexibility in your billing and payment system to configure your revenue streams properly. It should also support multi-currency for you to globalize your business.
Enhance Customer Experience with Roaming Services
Roaming services are becoming essential both for customers as well as your business. Roaming Services can help you expand your network by collaborating with other CPOs and delivering charging services to your customers across regions, even where you do not have a network. It also helps you improve the utilization of your assets as customers from your partner can charge their vehicle in your network, meaning more revenue for you.
Reduce TCO by effectively managing your operations.
Your ability to monitor and manage your network remotely is critical to run your operations effectively. For many of the tasks, such as firmware updates for EVSE, you should be able to perform remotely. Your CMS Platform must also support you in diagnosing the problem and taking corrective actions. Self-healing is another vital aspect that is coming in the CMS platform. It also must help you build integration with other systems, such as ERP and custom applications, for better control over your operations. Similarly, it must support integration with data analytics platforms for better business insights.
Operate in a secure environment.
CMS platform must follow best practices in IT Security to protect data that flows between EV Chargers, Grid and Cloud. It is important to ask whether it supports a secured web socket and does it authenticate users during the login process. CMS must follow industry standards on security, including OCPP and ISO 15118. It also must comply with various data protection standards such as GDPR and CPRA.
CMS must help in realizing your goals
Right CMS Platform will help manage your operations effectively, reducing the TCO and delivering excellent customer experience. It must also be flexible enough to support your business model and streamline revenue.
Learn more about the Cero Smart Mobility Platform, which is fast emerging as an enterprise-class backbone of EV charging that supports interoperability, advanced pricing and diagnosis.
