While Nationwide was founded in 1995, the real story began some ten years earlier. In 1985, the UK mobile phone network was in its infancy and largely dominated by Racal Vodac (which would later become Vodafone) and Cellnet (now known as O2). During the early days of this technological revolution, an enthusiastic employee of Racal Vodac (and future founder of Nationwide), Peter Higson, was presented with a unique proposition.
In an era when mobile phone equipment was large and cumbersome, taking up a large part of the space available in the average car boot, Peter was tasked with installing these devices into vehicles. True to his nature and the principle we stand by today, he said ‘yes’. It was a formidable challenge at the time, but it set in motion the birth of Nationwide, propelling us towards becoming the well-respected and renowned provider of fleet installations and telematics solutions that we are today.
As mobile phones evolved from luxury items to essential tools for professionals, we expanded our services to meet the growing demand. The market expanded from its initial core of luxury vehicles, with mobile phones becoming indispensable for sales reps, truck drivers, and other field operatives. As we always have, we rolled with the changes and began installing them into fleets of cars, vans, and trucks. Our commitment to saying ‘yes’ to new challenges and delivering quality work resonated with customers, leading to an increased demand for our installation services.
Fast forward to 1995 and the official founding of Nationwide Fleet Installations (formerly Nationwide Service Care). This bolstered our ability to deliver quality fleet installation services across the UK. We rapidly grew our team of mobile engineers, who were strategically located across the country to provide our world-class installation solutions wherever they were needed. These remote engineers were supported by our dedicated project coordinators and support team based in Greater Manchester.
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw significant advancements in mobile technology. As Bluetooth phone kits became standard in cars and handset manufacturers developed devices that could be self-installed, the traditional installation market faced a downturn.
As ever, our willingness to embrace change enabled us to navigate these fluctuations in the market with great success. We were engaged by British Telecom (BT) on a major project involving modifications to metal lock boxes in every BT exchange in England, Scotland, and Wales, which we successfully completed by leveraging our skilled, mobile engineers. This demonstrated that we were capable of more than just fleet installations, showcasing our adaptability and competence in tackling complex jobs. We proved that flexibility even further when we took on thousands of new van builds and pre-delivery inspections for original equipment manufacturers in UK ports.
A couple of years later, the telematics revolution had begun to transform the fleet management sector. Basic tracking systems emerged, enabling fleet operators to monitor their vehicles and engineers in real-time. Early telematics kits had also arrived. While comically basic by today’s standards (little more than a combination of a GPS receiver and a Nokia mobile phone handset), these rudimentary systems proved to be game changers. Recognising the potential of this technology, Nationwide took on significant installation projects for several large fleets, some of which exceeded 10,000 vehicles.
Since then, our commitment to delivering exceptional results and exceeding customer expectations has helped us maintain many of these relationships and seen us complete more than one million on-the-road installations to date. In doing so, we have expanded our resources to offer our clients full project management and warehousing services that help take the hassle out of large equipment roll-outs.
A few years ago, Peter Higson stepped back from active management, but the principles of saying ‘yes’ to embrace change remain deeply entrenched in our operations. Under the stewardship of an experienced and skilled management team, we have now refined our focus to concentrate exclusively on the mobile installation and servicing of telematics and other vehicle technologies for fleets across the UK.
We have worked our way from our humble beginnings in the early days of mobile phone networks to our current position as a leading provider of fleet installations and telematics solutions. We continue to look to the future, working with fleet operators and vehicle equipment providers alike, to deliver high-quality installation and servicing solutions for many years to come.
Get in touch
Whether you’re a vehicle technology supplier or a fleet manager, look no further than Nationwide Fleet Installations to tackle your installation and servicing needs. However large or complex the project, our experienced engineers and support staff are here to help. Call us on 0161 786 6600 or email the team at info@nationwidefleetinstallations.com to see what we can do for you.
