In a recent conversation with CIO&Leader, Carrel Wessels explains how Amber Connect is engineering this next wave of fleet intelligence. From AI‑enabled dash‑cams and CAN‑bus gateways to a cloud‑native analytics platform built in Coimbatore, the company is stitching together an end‑to‑end stack aimed at India’s vast vehicle ecosystem.
Wessels also outlines plans to hire 1,000 technologists, open a 4,000‑seat R&D campus, and generate ₹100 crore in domestic revenue within five years—laying the technical foundation for a future IPO and positioning Amber Connect as a global reference point in smart mobility.
General Manager,
Amber Connect Global
CIO&Leader: Can you tell me more about the company and your role in the company?
Carrel Wessels: Amber Connect is part of the Amber Group of companies. Amber Group actually has 14 different subsidiaries within the group. So, all of them focus on very unique technology solutions. I think the core of the group is looking to be a technology partner to businesses. My role is mainly in Amber Connect. So, I’m the general manager of Amber Connect. Amber Connect is focused on the vehicle telematics AI powered solutions. So we do vehicle tracking both for B2B, so for fleets looking to have a fleet management solution, dispatch management solution, as well as also having a consumer solution. We don’t directly sell to consumers, we generally work with partners.
There are exceptions in Jamaica and India we’re looking to directly sell, but we usually look at car dealers that have consumers as clients and how they can add value propositions and additional services to their customers. But as the general manager, I essentially do the full end-to-end operations of the business I oversee, so from technology to logistics to support, you name it. So commercials, engaging in strategic relationships, that all falls in my responsibilities.
CIO&Leader: Can you tell me more about the telematics and fleet management, and what are you expecting out of those, and why especially those?
Carrel Wessels: Fleet management, we have a lot of different functionalities and features that ultimately is a partner to any company that owns a fleet of vehicles, whether that’s delivery vehicles, whether that’s rental vehicles, logistic vehicles, heavy equipment vehicles. We actually also have a client in India already that is operating school buses. So obviously they’re a school institution. They’ve got many buses for all their national schools.
And ultimately the features that we have on the platform, from analytics to target dashboards, how can I reduce cost, to just monitoring and reporting, seeing where the vehicles are, where the vehicles have been, the maintenance management of the vehicles, the cost management, fuel cost, charging cost, also looking at your predictive maintenance. How do I ultimately identify which vehicles are most likely for services due to increased driver behavior? So our devices from the dash cams to the devices can monitor different types of driver behavior.
And with that, it provides that detailed analytics to ultimately give us the insights and the capability to determine and tell the fleet manager where we can ultimately improve the cost of operation.
CIO&Leader: From my understanding, you are trying to expand in India, so what are your expectations from it, and how are you planning to do that?
Carrel Wessels: I think, India has been an amazing market for us. I think our story almost started here. The technology was built by our Coimbatore based team. The team has grown to quite an extensive size. But, you know, being a company back in 2015 when we started, we were still small. We didn’t have a lot of clients, meaning the cost of our solution was high because we didn’t have a lot of clients.
There wasn’t the same scale that we have now. Now with the scale that we have, we’re able to actually come in with very competitive pricing for the Indian market. As a result, we expect that we can now penetrate fully the Indian market. With that being said, we’re looking to have India contribute about 100 crore rupees to our revenue out of the global 500 crore rupees in the next five years.
CIO&Leader: And does that mean that there’s going to be an opportunity in job growth in India as well?
Carrel Wessels: Correct, correct. So we’re looking, we’ve actually built a 4,000-seater, we’re actually in process of building a 4,000-seater office in Kwaimetor. It’s obviously home for us. Kwaimetor has been our central point. It is a tier two city, but it’s also, there’s a lot of development happening there. There’s a lot of technology colleges, and it’s part of our almost giving back to that community in Kwaimetor to have the office built there and to support the upliftment of that tier two city as it’s developing.
So we’re looking to obviously employ roughly a thousand new developers, data analysts, AI specialists, sales team members, so the full team logistics in the India office over the next couple of years to then ultimately assist us in partnering with resellers and distributors and directly going to market to grow to that scale ultimately.
CIO&Leader: Right, so any challenges that you’re anticipating?
Carrel Wessels: I think as with any market, there’s always a learning curve, but I think it excites us that it’s a new challenge. I think we’re very much privileged that we have that local team already that has built the product. We’ve already partnered with some businesses already to learn from the market. So I think there’s challenges, but I think we’ve got expertise globally, and I think with that global expertise and the local team that we have, I believe that we have everything and we’re equipped to overcome those challenges.
I think price is one point. India is obviously a very price-sensitive market, but like I said, we have grown to a scale and we want to ultimately let the customer also have say in how we position the pricing in the market to be competitive and to get to the goal. I think for us it’s a long-term game, not trying to earn revenue in the short term, but to almost have a fast adaption of the product because of the good product that we have. We believe we have a solid product. We believe that we’re going to put very good commercials, competitive commercials out there and through that, you know, overcome the price sensitivity in India.
CIO&Leader: So you talked about revenue, right? What kind of revenue plans do you have? Any particular number that you are aiming for for the next, let’s say, two to three years?
Carrel Wessels: I would say we’re looking at 100 crore revenue contribution that India will bring to the AmberConnect global business. Yeah, apart from like the 500 crore globally that you mentioned.
CIO&Leader: Does that plan also include IPO?
Carrel Wessels Yes, correct. So we obviously are looking to that, so we’re positioning everything to ensure that we can eventually list the company. So we ultimately want to represent ourselves and I think India is also a very strategic market globally. There’s a lot of manufacturing. I mean, being the fourth largest vehicle manufacturer, obviously depending on the type of manufacturing, but, and there’s a lot of growth that’s happening in India, especially as there’s bans placed on other manufacturing countries and India’s developing, it’s becoming a contributor to global exports. We believe it’s a very strategic territory for us to have our footprint in order to, on the global scale, be recognized as one of the greatest vehicle telematics companies in the world.
CIO&Leader: So that brings me to the question, what are your plans, like road map for India, for let’s say five years?
Carrel Wessels: I think for the time being, the first thing is identifying strategic partners that will ultimately assist us in developing the key regions. So we’ll start obviously around the Coimbatore office, start in areas where we have a base, obviously looking where we have partners already, and from those partners, continuously work on identifying distributors and resellers. So we work with motor dealerships, we work with OEMs, we work with partners. I think the goal is to find the synergy with those companies, to find out which companies align most to the solutions that we offer.
Obviously, we have discussions with them where there’s a mutual relationship that we can form. Ultimately, we want to be in all 28 states in India, if I’m not mistaken, but all 28 states of India, ultimately we want to grow in the next five years. So that’s our target. Strategically, obviously looking step by step to partner with the right people, onboard the right staff in our office, and expand into regional offices as well as we move along.
CIO&Leader: Great, just one last question. Yes. Why Bharat Auto Expo? Why Bharat Auto Expo?
Carrel Wessels: I think we looked at a few Expos. We realized that this is quite a large event. We also decided that, look, we have never come to India itself, but we’ve always built our solutions here. So we thought that it’s an Expo where they showcase all mobility solutions and end-to-end solutions in different industries. There’s a lot of OEMs that also attend the exhibition, and a lot of people that we see as great partners to ultimately journey with in the next few years.
So we felt that as part of our launch, let’s come to the Bharat Mobility Expo, let’s look at the partners around us, let’s meet people that also are like-minded in terms of business, in terms of strategy to ultimately take AmberConnect India to where we are heading. We believe that it’s also a nationally recognized global event and we’re a global company. So because we’re a global company, it’s a global event, we just felt that it’s the right event for us.