CEO Dan Williams and COO Amein Punjani share the history of Amerit Fleet Solutions while the company celebrates its 10-year anniversary.
The Beginning – How two friends founded Amerit Fleet Solutions.
As Amein Punjani likes to say, “Amerit Fleet Solutions did not come into being in just one day.” In fact, a friendship between Williams and Punjani was rolling long before Amerit’s Mobile Service Centers were.
The two met in grade nine science class and have been close friends ever since. After attending the same college and then moving to California, Williams and Punjani dedicated themselves to consulting work. After some time, they started to notice more and more of their projects fell under one area: fleet services.
In 2010, Williams and Punjani responded to a Request For Proposal for fleet maintenance services from the largest fleet in the US. Their unique approach and plan included forming an alliance with maintenance industry experts, and so with no employees and no past history, KellyAmerit won the largest fleet contract in US history. And within a few short weeks, KellyAmerit was operating in 23 states and had grown to over 650 employees.
After successfully launching their first national client and establishing an efficient fleet maintenance program for some of the largest fleets in the country, Amerit fully acquired Kelly Fleet Services and became Amerit Fleet Solutions, the most trusted and respected fleet maintenance company nationwide.
After winning the largest fleet contract in history, what came next?
With no employees, and no past history, Punjani expressed the uncertainty they faced from the industry. “Everyone said it couldn’t be done. We were told there was a reason that national fleets weren’t integrated under a single contract provider. But the more we spoke to potential clients and crafted our solutions, we started thinking, ‘wait a second, we can do this!’ We clearly saw the need for a single source provider, and we answered it.”
Fleet by fleet, Amerit built an impressive portfolio.
After acquiring Kelly Fleet Services, Amerit won the business of other large-scale fleets in telecom, food/beverage, retail, for-hire carriers and other industries. Today, the Amerit team services the five largest fleets in the country, and their customer list continues to grow. Williams explains, “From starting with one customer 10 years ago, one of the things we are most proud of is the impressive list of well recognized companies that we serve today.”
Company Growth – What makes Amerit successful.
Since the beginning Amerit’s focus has been on large, national fleets. To this day, Amerit wants to be an organizations’ strategic partner, to maintain all of their assets at all locations, and to help their clients run their fleet operations better, faster and more reliably.
Williams shares, “One of the reasons we continue to grow is because we are always striving to be better – whether that’s doing better in the field and providing more reliable services, or it’s focusing on our back office operating more efficiently.”
As Amerit looks to the future, they project continued success and growth. Williams says, “We may start to look at new service offerings. In the last 10 years we’ve added many services including mobile service centers and fleet service centers. We’re committed to looking at new ways we can expand on our customer relationships and deliver more value.”
Customer relationships and tailormade service programs are fundamental to Amerit’s success. Punjani says, “We do everything how our customers want it. Not every company works the same way. They have different policies, different procedures. We think of all that when we create a service solution. Our custom solutions for large clients have worked tremendously over the last 10 years, and we’ve brought in some fantastic new customers because of this approach.”
Sharing Success
Amerit has been very successful over the past 10 years. When the company began, Williams and Punjani both admit they weren’t sure what the business would look like down the road, because no-one had done it before. But as the 10-year anniversary celebrations continue for Amerit, both CEO and COO expressed the same sentiment: Gratitude.
“I’m so grateful for everyone that’s helped build this company up. It’s amazing to me that we had this huge challenge in taking on our first, national customer and they’re still one of our biggest clients today. And we couldn’t have done that without our employees. I’m so thankful for everyone that’s contributed whether they’re an executive, director, senior manager or fleet manager, technician, garage support or corporate employee. I am just so thankful for our employees and everything they’ve done for Amerit… But hang on, it’s only going to get better.” -Amerit COO, Amein Punjani
“As I reflect on the last 10 years and think about this incredible milestone, so many emotions and memories come to mind, but the biggest emotion I feel is gratitude. Everything that we have done is because of the people around us. I am 100% confident that we would not have had anywhere near the success that we had if we didn’t have so many wonderful men and women working with us tirelessly every day. We are building something really special, something that is going to last a long time and something that our customers really appreciate and value. So, to all of our employees, a very heartfelt thank you. We are nothing without all of you and I cannot wait to spend the next 10 years together.” -Amerit CEO, Dan Williams
