digitaldealer.com recently had the pleasure of interviewing David Prusinski Co-CEO of Vehicle Management Systems. Prusinski is a proven technology executive with more than two decades of experience scaling automotive technology with deep domain expertise in fleet management services. He recently joined the team at VMS after serving as Chief Revenue Officer of Ford Integrated Services.
Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership roles in commercial fleet management services, sales, partnerships, marketing, and business development, helping to drive transformational growth and build global partner ecosystems. At VMS, he will focus on defining go-to-market strategies, strengthening partnerships with auto dealers and service providers, and expanding the company’s footprint across North America.
Prusinski shared what went into his decision to join VMS, what he’s most excited about in the new role and where he sees the world of Automotive AI and fleet management going in the future.
Digital Dealer: To start, can you share a little about yourself?
David Prusinski: Dave Prusinski, I’ve been in software for almost coming up on 30 years. Don’t hold that against me. I’ve been in SAS and scaling for 25 years. And for the last 15 years, I’ve been deeply into the connected vehicle world. Originally, 15 years ago, with a company called Fleet Complete, which was a little small Canadian player that we turned into one of the largest connected vehicle players in the world over a 10-year period. I left there, a short while afterwards, I joined Ford, where I was up until very recently, the Chief revenue officer for Ford’s Integrated Services where I was very fortunate to be able to bring software solutions, both retail, and for fleet, into millions of cars globally. It was an amazing experience.
A New Role at Vehicle Management Services
Digital Dealer: What went into your decision to join VMS?
Prusinski: I had an idea one day and I thought, hey, I really want to create something. I want to create a solution that would, we use the word democratized, maybe level the playing field, however you want to say it, the fleet in retail uptime solutions that exist out there. I want to do it for underserved segments. That would be for dealers that don’t have access to big OEM type tools, dealers that don’t have access to native connectivity out of vehicles, right?
That’s a huge underserviced market. I just thought, this is a really great opportunity. And when I went out to start talking to investors and I started talking to analysts and industry folks, everyone was giving me the thumbs up on, yeah, absolutely, this is a great idea. Just by chance, I ran into the VMS team and when I started talking to them, I took a look at the VMS platform and when I saw that, I went, okay, I really get this. This is something very different. This is not a telematics platform. It’s an intelligent operating layer for vehicles, fleets and owners that dealers can use to keep vehicles on the road. Traditional platforms, you think about telematics platforms, right? They capture data.
Well, VMS doesn’t do that. It captures, but it interprets it, it prioritizes it and it acts on it autonomously because it’s AI first and it’s AI native. And that’s what really got me excited. They’re not trying to retrofit intelligence on top of rules-based logic or legacy architectures, slapping it on top of a telematics. They built it from the ground up around intelligence, autonomy and insight. And that’s what got me very excited about this opportunity, that this is going to allow us to really fundamentally build new solutions for dealers and fleets and that the industry’s really never seen. And that’s kind of how we got where we are.
Digital Dealer: What are you most excited about joining VMS?
Prusinski: That’s the platform itself. The platform itself is going to lend to us as we start to deliver our first couple of solutions coming up very shortly, specifically in the dealer space. The dealer space, as we know, there’s a lot of things going on. I just got done rolling out software solutions and digital tools and global fleet strategies to 3,000 Ford dealers, right? And I’ve done it previously with Fleet Complete as well.
The dealers, they’ve got so much on their plate. And what are they trying to do? They’re trying to really service their customers. They’re trying to get their service revenues up. They’re trying to increase their service margins. They’re trying to create great relationships with their end retail customers and their end fleet customers. And that’s where I get excited because I know that the VMS platform and the first tools we’re going to be coming out with are going to service exactly that.
The Future of VMS
Digital Dealer: Are there any initiatives or launches in the pipeline for end of the year, early 2026, you’d be able to talk about?
Prusinski: We’re going to be able to offer tools that are going to reduce fleet downtime. They’re going to increase service revenue for dealers. They’re going to enhance customer satisfaction and there’s going to be a huge ROI for these dealers that deploy it because there’s real time dashboard analytics. Essentially, we’re rolling out one of the solutions, the first solutions, I don’t want to use the words yet because it’s not launched.
But it’s a tool to get the retail folks back into the dealerships. These solutions for dealers, they’re very onerous, right? You have to roll out enterprise architecture, communications gear, you have to have somebody staffing it, you have to have somebody picking up the phone calls, you have to have somebody making the phone calls out. Think about it, you have a signal, a connected vehicle coming into an AI platform that then automatically adjudicates what’s going on and says, we know what this is, and sending a communication right back out to that customer saying, here’s four service appointments. Choose one. The dealer also knows what’s the likely problem and has that part on hand ready to go.
It’s no longer I’ll just let it go. Also, the AI is making the decision and saying, this is actually a really critical thing. This could lead to being stranded on the road or in a catastrophic failure. Or, this is a situation where you’re going to get less fuel efficiency, but you still have to go to work Monday to Friday, you can bring in on the weekend. So that level of oversight and insight is now available to dealers, and they don’t have to be sitting on top of it all day long watching it. We’re really trying to give the easy button to dealers to have that amazing relationship with their customers to make sure one of the biggest capital expenditures they have is in good health. They get it back into the dealership when it needs service in a timely fashion. They don’t waste time by having to do diagnostics and then ordering parts and repair, because that part is already there and we know what it is. It’s an in and out scenario.
So you’re creating a sticky relationship with the customer, you’re creating a great experience for the customer, you’re increasing revenues and margins for the dealer, and you’re making the dealer’s life easy while you’re doing it. And that’s what really excites me for the dealer world.
Digital Dealer: How have those previous experiences prepared you for this new role and what are the things you’re bringing in from those old positions into VMS?
Prusinski: You know, some other folks have asked me: why would you go from a big OEM down to a startup? Well, obviously, agility, but I’m a builder. The fact is, I like to build things and each of the occasions I’ve done it before, you know, look at Ford. Ford, yes, it’s a large OEM, but I was one of the original people on the Ford Pro leadership team. And that was nothing. That was a big nothing before we got there. The software business was, nascent, it was very, very small, and now we’ve turned it into one of the most respected and prolific connected vehicle platforms for fleet in the world. In addition, I was very fortunate to run all the retail side of the house as well and be able to roll out software solutions to millions of vehicles globally.
But I digress. I bring over here the fact that I’ve done this before in multiple occasions, systems, global distribution, understanding the vehicle market, both from a fleet and a retail side. And I see these game changing type solutions. I’ve been fortunate to be on the front end of this on a couple of occasions. I see this as one of those opportunities that we will be able to change the industry with this. I think we’re really well prepared from a technology standpoint what the team’s built already, and the skills I bring to the table to be able to scale the organization moving forward.
From EVAI to VMS
Digital Dealer: What went into the decision to rebrand to vehicle management systems from EVAI?
Prusinski: It really had to do with the scope and the mission statement. When it was EVAI, the team built an amazing EV first platform. In the meantime, they also built an amazing ICE platform and a hybrid platform. I mean, the same pains and issues around automation, virtual fleet management, up time, increasing dealer margins and profits, exist for the EVs as they do for the ICE and the hybrid vehicles.
So really, it’s an acknowledgment and a signal to our customers in the market that we have a much greater scope and way greater capabilities than previously, and we’re actually going to be leaning into that much more moving forward. From the process perspective, we spoke to customers, we spoke to the general public and obviously our internal teams and this really fit what we were going to be doing.
Digital Dealer: How much is changing beyond just the name?
Prusinski: I’d say that the focus is also changing, again, the platform itself is an exceptionally malleable product. With it we’re going to be able to create new tools for the industry that people have probably never seen before in some cases. And that’s what’s really amazing, because it’s AI first, it’s going to allow us to do things that we’ve not been able to do before. So, now we’re tackling what we want to do around the underserved markets, right? We want to democratize these uptime platforms for the folks that don’t have it, that don’t have the scale, that don’t have the resources. The resourcing is very, very tough for this type of stuff.
We want to create a virtual fleet manager and we’re engineering towards that right now for fleets. We want to create an uptime communication system for dealers so that they can create those relationships without having to deploy a whole ton of resources and OpEx and systems and processes. We want to give them a package that allows them to create an amazing relationship with their own customers, that helps their bottom line as well.
Digital Dealer: What are your goals for the next six months to year in the role?
Prusinski: So right now it’s about further investment in the platform, making sure that we use our most recent funding, that we’re well funded, and putting that technology into the platform to continue to develop. Then also work on building out our distribution and building out how we work with our customers in North America first and then finally working on developing those training and onboarding systems and platforms so that we’re ready to scale when we launch our products.
Then in the long run, it’s all about, what we want to become. We want to become the universal platform for uptime for retailing fleets, that is AI first, and that’s a super key differentiator. That AI first allows us to move fast, allows us to come up with unique solutions, and we’re not trying to retrofit legacy systems out there.
AI, Fleet Management and Future Growth
Digital Dealer: Currently, what do you see as the biggest opportunities for dealers in the fleet management space?
Prusinski: Right now, it would be how do they get closer to their fleet customers? Fleets are looking for help to stay on the road. Uptime is the biggest issue that fleets have right now. Most of the larger fleets have a lot of support because they have the resources and capabilities to do it. They have FMCs, who will deal with them, they have the ability to deploy enterprise software systems and telematic systems, ancillary fleet management systems. And on and on and on. When it comes down to the dealers, the dealers have great relationships with the local and small, medium sized, business fleets. They need to move closer to them. They need to start to work with them and become an uptime provider for those fleets, because they don’t have the resources necessarily to do it themselves.
You take a 10-unit fleet, you take that 10 units, and take two vehicles off the road, which is not probably an untoward thing, it happens all the time. One’s a fleet tire, one something else. That’s 20 percent of revenues for that small business gone overnight. So, if dealers can spend their time deploying really great digital tools to drive uptime strategies with their fleets and to help them keep them on the road and get those vehicles back, that would be a really smart thing to do.
Digital Dealer: Where do you see the future of Automotive AI going within the next year or two?
Prusinski: That is at the core of what we’re doing, right? We are deploying EAI at the very core of our business, the foundation of our platform. AI is going to transform the fleet world, in my opinion. And that’s one of the reasons I came over here. When you look at AI and you think about the fleet market, again, it’s all about resourcing. Typically, the fleet manager for a small fleet is a person that’s in a truck driving around on a daily basis making calls. It’s a sole proprietor with five other trucks, ten other trucks, they don’t have time to get into the system, setting up ROs at the end of the day, making sure a truck’s running, making sure scheduled maintenance is done.
With AI and with ours as we’re developing and engineering, that’s going to be a completely automated process. That fleet manager for an SMB will now be able to say, oh, look, my virtual fleet Manager is saying, “I’ve got a problem with this truck. It’s already presented me with options of where it needs to go because of location and because of the type of repair. And by the way, it’s also saying possibly what the costs are or how long it’s going to be down for.”
Then it’s really not about spending all that time doing that work, but it’s now just a decision point for that place. Yes. Click, done, and it’s off to the races. And that’s where the autonomous decision making of the VMS platform really shines, and that’s where it’s going to be super key in bringing scalable solutions for small businesses, where they could not have had them before.
Digital Dealer: How does VMS help a dealer strengthen their fleet partnerships?
Prusinski: I would say that with VMS that dealer doesn’t have to deploy a bunch of resources to be able to create a very strong relationship that will provide uptime for fleets in a seamless, clear and easy fashion. You’re going to be able to take care of a fleet, keep it on the road, and you’re going to be able to strengthen your relationship with that fleet while increasing your margins, while increasing your revenues, and the fleet will have much better uptime, much better vehicle health, and care. And again, those critical business assets will keep driving and making money as opposed to being stuck on the side of the road with a critical failure.
Digital Dealer: Anything else you want to toss in about the new role or the new rebrand?
Prusinski: I would just say, going back to the vision statement, our goal and our job is we want to become the universal AI powered vehicle health platform. Trusted by fleets, drivers, dealerships, and repair shops, and we want to really unlock a smarter and more transparent life for every vehicle on the road. From whether it be retail, one of the biggest capital expenditures a person will do, keeping that incredibly expensive capital expense on the road running or in a business keeping that incredibly important business asset running so they’re making revenues.
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