With a forward-looking view beyond insurance, AXA has been pursuing its “Beyond” strategy for some time now, within which new services are tested and launched that go beyond the insurance business.
January 2017 – An idea becomes a project
One of these started in January 2017 under the name “Rent’n’Share” with flexible car subscriptions. At the time, this offer of new cars with a flexible term and a monthly price that included all expenses was something completely new. A small project team – including our current Chief Market Officer and Chief Technology Officer – started an initial test run. Then, in August 2017, the very first car on subscription in Switzerland was delivered to a customer in Zurich.
April 2018 – A second service follows
While the car subscription continued to grow, the AXA Fleet Management service was launched in parallel in April 2018 as a separate project. Both services successfully gained market share. While Fleet Management was offered exclusively to corporate customers, Auto-Abo initially focused primarily on private customers. However, it soon became clear that smaller companies and start-ups were also very interested in vehicles with flexible terms. Both services also required immense expertise in the field of mobility in order to offer customers comprehensive advice.
April 2019 – Two services become a total solution
Due to these circumstances, fleet management and car subscription were combined into a holistic mobility solution under the UPTO brand in April 2019. The following fall, on November 11, 2019, AXA Mobility Services AG (AMS for short) was then established as the brand’s legal entity. In the process, the all-round offering was supplemented with an in-house workshop in Volketswil.
2020 – the IT platform as a stable basis
The AMS business model is unique in Switzerland. In order to link all services in the best possible way, they are based on a sophisticated IT platform that is continuously being developed. In this way, the UPTO brand builds a bridge between a new digital offering in the form of car subscriptions and personally supervised fleet management. Wherever processes converge, the company’s expertise is leveraged across services. For example, the damage and breakdown service – which is included in the car subscription – is handled by the mobility experts in fleet management. These in turn are supported in their work by the digital processes of the IT platform.
From 2021 – Continuous further development
These processes are largely developed in-house and with selected partners. For example, in the spring of 2021, the tire management of the cars was carried out completely digitally for the first time. This, too, has not yet been implemented in Switzerland in this form and is far from being the only individual process solution: processes are continuously being developed and implemented for fleet management customers that are tailored to the needs of their companies. UPTO’s service concept is based precisely on such individual solutions. Since the merger of car subscription and fleet management, the young company has focused on supporting its customers with modular and flexible solutions. Since summer 2022, the offer has also been extended to e-mobility. Since then, companies have been offered free opportunity-risk analyses for the electrification of companies. In addition, the UPTO e-mobility calculator for companies and private individuals was launched. This allows individual vehicles to be quickly and easily compared online with an e-car.
From 2022 – A look into the future
Even today, three years after the founding of AMS and more than six years after the original launch of the “Rent’n’Share” project, there is still a long way to go for further developments. In the coming years, the company will continue to work on its comprehensive range of services in order to be able to offer customers even better solutions. By the way, the UPTO team now consists of over twenty employees and brings together well over 100 years of mobility experience.
