Cable East saves $2.5M through reliable asset recovery
Cable East achieves unparalleled asset recovery and business efficiency improvements by using Samsara to track hundreds of assets in real time.
![Video-Based Safety [icon]](https://images.ctfassets.net/bx9krvy0u3sx/79hjZ8V9rQKrIz0DxMoWzN/9ea5562cdba36bb025a519c5709c01f2/safety.png?w=2160&h=2160&fm=webp&q=80)
Meet Cable East
Inefficient asset tracking delayed recovery and cost millions.
Cable East, a telecommunications construction company in northeast Georgia, faced critical challenges in tracking their widespread assets and fleet. Before partnering with Samsara, lost and stolen assets were difficult to track down and cost the business millions of dollars. Cable East required a simplified solution for tracking over 400 assets and recovering stolen equipment efficiently, without exhausting resources or bandwidth. They also aimed to improve safety across their organization by focusing on driver protection, coaching, and preventative vehicle maintenance.
Unlocking asset and vehicle visibility by connecting real-time data.
Cable East partnered with Samsara to unify their asset tracking, vehicle safety, and preventative maintenance. By consolidating solutions across their organization, Cable East upleveled their business and increased operational efficiency, saving millions. Beyond that, the Cable East team developed a deep partnership with Samsara. “Samsara’s back office service is unmatched,” said Billy Porter, Director of Risk Management. “Anybody can sell you a product, but Samsara follows through to make sure your needs are met and you have constant support. Whenever I have questions, I talk to a real person who is incredibly knowledgeable about Samsara products. The service and support from the Samsara team is truly what makes them stand out.”
Improving recovery and customer service through streamlined asset tracking.
As a result of partnering with Samsara, Cable East successfully recovered an estimated $2.5 million in assets over four years. Precise GPS data enabled efficient recovery of stolen and lost assets and facilitated effective collaboration with law enforcement.
LEARN MORERecovering stolen assets with ease.
Samsara’s Asset Tracking was instrumental in daily location checks of Cable East’s 400+ assets, providing the fleet management team with crucial GPS location data. By tracking their fleet of equipment, Cable East ensured they had the assets they needed to complete each job.
Over the course of four years, Cable East recovered $2.5 million worth of assets, which would have been permanently lost without Samsara. "I can physically put my hands on $2.5 million in assets that we never would have seen again without Samsara," Porter said. “These recoveries were a direct result of the enhanced visibility and monitoring capabilities provided by Samsara.”
Cable East uses geofencing to automatically track assets that should only be used in specific geographic areas, and receives alerts if those assets leave that area. This automated approach to asset tracking saves the back office team time and streamlines the monitoring of expensive equipment. In addition to peace of mind, this asset recovery continues to pay off for Cable East.
“If we continued to pay Samsara in perpetuity and never recovered another piece of equipment, I think we’d still owe Samsara money. What we’ve already saved in recovered assets means our investment in Asset Tracking has already paid for itself several times over,” said Porter.
With GPS data, Cable East has also worked closely with law enforcement to recover stolen assets more quickly than ever before. Many of these assets were recovered in remote areas, and without Samsara, these assets would have been near impossible to find.
Greater customer service is achieved with heightened security.
Cable East applied Samsara Asset Tracking to a wide range of assets, including trailers and heavy equipment. This real-time tracking is especially important for Cable East as they strive to provide world-class service to their customers.
“In today’s supply chain, I can’t just replace a piece of stolen equipment with a phone call. It can take months; that has ripple effects on my ability to serve my customers in a timely manner,” Porter said. “It’s more important than ever that we protect ourselves from unnecessary downtime due to asset theft.”
Exonerating drivers and building a culture of safety.
Before partnering with Samsara, Cable East had limited visibility into driver behaviors on the road. With Samsara AI Dash Cams, the Cable East team gained real-time, HD visibility outside the cab, which gave them the ability to quickly exonerate drivers in not-at-fault incidents.
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Protecting drivers with HD exoneration footage.
Prior to Samsara, Cable East’s dash cams didn’t provide clear and consistent visibility on the road, and the footage was often difficult to access or unusable for exoneration. Samsara AI Dash Cam footage now provides HD evidence that is easily accessible via the Samsara Dashboard.
"I've had multiple occasions where we have downloaded footage within minutes of an incident and shared it with law enforcement. Police quickly reviewed it and determined our driver was not at fault," Porter said.
Reliable exoneration footage was key to driver buy-in. "Not every driver is on board with dash cams right away,” Porter said. “But once they’ve seen a real exoneration, you get a dash cam convert for life."
The Cable East team also credits early, intentional communication with drivers as a key factor in successfully achieving driver buy-in. “We really worked with our drivers to let them know we trust them, and that dash cams are for their safety and to protect them. Now dash cams are very routine—they’re just a part of everyday life,” said Porter.
Building an enduring culture of safety with objective coaching.
The Samsara Video-Based Safety solution also allowed for more personalized driver coaching. By using dash cam footage, Cable East is removing subjectivity from discussions about driving behaviors, and providing an evidence-based approach to driver improvement.
The introduction of dash cams led to a cultural shift within the company, empowering drivers to take control of their safety. “When we introduced Samsara, and drivers realized they could see their own driving performance in the Dashboard, they started coming to us to coach them on specific behaviors so they can improve,” Porter said.
Samsara AI Dash Cams also automatically identify common risky driving behaviors like tailgating and speeding. The Cable East team uses this automated process to streamline their coaching, and now they spend less time reviewing footage and more time helping drivers build safer driving habits.
Automating preventative maintenance with enhanced vehicle insights.
Prior to partnering with Samsara, Cable East manually tracked preventative maintenance for their vehicles. Now, Cable East uses Samsara Vehicle Telematics to automatically track vehicle health, turning reactive maintenance into proactive maintenance.
LEARN MORERobust vehicle data anytime, anywhere.
Looking for a streamlined solution to monitor vehicle and asset health, Cable East turned to Samsara Vehicle Telematics. With real-time data on engine fault codes, DEF levels, and more, Cable East streamlined their vehicle health monitoring to match their rapidly growing business.
“Back when we were much smaller, we could mostly keep up with maintenance with index cards and a filing cabinet,” Porter said. “Now that we’ve got over 400 vehicles and 100 drivers, we need something much more sophisticated. With Samsara, we can pull any information we need instantly, and check on our vehicles in real time.”
This connected data has resulted in less vehicle downtime across Cable East’s fleet.
“The diagnostics that we get for our fleet vehicles is just tremendous,” Porter said. “There are so many instances where we have caught an issue before it became a real problem for us. That saves us so much time and money, and prevents unnecessary vehicle downtime.”
