5 Benefits of Geolocation for Your Mobile Teams and Your Business

09/07/2026
16:00

Reading time: 6 min

Always out in the field, your delivery drivers, installers, and technicians have far more to gain from geolocation than they might imagine. And so does your company! It all depends on how you integrate it into your processes and your application chains.

Geolocation consists of locating an object (or a person via an object) on a map or digital plan using geographic coordinates retrieved by GPS or via mobile telephone networks. By equipping your teams with business applications that use real-time geolocation data, you not only improve the overall monitoring of their activity and their safety, but also the means available to each individual to organize their time and carry out their field missions more effectively.

Greater safety during travel and on-site interventions

Whatever the profession, when you spend a lot of time on the road, you are never entirely safe from a breakdown, an incident, or an accident. Being geolocatable — via a smartphone or a system embedded in the vehicle — allows the company to know exactly where a team member in difficulty is located and, if they are not in a position to act themselves, to more quickly dispatch a breakdown service or emergency responders by providing them with precise geographic coordinates.

Another safety concern: in the event of vehicle theft, the vehicle is much easier to recover if it is fitted with a geolocation device — which is why company fleet managers are increasingly making this type of equipment standard, and some insurance companies now require it. This does not resolve the problem of theft from delivery vehicles loaded with parcels, or the assaults and robberies that delivery drivers can fall victim to. For this reason, it is advisable to also equip them with an application from which they can easily send an SOS and be geolocated. The same type of device will also protect technicians working on installations or operations that may pose risks to their physical safety.

Non-intrusive monitoring

It is widely acknowledged that route management tools using real-time geolocation are often perceived by employees as monitoring tools — or even surveillance. However, when implemented in strict compliance with the rules governing its use (see below), this technology enables managers to monitor the activity of their field teams in a less intrusive way than by calling them constantly to find out where they are, or by requiring them to call the company after each visit or intervention. The automatic sending of a notification when the technician sets off again, or when they close an intervention in their business application, is both faster and less disruptive.

Since operational managers have other things to do than follow the movements of their teams minute by minute to ensure they are where they should be, they can receive only the notifications flagging a significant delay relative to the initial schedule that has consequences for subsequent appointments. The customers concerned can then be notified by the company — by a phone call or SMS — of the delay or, if necessary, of the rescheduling of the visit, intervention, or delivery.

This saves technicians and delivery drivers both the time of contacting customers themselves and the unnecessary risks of trying to make up for lost time on the road.

Greater responsiveness to emergencies

Continuous monitoring of field teams strengthens the company’s ability to handle customer emergencies while disrupting established route plans as little as possible. If vehicles and/or on-duty technicians are geolocated, it is very easy to identify on the map the team that can reach the customer in the shortest time — taking into account not only distance, but also traffic conditions and additional criteria such as the technicians’ skills, the presence of the necessary tools on board the vehicle, and the estimated duration of the ongoing intervention.

If Team A is the closest to the customer’s site but has just begun an intervention expected to last 1 hour 30 minutes, it will be better to send Team B, which is farther away but is in the process of finishing a maintenance visit.

Team B’s route plan will be automatically readjusted to incorporate this emergency, and it will be up to the customer service or call center team to notify the customers affected by this change. Since all the company’s customers are geolocated, the team in question will be guided along the best route to reach the customer as quickly as possible from their current location.

Real-time customer information

A customer facing an emergency or a loss, or waiting for a home delivery, will be less likely to become impatient or anxious if they can follow the approach of the vehicle in real time and receive a reliable estimated time of arrival. This use of geolocation data has made the success of consumer applications such as Uber and Deliveroo. The route optimization solutions developed by Nomadia enable all companies to access this type of feature — not only to reassure their customers on the day itself, but also — as we explained in this post — to ensure in advance, typically by sending a reminder SMS the day before, that they will indeed be present at the agreed time to receive the delivery driver or technician. If that is not the case, schedules can be updated to avoid both idle time and unnecessary journeys.

More realistic route plans

Regular analysis of the geolocation data fed back by mobile business applications subsequently enables the teams in charge of planning to refine the parameters used to calculate routes. Comparing planned routes with those actually completed will allow them to identify recurring difficulties caused, for example, by an underestimation of certain journey times at certain times of day due to traffic congestion. Knowing the travel time between two intervention sites, the arrival and departure times of the team at each location, and the types of interventions carried out, planners will also be able to revise upwards or downwards the theoretical duration of each category of intervention. Routes calculated with these new parameters will better account for operational constraints than previous ones, and will enable field teams to be provided with realistic schedules that minimize travel times, genuinely account for intervention durations, and thereby avoid delays at customer sites and excessively long working days.

This type of result can only be achieved with optimization and field tools that communicate effectively with one another and are capable of using geolocation data both in real time — for on-the-fly adjustments — and after the fact, in a logic of continuous improvement.

A strictly regulated use

The implementation of a geolocation system within a company, including for the purpose of rationalizing and optimizing employee activity, is governed by the CNIL (French data protection authority), the GDPR, labor law, and an increasingly extensive body of case law. As an employer, the company is obliged to:

Define the purpose of geolocation. It is prohibited to use it to verify that employees comply with speed limits, to monitor the working hours of sales representatives (VRP), or to monitor the movements of employees outside of working hours when they use a company vehicle fitted with a geolocation device for private purposes. The device must also be deactivatable by the employee outside of working hours. Geolocation of employees’ personal phones is strictly prohibited.
Consult employee representatives and the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) to gather their opinions. It should be noted that a negative opinion from the CSE does not prevent the implementation of the geolocation system.
Individually inform all employees concerned before the system is implemented (by letter, email, memo, or information meeting). The introduction of geolocation may be the subject of an addendum to the employment contract.
Declare the geolocation system in the company’s GDPR register, specifying the objectives, the data collected, the recipients of this data, the envisaged processing operations, and the data retention period, which may not exceed 2 months.
Ensure the security and confidentiality of the data, from acquisition through to destruction, as with any other personal information held by the company.

As can be seen, employees are far better protected against abusive uses of geolocation than when they use — in a private capacity — certain consumer applications that geolocate them for purposes that are, to say the least, questionable, yet whose terms of use they have accepted without hesitation — and, of course, without reading them.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ – The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Nomadia

Why Choose Nomadia?

As France’s leading publisher of Smart Mobility SaaS solutions, Nomadia supports more than 175,000 field professionals every day. Our solutions are easy to use, quick to deploy, and deliver significant and immediate return on investment.

Drawing on the expertise of both a software publisher-integrator and a consulting firm, Nomadia’s teams provide tailored support, from data consulting to the deployment of mobile devices. Finally, our technical support team is available 24/7 to assist you.

Who Are Nomadia Solutions Designed For?

Nomadia solutions support the digital transformation of all mobile professionals: field sales representatives, delivery drivers, technicians, auditors, healthcare workers, inspectors, service providers, security patrol officers, experts, and more.

Whether for SMEs or large enterprises, our solutions adapt to businesses of all sizes and across all industries.

How Much Does It Cost?

Nomadia Delivery offers transparent and flexible pricing, which primarily depends on the number of users (for example, planners and dispatchers) rather than a fixed cost per parcel.

Thanks to this model, you can control your delivery costs based on the number of resources (users) involved in route management, providing great flexibility to adjust your subscription according to the size of your fleet and your operational needs.

Is It Compatible with My Current ERP System?

Yes! Nomadia Delivery has been designed to integrate quickly and easily into your existing environment thanks to our powerful and secure APIs. Our solution is compatible with most ERP systems on the market. API integration enables the automatic synchronization of your transport orders, customer orders, and customer information, ensuring smooth and error-free delivery tracking. The solution also offers user-friendly import capabilities with data validation controls, as well as export options in multiple customizable formats.

Is It Suitable for Our Delivery Volume?

Yes, Nomadia Delivery is ideal for companies that manage a high volume of deliveries and want to optimize their routes, create balanced territories for their drivers, and ensure precise tracking of every parcel. Nomadia Delivery adapts to fleets of all sizes!

Can Multiple Warehouses or Depots Be Managed?

Yes, our solution allows you to manage multiple warehouses or depots. It centralizes data and optimizes routes or service operations for each of them.

Is There a Limit to the Number of Stops in Route Optimizations?

No, there is no strict limit to the number of stops in route optimizations. Our solution can handle large volumes of stops and quickly calculate optimized routes.

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