Over the past 18 months the WTIA has been doing discovery on Telematics companies located in the Northwest.  Some of these are home grown innovators while others are divisions of major players that opened shop in Puget Sound because of our rich talent pool and dynamic ecosystem.  Telematics may be the best-kept technology secret in Washington; a thriving and growing multi-billion dollar per year industry that most people are unaware of.

Telematics Defined

Telematics is any integrated use of telecommunications and informatics technologies. There are two primary underlying concepts that are embedded in Telematics technologies:

1)     Sending, receiving and storing information via telecom devices in conjunction with control on remote objects.

2)     Global positioning: Transmitting measurements from a location of origin to the location of the computing/consumption device.

The Washington Telematics Ecosystem

Our broadest taxonomy methodology is to classify tech companies into one of three major verticals – hardware, software or services.

This classification system creates a systematic framework for gathering data and evaluating the technology market through a consistent lens. Our goal is to understand how the market functions, where companies fit in and how they overlap (compete) in fundamental offerings.

Given this framework, the following chart provides a general overview of the major companies (and offerings) engaged in the Washington State Telematics Industry.

As illustrated in the above chart, Telematics has a great deal of overlap with traditional industries like telecommunications, aerospace, automotive, entertainment, distribution/supply chain, and cloud services.

The WTIA believes that Puget Sound is uniquely positioned to realize accelerated growth in the proliferation of telematics technologies, primarily because the region already has a very strong economic mix of many of the complimentary industries where these technologies will be utilized.

Conclusion

The exciting and complex nature of the telematics industry and its market opportunity is huge. The cluster in Washington, with its core focus of integrating information and communication technologies, will continue to draw more players to the state.

Our region’s position as a hub for telematics won’t be a secret for long.  WTIA is featuring the sector at our upcoming Tech in Focus event on July 17^th and at our TechNW signature event on October 23^rd.  Join us in hearing from the companies that are quietly leading what may be the hottest sector developing in the Northwest.

Get ready for the flying car!!