Taking The Plunge

One of the big advantages with IMS is how fast you can get up and going. Most of our new customers take advantage of this and start gaining the benefits almost immediately. One recent example of this is a plumbing company in Canberra who had their 10 field staff interacting with the system within a week of deciding to go ahead.

While our success stories far out weigh the companies who are slow on the uptake we still have a number who find it hard to get going despite significant improvements in our documentation and customer service.

So why does it happen and is there anymore i-man can do to help?

The main problem we are seeing is that companies or key personnel are not committed to change. The situation is made worse when only half hearted attempts are made to implement the system. This leads a breakdown in information workflow because only some people are using it, reducing the benefit the system.

Alan Quinn from Project Relocations was one such case. The company runs a team of riggers who specialize in relocation of electrical equipment, Switchboards, generators etc. Envisaging riggers entering daily job sheet information into a PDA was difficult for them to get their head around.

Project Relocations first implemented IMS in September 2008 but they hardly used the system until March 2009. Alan new they were missing out big time on chargeable hours and finally committed to using IMS properly, they have not looked back since.

The business reality for anyone who has workers in the field is that if you can not streamline your information flow between the office and the field it will be costing you time and money, lots of it!

The tangible benefits were significant and immediate but they noticed intangible benefits as well. Alan recently had a customer ask for a break up of hours and crane rates for a job. "I called him back a few minutes later and gave them to him, he could not believe it. He was expecting me to get back to him in a couple of weeks, and this left a very positive impression with our customer".

There is little i-man can do to speed up the implementation process if the commitment is not there from the company. You need to ask yourself what it is costing you in time and money if you do not commit.