Ab Initio’s Rhonda Ridge, creator of the AdminBase installer management system, gives a candid view of the difficult truth installation businesses are facing, and explains how the right tools can make all the difference when implementing change.
When you’ve been in business for a while and survived your fair share of market peaks and troughs, you could be forgiven for thinking you have everything figured out. You’re still here, so your formula for success must be working. This may be true, but only up to a point. Sometimes change can be so significant that your old faithful strategies are no longer relevant. What worked in the last recession, won’t necessarily work this time around. The difficult truth is, we are currently in a climate of unprecedented challenges. Covid and the war on Ukraine are still impacting the economy, while the cost-of-living crisis has filtered through to the home improvement market with reduced spending. The result of which means businesses need to switch things up to stand out from the competition and survive.
To build stability that will weather the storm you need impeccable teamwork but with built-in flexibility to quickly adapt to new circumstances. Businesses need to be agile. To achieve this, you need your entire team to have a far greater awareness of all aspects of the business at any given time. That is why one of the must-have tools for installation businesses now, is an all-encompassing installer management system.
The devil is in the detail
The AdminBase installer management system was designed and created over 20 years ago to help installation businesses closely track performance in all areas, at a glance. It has been popular for a long time, but in the current climate is becoming indispensable. Practicing what we preach with our own agile development tactics, new features are being added to the system all the time to ensure users have everything they need as market conditions change. One of the most recent features we have added is the AdminBase Task Board – an online job board that helps installation businesses easily keep track of the detail at every stage of every project.
The AdminBase Task board allows you to use cards for specific actions that need to be completed on each project, just as you would on a physical job board. People and deadlines are allocated to individual tasks. The benefit of moving a job board like this online, is that everyone in the business can see what needs to be done to achieve a particular goal at any time of the day, from any location. They can also see how their actions impact on the project as a whole. This improved visibility and accountability is a great way to bring teams together and improve productivity.
Information at your fingertips
Used as part of the AdminBase system, users can drill down into individual actions in the Task Board to find more information relating to that job. For example, if a team is booked to go on site to start an installation, they can double check that all the materials they need have arrived and the client has confirmed the installation date. The Task Board facility also blends seamlessly with the AdminBase checklist system to provide an overview of sales and installation pipelines at a glance, allowing teams to adapt quickly to fill any gaps, or allocate more resources to any bottlenecks.
Working together should probably be the theme of 2023, whether it be with suppliers, customers, or peers, but pulling together as a united team within a business has never been more important. With the need to be more agile as we continue to be subjected to new challenges, installation businesses need a tight structure with teams that work seamlessly together and have the ability to act quickly as and when needed. They need to monitor the progress of every job that is undertaken, employ clear and concise communication channels, and quickly act on any issues that arise. The AdminBase installer management system provides an excellent foundation to do all of this and a lot more.
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