Many people hear that we are a commercial building maintenance company and immediately make several assumptions, not the least of which being that we could not possibly be a technologically advanced business. This would be 100% wrong. Part of my responsibilities as Pro Power Clean’s Director of Internal Operations is to make sure that we are doing things in the most efficient manner possible, which in this day and age goes hand in hand with staying up on all the latest in business technology. Recently we have undergone quite the I.T. makeover partly due to a little Mountain View based company you may have heard of named Google. By collaborating with local I.T. guru Paul Brundage (Owner of NouveauTek) we have been able to accomplish a level of technological sophistication that even 12 months ago would have cost a small fortune, but today costs us almost nothing.
“What’s Google got to do with it?”
Google has released and fine tuned several services that have made a significant impact on the use of affordable technology in small business. I will start out by listing each of these services and describing their primary uses. Then once we have all the pieces we will go back through and visit some scenarios that describe how they are used in our day to day operations.
Google Mail (Gmail)
While most of you know that you can have your personal email for free on Google (yourname@gmail.com), I bet there are a lot of you that didn’t know that you could also host your company’s e-mail services on Google (yourname@yourcompany.com). Also for those of you who want to keep MS Outlook as your primary e-mail client, Gmail is 100% compatible. Best of all, the storage space is nearly unlimited and the service is totally free.
Google Calendar
Google’s free online based calendar tool.
Google Contacts
Google’s free online based contact manager.
Google Wave
Google’s online based collaboration and brainstorming tool. (Still free, but currently invite only due to BETA status)
Google Docs
Google’s free online based document editing and sharing tool.
Google Latitude
Google’s free online based GPS group tracking system. (Must have compatible smart phone)
(A little creepy, I know)
Google Voice
Probably one of the most innovative and earth shaking services developed this year, Google Voice is an advanced VOIP service which allows you to make and receive unlimited free phone calls within the United States, have one number that can be programmed to chase you to any phone of your choice, have unified and advanced voice mail features and make ridiculously inexpensive international phone calls (2¢ per minute to UK). (Mostly free, but currently invite only due to BETA status)
Google Sync
A free application that allows you to keep your calendar and your contacts synced between Google online tools and your MS Outlook.
Google Based Android Smart Phones
Not only are these Linux based smart phones on par (if not better than) all of their competitors (iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc), but they are 100% compatible and basically plug and play ready with all of the services listed above. In addition they are one of the easiest to operate smart phones on the market, which in my humble opinion is of paramount importance due to the fact that not everyone who works for you is likely to have a technology background.
“Real World Usability”
Now that we’ve talked about all of these great services, what do they mean to you? Below I have listed several scenarios that take place in our business using these technologies on a daily basis.
Scenario #1
Its noon and I am out of the office at a lunch meeting, after lunch I’m planning to meet our Vice President at a client’s location for a meeting. While I’m having lunch the client calls into our office and re-schedules our appointment. Our receptionist pulls up our calendars on her computer and changes the appointment, moments later the calendars on both of our phones change to the new time/date and alerts us to the changes in our schedules.
Scenario #2
During a meeting with a new client I am given several contacts with phone numbers and e-mails. I enter these into my phone making them immediately available to my receptionist and to my office computer’s MS Outlook. Once my receptionist has decided who else in the company warrants access to these contacts she opens my contacts up to them as well.
Scenario #3
I have 3 field supervisors who are out inspecting some of our client’s buildings while we are having an executive staff meeting in our conference room. While discussing the efficiency of our current inspection routes and travel time we decide to pull up Google Latitude on our conference room projector and observe by GPS the exact locations of our field supervisors and the efficiency of their travel from one building to the next, all using their cell phones.
Scenario #4
I talked all day on my Verizon Google smart phone to people with other wireless providers and landlines and I did it without using any of my minutes. How you may ask? Google Voice, by installing this free application on your Google smartphone and configuring it correctly you will never have to worry about your minutes again.
Scenario #5
I’m working from home, our VP is in his office and our Sales Manager is on vacation. Suddenly a high priority request for proposal comes through and we all need to be able to collaborate from where we are to create our proposal. By uploading our template to Google Docs and creating a new “Shared Wave” in Google Wave we are all able to work together, and share ideas in real-time to develop our high priority proposal.
Conclusion
I hope this article and my “scenarios” have helped you along in understanding some of the high tech / cost effective tools that are now available and what they can do for your business. But I am a firm believer in “individual needs” and the best way to find out which of these tools would help you to do business more efficiently is to either research and experiment with them yourself or to meet with an experienced professional like Paul Brundage for a free consultation. I hope that other businesses can take our lead in learning that just because your technology budget is small, does not mean that you cannot utilize high tech tools that will make your companies time more efficient and more profitable.
This Article was written by Andrew J. Allsbury of Pro Power Clean.
Andrew is the Director of Internal Operations for Pro Power Clean, Inc. based in Boise Idaho. He has an extensive background in sales, advertising, operations, technology and executive management.
Pro Power Clean, Inc. is the premiere commercial building maintenance company serving southwestern Idaho since 1995. A testament to their success is that since inception Pro Power Clean has retained approximately 92% of all clients it has acquired.
Twitter: @ProPowerClean
