Business Info - issue 147

01732 759725 17 magazine BI: You have won some high-profile customers in a relatively short period. TF: You would think that customers like BNP and Allianz wouldn’t risk working with start-ups, but the average quality of maintenance has historically been so bad that they were really eager to try something new. They also understood that we could help them build their data strategy and their smart building strategy.When we work on generating data that can help customers understand their building, we build those solutions directly with them and for them.We have calls with their heads of data, product, digital to make sure we can be a long-term partner in their strategies. BI: Can your data be integrated into other systems as well? TF: Absolutely.We try to achieve interoperability as much as possible and are already looking at state-of-the-art solutions for smart buildings – things like BIM (building information models) where all smart devices in a building share and generate data.We will integrate with that once we have customers that are interested in doing so. We already have APIs that we offer to customers so that they can get data – and really fine-grain data – from any device they are interested in.We want to build their data strategy with them; we want to offer them access to that data. That’s helped us to secure accounts that are a bit more mature than the industry as a whole when it comes to moving to a data era. BI: You have a very technical side to your business, but ultimately you are dependent on engineers to fix and maintain the equipment.What do they think of your approach? TF: When we started the company, we thought it would be an issue, because typically a lift engineer will have 120 to 150 lifts to maintain in a given window – 6 weeks in France, 4 weeks in the UK. They have so many visits to make that they don’t always have enough time for proper maintenance. Our proposition value is not limited to the customer’s needs; we also had a clear proposition value for the engineers, giving them a much saner worklife with way fewer machines to maintain. In France, instead of 150 they are limited to around 80, so they have much more time to do the job properly.When we win a contract, taking the time to make sure it is compliant and in good condition will give us fewer problems in the long run. At the same time, engineers have financial incentives linked to maintenance KPIs – number of breakdowns, response times etc. – so at the end of the month, they have a much better wage compared to what they had before. The margin levels in the industry were so high we have been able to cut into them and deliver a fairer distribution of the margin. BI: Do your engineers welcome greater use of technology? TF: Some providers have tried to leverage mobile apps for engineers, using tech to control their engineers and make sure they spend the right amount of time on-site – typically 10-15 minutes – before moving on to the next job, with the idea of optimising margins. Tech was used to control rather than to empower. In our case, we use IoT to troubleshoot and to help engineers diagnose an issue by giving them raw data from sensors so that they can see if they have an issue occurring between two specific floors, for example, or at a specific time of day. By looking at this data, they are able to save time and provide a better service to customers. They really see the value of tech as a way to empower them to provide a better service. www.wemaintain.co.uk We recognised that using IoT to measure likely wear and tear could have a positive impact on costs for the actual customer INTERVIEW