We all know by now that one of the major things to come out of the pandemic is that we can do a lot of our job remotely. But what about those occupations that require “being there?” Not customer facing jobs in restaurant or hospitality, but in occupations that require you to manage workers on your client’s behalf. Things like projects that need oversight, deliveries that need to be accepted & validated, or even moving things from one location to another. If you are part of a company that is responsible to your client, but cannot travel due to COVID restrictions, or need to operate in a building you cannot be in, how do you manage?
You can have people take pictures of things as they happen, then send them to you later, with an explanation of what is going on. Or you can just hope that your remote team, or crew is following your instructions. Neither of which will give you 100% accuracy that the job is being done right. There are some solutions out there that do a decent job of documenting progress on a project. Some require expensive cameras and tools to capture the information you need. Other solutions work well but require training and implementation and there are solutions that offer what some companies “think you need.” Which are often an “overkill” of something that should be simple.
I have learned that you do not need a degree in computer science, or even that you must know how to code, to find something that works for project needs. There are many companies out there offering tools that can be used in a Software as a Service model. Coupled with some easy to use “connectors”, they offer powerful solutions to everyday issues. If you have enough experience in a role or business and put together some of these tools, you can create a solution that provides you with the information you need to do your job.
I work in the project management field. These days, our clients and their employees are not at their workplace. Whether it is an office building, hotel, hospital, or lab, no one is there to help direct the teams of contractors usually onsite working to either build, move, renovate, or decommission their client’s space. With this challenge in hand, the team at our firm looked at various technology solutions and came away with nothing that worked for us and our clients. They were either too complex, too expensive, took too much training, or simply had too many “bells & whistles” to work for us. So, we undertook an initiative we called “Virtualizing the onsite experience.” This gave rise to using our collective experience and listening to our clients to define what was important to their success. Which is basically finishing a project on time and under budget. We chose to go the route of using SaaS solutions with some “connectors” in the middle to produce a solution that allowed us, our teams, and our clients to collaborate in real time on projects. We call our solution Remote Control. Remote Control is an application that captures assets, validates inventories, floor plans, etc. in real time. Anyone with a phone, tablet or laptop can use it. It is manufacturer agnostic and combines pictures, video, and documents into a seamless workflow. Remote Control helps remote teams collaborate and provides progress reports during a project.
Looking for a simple and easy to use “field tool” that works with your existing technology, to make sure your projects run on time and under budget. Fee free to reach out to us or give us a call.