46 | JULY 2019
Business
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
HOW TO BE A WINNER USING TECH
To start up an installation business, you need to be great at the job as well as having a good
business head. But if you are to grow your business, the key skills needed change. Benjamin
Dyer of Powered Now looks at the role of tech in helping your business to succeed.
Back in the 90s there was a
lot of excitement about the
internet and this was followed by
the ‘dotcom boom’. The dot-
com bust quickly followed and
generated an equal amount of
cynicism.
In May 1997 a little-known
company called Amazon float-
ed on the US Nasdaq stock
exchange at a price of $18. The
Amazon share price reached a
high of $2,012 last year, when it
became the most valuable com-
pany in world.
Amazon, above all else, has
been taking advantage of the
business benefits that technology
can bring. They started just selling
books and then added CDs. Today
they are not only responsible for
50% of all ecommerce sales in
the USA. They are also the big-
gest supplier of technical “cloud”
infrastructure in the world. They
have left many of the giants,
including Microsoft and IBM, wal-
lowing in the dust behind them.
The point of this story is simple.
Technology may have fits and
starts but ultimately can make a
huge difference to entire indus-
tries. Those that ignore it end up
missing out.
The lesson
Is there a lesson here for in-
stallers? The answer is yes. While
installers can look to the boiler
manufacturers and others for
smart thermostats, self-diag-
nosing boilers and more, there is
another direction to look in order
to grow your business and beat
the competition.
Where technology
can help
Historically, word of mouth has
been a huge factor in getting
business. Today, that is com-
plemented by social media and
business web sites. But this is no
longer at the cutting edge. And
any impact in using technology
for marketing is blunted by the
amount of business that still
comes from recommendations.
A more important area for
technology is both winning and
retaining business. Research has
shown just how irritated con-
sumers are by the effort to get
quotes from installers and other
trade businesses. Producing
good looking quotes fast is a
classic application of technology.
You can dictate notes into your
phone which can be automat-
ically turned into text and then
go onto your quote. Quotes can
be emailed or sent at the touch
of a button and acceptance re-
ceived electronically. This can all
scratch just where your customer
itches.
Then there is complying
with regulation, whether it be
Gas Safe, Health and Safety
or Making Tax Digital (MTD).
These are increasingly forcing
computerisation on the indus-
try and HMRC have even more
far-reaching plans for MTD in
the works. The great thing about
today’s technology is that keep-
ing information secure can be
guaranteed and means that the
same information that is used to
raise quotes, jobs and invoices
can also be used to comply with
regulation.
In fact, probably the biggest
area where technology can help
is simply keeping you in con-
trol of your growing business,
scheduling staff and raising all
paperwork. Everything held in
one place electronically. It can
then quickly be accessed from
the smartphone in your pocket
as well as any desktop comput-
er or tablet. There’s no faffing
around with paper copies and no
duplication of effort. It’s not sur-
prising that the fastest growing
companies all use systems to
keep on top of their work.
Installation businesses
Historically installers didn’t
use systems maybe because
they were technology averse,
and definitely because the solu-
tions weren’t mobile and didn’t
do anything special for the
trade. In the last few years there
has been an enormous change.
This has come from many new
tablet and smartphone-based
apps.
The field trade industry has
probably had proportionately
less computer systems deployed
than almost any other business
area. Although there were good
reasons for this, those reasons
are now gone. Installers finally
have the chance to share in the
benefits that other businesses
have been enjoying for years.
The bottom line
Technology drives busi-
ness. The arrival of printing
changed the world. Now there
is new technology that allows
everything about your business
to be available in your pock-
et. The risk of not getting on
the bandwagon is rising, just
as the benefits are becoming
clearer.
www.powerednow.com
About the author
Benjamin Dyer is CEO and co-founder of Powered Now. Pow-
ered Now’s mobile apps make it easier for installers, builders
and other trades to manage their businesses.