Yesterday was my second day at the exhibitions, and I chose to visit our stand at the Facilities Show. I followed my own advice from the other day, and went with the flattest shoes I could find! There is certainly a lot of walking to be done, so make sure that you are prepared.
The Facilities Show gathers exhibitors in technology, energy management, recruiting, software and security around the theme: facilities and estate management. While wandering through the aisles, you are spoilt for choice with a huge with a huge variety of stands dedicated to a wide range of services and products. Some wacky, some more corporate, the exhibitors at this year’s show have all thought about the most effective way to attract us punters to their stands. Grab yourself a complimentary bag and make the most of lots of fun free giveaways!  2012 has been another cracking year for the Facilities Show, containing the just the right mix to make it an exhibition worth attending.

Come on stand M10 and watch our videos. Our team is there to answer all your questions.
If you have more FM questions, please check our CEO’s – Graeme Hughes – interview filmed on the stand yesterday morning.

But what you really don’t want to miss at the Facilities Show are the fantastic conferences held on various open spaces in the hall. Check out their educational programme online. The Facilities Show have sponsored, with the support of some exhibitors, seminars related to the common issues in the FM agenda, the sustainability discussion and the need for professional development in the present FM market. Give yourself the time and the chance to pick up an expert brain on your everyday FM problems.

See you at the show!

Monday, the 14th of May, was the opening day of the IFSEC 2012 at the NEC and the culmination of many weeks of hard work from the Innovise marketing team..
Having been so involved with the logistics of the event, I thought it was only fair to stand back and actually have a look at the exhibition!
I must admit that I immediately regretted my choice of shoes today. The IFSEC show is the kind of exhibition you need to go wearing trainers and only after a couple of months of endurance training. Think of the biggest place you know. The hall is bigger. The IFSEC is a huge exhibition on multiple floors. In short, take your most comfortable shoes, your feet will be immensely grateful.
I walked through the exhibition with my feet screaming in pain until the smell of fresh popcorn led me to our Innovise stand.

I, of course, wasn’t the first person to wait for a bag of popcorn. It seems the IFSEC visitors are very delighted to find something sweet to eat and a chair to sit on after a long walk through the aisles.
Let your nose show you the way to our stand at the IFSEC!
When you are on our stand, don’t hesitate to ask us about our specials on the Zebra’s printers
and the Active Guard pack.
Our team will be happy to answer all your questions.

When you are wandering on the exhibition, with a bag of fresh popcorn in your hands, check out also the free educational seminars organised by the IFSEC to keep their visitors informed about security technologies and concept. The programme can be found online.
Various conferences related to Security Management, Next Generation CCTV and Surveillance, Fire Solutions are planned during the exhibition.
If you’re busy in the CCTV and IP addresses domains, you don’t want to miss the excellent educational programmes organised by the TAVCOM training theatre. The TAVCOM training aims at spreading the innovation’s news in the FM world and explaining new technics for FM actors to be able to compete better and more efficiently on the market.
This year, the IFSEC start a new educational programme based on international exchange for a better and safer FM in the security branch. The International Centre is located in Hall 5, go and check their free seminars.

To conclude, I wish you a very interesting and successful IFSEC exhibition!

See you on our stand!

The explosion of the social network has played a huge role in the re-positioning of the customer in relation to an organisation. Once an external factor, apart from the core of the everyday motions of a business, the customer is now firmly at the centre of proceedings. Privy to the constant stream of both positive and negative marketing messages dispersed via the likes of Twitter, Facebook and blog updates, each move and development within an organisation is rapidly digested by its customers. In an age of excessive choice and transparency, taking good care of your customers has never been more important.
Attending to the needs of customers before they know themselves what it is that they want, is now the only way that a business can place itself above its competitors and at the top of the customer care tree. Fortunately as the social network has expanded, so has the innovation of the technology designed to enable businesses to be more proactive in their sales and marketing processes. Setting marketers and sales professionals free from predictions and best guesses the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology now available, enables further barriers to be broken down between the customer and the sales opportunity, through advanced and unified communication between sales and marketing teams.
Julian Rogers, from the UK’s leading FM Software solutions provider Innovise, is the organisations expert on CRM software. Heavily involved with Innovise’s own (and unique) CRM solution, crm4fm. The crm4rm solution is the only CRM software that is totally bespoke to the FM sector and is workflow focused. It is driven by Microsoft Dynamics which makes it the ultimate sales, marketing and customer enhancement tool for Facilities Management businesses’. Appreciating the huge competitive advantage that a CRM solution will give to an organisation, Julian comments on advantages that the technology gives to a business serious about offering exceptional customer care.
“Good customer relationship management is critical to delivering a high standard of customer care. Through the crm4fm solution, businesses are enabled to view and then relate to each customer as an individual. Unified communication between sales and marketing functions enables a solid picture to be built around the client’s current service and information on contract length or business growth then enables teams to action new and relevant campaigns when the time is absolutely right. Knowing what the customer will want before they themselves do is a crucial benefit of crm4fm and a powerful tool to add to the customer service arsenal. Proactively tending to the future needs of a customer, nurturing the relationship and giving the client the comfort of feeling ‘looked after’ can only spell win, win for the crm4fm using organisation.”
Although CRM software has been around since the 1980’s it is still underused by some Facilities Management businesses. The whole notion of CRM software was originally evolved around a business approach that placed the customer at the centre of everything a business does. Recent years has seen CRM become a term to describe IT applications to manage sales, marketing and service. At a base level, CRM is a customer management tool that an organisation uses to coordinate and share information. Gathering and collating each piece of information that is generated on each customer; a meeting, phone call, order or web visit, the solution enables the entire organisation to benefit from live and relevant data that can inform more targeted processes. From this businesses can grow their knowledge of their customers and use for relevant marketing to their specific needs and to identify new customers growing turnover and profits. The Innovise crm4fm solution is different, in the fact that this is the only solution has been developed to meet the specific needs of the FM industry. Designed to deliver real business results from day one, crm4fm requires no time to be set aside for configuration. Pre-configured with all of the elements required, crm4fm is business ready, enabling an organisations to ability to do ‘more with less’ almost immediately.
Driven by Microsoft Dynamics, the design of the crm4rm solution has benefitted immensely from the twenty years of experience that Innovise has accrued within the FM sector. Having worked with multiple FM organisations over the years, Innovise has identified the most effective and common workflows that allow FM staff to prepare responses to tenders accurately, quickly and efficiently. Translating customer needs into results that exceed expectation, whilst delivering ROI, crm4fm is the CRM system of choice for many.
For further information on Innovise and the crm4fm solution please log onto www.innovisesoftware.com.

In June’s issue of Professional Security Magazine, Graeme Hughes, CEO of Innovise Software makes the business case for contract compliance software tools for keeping your contracts on the straight and narrow.

It is important to monitor your contracts in order to maintain that they are being complied to and to ensure excellent service is being delivered to the client. Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) detail the exact terms of service that the client expects to be delivered so it is paramount to have system in place to ensure that SLA’s are being adhered to. Failure to monitor the completion of SLA’s will ultimately result in contractual agreements not being complied with and can lead to termination of agreements be the end client.

This can be easily avoided with the compliance management software solutions provided by Innovise Software. Making sure the right people are in the right place, at the right time and are carrying out the correct tasks is the driving force behind Innovise’s compliance software tools. Web-hosted software such as servicetrac or DataBoost can ensure that employees are in the correct locations and are carrying out the tasks on time and in the correct order. Real time reporting is presented to management and instant alerts are given when a task has not been completed on time or a member of staff has failed to arrive at a particular location.

To read the full article on the business case for compliance management tools please click either of the thumbnail images below and flick to page 54:

For more information on Innovise’s complaince management software solutions please click here.

Graeme Hughes, CEO of Innovise Software has been talking about  the thought managers need to give to the concept of lean thinking, and how they can integrate it into their organisational activities. Innovise Software currently provide ground breaking workforce and compliance management software solutions that are built on the very raw principles of ‘lean thinking’. Quite simply lean thinking can save money and reduce costs while increasing productivity, working capacity and all round business efficiency.

Lean thinking is often associated with the Japanese principles of Just-In-Time (JIT) and TQM and Innovise are keen to stress that they believe workforces can be efficiently managed in much the same way as inventory.

The Lean Business Cycle

So how can IT software help businesses become more ‘lean’?

Innovise’s TimeGate solution is leading the way with its Time and Attendance functionality as well as modules that address absence management, travel and subsistence and also ‘lean’ staff scheduling. TimeGate’s integration with payroll means T&A devices ensure that staff only get paid for the time they spend in work.

The absence management and staff rostering capabilities mean that only the correct amount of staff needed are ever on duty and that contingency plans can be put into place for when staff rosters are not adhered to, whether through absence, lateness or any other reason.

In this article Graeme is not dictating that every FM, cleaning and security company in the industry must practice the laws of ‘lean thinking’ , yet simply suggesting that the principle must be given some thought. Short term expenditure can bring about long terms gains, and this is very much the message.

If you would like to know more about the solutions being offered here at Innovise that promote lean thinking then visit www.innovisesoftware.com

Set staff vetting procedures to fast-forward whilst maintaining the rigorous high standards necessary in employee recruitment, Innovise’s new icanwork software solution is an exciting first for the FM industry.

In an industry where staff turnover is particularly high, icanwork offers FM managers a level of recruitment flexibility like never before. Enabling the recruitment and background checking of staff to happen in a fraction of the time it takes via traditional recruitment processes; icanwork allows recruitment to happen on the spot.

icanwork mobile vetting

Providing the managers, recruiters, operations supervisors with a means to obtain real-time verification on a potential employee, icanwork is linked directly central identification systems. In just the press of a button, a manager can find out immediately if the application information provided is a truthful account and that aligns to what the credit reference agencies hold. Addressing legal obligations to check that a potential employee has the right to work in the UK, icanwork links directly to PASS to provide immediate confirmation that recruitment and placement on contract can proceed.

Quick and simple to use, candidate information is entered, scanned or photographed straight into the icanwork PDA, whilst with the candidate out on site, then wirelessly transmitted in real-time to PASS. Ensuring that there is a minimal handling of confidential information, the candidates details are collated, saved and only able to be viewed by specified management personnel. Using icanwork at the start if an interview means that employer can validate the employee and commence the induction the same day with peace of mind.

The leading FM software suppliers in the UK, Innovise are renowned for their cutting edge technology and innovative solutions. Supplying best in breed workforce management and compliance solutions to the FM industry for 25 years. For further information on Innovise and the icanwork solution visit www.innovisesoftware.com

One of the latest software solutions to join the Innovise portfolio, the NFC enabled iconnect solution succeeded in getting tongues wagging at this year’s Cleaning Show.

An exciting prospect for the service providing industry, iconnect is a faster, more reliable mobile working solution that enables real-time communication based on the latest Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile phones. Combining up to the minute technology, the new ‘iconnect’ solution  integrates the flexible and secure NFC capabilities with Innovise’s acclaimed servicetrac software solution.

Innovise Software iconnect device

Applicable to the security, cleaning, health and any other service providing industry that deploys theirworkforce across multiple sites, iconnect will allow actual arrival and departure times to be recorded with proof of location as employees simply touch their mobile phones against small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags places around the site of work.The data collected is then transmitted back to the servicetrac scheduling software, where management can view staff activity as it is happening.

Fully integrated with servicetrac, control centre managers can keep teams of staff up to date with scheduling changes, reassign workers to cover shifts where another staff member is absent and organise contingency and investigation when a member of staff fails to clock on to their shift.

The leading compliance management software solution within the facilities services sector, servicetrac from Innovise is already able to utilise any number of devises to capture data. PDA’s Tablet PC’s, Laptops, Guardtour and Cleaning tour devises are all examples of the hardware that is currently successfully integrated with the servicetrac software, so the inclusion of NFC Phones was the natural next step. Boasting best in class technology, that has been tried, tested and approved by many of the UK leading service providers; servicetrac was the ideal platform from which to launch the iconnect vision.

The leading FM software suppliers in the UK, Innovise are renowned for their cutting edge technology and innovative solutions. Supplying best in breed workforce management and compliance solutions to the FM industry for 25 years, Innovise Software’s portfolio of products are renowned in the industry for their quality and excellence and can be ssen at www.innovisesoftware.com

In January’s issue of Risk UK, Innovise talk about the benefits of having workforce management software installed during the long hard winter months, such as the heavy snowfall in December 2010. Unexpected bouts of cold weather such as this inevitably place a strain on organisations when it comes to staff absence and time and attendance as the workforce struggle to make it into work. However Innovise’s workforce management software technology is proven to help by allowing contingency plans to be put into place.

How does it work?

The software solution provides real time data on who has been able to attend work and who has checked in on time.  This Means you are notified on who has not been able to make it or who is running late in order to help with staff scheduling. The software allows teams of multiple workers across many sites to keep in contact with the management team and allow flexible staff rostering to take place from one central location.

The software is the most efficient way of dealing with flexible shift patterns and provides the perfect platform to monitor, manage and track staff output. It also provides an added security function by integrating with Guard Tour devices to protect lone workers and keep in constant communication. The software is extremely flexible and is tailored to meet the desired specification.

In Decembers issue of RIsk UK, Innovise Software look forward to the 2012 London Olympics and discuss the possible implications for the hundreds of private sector security companies that will be called into action. Innovise are warning that in order to make the event run as smootly as possible, a high level of collaboration is needed.