Tim Kridel finds out how AV and entertainment technology provider Solotech is improving business processes by integrating Jetbuilt into its existing IT platforms. He talks to Alexandre Pecqueux, Solotech’s vice president of operations for Canada, innovation and operational excellence global.
TK: In a recent case study, you said, “We have plans to grow our business significantly outside the US and Canada in the coming years, and we see Jetbuilt as a vital part of that expansion.” Could you elaborate on how Jetbuilt will enable your organization to work more efficiently, productively, accurately, etc. as you expand into additional countries? I’d also be interested in how it would help with multinational clients. For example, if you have an enterprise customer that needs conference rooms in its US and UK offices, how would Jetbuilt help in terms of making sure that the quotes (equipment and labor) are correct for each market, that products are in stock at local distributors and so on?
AP: We have multiple offices across Canada, the US, and the UK, but we do business across the world. Whether in UAE, Asia or South America, we must be able to make proposals for every location. We use Jetbuilt as a quotation tool within a full suite of integrated software (CRM+ERP). Depending on the country, the Jetbuilt environment gives us access to our local price lists and labour rates, which mitigates the risk of error. Given its simple functionalities such as copying lists of equipment, updating prices, or replacing one equipment by another, we have the flexibility to easily adjust our proposals to different markets. We have not started using the Jetbuilt Stock module yet – in any case, with the challenges we are currently facing with the purchasing chain, the main question is not if we have stock, but when.
TK: In the case study, you mentioned how “we used Microsoft Excel to quote across the business, just like many other integrators.” What was the learning curve like with Jetbuilt? Inavate readers that use Excel and other business/IT software will be interested in that aspect, such as how long it took for employees to get up to speed with all Jetbuilt’s features.
AP: We have a great team who provided training to our functional groups. According to a survey that was sent following the first training session, 92% of our users were comfortable building a quotation with Jetbuilt. Change is a challenge for all people; therefore, we are very pleased to see some users using Jetbuilt at 100% after a couple of weeks, and other users experiencing a strong ramp-up. Even if a person is not yet completely comfortable, if you ask them if Jetbuilt is difficult to learn, the answer will be no.
TK: You’re using project templates to increase efficiency. Could you provide some more details about how you’re doing that and the benefits?
AP: There are multiple ways to increase efficiency when doing ‘cookie cutter’ projects in Jetbuilt. You can easily take a project and save it as a template for the future. Thanks to the flexibility of the software, it is also very simple to copy a Room and/or a System from a previous or other project to a new one. If you want to replace a product by another, you can use the ‘replace’ function in your builder. After having taken the time to develop a design with an expert, you want to be able to reuse it as much as possible to save time, resources, and money.