ERP for the GM Ops: Peter Taylor from Adam's Pest Control

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Published on the 09/08/2012 | Written by MYOB

AT A GLANCE

Adam’s Pest Control

INDUSTRY

Pest control

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

Improved reporting
Improved cashflow management

SOLUTION

Exo Business, BizPro

THE BENEFITS

Reduced debtors
Better operations and resource planning
Improved customer service

FOR MORE INFORMATION

MYOB//
E: biggerbusiness@myob.com
NZ: 0800 696 239
AU: 1300 555 110
https://www.myob.com/

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Exo has boosted profits, improved operational efficiency and delivered transformational business intelligence to Adams Pest Control…

With a staff of 65 mobile technicians making over 4,000 client visits per month, Adams Pest Control general manager Peter Taylor’s role depends on an accounting system that can provide quick transparency into his company’s operations. Prior to the deployment of MYOB Exo, Adams legacy accounting software struggled to deliver even the most basic reporting.

When evaluating a replacement solution in 2009, Peter says while it was clear Exo could easily generate all the standard reports he required, what really caught his eye was the system’s easy reporting configurability.

“I knew we could build any reports we wanted,” he says. “I could see the flexibility and that’s what sold it.”

Although he knows Exo can provide him with a diverse range of reports, since the implementation Peter hasn’t overdone it – opting instead to produce just 28 custom reports – for the most part focused in three business critical areas;

Customer Service
Operations
Cashflow Management
Customer Service

One of the critical areas of reporting for Peter is the ‘Missed Service’ report.

“The first thing we want to do is make sure we’ve actually visited all our 4000 customers,” he says. “So we produce a ‘Missed Service’ report which shows us which ones we missed during the month. This is where MYOB has been excellent because when a technician visits a client he scans the visit. That record is automatically downloaded every 15 minutes from his phone. So we know by 5:00pm on the last working day of the month what our missed services are.”

With this information in hand, analysis is undertaken as to what caused the missed service, and corrective measures are made. Although missed services have always been a key metric for Adams, Peter says Exo Business has delivered considerable efficiencies.

“It used to take us over 10 working days and now it takes less than three – so there’s a good productivity gain (freeing up a substantial amount of time for team members to work on other tasks) and the accuracy of the data is a lot better too.”

A second crucial report is the ‘Additional Visits’ report which alerts Adams to a client being visited more than once a month.

“Part of our service offering is that if we have to visit them more than once a month the additional visits are at our expense. Now that raises a financial concern of course, but more importantly it shows us we’re not fixing the client’s pest problem. That could potentially lead to losing the client.”

Once again, with the Additional Visits report at his fingertips Peter can more easily identify problem areas and arrange for remedial action. The result has been a marked decrease in the number of lost clients, he says.

“We don’t lose many anyway, but last year client retention in percentage terms was higher than normal – overall we lost 10% fewer customers than the year before.”

Enhanced visibility into client activities is also assisting the customer services team Peter notes.

“We set up a ‘Service History’ report which brings all the actions performed at a site into one place. So when a customer calls in we can enter a date range and generate a report showing what the technician did at their site and any additional comments he made. Because it’s a PDF we can email it to them while they’re on the phone and talk them through it.”

“It’s great for us because all the data is right there when we need it and the customers like it too because they can easily see what’s been going on at their premises.”

This paperless customer interaction is one of several that Exo Business has enabled at Adams, Peter says.

“We’re emailing statements & invoices to around 80% of our clients now which wasn’t possible before – so it’s a big saving for us – and the planet.”

Operations and resource planning
With a policy of only three management meetings a month (sales, service and administration) Peter says he needs his team thoroughly informed about their own departments at each meeting – a scenario easier said than done prior to the introduction of Exo Business.

Now, however, he says his team are truly empowered.

“I’m a firm believer in ‘power users’,” he says. “People having the power to do things themselves as opposed to having to ask an IT department for a report. So they bring their department summaries to me at those meetings.”

Peter states “They’ve all picked up Exo Business really quickly and we’re miles ahead of where we were with the old system.” Decisions are made faster and people can just get on with their jobs.

“Three meetings then the rest of the time we’re just doing what needs to be done.”

Being able to do away with parallel asset databases has also cut overheads says Peter. “Some of the larger clients need to know the detail of every device at their site – and a factory might have up to 300 devices. Rat traps, pheromone traps and maybe something for cockroaches. In the past this information was going into a separate database but the guys from BizPro were able to get that info coming in over the web, directly into Exo Business.

So now everything about our clients, except for letters which are in Word, everything is in Exo Business which is a huge benefit.”

Furthermore, Peter says Exo Business has proven very valuable in resource planning.

“We do a ‘Daily Tech Summary’ report,” he says, “which shows us all the jobs a tech has done in a month. So if we get a case where somebody is consistently not achieving their rounds we see that fairly quickly and can get our customer services team working with them to improve their efficiency. It’s very good for managing individuals who aren’t very good at managing their own time – and the integrity of the data in Exo Business is important for that because the field force can’t dispute it.”

Cashflow Management
With the value of his debtor’s ledger down by 30 per cent since introducing Exo Business, Peter is in no doubt about the value of the new system. But beyond the positive numbers he’s also impressed with how easily he can analyse the company’s finances.

“I just go into the General Ledger module,” he says, “then straight into Debtors and click on Analysis. This generates a graphic which has 13 observations – a year, and the same month last year. Because we bill on a quarterly basis there’s a peak and then the third month of each quarter is the low point for debtors. If I see anything creeping back up I can immediately take that up with accounts receivable. It’s a very powerful tool and yet it only takes me about three seconds to do it.”

As a general manager, Exo Business has streamlined Peter’s role with faster, more accurate reporting capabilities as well as enabling him to empower his staff to find the right information easily. Overall, a general manager’s role is diverse & complex with connections to every department and division within a company. Live, accurate information at-a-glance not only enables quicker decision making, but also frees up a general manager’s time to look at the bigger picture again – rather than being wrapped up in minute detail.

In closing, Peter highlights one critical function of the new solution that sums up for him why MYOB Exo Business was the right choice for Adams.

“You know the hardest thing to do in our old system was to issue an invoice,” he says, “and the easiest thing to do in this system is to issue an invoice. That sort of shows you how our paradigm has shifted.”