Is it possible to cut costs and still stand out from the crowd?

…because the survival of lighting maintenance companies depends on it!

In the increasingly competitive lighting maintenance industry, reducing costs is an obvious way to be able to win business on price.  What’s not quite so easy is how to reduce costs enough to outwit the competition whilst still ensuring the organisation is sustainable.

It’s a common saying: you can win business on product, service or price.  Of course, in the facilities management and lighting maintenance industry, the line between the product and the service is blurred; it is in most respects a service industry.

So you win business on service or price.  But by reducing costs, surely you surrender more of your ability to stand out from the crowd?

Not necessarily!

Instead of companies focusing entirely on taking out costs, as Tony Sanders, MD of professional services at Interserve, said recently, “there has been a subtle shift towards finding ways of delivering services differently.”

This could be better for the client, and more efficient for the provider.  For successful contracts, this is exactly the way it works out.

Andrew Shaw, MD of BSG, thinks suppliers should find ways to be “more proactive towards helping their clients while also delivering the daily service” and should seek to offer more to “stand out from the crowd.”

From a lighting maintenance perspective, one of the simplest ways to improve efficiency is to maximise time spent by engineers earning revenue for the company, or in other words, time spent on site.

Using the simplyonsite distribution system, productivity increases amongst the workforce but it also gives added value to the client in reporting, more consistency of product over the portfolio of buildings and quicker response time.

By maintaining lighting proactively, engineers spend less time travelling, do more in every visit and reduce the potential for reactive maintenance call outs.  Reactive will always exist, but reducing the potential of them happening through proactive maintenance is a win-win solution for the client and the provider.

Lighting consultants at RLT Onsite look for ways in the industry to help providers to reduce costs and give more.  By understanding your needs and the needs of your clients, there is always a way you can reduce costs and increase your competitive advantage through innovation in service delivery.

It’s our mission to make your life easier.  Innovation is one of our values.

Is it possible to cut costs and still stand out from the crowd?

Absolutely!

Sections of this article are taken from BIFM article on 22 Aug 2014.  Click here for full article.