Should our software package offer more features, or should we concentrate on doing what we do well?
The number one conversation I have with my potential clients on a daily basis is directly related to this topic. Yes, as a software developer, we want to keep our product developing with the most up to date technology being offered on the market. We want to be better than our competition and we want to have that something special that other products might not have. I have, however, come to realize that this 'something special' that we all strive for, might actually lie in the simplicity of our software, not the extravagant features that we think we need and never use.
There are two types of potential clients that come to Maintenance Care for more information about our software offering. The first is a Health Care facility that wants to improve their maintenance work flow and data gathering procedures. The benefits of this are obvious, increased productivity, better decision making and compliance with ministry regulators. I love this type of prospect, because they share my values of what is important for a well grounded maintenance management tool.
The second type of prospect is usually a Health Care facility that wants to collect as much information about their facility's assets life cycle so that they can determine, usually on a large scale, which assets need replacing and which should have a more involved preventive maintenance plan surrounding it. In theory, this second type of prospect has the right mindset for overall facility planning and budget predictions. Most of these are usually larger chains who also want their maintenance software to contain some kind of accounting functionality including asset depreciation calculations and budget line controls. Nothing wrong with thinking this way, in fact, our software can help chains plan on their assets life cycle and even divide expenses to various budget lines. The problem arises when company's put more value in this second type, rather than in the basic work flow improvement functionality of a software. You see, in reality, you can't get the information for your asset assessment process without first having a sustainable work flow process that doesn't require extensive work by your maintenance staff on a daily basis. If the daily process for a maintenance person gets too complicated or requires too much time spent at a computer entering information, you are losing on the most critical side of the equation - productivity. The job simply won't get done.
When a company is deciding if they require maintenance software, a critical aspect they should consider is how their data is going to be collected. They should make sure that the maintenance person's job, which is to maintain the facility, doesn't get interrupted or slowed down, but actually improve the way they are doing their job. Maintenance Care for example can deliver maintenance requests right to the cell phone, Blackberry, iPhone or any mobile device that a maintenance person can carry, all the while beginning the process of capturing valuable information in regards to the health of the facility. From there, assets can be easily tied to a work request (couple of clicks) giving an accountant real time, valuable information about how many times a particular asset breaks down and even how much time is being spent on each fix.
I am always giving the following analogy to those who ask me if my software can do the most complicated of accounting tasks - How many times have you heard this "I'm gonna transfer your call, but if I cut you off, I'm sorry in advance, I'm not really sure how to use this feature". Why have a feature that you don't use often and when you do use it, have no idea how. I always say, focus on what you do on a daily basis then graduate to a higher level of analysis from a concrete sustainable work flow of gathering information without interrupting what is important, productivity!
