Category: Customer Success

The winner of hit television show The Apprentice is teaming up with a Yorkshire-based technology firm to help give his business a boost.

Joseph Valente, who was crowned winner of The Apprentice in 2015, has chosen Leeds-based BigChange’s Mobile Workforce Management platform JobWatch to accelerate the growth of Impra-Gas, the plumbing business he owns along with Lord Sugar.

The paperless app-based JobWatch system will allow Mr Valente’s management team to manage the entire operation from quotation all the way through to invoice, with integrated planning, management, job scheduling and real-time vehicle and resource tracking. Martin Port, founder and CEO of BigChange, said: “BigChange exists to help ambitious businesses like Impra-Gas scale quickly, giving them everything they need to run a dynamic, profitable and customer focused operation.

“We’re really excited to have Joseph on board as a customer.” Last year, serial entrepreneur Martin Port invested in new office space to accommodate the growth of BigChange. The firm took a five-year lease at Temple Point Business Park in Colton, east Leeds. Alex Epstein, who has also featured in the BBC series, re-joined Mr Port at his latest venture BigChange.

Job Watch is aimed at automating business processes to help save time. BigChange teamed up with SmartWitness in-vehicle CCTV cameras to add video functionality to its system.

Mr Port has a track record in the telematics sector. He sold his previous venture, Masternaut UK, for an estimated £20m in 2009.

Read more: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/you-re-hired-apprentice-star-tells-tech-firm-1-7733455#ixzz40NE4TFA

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Winner of The Apprentice 2015 Joseph Valente has chosen to roll out BigChange’s JobWatch mobile workforce management software as part of his plans to revolutionise the plumbing market with his business partner Lord Sugar.

Joseph and his new business partner Lord Sugar looked at a number of software companies and after a rigorous tender process chose BigChange Apps’ JobWatch system.

Joseph is focused on growing his business and wanted a system that could literally manage all aspects of work and scale perfectly with Impra-gas. The JobWatch system allows customers to book work which is dynamically scheduled to the correct engineer on a mobile app with the correct workflow including health and safety, compliance and step by step job instructions.

Customers enjoy a great user experience with live updates confirming Estimated Time of Arrival and electronic job cards including certificates relating to plumbing and heating work. Impra-gas are dedicated to providing fantastic customer service.

Joseph said “this is the beginning of our journey to become a household name in this highly competitive market, with BigChange’s support and help we are able to tap into the latest technology that is normally only affordable to large corporations.”

Martin Port said “this is why we started BigChange to give companies like Impra Gas the tools to compete at the highest level and win and wow their customers with a great user experience. We’ll be looking after Joseph like all our customers with constant development and support”

www.bigchangeapps.com

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

DRIVERS AT Stalkers Transport have seen their basic pay soar by 18% this year after working with the company to cut fuel costs.

The increase follows last year’s installation of BigChange Apps’s telematics system across Stalkers Transport’s 62-vehicle fleet. The system monitors drivers’ fuel economy and driving behaviour. The company chose the telematics system because it allows drivers as well as managers to monitor their scores creating a league table. Stalkers MD Karen Stalker said the system is friendly competition between drivers which had seen a significant impact on fuel usage and driving standards.

“We had the kits installed in all of our trucks and each one is driver-specific. It scores their overall driving behaviour so at the end of the day when they log off they can see where they are ranked against their colleagues,” she said. Stalker said the firm made it clear to the drivers that any savings would be passed onto them in the form of pay rises and monthly £100 bonuses. “We were aware that we weren’t paying the best rates of pay to our drivers in the leaner years. But for us to be able to change that, the drivers had to help us to help them.” Stalker said fuel savings have been significant. “MPG has improved by 8.2%.”

“It has massively reduced idling time and generally improved driving standards. This has also resulted in much lower numbers of accidents and incidents.” She added: “we have been able to give the savings back to the drivers firstly in terms of a significant wage rise, which equated to 18% onto their basic rate, and secondly as a fuel bonus if they get a perfect 10 score for the whole month.”

Article taken from 20/08/2015 edition of the Commercial Motor Magazine.

www.bigchange.com

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Another very happy BigChange customer Silentnight Brands welcomed us to their offices in Barnoldswick today.

BigChange is an established force in mobile resource mangement, offering a system that transforms the way companies mange their mobile workforces and mobile operations, JobWatch. By challenging convention and through breakthrough innovation, BigChange is pioneering new intuitive and simple to use technology that delivers industry leading levels of return on investment.

BigChange is here for businesses of all sizes, from small and medium-sized enterprises through to large blue chip organisations. No matter your size or sector, BigChange is here to make a big difference to the way you work for the better.

JobWatch has been developed to perfectly meet the needs of any size of business from SMEs to major blue chip organisations. So whether you have one vehicle or ten thousand, JobWatch will change the way you work for the better, without adding extra complexity. Our solution delivers a level of functionality that has previously only been available to leading multinational corporations with major IT budgets.

www.bigchangeapps.com

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Lynx are a specialist family-owned building, repair and maintenance company based in Uxbridge.

They offer a fast response and first-class customer service to their ever-growing list of prestigious landlord and management clients, and maintain over 3,000 properties across the south of England.

Founder & Managing Director of Lynx Maintenance, Chris Moseley, relates ‘‘our entire focus is on making service improvements. We recognised that the technology we used was not going to support the level of growth we are experiencing; we had a back office job-management system that was 10 years old, producing so much paper, and a separate vehicle tracking system that we used reactively.’’

Lynx decided that they needed a Big Change. They wanted one system that could manage all aspects of their business, and they wanted a fully-developed, proven product that wouldn’t cost them a fortune.

Chris Moseley went on to say “we were recommended to contact BigChange, who had developed a system that did everything we wanted straight out of the box. BigChange spent time with us ensuring that the implementation process and training of our Head Office and Engineering teams went smoothly.”

The BigChange JobWatch system has everything – built-in service management, customer relationship management, job scheduling, resource time management, health and safety, equipment and stock management, mobile apps, financial features (from quotation to invoicing, with integration to accounting software such as Sage) and vehicle tracking. JobWatch features intuitive reporting, including reporting on customer service and quality, business productivity, driver behaviour and risk management.

Chris recalls how ‘’implementing the system completely did away with paper in the office and in the field. We invoice instantly when a job is completed, and have seen our productivity and service levels hit new heights. This is just the beginning, as we believe that this technology will enable our company to grow without the cost and risk that goes with expansion. We look forward to celebrating 20 years in business next year, and the BigChange JobWatch system has given us exactly the tools we need to progress and grow our family business”.

Martin Port CEO of BigChange commented “We are delighted to have completed another successful implementation of JobWatch with Lynx Maintenance. JobWatch has revolutionised Lynx practices and processes, eliminated all paperwork and time consuming manual tasks. It has even stopped Lynx using the large whiteboard in the main office where they did there two weekly manual planning.”


Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Daniel Levy Director – Corporate Sales

welcomes Imran Dabhad Managing Director
of Star Coaches to BigChange Apps

Leading provider of Coach Hire in Leeds, Bradford, West Yorkshire…Established since 1982, Star Coaches is amongst the leading coach hire companies in the UK. They provide a modern range of 16 to 70 seater luxury coaches for hire. Located in Batley, are ideally placed to provide coach hire in Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, Wakefield, as well the whole of West Yorkshire, for travel anywhere in the UK. BigChange has installed its revolutionary technology on Star Coaches fleet. Star Coaches will be able enhance their customer service and quality, visibility and ensure they maintain their excellent record in road safety.

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

 Cardinus and BigChange introduce Health & Safety services to compliment the JobWatch System.

Cardinus Risk Management is delighted to be working in Partnership with BigChange to bring a range of specialist safety services and solutions to their clients. Making sure employees, customers and the public are safe and that businesses comply with relevant safety legislation is vitally important but also a difficult and time consuming task. Often there isn’t a lot of accessible or easy to understand guidance readily available on what we should and shouldn’t be doing. The newly formed service; Big Change Risk Management will help organisations achieve this vital goal with minimal fuss so that more time can be spent on the activities that make customers happy and businesses run more efficiently and profitably. Everyone at Big Change and Cardinus feel this new service continues the great work the JobWatch System does in streamlining process, speeding up work and making organisations run more smoothly. Services on offer from BigChange
Risk Management will include:

Martin Port
Founder & CEO