Listen to this articleDavid Hodges is the Founder and Managing Director of Loc8. Founding Smartpath in 2004 and then Loc8 in 2011, David has brought together a talented group of professionals to create the dynamic business that Loc8 is today. “As a start-up Cloud business, we were driven to offer a true solution for businesses eager to improve customer service, automate process and reduce administration” says Hodges. From these humble beginnings, Loc8 has grown into an industry leading platform used by some of largest organizations and thousands of small trade-based organizations. Below is our interview with David:
Q: David, for those who have never heard of Loc8, how would you describe your company?
A: Loc8 is a software company that develops the Loc8 field service, asset management, quoting and invoicing platform for iPhone, Android, Mac and PC.
The Loc8 platform is the best ally for large and small companies that have assets to manage and field service operations.
Established in 2011 we have offices and staff in Melbourne, Sydney, London and Miami and thousands of people using our three editions.
- The most popular edition being Service with its preventative maintenance features, it mostly appeals to medium and large service teams who require a complete field service and asset management solution.
- For larger companies, the Enterprise edition is the recommended solution as it offers extended support and enables integrations with other platforms.
- Finally, Loc8 offers Team, the free edition for small field service teams and subcontractors.
The strength of Loc8 lies in its ability to improve customer service, automate process and reduce administration. Loc8 is scalable and easily expandable, which allows our customers to focus on their core activity of grow their business.
The strength of our business is our people, expertise and deep industry knowledge. Our objective is for our products to make our customers lives easier, simplify their processes and gives our users and their customers something to smile about!
Recommended: Snupps Raises $4.75 Million To Refine The Product And Make It Even Easier To UseQ: What do you find the most interesting and rewarding in terms of running Loc8?
A: There are three aspects of my job, all very different, that challenge me and give me the enormous personal satisfaction.
I love bringing together a group people with individual strengths and talents and working with them to provide an environment and structure in which they are pushed, taken out of their comfort zone and given the authority and autonomy to make decisions that help the business navigate towards our common goals. Working with my management team is most rewarding as we are such a diverse and passionate group who have become an open, cohesive and dynamic team who questions, argues and creates in a creative and effective way. I’m always impressed with how much and how often I learn from them.
Spending time with our customers, really immersing myself in their business and understanding their industry, is my second great reward from Loc8. I love looking at, learning from and questioning how our customers manage processes and technology. I’m lucky enough to be able to work with our customers in a student and learning role, a trusted advisor role and as an authority in areas where my experience can impact the changes our customers are trying to make.
Finally, as you could guess, creating great technology is an important and very tangible reward. Nothing makes me and the staff prouder than walking into our customers’ offices and seeing dozens of people using the software we have created to help them through their day. Creating great software can be an all-consuming and at times, incredibly frustrating process. We only get it right half the time but we listen and learn and ultimately we improve with great results. The personal satisfaction I gain is enhanced by the journey and experience towards the end product… and no the end product is never finished.
Q: You’ve recently announced $5 million in a new funding round; tell us more about it.
A: In 2015, we won an innovation award for some of our technology and through the exposure of that award we were invited to join other start-ups and organisations in many events. One of those events was with Randolf Clinton from Clinton Capital Partners.
When I met with Randolf, I felt he and his team were people I could work with to develop a strategy for investment to fund faster and broader growth. Working together for about eight months we were fortunate to complete a substantial round with a consortium of private investors who understand our strategy, industry and customer value.
Randolf, along with a number of other investors, have joined me on the Board to drive the strategy and direction of the business. It’s been an exciting and very rewarding process for me and many staff who have been with the company since our start in 2011.
In the few months following the investment round, the business has shifted into high gear on many fronts. I realise the true value of an investment like the one we completed goes well beyond the financial injection.
Recommended: Powered Now Helps Tradesmen Get Their Paperwork TogetherQ: What are your plans for the future as the CEO of Loc8?
A: I won’t bore you with the obvious answers of local and geographic expansion, revenue and profit growth and increased market recognition all of which are fundamentals for me.
Simply, I want Loc8 to help improve customer service. That means helping our customers to deliver better service to their customers and in some cases to their customers, customers, their suppliers and the public.
While we do this for our customers today, the field service, maintenance and asset management software market is a fractured market without globally dominant vendors providing solutions that cross industries, borders and business sizes and operational demand. Loc8 is uniquely positioned to provide a platform that works for micro businesses through to global enterprise organisations who need easy to use asset, maintenance and field service technology. This flexibility and configurability coupled with intrinsic simplicity and our deep industry knowledge I believe give us the edge to become the industry standard and dominant field service, maintenance and asset management platform.
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Q: How would you convince the reader to start using your platform?
A: I would encourage your readers to look at their processes and the way their people deliver services and ask themselves:
- Could you improve your service if information to and from your customers was more accurate and consistent? Would this imrpove internal and customer reporting?
- Would your people be more efficient if your processes were better defined and a system could assist with process control?
- Would your customers be happier if your communication and reports where more intelligent and automated?
- Would you like more insights into productivity of your field staff and does your business make it easy for your field team to do the job that makes your business money.
If they answered yes to any of the above, then Loc8 can help their business. Compare us with the market, create a free account and see how easy Loc8 is to deploy, administer, use and maintain.
As a final comment, I believe that improving service delivery and customer service is best achieved through effective integration of people, policy, processes and systems. Define your policies, document your processes and ensure the systems you implement help your people deliver great customer service.
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