Category: Business

Now, SAP is a great system.  It is incredibly powerful, and can provide more possibilities than any business could ever implement.  But no matter what system you use, SAP, AS400, Oracle, or Quick books, it’s all about the data.  I don’t care what system you use to run your business.  If you don’t have your master data in place, your system is an expensive word processor.  Service management is no different.  Depending on your business, there is the potential for a lot of data.  So what do you need to do business?  what do you need to do your service business really well?  Only you can answer that question, because every business is different.  I can say, that it truly in your best interest to capture as much data as you can…  within reason of course.  Now, there is a lot of data that SAP can help you capture.

The first and most vital, in my opinion, is the serial number.  This is building block for everything service related.  If you want to opportunity to track equipment, this is where it all starts.  SAP provides you with some great functionality, including letting you decide just what gets tracked for a serial number.  Do you want to it available or required for material movements, production orders, sales orders, deliveries, etc…  you can do all of that out of the box in SAP.  Now some industries are required to track serial numbers, but many of them do it for traceability.  An alternative to the serial number is the batch.  It’s not quite as exact, but it still buys you a quite a bit of functionality.

Now, you can take your serialization to the next level, but it comes with a price.  These next methods I’ll discuss lose the automation benefits.  You’ll need to invest some effort into building and maintaining these next pieces.  Now there are three ways to take things to the next level of grouping serial numbers together.  There is a the serial number hierarchy.  This method is very useful when you need to track serial numbers within serial numbers.  I often see this method when building up something larger, like say an engine.  There are special components that may need to be tracked within a larger unit that is also tracked.

The next method is building a hierarchy using the functional location.  Within SAP, the functional location is often associated with the plant or plant maintenance. The idea behind the functional location is exactly what the name suggests, it’s a location.  Within the location, you can build up the serialized units within that location.  The functional location can often be associated with large machines that don’t move, but may need maintenance, service, etc…  A functional location works like a serial number as far as SAP is concerned.

The last method is the installed base.  Now the installed base is like the functional location, only a lot more functional.  The installed base can hold materials, serial numbers, documents, and even other install bases.  This is is a big step, because it can become an installation within a customer site.  Depending on the size of the customer site, you can break it down as granular as you need to.  This becomes excessively valuable if you provide on-site service.  You can quickly pinpoint and direct your technicians to the exact location of the issue.  Of course, this assumes that you have communication with your equipment…  and that’s a whole other level of data collection…

We’ve talked about enough for today.  What I would like you to take away from this post is that the data building blocks within SAP are just that, building blocks.  We talked about the initial building blocks.  Soon I’ll talk more about why these pieces are so valuable.

Thanks for reading,

You know, it sounds cliche, but is very true.  I recently had lunch with a friend of mine, and he reminded me how often this simple fact is forgotten.  When I say that service is money, I’m talking about your aftermarket business.  I’m talking about selling spare parts, repairing items, selling extended warranties, and on and on.  While some companies recognize this as a part of the business, many organizations don’t realize the full potential.  In a climate when the economy is up and down, and every one is uncertain of the future, it means that more people are interested in extending the life of current products.  If you aren’t providing your customers every opportunity to keep doing business with you, you are throwing away revenue.  And I assure you, someone else is happy to take that business.

Now, the first thing that you really need to analyze is what can you being doing for you customers?  Now there are a lot of potential options, so start simple.  Start with what you already do, but do it better.  So, let’s say that you currently perform repairs for your customer.  Great, but how easy do you make it for your customers?

• Do you provide them 24/7 access to initiate a service call?
• Do you give them the option to buy an extended warranty?
• can they print out their own shipping label or return merchandise paperwork?
• Do you provide them a loaner or exchange option?
• Could you provide them a complete history of what they’ve bought?

Get the idea?  All of the ideas that mentioned above make your customer experience easier, faster, better…  this encourages them to continue doing business with you.  And to top it off, many customers are willing to pay extra for some of the bonus features.  For example, the loan or exchange option can be sold at a premium to your customers.  Now all of these options are available right now.  All you need to do is setup some pricing and some processes.  The chances are you, already have refurbished units sitting in your inventory.  Why not use them as a loaner bank to keep your customer rolling along in their business while you repair their unit?

If you’re not already using some of these techniques, and are interested in learning how you can use SAP to deliver a better experience to your customers.

Thanks for reading,

You know, I almost forgot to even do a post.  I started thinking, well, it’s a holiday, I skip this one.  But then it hit me just how important today is.  While I look at the country, and see our freedoms eroding away, I also look back at all the brave soldiers that fought to give us the right to keep those freedoms.  It’s more important than ever to remember that freedom isn’t free.  And countless Americans have died fighting to keep our freedom alive.

So, while you’re enjoying a cold one, eating something off the grill, please take a minute to honor all of those brave soldiers who fought for our rights, and those of others.  And ask yourself, what can I be doing to honor their memory?  How can I be working to to maintain those rights?  How can I make sure they didn’t die in vain?

This is a song a heard a year or so back, and it really struck a chord with me (pun intended).  If you get a chance, take a listen today.

http://revolutionrockandroll.com/music.cfm

It’s called What Have you Done.  If you listen the lyrics, I’m sure you’ll see why it’s a great song for today.

As always, thanks for reading,

You know, it’s funny, I’ve spent a lot of my time writing specifications for my clients.  I’ve gone through and defined exactly what the business wanted, and I even spiced it up with enough technical details to make it pretty easy to develop.  Well, the strange thing is that I haven’t written a spec for my own business…  ever.  Until this past week, when I finally started to get smart, and realized that while I may be a good developer, I have great vision of what I want.  So my time is better spent defining what I want as the end product, instead of figuring out which is the best BAPI or function module to add one obscure piece of data.

The realization I’ve come to is that writing the specs is forcing me to better define what I want.  In the past, as I put together my latest piece of development, I’d pretty much wing it.  I’d write down a VERY basic outline of what I wanted, and proceed to develop, then add new ideas, then have to go back and define that for stuff I already did, and so on.  While this model can work, it didn’t force me to do my homework up front.  Rather, it kinda let me off the hook and allowed me to just let the product flow.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very happy with the end result, it took me a lot longer to get there.  It’s like that old proverb, Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance…  (well, it might not be a proverb =) ).  Well, I’m finding as I go through my list and start defining all the pieces I still want to develop for my Renovation Solution, I have to thoroughly state what I want.  I can’t do the nebulous, “build configuration screen”.  I have to define how many tabs, what information, what it drives on the back end, do I use existing tables or create new ones, etc…

What I’m finding is that I’m getting back the skill I’ve ignored for a while.  I’m remembering how to define what I want, so someone else can do the work, instead of leaving everything up to me.  Like my partner keeps telling me, I’m finally starting to think like a CTO, rather than a programmer 🙂  Now, don’t get me wrong, I still plan on doing as much development as I have time for, just because I do enjoy the problem solving, but I’m starting to gain skill in the marketing area of our business, and there is a lot more money in marketing what we have than in adding a small feature to our existing offering 🙂

Anyway, thanks for reading,

I kind of had a small epiphany just the other day.  I started looking at my stack of untouched development work.  I started to feel overwhelmed and began wondering, how can I ever do all of this???  Then it started to hit, my value isn’t in the coding of all of these things, but in designing these things.  I’ve been thinking small…  I keep thinking that everything has to be designed, coded, tested and sold by me.  My realization started to take me down a different path.  What I need to be focusing on is designing what I want, writing a very solid and clear specification for it, then handing it off to a decent developer to write it.

I realized that my own micro manger has been getting in the way of my success.  There is no possible way one person can develop all the ideas I’ve jotted down.  But it doesn’t mean I can’t outsource those ideas for a small amount of cash.  I started down the right path when I first considered outsourcing some of my coding.  I quickly went to my inbox and found a friend of mine that I trust.  Then I started writing my first spec for some things I think I’ll need in the near future.  The next logical leap for me to take (and sometimes I’m a bit slow) is to focus my effort on design, and not code.

So, I think just had one of my 80/20 moments.  I can get 80% of my value, by focusing on writing the specifications, and then finding capable programmers to carry it out.  I feel like I just took a big step…  what about you?  what are you holding onto that someone else can do better?  try to find just one thing…  and start to regain some time back in your life.

Thanks for reading,

In my career, I’ve often had to fight through long stretches of work, with minimal sleep.  I’m in the midst of another of those stretches, and I’m realizing a few things.  The question I keep asking is “is it worth it?”.  A simple question, with a very complicated answer.

Now I’m used to working long hours because I have my “day job” and also my business.  Due to the nature of the game, my business has to take a back seat to the “day job”.  So I’m used to working late nights to keep my business moving toward my goal of doing my business full time.  So, I would’ve thought that doing the “night shift” during testing wouldn’t be bad.  Initially, it was ok, I get to watch all the hockey games, even the ones that don’t end until after midnight.  =)  but after a few nights, I started to notice how exhausted I was ever day.  Much of the problem is my controlling nature.  I’m responsible for a big chunk of the work, so I don’t want anyone else touching my models.  Now, this is a stupid mentality to have.  I’m a contractor, so these models won’t be mine forever.  Yet, I still don’t want to give them up.  I don’t even know why…  but I’ll save that conversation for another day.  But this is driving me to work the late shift from 10-2am, get up at 7am, get Alex rolling and off to school, then I log in for most of the rest of the day.  I take an hour off here and there, or maybe even take a brief nap, but in general, I’m “On” for the full day, and then again from about 9pm – 2am, Sunday – Thursday.

this is nearing the end of week 3.  Happily, the final week.  Here’s what I figured out…

1. I’m not as young as I used to be, so functioning indefinitely with little to no sleep, just doesn’t work.  Read my post on the “Sabbath” if you want to understand why 🙂

2. I have 2 small kids.  That means when I’m not working, I’m with them.  either playing, feeding, or putting them to bed.  That takes a lot more energy than I ever realized.

3.  Being “on” at the day job is a lot more taxing mentally than moving onto my own business stuff.  First off, I love doing my stuff for Javellin, so I don’t think of it as work.  Doing the “day job” means I need focused on work for far longer than I like.

4.  As the weeks have gone on, I’ve noticed that I’m getting sloppy, not focusing as well, and making a lot more simple mistakes that I generally wouldn’t make.  Simply, I’m tired, mentally and physically, so I’m not at my best.

All these combine to one simple fact…  I can’t do the 12 hour days for 3 straight weeks.  1 or 2 weeks, maybe for a go-live, but for testing, it’s not worth it.

The morale of this story…  don’t kill yourself because you’re too stubborn to let other help you.  It is not in anyone’s best interest.

Thanks for reading,

You know, those words are so easy to say, but often difficult to live by.  If you’re anything like me, when you get stressed and tired, everything can feel like a personal assault.  It’s during these times that you really need to take a step back and not go on the defensive.

My current situation has me on a late night shift, and still working all day at my “day job”.  Realistically, this shouldn’t be that different from my normal work schedule, except that I get to work on my own stuff during the late nights.  But something about having to be “on” all day and “night” can be very tiring.  Also, when I start to get tired, I can’t just call it a night until my shift ends.  Because of this, I’ve noticed that I’m really tired, often irritable.  When I read my emails, I have this tendency to see things as an attack.  So, what’s important for me, and maybe you experience this too, is to hold off on any responses that you can while you feel like this.  Don’t IM, text, call, or email until you are more rested (or at least are a few minutes separated from reading).

The other important thing is to remember that rarely is anyone out to assault you.  If it’s a co-worker, they want everyone to succeed, so they are just pointing out opportunities to improve.  If it’s family, well, they love you, and just might not realize your frame of mind…  so there’s your word of advise…

thanks for reading,

Well, lately it’s been marketing mode for me again.  As much as I want to spend my time developing, need to build the business up a little first 🙂  So one of my latest lessons has been segmenting my mailing lists.  Originally, when Mike and I started, we gathered up our prospect list, and put them into a couple of lists.  Seemed good.  It was based off of how promising the leads were.  Well, this can work if we didn’t have 2 very different segments to the business (at that time it was 3).  Since I’ve been the more focused marketer, it means I’ve been blogging more, and sending out more emails.  Well the problem is that a list that contains SM and PP and VC prospects, what do you suppose happens when the list only receives information about SM?  you guessed it…  lots of unsubscribes, because in general, PP and VC people don’t care about SM.

Well, after getting ourselves a decent list of prospects from our recent conference, we realized that we need to break these lists up and target the group effectively.  Of course, this is easier said than done, but Capsule CRM has actually been pretty good at helping me find the people that were broken into a segment.  There will always be some people we have no idea about, so they will get everything…  but the ones we know about, we can target to only send them PP stuff, or SM stuff.  In general, it’s probably better to send less stuff, than the wrong stuff.

So, that’s been one of my recent endeavors, to classify all of our prospects…  so now we have a few lists…  the next step is to send them useful information.  In general, I have more than enough blog posts, some white papers, etc. that I should be able to handle this 🙂  at least for a few months.  ha ha ha.

Anyway, take it from me…  focus the right information at the right people.  The spray and pray method, really doesn’t work (at least it didn’t for me).

thanks for reading,

It’s interesting, because as I read more books and listen to more audio program, similar these constantly keep appearing.  the latest thing I’ve heard is using outsourcing to do the work you don’t like.  I’ve heard it a few times before, but like so many things I looked at it, and thought…  eh…  I don’t need to do that.  Now that I realize just how valuable my time has become (maybe it’s because I feel like I have so little of it free), I find myself wondering, what can I outsource???

Those of you that know me, might describe me as hands-on (that’s a nice way of saying micro-manager/control freak) 🙂  While this isn’t all bad (as long as no one is micromanaging me. ha ha ha), it means that i Have a hard time letting things go to other people.  I’m even noticing it in my “day job” that I just don’t trust other people to do things…  so instead I try to run the whole show.  This is a terrible trait for someone that aspires to be independently wealthy and be able to enjoy life.  So my most recent struggle is…  what can I let go, to get some time back into my life?  I know myself well enough, to realize that I better start small, so I can get a quick win…  but when I look at my to-do list, it turns out I have a lot of little things…  none of which I’m anxious to hand over to someone else…  for example…

Paying random bills – there are always some bills that I have to log into my bank or the website and send a check for.  I could hand this over to my wife, but again… control freak.  I don’t want to hand over the checkbook…  so… what’s next…

check the garden, empty the compost pot…  I actually like doing these things.  Not glamorous, but I love mentally checking out…  so what’s next?

Writing blog posts…  well, as nice as it would be…  that’s gotta come from me.  Don’t get me wrong, anyone out there interested in doing a guest post, please hit me up.  I’d love to take a day off =)  but in general, this is something I can’t delegate…

File Papers… well, who the hell would understand my filing system.  To me it’s logical, but my friends will attest, what I see as logical, doesn’t always gel with the rest of the world.  Afterall, I was crazy enough to join the USMC at the age of 28.  I can’t be all there…

Creating landing pages for some of my new White Papers…  now, here’s a good potential.  I know I’m not the creative type, and someone could likely do this better than me…  ok.  I think I found my first potential…  but now what…  where do I go?  Elance?  on-line search?  crap, now I added something new to my list.  ha ha ha.  never ends.  But going forward, this might be a great place to start.

Infinite Development Tasks. Now here’s a potential as well.  I have so many things on my list, and really, coding another web app isn’t that exciting.  Rather, I’d prefer to do the design work, and then let someone else handle the web dynpro portions…  now, I need to find some help.

Well, thanks for letting me ramble…  And if you happen to be interested in some free lance development work, please let me know.  I’d love talk to you…

thanks for reading,

Ok, many of you know that I’m a bit of a self-improvement junkie.  I’m always looking for ways to make myself more productive, a better person, better husband, better father, successful entrepreneur.  Well, I started listening to something new a few days ago.  Well, you start watching a movie or listening to something to and just start nodding because they are telling your story?  Well, that’s the sort of moment I got this morning listening in my car.  As I type this, I even have the excited butterflies in my stomach…  that usually means I’m onto something pretty good (or I had too much caffeine.  I hope it’s the former 🙂 ).

Well, this is something I got from a Perry Marshall program.  The special guest was named Steve, and he started talking about how hard he works, and he eventually started to feel hollow.  The business was growing, he had more work than he knew how to finish, along with his full time job.  Well, this pretty much describes me perfectly.  So, I’m nodding along, listening, and wondering how can I fix myself from this same problem.  Well, this program has a bit of a religious spin to it.  I’m not an overly religious person, I spent a lot of time in Lutheran school as a kid, but I had fundamental “challenges” with organized religion, and I’ll just leave it that.  Anyway, Steve started talking about the Sabbath…  well, I remember that one, it’s Sunday right???  turns out if you dig into the true definition, it just means rest…  but a very special type of rest.  It’s a rest that you have to give one way or a another.  You can voluntarily take the rest, or it will take you in sickness, disease, burnout, numbness, etc.  You get the idea.  So it starts to hit me, that I’m always on…  I take a couple hours a day off to play with the kids, or maybe work in my garden…  but generally, I’m doing something all the time until I can’t think straight again.  So it hits me…  I need a Sabbath…  now, I haven’t figured out how to accomplish this yet…  but the crazy excitement I’m feeling is my inner voice telling me I need this…

Steve actually gave a great example.  A bow has to be unstrung, or it become less effective and weaker over time, until it finally breaks.  Well, looking back, my bow has been strung tightly for far too long.  How about you? are you burning the midnight oil?  do you find yourself in perpetual motion…  maybe you need a “sabbath” too…

Thanks for reading,