Rick Pontin is the CEO of Airclic, a global provider of mobile software products that improve the performance of supply chain, logistics and field service operations.
Pontin is a 25-year software and technology veteran, and previous executive chairman of Tangoe, a global provider of Communications Lifecycle Management software and services to the Global 500.
Please describe the company and its main services.
We are a software company that provides our product in a format called software as a service (SAAS). We built a set of sophisticated applications and services that we host in a computer or data center. Then, our customers are able to access that software to carry out many mission-critical applications that they need to run their business. This is a much more effective and efficient model for delivering products and services to customers that have these kinds of needs. They don't have to develop their own software; they don't have to invest in their own computers and data centers. And, they also get the advantage of seamlessly updating their solution without interruption.
We are very much focused on software that enables the mobile supply chain and mobile logistics functionality. We have built applications for a variety of industries that help our customers manage their businesses outside of the warehouse — if they are delivering something, they've got drivers to manage, dispatches they need to make, and performance they want to drive. Many companies use Airclic today as their provider of these SaaS solutions.
That is Airclic in a nutshell.
What are the main benefits of Order Perform™ for the supply chain?
Order Perform is a solution designed to ensure that when a customer orders a part, that there is an inventory of that part, that part is sent to the correct individual customer and that the chain of custody from the store to the customer is managed and automated.
In the retail distribution business, timeliness is a problem for some companies, and so is the verification and recognition of what was ordered versus what was received. Our products and services are very much targeted in making sure there is timely delivery and the customer got what they ordered.
From the retailer viewpoint, it is very important to effectively and efficiently manage the resources and the inventory associated with the delivery of parts to the customer. Our software basically manages the driver, what the driver has and needs to deliver and where the driver actually is. It can identify locations where managers don't want their drivers to be and has the ability to provide on-demand dispatch. A lot of other functionality gets wrapped into the performance management software that helps operations management in these companies understand how efficient and effective their drivers actually are, in terms of how they use their time, the routes they are taking, how long it takes them to perform their job and how productive they can be. These are things that are very important to a company that has hundreds or even thousands of drivers out on the road delivering parts at any given time.
Order Perform is all about making sure there is timely delivery of parts and making sure that the customer got what the customer ordered. Order Perform is all around helping the retailer make certain that they are utilizing their inventory and their drivers in the most efficient ways. We provide them with the tools to manage and drive that performance, as well as understanding where there might be issues or exceptions in that performance.
Why is order management so important for successful business?
One of the things our customers in the auto parts distribution business can do with this software that their competitors can't do is offer service-level guarantees around the delivery of a part. It becomes a huge competitive advantage. The companies that use our software can offer service-level guarantees for their customers that others can't. It then becomes a competitive advantage in terms of cost. Our software has the potential to drive 20-30% more productivity among drivers than for companies who don't have it, simply because we are measuring the performance of the drivers — where they are, how many stops they take, how long it takes to make each stop and how long it takes to return to the store to get additional parts. All of that improves cost structure and allows our customers to gain a competitive advantage.
This is the third solution in Airclic's line. Can you briefly explain the other two products available?
Courier Perform is an Airclic software service that is directed at the courier industry, and we have tailored and packaged it specifically for the language couriers use. They use dispatch, package tracking numbers, and a number of other things that are very specific to the courier business that are different from the way an auto parts retailer distributes products to an end user. Courier Perform is directed at couriers big and small nationwide that take packages from many locations and deliver to many destinations.
Clinical Perform is a product directed at clinics and labs to help with medical specimen tracking. Our software manages the specimen delivery from the location where the test was performed to the location where the actual work is done to develop the diagnosis. Our software manages not only the delivery of that specimen, but also develops a chain of custody. Essentially, this is the same kind of performance and management software that is directed at making sure drivers are efficient and effective in completing their routes.
How long is the Order Perform implementation process? Can new clients transition and be up and running quickly?
From the time we start the work to the time we have the customer operating is somewhere between two and three weeks. It is a very simple process. Our software is already hosted. The way we deliver the software to the handset is pretty straightforward.
In the case where that same customer may have a computer system that we need to integrate to, we need to make sure the code and the language between the two systems talk to one another. Typically in that situation, it will take another week to two weeks to complete that work and make sure we can interface back and forth between the customer's existing system and our software.
Now, let's take that and compare it to a 2,000-3,000 user implementation for a very big retailer. There, you want to make sure you have sharp coordination and good logistics inside of your company to make sure as you're rolling this out you are training the right way. In that particular case, you are talking about a 2-3 month implementation. With an organization that size, you want to make sure that you are doing a good job educating and training the people who are going to be using the software. We will work with customers to make sure we have the right schedule, the right timeframes to do it. Probably the most important thing is to make sure we have a good training process. We put a lot of emphasis in making sure our customers understand the software and how it works - how data collection, dashboards and the dispatch center will use one set of dashboards to manage drivers and the delivery of the goods. Other dashboards are all about performance, performance management and how effective all the drivers are. How fast are they completing their routes? What is the average amount of time between stops? Where are there exceptions to their performance? We built this in a way that it is straightforward to implement, without a lot of complexity.
We are responsible to maintain our software and to improve it over time. Our company sells software as a service solutions that are hosted in a computer center. All the customers that buy the product are using a computer that has been partitioned for them. So they are effectively using a hosted software environment. It is a much more efficient and effective model in the sense that our customers don't have to go buy hardware, they don't have to have people maintain or install the hardware, and they don't have to have people that integrate it with their systems. So ours is a really simple method of delivering complex software in a simple way.
Because this software sits on a computer in a data center and our customers access it, we are constantly upgrading that software with new performance, more power, more functionality and more capabilities. It is really easy for us to get that functionality and that power to our customers. When you do business with Airclic, we manage all the software for you as part of our hosted solution and we upgrade it for you. The way our customers compensate us for that is they pay us for an annual license, and we do all of the maintenance and all of the upgrades to the software for them and support them in any way they need support.
There are a lot of different directions we can go. Right now, we are going to focus on courier and we are going to focus on clinical. We are going to take Order Perform and we're going to extend that to many other vertical industries — office supplies, chemical delivery, etc. As we get later in the year, we are going to focus on the food distribution business.
Rick Pontin is the CEO of Airclic, a global provider of mobile software products that improve the performance of supply chain, logistics and field service operations.
Pontin is a 25-year software and technology veteran, and previous executive chairman of Tangoe, a global provider of Communications Lifecycle Management software and services to the Global 500.
Please describe the company and its main services.
We are a software company that provides our product in a format called software as a service (SAAS). We built a set of sophisticated applications and services that we host in a computer or data center. Then, our customers are able to access that software to carry out many mission-critical applications that they need to run their business. This is a much more effective and efficient model for delivering products and services to customers that have these kinds of needs. They don't have to develop their own software; they don't have to invest in their own computers and data centers. And, they also get the advantage of seamlessly updating their solution without interruption.
We are very much focused on software that enables the mobile supply chain and mobile logistics functionality. We have built applications for a variety of industries that help our customers manage their businesses outside of the warehouse — if they are delivering something, they've got drivers to manage, dispatches they need to make, and performance they want to drive. Many companies use Airclic today as their provider of these SaaS solutions.
That is Airclic in a nutshell.
What are the main benefits of Order Perform™ for the supply chain?
Order Perform is a solution designed to ensure that when a customer orders a part, that there is an inventory of that part, that part is sent to the correct individual customer and that the chain of custody from the store to the customer is managed and automated.
In the retail distribution business, timeliness is a problem for some companies, and so is the verification and recognition of what was ordered versus what was received. Our products and services are very much targeted in making sure there is timely delivery and the customer got what they ordered.
From the retailer viewpoint, it is very important to effectively and efficiently manage the resources and the inventory associated with the delivery of parts to the customer. Our software basically manages the driver, what the driver has and needs to deliver and where the driver actually is. It can identify locations where managers don't want their drivers to be and has the ability to provide on-demand dispatch. A lot of other functionality gets wrapped into the performance management software that helps operations management in these companies understand how efficient and effective their drivers actually are, in terms of how they use their time, the routes they are taking, how long it takes them to perform their job and how productive they can be. These are things that are very important to a company that has hundreds or even thousands of drivers out on the road delivering parts at any given time.
Order Perform is all about making sure there is timely delivery of parts and making sure that the customer got what the customer ordered. Order Perform is all around helping the retailer make certain that they are utilizing their inventory and their drivers in the most efficient ways. We provide them with the tools to manage and drive that performance, as well as understanding where there might be issues or exceptions in that performance.
Why is order management so important for successful business?
One of the things our customers in the auto parts distribution business can do with this software that their competitors can't do is offer service-level guarantees around the delivery of a part. It becomes a huge competitive advantage. The companies that use our software can offer service-level guarantees for their customers that others can't. It then becomes a competitive advantage in terms of cost. Our software has the potential to drive 20-30% more productivity among drivers than for companies who don't have it, simply because we are measuring the performance of the drivers — where they are, how many stops they take, how long it takes to make each stop and how long it takes to return to the store to get additional parts. All of that improves cost structure and allows our customers to gain a competitive advantage.
This is the third solution in Airclic's line. Can you briefly explain the other two products available?
Courier Perform is an Airclic software service that is directed at the courier industry, and we have tailored and packaged it specifically for the language couriers use. They use dispatch, package tracking numbers, and a number of other things that are very specific to the courier business that are different from the way an auto parts retailer distributes products to an end user. Courier Perform is directed at couriers big and small nationwide that take packages from many locations and deliver to many destinations.
Clinical Perform is a product directed at clinics and labs to help with medical specimen tracking. Our software manages the specimen delivery from the location where the test was performed to the location where the actual work is done to develop the diagnosis. Our software manages not only the delivery of that specimen, but also develops a chain of custody. Essentially, this is the same kind of performance and management software that is directed at making sure drivers are efficient and effective in completing their routes.
How long is the Order Perform implementation process? Can new clients transition and be up and running quickly?
From the time we start the work to the time we have the customer operating is somewhere between two and three weeks. It is a very simple process. Our software is already hosted. The way we deliver the software to the handset is pretty straightforward.
In the case where that same customer may have a computer system that we need to integrate to, we need to make sure the code and the language between the two systems talk to one another. Typically in that situation, it will take another week to two weeks to complete that work and make sure we can interface back and forth between the customer's existing system and our software.
Now, let's take that and compare it to a 2,000-3,000 user implementation for a very big retailer. There, you want to make sure you have sharp coordination and good logistics inside of your company to make sure as you're rolling this out you are training the right way. In that particular case, you are talking about a 2-3 month implementation. With an organization that size, you want to make sure that you are doing a good job educating and training the people who are going to be using the software. We will work with customers to make sure we have the right schedule, the right timeframes to do it. Probably the most important thing is to make sure we have a good training process. We put a lot of emphasis in making sure our customers understand the software and how it works - how data collection, dashboards and the dispatch center will use one set of dashboards to manage drivers and the delivery of the goods. Other dashboards are all about performance, performance management and how effective all the drivers are. How fast are they completing their routes? What is the average amount of time between stops? Where are there exceptions to their performance? We built this in a way that it is straightforward to implement, without a lot of complexity.
We are responsible to maintain our software and to improve it over time. Our company sells software as a service solutions that are hosted in a computer center. All the customers that buy the product are using a computer that has been partitioned for them. So they are effectively using a hosted software environment. It is a much more efficient and effective model in the sense that our customers don't have to go buy hardware, they don't have to have people maintain or install the hardware, and they don't have to have people that integrate it with their systems. So ours is a really simple method of delivering complex software in a simple way.
Because this software sits on a computer in a data center and our customers access it, we are constantly upgrading that software with new performance, more power, more functionality and more capabilities. It is really easy for us to get that functionality and that power to our customers. When you do business with Airclic, we manage all the software for you as part of our hosted solution and we upgrade it for you. The way our customers compensate us for that is they pay us for an annual license, and we do all of the maintenance and all of the upgrades to the software for them and support them in any way they need support.
There are a lot of different directions we can go. Right now, we are going to focus on courier and we are going to focus on clinical. We are going to take Order Perform and we're going to extend that to many other vertical industries — office supplies, chemical delivery, etc. As we get later in the year, we are going to focus on the food distribution business.
