One Mobile Application ... 90% Sales Growth

For many VARs, using satisfied customers as references is a critical part of their success. VAR and software developer OPUS Consulting took this concept to a whole new level, however. In 2004, OPUS Consulting turned a customized mobile inspection application project with the SeaTac City Fire Department into a partnership. Even though several obstacles had to be overcome, the decision is already paying off. By the end of 2005, less than one year after forming its strategic partnership, OPUS Consulting expects new business from its partnership to boost sales revenue 90%.

Upsell Routine App Installs With Consulting Services
When Ajay Kishinchandani, president of OPUS Consulting, connected with the SeaTac City Fire Department in late 2003, he had no idea of the scope of the opportunity that awaited him. The fire department, which is located in between the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, WA was searching for a software solution to help it manage its laptops and desktop PCs, including data synchronization, remote application updates, and device security. "By the time we engaged the client, they had already narrowed down their decision to Afaria [now part of Sybase's iAnywhere desktop and mobile device management solution]," says Kishinchandani. Since OPUS Consulting was the only certified Afaria reseller in the area, it was the natural choice. The Afaria solution was rolled out at SeaTac City Fire Department's office over a two-week period. The solution enabled the fire department's IT staff to provide security features and software management capabilities to the department's rugged laptops, which were recently installed in each of the fire trucks to document information at the scene of fires and other emergency response situations.

Like any good consulting firm, OPUS Consulting made sure its customer knew it wasn't going to install the software and disappear. "We conduct postimplementation follow-up meetings within a few days of the installation and check back regularly with the customer," says Kishinchandani. "This helps us proactively mitigate any implementation problems, and it helps us build better relationships with our customers."

During its postimplementation follow-up visits, OPUS Consulting discovered its customer needed to upgrade its storage backup solution and wanted to enable its full-time inspectors and firefighters to use mobile computing devices to conduct inspections. The SeaTac City Fire Department conducts approximately 1,100 inspections per year. Previously, the fire department's inspection process was mostly manual. Inspectors and firefighters documented their inspection notes using paper forms and left a copy of their findings with the building occupant. After returning to the fire station, inspectors and firefighters entered inspection information into an application called FireRMS (records management system). After information was entered into the application, it was reviewed by the fire department administrator. The administrator checked the document for consistency and determined whether a follow-up inspection was warranted. Following the administrator's review, two copies of the inspection form were printed. One form was filed at the fire station and a second form was sent to city hall for its records. "The overall inspection and documentation process averaged 6 hours," says Kishinchandani.

The fire department approached its inspection application vendor about deploying a mobile version of the FireRMS application, but the vendor wasn't very accommodating, so the department asked OPUS Consulting to contact the vendor. The consulting firm's findings were discouraging. "The vendor's mobile solution would have cost $40,000 in licensing fees alone," says Kishinchandani. "And, it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars more for necessary software customization and network infrastructure upgrades."

Partnership Turns Mobile App Into Recurring Revenue
OPUS Consulting proposed building a custom mobile application that could be designed with the fire department's input and would provide a much higher ROI than the vendor's product could offer. The fire chief told Kishinchandani that he wanted to partner with OPUS Consulting in the designing and marketing of the solution. "We were excited about the offer, but at the same time we had to consider all the benefits and drawbacks before we could seal the offer in writing," says Kishinchandani.

OPUS Consulting was concerned about intellectual property rights. Even though it had a good rapport with the fire department, it had reservations about sharing the intellectual property (IP) rights for the software. Also, the SeaTac City Fire Department could not, under municipality regulations, actively market a product for profit.

SeaTac City Council's attorneys agreed that it was permissible for the SeaTac Fire Department to talk about the mobile inspection solution at their fire department conventions, where fire chiefs and fire department IT personnel gather to discuss safety training and new equipment.

"After speaking with the city council and the fire department, we came to an agreement that was beneficial for both parties," says Kishinchandani. "OPUS Consulting remained the sole IP owner of the software, and the SeaTac City Fire Department would receive commissions on software sales from organizations they referred us to."

Expect Obstacles When Building Custom Mobile Applications
OPUS Consulting spent the next six months developing its inspection application, which it calls MobileRMS. "We didn't want to rush the product development because we knew it had to fit the fire department's routines for them to adopt it," says Kishinchandani. "The application adoption was the key to the SeaTac City Fire Department and us being able to market it to other fire departments in their district."

The six-month development period included extensive time spent with SeaTac City Fire Department inspectors and firefighters. OPUS Consulting learned early on that getting firefighters to change the way they had always done their inspections was not going to be easy. Kishinchandani recalls a couple of incidents when his software engineers set up mobile handheld devices with the MobileRMS application and populated the devices with mock data. Next, they gave the devices to the firefighters and asked them to try the devices and provide feedback a week later. "The guys did little more with the devices than play games on them," quips Kishinchandani. In a second attempt to get the firefighters involved with the devices, Kishinchandani and some of his technicians and software engineers asked the firefighters to take the devices with them on their routine inspections and compare their current process of capturing information with the process of entering dummy information on the handhelds. "Everyone saw our request as adding more work to their already-hectic schedules," says Kishinchandani. "We needed to learn how to do the inspections ourselves and we needed to provide them with real data if it was going to work." OPUS Consulting explained its discovery to the fire chief, and he agreed to go live with the solution. The VAR/software developer first rolled out the live solution with the inspectors, using rugged tablet PCs. After the inspectors told the firefighters how easy it was to capture information on the tablet PCs compared to using pen and paper, the firefighters became much more responsive.

In order to stay on budget and provide each firefighter with his own device, OPUS Consulting deployed Tripod Data Systems' rugged Recon PDAs rather than rugged tablets. The VAR/software consultant gave each of the firefighters 3 hours of training and did ride-alongs with several firefighters to answer any questions that arose during their inspections. "We designed the application to work with minimal typing, by using touch screens and drop-down menus," says Kishinchandani. "As a result, there were very few problems when the solution was rolled out, and the overall inspection process dropped dramatically from an average of 6 hours to 1 hour."

Take Your Mobile Inspection Solution To Other Fire Departments
After its successful deployment with the SeaTac City Fire Department, OPUS Consulting was ready for the next step, which was taking the solution to other fire departments in the area. The SeaTac City Fire Department is affiliated with 19 other fire departments in the King County, WA area. "On a regular basis the fire departments and other municipality organizations get together to discuss growth plans and work efficiency improvement strategies," says Kishinchandani. "The fire chief at the SeaTac City Fire Department can demonstrate the mobile inspection solution to his peers at these events. Not only is he a known and respected leader, but he can present the features and benefits of the solution in firefighter terms rather than using technical terms."

Besides talking about the mobile inspection solution, the fire chief plays another key role in helping OPUS Consulting grow its business. "Many fire departments have very tight budgets and cannot afford the up-front costs of mobile inspection solutions," says Kishinchandani. "However, after they hear from one of their peers that financial assistance is available through grants from the Department of Homeland Security, they're more likely to take an interest in what the solution can do for them."

The SeaTac City Fire Department has been instrumental in providing OPUS Consulting with four strong prospects that it expects to turn into customers before the end of the year. OPUS Consulting conservatively expects the four clients to yield 90% sales revenue growth in 2005.

The next phase for OPUS Consulting will be to take its solution beyond the King County district and into the other 200 fire departments in the state of Washington. The VAR/software developer has a few plans to make this transition work. First, it will continue to use the SeaTac City Fire Department to help establish relationships with fire departments in other districts via special conventions, such as annual fire chief conventions, which draw fire chiefs from several counties outside King County. As OPUS Consulting makes progress in these other districts, it is already planning to establish additional fire department partnerships to help it more quickly endear itself to its clients.

And, its timing couldn't be better, because the vendor that makes the FireRMS product, which many of the fire departments use, recently released a mobile inspection application for fire prevention personnel. "That's where our ability to help customers solve multiple IT needs and become their trusted advisor pays off," says Kishinchandani. "Fire departments look to VARs like us for help evaluating their IT needs. In the process, they will discover that our mobile inspection application is already established and was built with input from end users like them, which gives us a good head start over other software developers."