JVA Electrical

Background

JVA is a commercial electrical and property services provider, specialising in high-volume contracts with Housing Associations, which have specific compliance requirements. To comply with these requirements, a precise procedure must be followed when on-site. White Cobalt was commissioned to build a bespoke system to replace the company’s off-the-shelf solution.

The problem

JVA had been using an off-the-shelf application designed for general service-management companies. It couldn’t be tailored to the specifics of their contracts and therefore created extra administration. The application was at the limits of its operational capability and its architecture prevented extending this capacity. This severely limited JVA’s ability to grow. The inflexibility of the off-the-shelf application was also having an impact on wider business operations.

• Incoming emails had to be entered into the system, causing a ‘double-entry’ issue, possible errors, and an admin overhead.
• Appointment management was laborious and prone to input and update error.
• I don’t understand how the system was stopping compliance? Can we shorten this somehow and make it simplier? They also needed to comply with specific on-site compliance procedures and the inability to enforce these processes was causing JVA far reaching problems, both in terms of complying with their contractual obligations and the additional admin.
• With a lack of project tracking, key personnel had no insight into job status.
• Managers were unable to access concise details on the real-time performance of the business. Information only became available once the accounts were produced.
• There was no customer reporting facility to keep clients up to date. A significant admin overhead was dedicated to manually (would this be correct?) updating the Housing Associations.
• The inability to provide real-time or near-time updates restricted tendering opportunities, reducing the company’s competitiveness, or making them ineligible.