You can’t keep James Davis, former president of Digital Gateway down. After Digital Gateway was acquired by ECi earlier this fall, rather than sitting back and taking it easy, he acquired Digital Gateway’s field service management product, Remote Tech and created a new venture called Tech AnyWare, LLC (www.tech-anyware.com), which will now develop, market, sell and distribute the Remote Tech product.
If you’re unfamiliar with Remote Tech, it’s an add-on module that allows field service personnel to connect to Digital Gateway’s e-automate dealer management software to gather information, manage service activities, and input data from the field via a laptop or smartphone.
He explains that Digital Gateway was looking for an organization to take the product forward, and seeing a great opportunity, he stepped in.
“We were in a meeting discussing the future of Remote Tech and I raised my hand and offered to take on the product because I believe in it,” recalls Davis.
Tech AnyWare’s sole focus is Remote Tech from both an ongoing development and marketing standpoint. Tech AnyWare will handle the licensing and distribution, help with installation, and provide enhancements and bug fixes — everything short of ongoing customer service. Digital Gateway will continue to provide technical support and training for Remote Tech users.
“We will take a more aggressive, proactive approach to improving the Remote Tech product and our success will be measured by the success of our dealers,” says Davis.
Davis has big plans for Remote Tech.
“We need to take the product forward at light speed.”
The plan is for new quarterly releases of the product over the next five quarters with the next version of Remote Tech scheduled for early December.
“We just went into beta with four customers at the beginning of November,” reports Davis.
The newest version offers enhanced functionality with future enhancements determined by the needs of end users.
Asked how challenging it is for a small startup to accommodate the needs of the large base of Remote Tech users, Davis says, “It’s a challenge, but the advantage we have is the support being provided by Digital Gateway. They have an extensive support team and who can provide world-class customer support.”
A big advantage of Remote Tech is that it’s a Web-based product that is essentially the same across the user base.
“When we fix things and add functionality everyone sees the results,” says Davis.
Having a sizable customer base to begin with is a huge advantage for a startup.
“I don’t want to pat myself on the back for seeing a good opportunity, but the fact is that there is a large, established customer base with recurring revenue so I knew what I was buying when I bought this,” says Davis.
He expects to see that customer base grow.
“We’ve added several customers over the past three weeks and have quotes out to between a dozen and 20 potential new customers. It helps that our customer base knows us, so they have confidence in us.”
Going forward, Davis outlines the company’s three primary initiatives.
“The first is to make sure there is proper functionality of the software,” he explains. “Our new functionality is aimed at one main objective and that is to enable a “complete call”. This concept of the complete call is where the technician is able to go in and do everything they need to do to close and bill the call on the first visit. That seems to be one of the biggest influencers towards profitability in a service organization—the ability to do a complete call.”
The second initiative focuses on native apps on the popular platforms used by technicians—Android devices, iPads, iPhone, and Blackberries while not ignoring laptops and other types of smartphones.
“But certainly Android and iPhone platforms have received our attention in applications to allow technicians to work outside areas of coverage that would affect their Web-based connectivity,” adds Davis.
The third initiative focuses on the market for managed services.
“There’s an overlap in the functionality of those two markets—managed network services and managed print—and I think dealers in the office equipment channel are best suited to answer the needs of organizations who want to combine their IT and asset management,” maintains Davis. “The reason why is because they understand contracted service. They don’t sit and wait for the phone to ring; they have this concept of a contract that covers meter clicks, supplies, parts, PMs and all the things a dealer service organization does that an IT VAR doesn’t necessarily focus on.”
It’s barely been two months since the birth of Tech AnyWare, but Davis is having a ball.
“It’s like sitting at the top of a roller coaster and looking down and noticing that they’re still laying track at the bottom,” he says. “It’s exciting to be so focused and have supportive dealers as part of your base and such a good staff in a small business. I can’t image a more favorable set of circumstances to start a business. Can we mess this up? It’s possible, but not likely because we have a recipe for success.”
