Driscoll Electric 2X Revenue with Operix

Driscoll Electric, one of Massachusetts’ most trusted electrical commercial contractors, has been dedicated to the highest standards of ethics and integrity since 1971. To continue their long-standing commitment to excellence, they needed a way to improve the communication between their field and office teams. Their pen-and-paper processes were causing delays in invoicing, data errors, and ultimately hindering their ability to provide excellent customer service to properly scale the business.

Responsible for the financial direction, IT, payroll, hiring, and HR, Katie Hallahan, Driscoll Electric’s CFO, needed a solution to help solve this.

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Why Driscoll Electric Started Looking for a Field Service Management Solution

10 years ago, Katie Hallahan was trying to solve a very specific need. Her team’s reliance on pen and paper was hindering their ability to work efficiently. The field team wasn’t able to access customer information in real-time, the office team had to wait for paper timecards to be returned and then re-keyed into the system, and invoices could only be sent at the end of theweek once all the paperwork was received. 

Not to mention, relying on paper meant that it took 1 person a full week to complete payroll.

“Before Operix, each morning, a staff member would print all the service work orders for the day. Then, the service and construction electricians would come into the office to pick up the work orders, spend time receiving instructions from a manager, and then be dispatched from there,” saidKatie Hallahan. “They would then have to return to the office at the end of the day to close out the work orders.” 

None of this was digital. All of it was pen-and-paper.

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Enter, Operix

Katie saw Operix as a way to eliminate paper, improve her team's communication, and to ultimately invoice and grow the business faster. She saw Operix as an opportunity to rethink the way the company operated to:

• Improve the efficiency and accuracy of their     work orders
• Improve their invoice generation
• Eliminate double data entry
• Centralized all fieldwork into one     accessible view that integrated seamlessly into their accounting system.

“Knowing this would be a big change for our team, we rolled Operix out strategically,” explained Katie. “We selected one of our most hesitant service electricians to be our tester. After he immediately saw how fantastic the platform was, he talked it up to his co-workers. We then success fully roll out Operix to the entire company.”

Driscoll Electric now has a smooth flow of information between its two offices and the electricians in the field, giving them the ability to send accurate invoices out quickly and cut down on expensive administrative overhead.

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The Impact of Operix

The results of using Operix speak loudly. “Operix has helped us double our revenue and double our field techs,” said Katie.

Driscoll Electric has been using the platform for more than 10years, and it has boosted cash flow, slashed payroll processing time, reduced costs, enhanced forecasting, and boosted their reputation in market.  

"Since implementing Operix, our job cost information accuracyhas significantly improved. Our employees no longer write down the wrong jobnumber or work order on their timesheets, which has reduced errors in jobcosting. We now have real-time data on labor hours, rather than waiting forweekly timesheets to be coded. This has reduced our lag time from a week to aday,” said Katie.

They can now invoice daily instead of weekly, and the time spent on payroll processing has been reduced from 40 hours to about 90 minutes. They were also able to reduce overhead by eliminating a full-time role that was solely focused on payroll, enabling them to focus on other more impactful areas of the business.

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• Boosted Cashflow – “We used to bill on a weekly basis,” shared Katie. “Now, since all of the information we need for billing is available in real-time, we can invoice daily. Operix has really improved our efficiency.
       
• Slashed Payroll Processing Time – “Under our old system, it took as many as 40 hours to process payroll,” confessed Katie. “With Operix in place, we were able to gradually reduce the time we spend on payroll to about 90 minutes.”
     
• Reduced Costs – “Because we no longer needed a full-time employee to handle payroll, we were able to reduce overhead by eliminating the position,” said Katie. “Not spending so much time on payroll enabled us to focus on other areas of the business.”
  

• Eliminate Data Errors with Labor Entries- “Operix has eliminated the errors we used to see with labor entries,” said Katie.  
  

• Enhanced Forecasting – “From an efficiency standpoint, having real-time information from the field allows us to communicate better with our customers and contractors,” said Katie. “We are in a better position to forecast our team’s schedules and keep everyone informed.”    

• Upgraded Reputation – “Investing in technology like Operix makes us more of a legitimate company in the eyes of our customers,” noted Katie. “It shows them that we are capable, proficient, and working at the cutting edge of our industry.”
  

• Improve efficiency and streamline operations - “So much of construction is about scheduling and communication,” said Katie.” If you have the right technology in place you can dramatically change your business model.

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