Every business has its challenges. They might relate to accessing inventory when you need it, the quality of your stock, or your storage capabilities. You might have issues with fast-changing delivery schedules. Or perhaps you’re unable to identify which of your assets are under-utilised or unprofitable. You may even know you’re losing consumables, but not know which ones. When working on solutions to our business challenges, we’ve all heard the wisdom, ‘Start with why’.
We talk to Darren Newman, Managing Director of GlobeRanger, about a different approach, ‘Start with where’. After all, he and his team have been helping organizations solve business challenges like these for 25 years, and every success story has started with: where are your assets?
What may surprise you even more is where that question led the organizations they’ve served. Read on…
Contents
- Solving challenges, not selling technology
- Understanding asset-tracking work
- The value of the right data
- Real-life challenges solved
- Why trust GlobeRanger
- The GlobeRanger difference
- What’s next?
Essentially GlobeRanger is an asset-tracking business, yet your focus seems to be on solving business challenges. How do you explain that?
We don’t sell asset-tracking technology. We sell our ability to step into your business, understand your business problems and solve them – the difference is where we start.
Research shows 96% of businesses fail within 10 years and only 0.5% last 100 years. Sometimes the cause of failure is a catastrophic event, but mostly it’s just a series of frustrating problems that go unsolved in the cut-and-thrust of surviving in increasingly competitive and commoditizing markets.
When we set up, we very quickly realized that many of the failpoints in our customers’ businesses could be resolved by starting with knowing where their assets are. After all, the purpose of most organizations today is to turn assets into profit, sustainably. If we could identify the assets that make – and lose – them the most money, we could help them use that data to make a tangible difference to their business.
So, I’m guessing this is where asset tracking technology comes in – how does it work?
Asset tracking technology is based around the Internet of Things – or IoT as it’s sometimes called. This is when physical and digital objects are embedded with tags, labels or sensors to connect them to the internet, enabling them to transfer and exchange data with other IoT devices and the cloud – which serves as secure digital storage for that data and makes it available to read, use and manage any time, as long as you have an internet connection. You’ve probably already got IoT devices in your everyday life – whether that’s an Alexa, a smartwatch, a video doorbell or a smart meter for your utilities.
Well, GlobeRanger uses RFID tagging, allowing users to automatically and uniquely identify and track inventory and assets using wireless radio frequency waves. Putting a tag on an asset can provide a real-time stream of critical data. But it’s what we do with that data that can help you to overcome your business challenges.
Okay. What are some of the things you can do with that kind of data?
Using the data you get from tracking your assets, gives you a superpower to do what you couldn’t before. So, for example, you can manage your inventory in and out of your business more efficiently. You can track your assets through the lifecycle of your manufacturing process and identify exactly where the bottlenecks are. You can identify the date your product is ready for the next stage in your production process, the date your consumables expire or the date you got a batch that’s been recalled. You can fine-tune the scheduling of your deliveries to avoid delays. You can even keep track of all your pallets, tools or equipment out in the field and ensure they’re returned rather than constantly replaced.
What’s more, you’re saving a lot of your skilled people doing manual work to get through manual processes and freeing them up to do what they do best – and makes you the most money.
Can you give us some examples of customers’ challenges you’ve solved by starting with where?
We’ve worked with businesses in hugely diverse industries, from dog food manufacturers to used clothing retailers, from aviation to the military.
For example, take Jim Beam. Our GlobeRanger team used our iMotion™ IoT Edgeware Platform to enable their team to track millions of oak barrels of whiskey through their production lifecycle, barrel by barrel. It’s a three-stage project encompassing the commissioning, tagging and movement of each oak barrel, ensuring total visibility of inventory at every step of the liquid maturation process and providing a digital trail that allows for the automatic movement of whiskey between plants, warehouses and trucks. So every drop is Jim Beam quality – and not a drop is lost. Moreover, every bottle has its own story to tell.
For a totally different example, take Airbus. Having already deployed Fujitsu RFID on Airbus’ production line to track components, we worked with Airbus’ team to co-create the Emergency Equipment Management Smart Check solution. Simply, it uses the RFID tags to enable flight crew to easily scan essential equipment pre-flight. It’s a seamless, cost-effective solution that cut this critical process down from more than an hour, using repetitive and back-breaking under-seat inspection, to just 90 seconds. And, of course, it removes human error and frees up crew to add that human touch to their passengers’ onboarding experience.
Why do you think organizations like these trust GlobeRanger with their business challenges?
Because we know that the idea of digitalization can be daunting, especially if you are a long-established business with legacy systems and equipment. So, we make finding the solution to their challenge as quick, simple and affordable as we can.We start by visiting your business, understanding your challenge from the inside out, and asking where the assets are that, if managed better or differently, could solve it. Then we choose the right IoT technology, build a prototype and run a small on-site pilot to demonstrate how we can solve your challenge. Doing that gives you confidence that there won’t be any disruption to your day-to-day operations. It helps us business case the impact and value for you, so you can onboard your colleagues. And it also helps us fine-tune our solution so we can scale it quickly, seamlessly and affordably.
Sounds good. I’m wondering, how is working with GlobeRanger different to other RFID solution-providers?
Any IoT solution can create data. Whether or not it’s the right data to solve your business challenges is another matter entirely.
At GlobeRanger we love our customers’ businesses. We care about their assets. And we have an endless curiosity to help them make their assets make more money for their businesses.
Where others sell an off-the-shelf solution, we’re tech-agnostic. Our focus in on working collaboratively with organizations to discover exactly what their challenge is. Often, managers think they know what it is, but when we start working together, we discover that it’s a different challenge, there’s a more critical issue, or the cause is something unexpected.
So, the right challenge, the right IoT-enabled asset tracking solution, the right data. That adds up to the right solution to their business challenge.
And we don’t just implement and walk away. Once they have access to real-time data in their business, they’re on their way to becoming a digital business. And because of our world-class ecosystem of partners, like Fujitsu, we can take them on that journey towards digital maturity – and take end-to-end accountability.
Because, as we always say, going digital isn’t a revolution, it’s an evolution. And it starts with … well, you guessed it.
What are your biggest business challenges? GlobeRanger can help you evolve the organization you know now, into the one that will keep you competitive in the future.
Talk to our friendly, expert team – they’re waiting for your challenges.
Find out how ready your business is to go digital with our quick quiz. Or read more about how GlobeRanger can solve your challenges in our whitepaper.
