Fostering cross-functional relationships is crucial for successful facilities management. Our guest today understands that more than anyone. This episode features an interview with Bashir Abdallah, VP of Product at ServiceChannel. ServiceChannel helps multi-site commercial and enterprise brands deliver the best possible guest and employee experiences. Bashir Abdallah joins us to talk about how he ended up in facilities management, why facilities has a massive PR problem, how the industry has evolved, and where it’s going.
Bashir Abdallah joins us to talk about how he ended up in facilities management, why facilities has a massive PR problem, how the industry has evolved, and where it’s going.
Guest Bio:
Bashir Abdallah is the VP of Product at ServiceChannel. He joined the company in 2014 as the Director of Product Management. By 2016 he was promoted to Vice President of Product Management. Bashir holds a Bachelor's Degree from State University of New York at Plattsburgh.
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Guest Quote: “I think cross-functional relationships within their company become super important and we've seen really successful teams not only have a seat at the table at an executive level but really put in the groundwork to stay connected to store operations, procurement, construction, lease compliance, and other departments.” - Bashir Abdallah
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Time Stamps
*(0:59) Bashir’s Unique Journey
*(6:30) How the industry has evolved
*(9:30) The Facility Manager Persona
*(13:42) Industry Challenges
*(21:10) The “How”
*(28:19) Technology’s Role in Facilities Management
*(35:57) Bashir’s Hurricane Sandy Story
*(40:37) The Future of the Industry
*(47:25) Technology and AI
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Sponsor:
Scale your facilities program as fast as you open new locations. With ServiceChannel Managed, you can leave the hard work to us, so you can focus on growth without limits. ServiceChannel Managed - a collaborative, transparent, and cost-effective partnership. Visit Servicechannel.com to learn more.
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Links
Emma: Welcome to Elevating Brick and Mortar.
a podcast about how operations and facilities drive brand performance.
On today’s episode Bashir Abdallah joins us to talk about how he ended up in facilities management, why facilities has a massive PR problem, and how the industry has evolved and where it’s going.
But first, a word from our sponsors.
Scale your facilities program as fast as you open new locations. With ServiceChannel Managed, you can leave the hard work to us, so you can focus on growth, without limits. ServiceChannel Managed - a collaborative, transparent, and cost-effective partnership. Visit Servicechannel.com to learn more.
Here’s your host, FM technology thought leader and Chief Business Officer at Service Channel, Sid Shetty
Sid: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show. I am here today with my good friend and colleague, Bashir Abdallah. Welcome how you
Bashir: Hey Sid June. Great, good to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Sid: Perfect. Thank you. Thanks for joining. Um, all right, so let's dive right in, right. Um, but sure. Tell us about your role at service channel. What do you do? What are you responsible?
Bashir: Happy to, um, I'm the VP of product management. Um, I'm responsible for helping to define the product roadmap that supports our customers. Um, the retail restaurant, convenience and grocery chains among many other verticals, as well as the service providers that support them. Uh, so really working with a great group of product designers and product managers, as well as our engineering team to, to build out the things that are really important in, in support of our customers.
Sid: Perfect. You've been in the industry for a long time. Uh, tell us about how you ended up in facilities management and how did you end up at service?
Bashir: Yeah, that nearly 15 years now, um, which is, uh, it it's passed by really quick. I, you know, when I got out of college, I started a business with my brothers. Um, and what we would, we focused on in that business was the distribution of paper and plastic goods. So we sold them to a lot of restaurants, convenience, grocery, and other types of chains, uh, in upstate New York.
But my heart wasn't in it, it wasn't where I wanted to be. And, and my, uh, she was my girlfriend now wife at, uh, at the time she was girlfriend she's. Now my wife was moving to Connecticut to pursue her master's and eventually her doctorate. And so I followed her, went to Connecticut in 2008 and I got a job at, um, at one of, uh, one of the industries I have found the integrated facility management committee.
Um, and I, I started at, uh, you know, uh, at the bottom, I, I started in the service care center, um, and really worked hard to understand what this industry is about, what the trades are and sort of started to re uh, go up the ranks. So they go as in the service care center for a few weeks when I realized that Strava is really hard and almost every customer calling on the phone was yelling at the agent on the other side.
And I didn't see myself being able to tolerate that or do well with that. Uh, fortunately I was, um, moved into a different department into the sourcing procurement team. I focused on two particular things. I, I worked on, uh, creating work orders for plant meaning. Um, and I observed, uh, one of the big four consultants helping us at the time with one of the leading convenience store chains in the, in the, in the world, uh, with a sourcing and, and, uh, contracting effort, um, with their service providers.
So I wrote the scopes, I issued schedule maintenance, work orders to these providers. I've started to build relationships with providers to understand their world and what, what matters to them. Um, and then, you know, I, I stepped into a procurement role soon after that, that the big four left and we had some restructuring and I started starting in on, started in, on sourcing.
And so, um, really started to understand, uh, the procurement process and the journey of, of, uh, provider and, and customer relationship. Um, and, and soon after, um, you know, several years, actually, not really soon after, but several years later I decided that. You know, the IFM world, wasn't it wasn't for me, I really wanted to be closer to technology.
Technology was an ambition of mine. Uh, outside of work, I was building websites and doing things of that nature. Um, and so I connected with the founder of service channel and he brought me over in 2014. Um, and I joined the product team here. Um, so it was a career shift. It was a different, uh, lens in our space, but one that, that I really embraced early on and got to meet the amazing team here at service shadow.
And at the same time, we had a new investment group come in and really put a lot of money into the business to take us to the next level and, and, uh, rode that ride to the role that I am in today. Um, so it's, it's been, uh, it's been an amazing journey and it was about a lot of learning for me, professional development and, and being able to impact the industry the way that, that you and I and other people in this company have, has been really.
Sid: Yeah. You know, but I, I distinctly remember, uh, when Steven, our founder called me and, uh, I think he had just met you and he called me on the way back. And he was like, Sid, I just met this guy, but shit, you're going to. Um, and I was like, Steven, you tell us about everybody, right? Yeah.
I'm sure. I'm sure he's a great guy, but it turns out he was absolutely right.
Um, you and I have been, uh, you know, uh, doing a lot of fun stuff over the years. It's service channel, and I think we've, we've helped move the needle. So, uh, he was right. He was right, right. We're lucky to have you.
Bashir: Yeah. Like, you know, for me personally, Steven, Steven, he, he recruited me. I don't think I'd ever been recruited. Uh, before that I don't think anyone ever saw me on LinkedIn or anything and said, boy, we'd love to have that person join the company. Uh, I had a former colleague that joined service channel. Uh, he reached out to me.
And, and the next day Steven had drove, drove from long island all the way up to Connecticut to, to sit down and have lunch with me. And so I don't think we spoke as second about facility management. We just talked about our lives and our backgrounds. And, and I think by the end of that lunch, she offered me a job.
And I had to, I had to be the one to say, are you sure about that? Maybe I, maybe I should meet the team. Maybe I should go to New York and get to know the folks. Um, so, you know, that was, that was really, it was, it was a great feeling to be part of that. Um, and to be, to be recruited as a professional for the first time in my career, but it was also, there was also something very clear about what was going, that's going on at service channel that really wasn't happening anywhere else.
Um, and when you're in the business of empowering customers and empowering. It's a different thing than trying to sell someone a service that you're not entirely sure that they want. Um, so, so that for me was, was the selling point on joining the company and being a part of this, of this great organization.
Sid: That's perfect. Let's talk about the industry for a second, right? Um, from your perspective, how has the industry evolved over the past 10 years?
Bashir: Yeah. That's a great, that's a great question. I think that you asked that question to other people, um, and they might have different answers. And I think that there's no right answer to it. It's just the evolution is, is multifaceted. Um, I think for, you know, I'll break it apart into kind of thinking about it from, from the lens of the provider or the service provider, and then also thinking of it from the lens of the facility management professionals, um, on the service provider side, the, the pressure that providers feel.
To find and retain talent, particularly technicians is ha ha and has been exasperated. Um, in a way that I don't think was sort of predictable. Even 10 years ago, we knew that the skills gap was a challenge, but, but it is, it is a challenge that is really impacting, um, impacting the industry in particular service providers.
And as a result, obviously it's impacting, uh, customers out there and facility management professionals. So I think contractors had, have had to get really creative about how they do this and how they handle it. Um, and then doing so that, that means new tactics and recruiting, um, sponsoring, you know, like.
know, much in the same way that hospitals pay for nurses to go through school. Contractors are now paying for high school students to go through trade school with the hope that it will return five years of service, uh, as an employee, um, on the, on the customer side or on the FM professional side of things, you know, I think facility managers are leveraging data in a way that they have historically not been able to.
And, you know, when they, when you look back 10 years ago, um, the, you know, the services sort of became commoditized, but actually accessing data and knowing what to do with it was still kind of difficult for people. And so I think we were one of the leaders in the forefront of putting business intelligence in front of folks to be able to think about their budgets, to be able to think about the proper schedule maintenance planning and the proper performance of your providers.
So in many ways, I think one of the big changes. And one of the things I certainly see from service channel customers is their ability to embrace data and leverage it for efficiencies of their own teams, but really to get better outcomes for their business, really, to get to know that these contractors are actually doing the work that, that they're, that these customers are paying for.
And, and that they, you know, that they're doing so in line with their budgets and plans.
Sid: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think that if someone asks me the same question, I would have said, uh, the two things that excited me the most about the past 10 years has been technology used to be a nicer. Right. Uh, and that's a must have, right. That that's phenomenal. And data, like you said, has become front and center.
Um, it's, it's really what allows, um, the facility manager to be empowered, to go and make informed decisions and, and elevate the conversations are having. So I couldn't agree more. Let's talk about the facility manager, right? The persona of the, of the person, uh, we cater to, we sell to, um, what is your view on that persona?
What makes them tick? What makes this role? So.
Bashir: Yeah, well, I think it, I think it's multifaceted, uh, again, um, I think for any facility management professional, part of part of their everyday life falls into three buckets that one of our product directors as recently coined is planning, executing, and sort of analyzing things. Um, and as you look at the different things that they do within those.
It is more challenging when you are in one vertical versus the other. If you have a lot of assets in your location as well, the expectation then the stakes are higher because if that ovens down or if that refrigeration units down as a direct impact on your business and, and probably your sales as well.
So I think that a lot of facility managers are more cognizant of what's in their locations and what, like, so what makes up the profile of a location so that they can more appropriately plan for supporting those sites? Um, I think, you know, I think another thing that sort of ties back to our last conversation is this idea that.
Facility managers feel empowered in a way with software and technology that they previously hadn't. Um, and I think you sort of said it if, if, you know, if you look back 10 years ago, a lot of customers chose the IFM model. A lot of customers chose the broker or services model because there wasn't a possibility with being able to support, uh, your own locations with technology.
And today, you know, that it's proven that technology can actually allow you to be efficient. You can do more with less, uh, and, and it really helps these facility managers, uh, be effective at their work. Um, the last thing I think I would say is that, is that I think cross-functional relationships within, within their company becomes super important to them.
Um, and, and we've seen really successful team. Not only have a seat at the table at an executive level in terms of what, how they support that brand, but really put in the groundwork to stay connected, to store operations, to stay connected, to procurement and construction and lease compliance and other departments so that they're heard.
And that impacts of other, you know, uh, decision impacts, uh, are lessened when they're informed of what that means for them. Uh, so I think that's another crucial factor for, for how FMS are thinking about things.
Sid: No for sure. Um, I've been doing this now for 15 years and eight. I'd say I have developed a deeper. Uh, for anyone in our space, right? I mean, facility managers are resilient. They follow through, um, and someone to have in your corner, right. When the chips are down, just because that's the nature of our space, right?
You, you have to make sure, um, that when things don't work right, that you're there and you're there to support. Um, and I think, uh, the more technology technology and data we can provide to empower, um, you know, our, our customer, um, the better off they're going to be, and we got to do everything we can to do that.
on that, on that topic, You know, they're also expected to solve ambiguous problems all the time. You know, like there's always that predictable aspect to things where it's an HVAC issue or it's a plumbing issue. There's a, you know, there's, you know, uh, an issue with the membrane of the roof.
Bashir: And so it's leaking, but there's always these moments in scenarios where like, we need this, we need that we need, you know? And so these folks are really, really resilient in being able to solve those problems and, and jump on whatever issue it might be and do so with a smile on their face. Uh, and, and with probably like we jokingly said that the most thankless position in America as a facility manager, well, that's certainly probably the feeling that these folks have, but they, that they do get the reward when they see how they help and solve problems for their customers who are, who are stores right then the, and the store staff.
Sid: right? No, I think facility managers are expected to know everything. Uh, and that's not the case. Right. It's a very, uh, complex space. Um, you know, I was in that room. Uh, for a short period of my time when I first started out. Um, and at that time, if you told me something was wrong with the left Palangi I would've said, oh, okay.
How do we fix it? You know, no idea. Um, but you know, that's where I think technology information, data insights can really help, um, empower everyone who enters our space. Um, let's jump into the next topic. Like let's talk about challenges in the industry, uh, and the opportunities we have in front of us in your view, what is the facilities teams role in the bigger picture of the organization?
Right? Because I don't think that organizations give their facilities teams enough credit.
Bashir: Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest role is, is serving to preserve the. You know, like, I mean, they're, they're brand advocates. Um, and even as we were talking about this a second ago, I was thinking that somewhere there's some architect or designer creating a new brand, look that a facility manager is going to get shocked by one day, but they have to support.
Right. You know, and, and for them it's great cause they do the design and they hand it off to construction and then construction, hands it off to the FM team. And they're the ones left to figure out all of the gaps. And if something's not working, if something is working whatnot. Um, but I think to answer your question, you know, they are, they are the brand advocates.
They are the ones responsible for maintaining that brand. And we're talking about not just keeping their store operations teams happy with, Hey, they're keeping consumers happy. Right. Um, if they're proactive and have, you know, a tie in with like IOT or EMS as an example, then you know, they know how to regulate the temperature in the location.
They know when someone's. Something's going wrong well ahead of the location knows that it's going wrong. Um, so I think that's, I think that's their primary role. Right? And, and I also see them, as I mentioned earlier, as, as critical stakeholders for stores and for store operations. Um, I think it's, it's, you know, we here at service general pride ourselves on, on these FMS being our customers along with providers.
Uh, but for them, it's really, it's really the store operations that are their customers. And the more that they can do to keep those folks happy and, and to keep them focused on selling whether it's clothing or a guest experience in restaurants, or, you know, cereal boxes in the grocery store or whatever the case may be, that's their focus like that, you know, that's the store ops focus and, and if something goes wrong, uh, ideally it's, you know, ideally that's the, the FMS are really the ones helping to facilitate all that.
Without with minimal impact to that location in the business. Um,
Sid: Right. You know, I agree with you. I think our space has a massive PR problem. Right. Um, you know, facilities is not the fixer upper department. it literally, Um,
is tied directly to consumer experience. I mean, look, think of any brand, whether that's a restaurant is C store, uh, a retail store when a consumer walks.
Like that right there, that brick and mortar space is the first impression they get of your business and your brand. Um, and it tells them what you think of them, right? Imagine walking into a store and you see broken tile or broken fixtures, the consumer's thinking, this is what the brand thinks I'm worth, Right.
Uh, if you're in a restaurant, you go with your family. It's a Sunday night. You want to have a nice meal. It's hot, the lights don't work. Right. You know, the ambulance isn't right. The, the, the, the sofa's a little torn. That's not a great experience. And no one is walking out thinking, man, that facilities team sucks.
No, they just thinking that restaurant sucked. Right. Or that, that store was in a horrible, horrible shape. They're not thinking about facility. Uh, and I think that the more we can articulate, you know, the, the relevance of facilities to that ultimate customer experience, the better off our space is going to be.
Bashir: Yeah. We did. We, our product team did some research re you know, a few years ago where we, we were looking at an adjacent space around digital advertising and digital marketing. And one thing that these digital advertisers are constantly thinking about is. Reviews, whether it's Google or four square or you name it, they, their Facebook they're looking at reviews.
Right. Um, and we started to, we did a little research. We did a little project where we looked at some of the online reviews for some of our customer locations. And what we found is, you know, 10, 10 to 15% of the time, the reviews were in some way related to facilities. So it could be, I've been a broken tile.
Like you said, it could have been a clogged up toilet, Dem dressing room or unclean space, whatever the case may be. So I think that to your point, I think there's something out there relating to the consumer view. Right. But I think there's another aspect here that they struggle in and that's internal think.
Right. That's that's telling our executive team or our cross-functional partners that we matter and we're actually doing something. And, you know, we, we just, we just did, uh, about 50 customer interviews in the last couple of months. And, you know, these were long, you know, hour long interviews where we sat down and talk about, uh, you know, bevy of topics.
But one consistent message we heard across the board is that we ask for things, we don't get things. Right. And the nature of the ask isn't as detailed and structured as they would like they would, they would, these facility managers love to take more detail, more data to support their ask. Yes, absolutely.
But they don't have what they're looking for and they don't even have some of the key data's that will help them get there. You know that internal advocacy and leveraging something like a service channel and particularly our data to support that becomes crucially important because it allows them to get the budget they need.
And they're not having to, you know, Rob Peter to pay Paul as they're looking at their overall budget. And do I replace this unit proactively? Or do you just assume I'm going to spend X thousand dollars on repairs over it? So I think that if executive teams had that line of sight to that level of data, um, it really changes the narrative.
It changes the way that they look at things and it helps them to be more predictive about how they effectively manage budget, budgets and properly plan for years. Whereas today, it feels like we go in asking for 20 million in capital expenditures. I might get 1% of that or sorry, 10% of that. And that's just not working.
Right. That's sort of the old school way of thinking and doing it. We're seeing more and more customers. Um, and, and specific specifically this facility management leaders leverage data to help advocate internally to let people know this is the value we bring from performance to satisfaction, to planning.
And you, you think through all of the things that are in their purview of responsibility,
Sid: I couldn't agree more, the more we can do to empower our users to articulate the value they bring, uh, within their own organizations, the more they're going to. have the ability to ask for more investments, uh, whether that means more investments in, uh, their, their own, uh, budgets, uh, in, in, in, in their programs, uh, being able to be proactive versus reactive, um, and investment in technology and data, right?
Because ultimately all of that ends up benefiting the consumer, which ultimately is, is the final stakeholder here, right? It's the consumer experience is what ultimately matters in the store, uh, experience. We want the store personnel, the restaurant personnel, not to worry about things that relate to facilities.
We want them to be out there in front of the customer, ensuring that the customer has a great experience, um, and to sell right. Ultimately that's what it comes down to. Um, so let's talk about the how and effective strategies to achieve desired results. Um, let me discuss facilities. Isn't just about fixing broken things.
Um, it's about, you know, more than that, like it's about brand preservation and customer experience. Uh, but usually we see that facility just kind of hand it off, uh, a location after everything's done, right. Real estate, uh, construction, the, you know, store opening everything's built out and then it's handed off to facilities.
Do you think that, um, facilities has as big as say as it should have, uh, in the beginning part of the process, um, how do successful facilities teams do that and how do they work with their peers and partners in a harmonious way to ensure they have a seat at.
Bashir: I mean, if we were to poll our customers, I would say that, you know, the majority of them would say no to that. And you know, that would be the answer to that question. But I think what's really important is that people realize that it's just not something that happens overnight and it takes a lot of work.
It takes a lot of investment in time and, and relationships. So the, you know, just coming out of these, these recent conversations we've been having, I mean, what is very clear to us is facility managers and leaders in particular that really take the time to build those cross-functional relationships and are spending.
You know, equal amounts of their time with those departments, critical departments like procurement, like construction, like design, like merchandising and, or, and of course store operations that I mentioned earlier when you're spending time with them, they see you as an equal partner. If you're not. If you're not spending that time, then they see you sort of as the handoff to the next group.
Right. And you're sort of wedged in between two groups that are oftentimes applying pressure on you. Um, so, so I think we we've seen, you know, we've seen a lot of success where our customers have built strong relationships. I think that the, the other thing is, is recognizing the value of those relationships and the impact those relationships have.
And some of our, uh, you know, certainly in the restaurant industry where you have strong, strong operations relationships that really pays off, you know, in, in, in grocery, it might be equally as important to have strong procurement relationships, to know what's being bought. And whether those assets are those, that specific type of equipment is actually benefiting are costing you more costing your budget more.
So I think that, I think that those are the things that really. Our foundational. Um, and then when you come out of that, it's really about having the right plan and articulating that plan to your team and your staff, right? Whether it's folks in the field, whether you have an in house call center or facility coordinators, but making sure that you have a solid plan that, that everybody within your organization, within your department in particular can, can understand and can adhere to and, and get, and frankly support.
Because I think, you know, when I talk about now these relationships that are being created at a, at a more senior level between VPs and directors of facilities equally, so at, at a, at a ground level, regional facility managers, facility managers, facility coordinators, they're doing the same with their district managers or regional district managers or, or their counterparts within the different departments.
So I think having that plan in place really helps to set the tone and ultimately get people focused on the things that really matter.
Sid: That's right. I think, uh, historically most folks that are in facilities fell into facilities. Like no one decided I'm going to go and join facilities. Right. No one does that. Um, but what's phenomenal is that we're seeing that shift, right. We're seeing, uh, leaders in our space rise to take on, uh, more like beyond just facilities, um, that are a bunch of names that, you know, we, we know within our own customer base who not only own facilities now, but go in and take over construction and special projects, um, take over energy management or there's one leader who's very involved and runs facilities, but also own energy utilities, construction, special projects, which is, which is phenomenal because it just means that.
That individual has influence within their organization and is able to make an impact, uh, within their brand and the more such people we have in our space, the better for the space, because that means that, you know, the, the, the industry as a whole starts to get elevated. And that's what we need. That's what we want.
Right.
Bashir: no, we we've. We've definitely seen, you know, we talked about the skills gap on the provider side. There's a bit of a skills gap issue happening on, on the facility management side, where you've got facility managers that are coming in that were previously an operations or previously in a different department.
You know, some of the most admirable stories I hear about from our customers is someone who's been with the company since they were, you know, a busboy in a restaurant, you know, and, and really rose up the ranks. And now they're in the facility team working out of a corporate office rather than a restaurant or a location.
So it's really amazing to watch this and to witness this firsthand, to watch the career development, but it also beckons an opportunity for technology. Fill the gap, right? These folks can't be expected to know everything. Right. And so I think for us at service general, we're thinking ahead about how we leverage, you know, the ecosystem that we have between providers and customers to help inform about things that, that do make sense and things that don't make sense.
Um, so that's, I think something that's really interesting about, about our customers is that, you know, many of them are not like you talk about a committed mint to the brand and keeping brand up time. There's a brand loyalty for a lot of these folks who've been there for a long, long time and an understanding of what that brand is and what it represents, regardless of what changes happen in the C-suite for any brand.
These people have been there for many, many years and really understand the space deeply. Um, and know, you know, and know what it, what it means for a restaurant or a convenience or a, you know, a pharmacy or a retailer to, to be.
Sid: Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. You mentioned about the skills gap and, um, and you know, folks that are starting to enter our space through, through different avenues. I think that connected to what I said earlier as well. It's really encouraging to see that today you can actually go and study, uh, and get a degree to be in our space and folks are doing that
Bashir: Relatively new. Yeah. That's a relatively newer thing. Uh, it's funny because in parts of Europe, as an example, most facility management professionals, there are, you know, civil engineers, uh, in, in, in the United States. Uh, and, and even Canada, it's a bit of a different, it's a bit of a different play.
Like, yeah. There are a lot of leaders that are civil engineers or engineers, but a lot of facility managers or people who just understand the space or who've been maybe a contractor before, or, you know, maybe went to trade school or something to that effect.
Sid: Right, which is great. It's a great mix. Um, and I think that the more, uh, kinds of backgrounds we get involved in our space, um, the better, uh, because we just get different perspectives. Let's, let's talk about technology. And, uh, we spoke about this a little bit earlier, but what, what role does technology play in empowering facilities team?
Bashir: Yeah, it's, it's a huge, it's a huge thing I look at. I think that as the stakes get higher, you know, and, and they are seemingly getting higher, partly, you know, in some ways I think that COVID, uh, and, and what we've experienced over the past two years has really accelerated, um, the need for newer and advanced technologies.
Um, but the role that technology plays is in many ways, just helping teams be more efficient, um, and making better decisions for their business. So that has direct impact on the choice of providers, the budgets, the things that they think about from a capital planning standpoint. Um, you know, if you look at like everything that is functionally responsible to these, to these professionals, technology is playing a really important role in all of that.
We're also seeing some really interesting things on the provider side, too. I mean, there's a company out of Nashville called XO, why they're out there building what, building software for what they call the final mile. So traditionally there've been field service management software applications, which is a CRM to, you know, tech enabled mobility.
And now there's this company that's really said we don't care about all that. All we care about is stepping in and focusing in on the final mile effectively or when the technician arrives and when the technician leaves and literally everything in between, right from the recording of the repair to leveraging kind of like a face time support repair.
So if you're a younger technician and you don't know how to fix them, Uh, what many people don't realize is the technician is actually bring books with them and guides, and they often look up schematics on their phones when they're on site. You know, it's a lot easier when you've got a video of a recent repair like that, or, uh, you know, literally a technician in your ear telling you what to do more experienced tech in your ear, telling you what to do.
So that's the power that technology is having today right now. Um, as I look at our customers and, and facility management professionals as a whole, I think a lot of that, uh, you know, is, is centered around that efficiency component, right. And, and creating more interconnectedness around data. Like we've, we've seen a desire for more detailed data.
Don't tell me, you know, don't send me a chicken scratch note from a tech. Showing precisely what it is that they've done. Right. And, and help me understand the cost impact there. Right? Because I think that there's always a reservation in every facility managers mind is, which is, am I paying too much for the service?
Am I being ripped off? It's no different than you and I and any homeowner or someone who owns a home, an apartment, or a townhouse in America as there as they have people come in and provide service, right? Like, am I paying a fair value for the service? And when you, when you try to ask that question of yourself across 90 plus trades, it's impossible.
How do you know what the cost of a fusible link on an Ansul system is versus like what's a normal cost or recharge a fire extinguisher or replace a blower motor fan or whatever the case may be. It's really hard for facility managers to know all of this. And I think what, what is becoming really clear.
That data can help to educate them in their decisions, um, and normalize. What, what, what is, uh, what is expected? Um, so I think that that's, you know, that that all leads to some level of inefficiency and really ultimately some level of cost savings for them as they think about things. Um, so we've seen, we sent a lot of that.
We've also seen a ton around IOT around how customers expect equipment, and these manufacturers are getting, getting real slick with how they're doing this, but they expect equipment to self-diagnose well, ahead of a store, really realizing that the ice makers down or that the walk-in freezers down, right.
If those units can tell us that they're in defrost mode or not in defrost mode and have had a component failure, then we can get somebody out there. Well, ahead of a catastrophic failure that would otherwise cost you thousands of dollars. You can potentially prevent by, you know, cleaning a coil or cleaning a filter or whatever the case.
Sid: I a hundred percent. There's a lot of technology players that are in our space. Now we can just say,
Bashir: Yeah. I mean, I think like, like I said, like the example I was giving on the final mile type, you know, software company, there's a lot of them out there and they're no longer focused on trying to do everything. They're like carving out a real niche to say that this is what we're focused on. There's companies out there focused on convenience, uh, fuel tanks monitoring just for fuel tanks.
Right. And, and they don't care about any other sort of monitoring and like, you know, they're integrated with service shell. So we we're, we're hearing a lot of partnerships. And from, from our standpoint, especially on the product side, we know we're not going to be able to do everything. And so we're going to build, build the things that are core to our customers and bring them in an immense amount of value.
But we're also keeping a door open for partnerships because we feel that these partnerships can really help to address a lot of the nuances that customers or providers might, might need throughout their, throughout their journey.
Sid: Yeah.
You know, it's been, It's been amazing to see the amount of attention our space has gotten in the. You know, 12 years, um, you know, probably years ago, you know, there was not as much investments or PE companies or VCs that were interested in our space. Um, nobody, nobody cared as much. Um, during the past five to eight years has been phenomenal.
Um, the amount of money that's flown in, um, and also that has driven innovation, new companies kind of solve problems that have existed for a long time. Uh, but like you said, uh, focusing on solving a very particular problem,
Bashir: all. It's also, you know, it's also, um, consolidating at least on the provider side, we're seeing a lot of consolidation, you know, a lot of these mom and pop companies are being bought up, especially on the mechanical electrical and plumbing side. They're being bought up by these PE firms and they're creating these mega, you know, national or practically national service companies.
And, you know, the, the good is that, okay, you know, you've got a one-stop shop. The bad is like any company you go from St. Louis to Austin, or, you know, New York city, whatever the case may be, the service is going to be different. There's no standardization and services as much as they try. It's really about the tech talent you have, uh, And, and it it's creating a look.
It, I think in some ways it is monopolizing the service, the cost of services, right? Because now you have these mega companies out there and they can really set the price. They can set the scope, they can set things. Whereas historically, I think the customer had more buying power. We are definitely entering the age where the providers have more selection, power of their customers.
Right. And, and our customers are aware of this. And so, you know, you can call that a bit more of balance, but at the same time, it's, it's just the reality of the situation that we're in. And in some ways I think COVID is, has helped to accelerate that situation. Um, so it'll be interesting to see where, where, where it heads to in the next five years.
Sid: Yeah.
no. Yeah.
Providers have always, of course played a key and pivotal role in this whole ecosystem. That that we're in. Um, and you know, I think you said it right. We have to pay attention to both, uh, the, the multi-site facility manager or buyer. Um, as well as the provider, you know, um, you know, at the end of the day, the system only works.
If both sides are happy, empowered, and have what they need to do their part, um, let's talk about service channel, right. Um, you know, one would say service channel is a leader in our space. Uh, what do you think service channel has done for our space, uh, or the past 12 years? And as a leader in our space, what do you think is our responsibility going forward?
Uh, what do we have to do? Um, because we're leading the charge.
Bashir: Yeah. I think that. One thing that I, I, I do know that we are the leader in the space and we have been, um, you know, well, before I showed up to the company, I think what's, what's really helped us in that process is being sort of humble in our, in our approach to things right. And really being hyper-focused on our customers.
Um, you know, we, we don't take them for granted in any way, and we want to make sure that we invest properly and supporting them and really driving and driving value for, for their needs. So I think that that means that we're always in front of them. We're always talking to them, we're listening, we're learning and we're doing some other things too.
You know, I think we're one of the only companies out there that are spending a ton of time and money and investment on the provider. Right. And because there's no equation where a customer's needs are, like the only thing we focus on, some folks in the space are doing that. And what they're doing is they're shortchanging the provider.
And if we don't make the providers equally as efficient, that does, that definitely has the direct impact on our customers. So we recognize that to your point earlier, right? There's two sides to this ecosystem. And as we solve problems, we have to solve it for both sides. Um, and in doing so, you know, we, we ultimately, you know, keep them, keep them both humming and doing things that, that make a ton of sense.
I think the other thing is really looking outside of our industry, right? Really, you know, doing a ton of research, you know, looking up things that really could have an impact, uh, in a very positive way. And I'm really excited about some of the stuff that are, that are pre. Uh, managers are focused on today.
They're getting really creative about how we can leverage technologies and adjacent technologies and potential partnerships to address very tactical issues from OCR technologies, for processing insurance, OCR, optical character recognition, where you uploaded an insurance document. And it just sort of auto processes that, so that a customer doesn't have to doing anything.
The contractor doesn't have to sit there and type in all that data really speeds up the time and saves, you know, saves both parties a ton of time. And there's a lot of other technology like that, that we're, that we're looking at. So, you know, to answer your question, I think that we, we have to be thinking ahead, we have to be, you know, at times making sure that we are very in tune with our customers and that we're hearing them and listening to them, but we all, they look to us to lead us.
Right. They, they look to us and recognize that we've got. The better part of 600 amazing brands across the globe on our platform. And there's immense learning and, uh, best practices that can be derived from that, that can be leveraged across everybody. So I think that's the big notable difference between us and everybody else.
And then I think from, you know, as, as you call me bias, but as, as somebody who works on the technology side of things, you know, we're really focused on generating new value for our customers through addressing some of the most, you know, some of the systemic problems they deal with every day. Right. Um, and, and I think that excites me, it excites our team.
It excites our business and it ultimately really supports both of our, both our customers and our service provider.
Sid: No, I, I, I couldn't agree more. I, we always joke about how, um, hold on joke, but we always talk about how, you know, you could actually start building some sort of software, uh, with pizza and red bull, right. Uh, but what you can't replicate is the amazing customers that we have, the great network of providers we have.
Um, that's what really makes us great. You know, that barrier to entry is, is huge. Um, but we can't be complacent. We have to keep innovating. It's a responsibility. We have to keep innovating and to keep moving forward. So exciting stuff. Um, but sure. Let's change gears a little bit. Um, everyone in facilities has a fun, interesting story.
Anything crazy you want to share?
Bashir: Um, Well, there's some, there's some crazy stories that I don't think it would be appropriate for a podcast, but, um, well, one, one funny and heartfelt story that I will share is, um, in my previous role and when I was in a procurement role, um, one of our customers was seven 11 and they had a desperate need for generators at the time that hurricane Sandy had struck.
And so here you are, you know, the better part of the north north Eastern seaboard was without power. Um, my wife and I were without power for nine days and I was working the phones every day to try to get generators to some love and locations, partly because, uh, you know, in part, because FEMA needed diesel fuel out of those four for emergency services.
And so we had to get those locations up and running, um, as required by law, but there was one particular case. A colleague of mine had reached out to me because there was a McDonald's location in Edison, New Jersey that was looking for generator. It was one of the only locations that restaurants in the space that we actually procured a generator for.
And we got that generator out there and we got it hooked up and, you know, the locations up and running and humming. And, you know, all of a sudden people are getting their first hot meal in days. And I got a call the next, the next morning, my contractor was going out there to try to check in on the generator, make sure everything's working, make sure the fuel levels were right.
And he was getting yelled at because the Mo the, uh, the line out of that location was almost two miles. And he had to cut ahead of everybody to get in there to the check-in. And we got to the front of the line, it was grimace from McDonald's with a big old sign waving people in putting up the big show, which was, which was hilarious in some ways, but also again also, uh, um, indicative of how our customers feel every day when they're solving challenges.
I, I, I felt that in that moment, I felt like, you know, I, I was able to do something sure that that helped them McDonald's brand, but you know, more importantly, giving families their first hot meal in days was really, was really a nice feeling for me and for our team at the time who was working on that. So, um, so that was, I wouldn't call it a crazy story, but, but a really important story and reflective of the things that our customers are, facility managers and contractors, right?
Those, those, those technicians in particular are, are the heroes they're often out there at two in the morning solving problems, but that was, that was indicative of what they see.
Sid: That's awesome. Yeah.
I agree. Uh, people don't realize right. What it takes to really ensure that, you know, the businesses open during challenging times like this. I mean, we saw this with COVID. Um, I think over the past two years, um, the amount of limelight rightfully so that it has been shot, you know, um, that shined on, uh, our space has been phenomenal because I think folks finally understood, um, that, you know, there's a team that's responsible for ensuring the location is safe and secure and warm and welcoming and suddenly things that were taken for granted.
Um, we're right in the forefront and there was the facilities team there, uh, to close all the stores at once. Um, open all the stores again, close it again, boarding up locations. It's been an interesting time, but you know, uh, facilities team stepped up. Did they?
Bashir: Yeah. Yeah. There isn't societal or, or nature-based thing that doesn't impact the facility team. Like, like you said, like, you know, in 2020 we had some social unrest happening in the country. When, when there was need for board ups in certain cities, then guess what? The facility team have to go and do that.
Right. And it was coming directly out of their budget and they're shutting stores down and they had to convince somebody to fly in or drive over immediately to do it in, in no times notice, um, you know, when, like you said, right, when hurricanes are happening, same thing, you know, you just never know where to expect this.
And we're seeing more and more natural disasters tornadoes. There was one, unfortunately, just the other day in new Orleans. So like these, these things, every time, something like that hits and it's hitting across the country, right. It's, it's the facility managers that have to jump in and, and the contractors that go along for that ride.
And then even as you mentioned with COVID, right, you know, you're seeing these partition boards, you know, these glass partitions or plastic partitions being put up, there was no, there was no real, unless there was a bank, right. There was no real playbook on how to do this. And so, you know, facility teams were trying to figure that out and, and it was really, really intense.
Sid: That's right. Um, so sure. Let's talk about the future, right? Um, let's leave the audience with, um, some advice and insights on where the industry's headed, uh, moving forward. What would you say has the potential to make the biggest impact on our industry?
Bashir: Yeah. I, I, I think that we are at that point where the next natural progression with data is leveraging benchmarking for better decisions, but it's also the type of benchmarking that will help to inform customers and providers about what is a fair price or what is something that, that makes sense versus something that can wait till later on.
So, so, you know, I, I talked earlier about the importance of collecting information and we we've in the past three or four years. I've done really great work of getting to the point where we went from trade level information, uh, and notes down to resolution codes and root cost codes, where we really start to understand across all of our customers what the, what the root of these problems are for, for the better part of 30 plus trades.
Now it's leveraging that data to help people make better decisions, whether, you know, strategically planning ahead or making tactical decisions on repair replace or whatever the case may be. So I think the, the, the, the look and view on data insights, particularly benchmarking is going to have a huge impact.
It's going to help with the skills gap, and it's certainly going to help facility manage. Facility managers that are not well-versed in specific trades, make better decisions for their business because they get to see what other people in the market are doing at, you know, in a particular county or province and or, or, or census that whatever, whatever the geographical coverage is.
Um, so that's, I think one huge aspect is around, uh, data benchmarking to help inform better decisions. I do think, you know, I talked about this earlier. I do think that there are of artificial intelligence. They're really going to help to transform our industry. One area that we're doing a bit of research on now is what they call semantic AI, which allows people to, uh, simulate, uh, allows us to simulate how our customers and users better understand language and, and to end to understand the meaning of that information.
So I'll give you a perfect. You know, the, it is the industry standard today. When a location is creating work, that they sort of go through a selection of drop-downs or they're looking at a picture of the unit that they're trying to select, but the world that they live in, you know, isn't so black and white where they're just dropping down to things.
And oftentimes they end up making mistakes because here you have the least, you know, the person that probably least understands the problem, trying to tell you what the problem is, and ultimately inform a technician to come out and solve that problem. So what what's something like semantic AI can do is help.
Like help them just tell us what the problem is. Like I'm having this issue with my store. There's a leak in the roof. It's coming out of the right corner. We can extract that information and then prepare the technician for what to expect. We can decipher whether that really is a leak, a roof leak, or whether it's water coming through a drain from nature PAC unit.
Right. And I think that is the type of stuff that customers will look toward and will ultimately leverage, uh, in a way that that makes their teams more effective and better, and ultimately serve the brand in the way that they haven't historically seen. So I think that those are two, uh, perfect use cases.
You know, we talked about IOT and the impact of that. Manufacturers are getting wise to this. They're recognizing that when procurement and construction are buying equipment, it's no longer about, you know, the life cycle of that equipment. It's about throughout the life cycle. How has that community, how has that equipment performing?
How's it communicating? And so manufacturers also want this data themselves. And so they're thinking about this or the adding the appropriate hardware, and they're also adding the appropriate software and integrations to be able to have that equipment talk to a platform like service channel. So I think those are, those are three great examples of how the industry will evolve in the coming years and months and years to come.
Um, but, but certainly it's certainly exciting and it, and it, and all of the things I just talked about I think are applicable to both providers and to, to facility managers, right. It's not, you know, for the provider side, it's really understanding. What's a fair price for this market. Right. And, and I think that, that they don't really have that.
They kind of go into a negotiation and they, you know, hard play hard ball with the customer. But look, if you're missing opportunities every time and you're off by, you know, certain labor rate or material markup or, or average invoice amount, oh, this will help to guide you to, to be more appropriately priced.
So I think, I think this is how we're, we're envisioning the future. Um, and I think it's going to be a really exciting, uh, exciting impact on, on, on both parties.
Sid: Without a doubt that that is super exciting. And I think, I think we've barely scratched the surface when it comes to using data. Right? I mean, this is well known. I mean, most organizations, um, don't know what to do with their data and how to really utilize all the data they're collecting to be meaningful, uh, for their own business as fellows with the customer.
Bashir: So I think the more we can use the data, um, to. To empower, influence, um, you know, connect, uh, streamline, uh, the better, like, you know, it's going to make our application smarter. It's going to make it more in sync with, uh, you know, behaviors, uh, from our customer, our provider. Um, yeah. So that's great. What
Sid: Future trends do you see for the coming? Anything that excites you?
Bashir: yeah, I think, I think around machine learning and AI, you know, I think. I want to, I want to be cautious because I don't want people to think that we're going to have a robot show up to your location and fix the problem. That's not going to happen anytime soon. I mean, you're seeing how, how robotics are actually leveraged, you know, in, as you know, in restaurants and whatnot for, for the delivery of food or something to that effect.
Um, but I think for us, it's around, you know, how do you leverage machine learning to create better algorithms that ultimately have better outcomes for folks? Um, and how do you, how you really leverage AI? Because I think AI is, is a surface that everyone's trying to scratch right now and, and trying to take some of these, um, successful use cases that have been applied elsewhere and apply them to our industry is going to be really crucial and really important for us.
What we're looking at is we kind of see it in three buckets. We're looking at big dollar decisions. Small dollar decisions that made more, more, might often be more frequent. And then some level of advocacy. You know, we talked about this earlier, where this type of stuff can help a team advocate for themselves.
So they, they, that their executive team isn't constantly shortchanging them on the budget. Right. Cause when you, as a facility team, when you get short changes of budget on the budget, you're making really impossible decisions, you know, do you cut a PM here? What's the impact of that, right? Do you not replace a unit there what's the impact of that?
Right. So I think it's, it's, it's connecting a lot of information that otherwise wasn't connected. Yeah. You're really allowing facility managers to speak truth, to power with their executive teams. So that I think is the power that machine learning and AI will have in, in our space. And it's going to take some time to get there, but you'll see some really important steps happen in the areas that I sort of outlined there is that our biggest impact to, to both parties.
Sid: No, I agree, but you spoke about robots, so I'm going to go there. Uh, you know, I was at a conference in Vegas. Um, I spoke on a panel recently. Um, it was, it was, it was called MarTech, uh, and it had to do with restaurant technologies. And what was interesting is that, you know, I think the future. It's going to be retailers and restaurants, trying new things, trying new things to engage their customers at different levels.
Um, and that could be, and that is actually robots. In some cases, you know, serving drinks, delivering your food, uh, drones, delivering your food, you know, rollover, delivering your food businesses are trying to figure out what consumer behavior is gonna look like in the future. Right? Um, not everything that they're doing right now makes sense.
Some of it might, some of it might be very early stages. Uh, but the matter of the fact is that there's new things being done and that involves new hardware, new software, new interactions, uh, it kinda, it kind of means that facilities is going to have an interesting role going forward, because someone's gonna have to take care of that robot.
Right? You don't want to walk into a restaurant. And have the robot that serves you drinks, you know, being, you know, be dysfunctional in the middle of the restaurant floor.
Bashir: Or disruptive. I mean, I mean, full disclosure, nothing frightens me more than a robot on two legs walking around. So it's, I should just tell you that.
Sid: W we're all going to be taken over by Skynet. Yeah,
Bashir: Yeah, exactly. I just jumped back to the nineties and Terminator and all that fun stuff. But in all honesty, like I, I agree. We're also seeing contractors deploy robotics too. Right. You know, like in the most simplistic form, some of them are using drones to do video aerial footage of landscaping, parking lots for striping roofs assessments.
Right. So man, you know, they're getting super efficient about how they are able to do this. Um, I think you're right though. And it's actually indicative of the automotive industry where, you know, I come from a small business family. My dad has a garage and so I know what his tech, what his mechanics were able to work on.
But if you pull a Tesla into their garage today, they wouldn't even know what to touch that thing. Right. So I think like, you know, the skillset changes and the needs for those skills change at a time, as we've talked about with the skills gap is largest that's ever been. So it is, it is interesting, um, where.
The skills on how to do certain things on one type of item can be ascertained with the right proper training. But, you know, but if you look at the mechanical electrical plumbing trades, as an example, those require a deeper level of learning and education that requires more time. So I think you're right.
I think we are in for, uh, an awakening around how robotics, um, will apply to not just, you know, not just the retail restaurant space, but also how contractors deploy those, uh, you know, those, those technologies, uh, to the bench, to their own benefit. Right? So it'll be really interesting to see where this, where this heads and, and how the industry responds to it.
I think for our part, um, you know, it's still, it's still kind of back into the IOT play where, you know, these, these, this equipment or this robot needs. It needs to talk to someone. Well, you would hope that that robot is not walking over to some dashboard, creating a sort of shell ticket, right.
Automatically notifies us. But I could certainly see that, that being a really big part of the, of the longer-term plan.
Sid: Awesome. We're out of time. Let's end with that. Uh, but sure, thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. Uh, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. Thanks for
Bashir: Likewise. Yeah. Thanks for having me set. I really appreciate it.
Sid: for all those listening. I would highly recommend reaching out to be sure to pick his brain more. It will be highly worth it. Thank you all. Really appreciate it.