Case Study: Vivid Property Services relies on custom built ERP system

As Omicron has thrown Australian businesses into turmoil, many have leant on digital tools to manage business continuity.

Digital Nation Australia recently spoke to Dan Carpenter, CEO of Vivid Property Services, an industrial cleaning business that has felt the impact of staff dislocation of rostering technology, including its own custome built ERP system.

With Vivid’s supply chain operating across multiple regions, the organisation invested in communications to craft messages to employees based on their jurisdiction of work.
We did a lot of messaging and toolbox talks and those sorts of things through our technology platform,” said Carpenter.

“There was a lot of crafting those communications and those formal work instructions and safety announcements and all those different things - change of conditions, canceling work, creating new jobs, all those different things - almost a moving target in the sense that you're getting those different requirements from each of the jurisdictions, each of the states and New Zealand.”

Luckily for Carpenter, the industrial supply chain was largely resilient in the face of disruption, unlike those in markets such as health and the food sector. He said much of Vivid’s success can be pinned down to its relationship with the key supplier APCO, and their technology platform’s integration with APCO’s system, leaving ordering unaffected.

“I think we're only starting to see the impacts of that global supply chain and the importing impacts,” he said.

The business did struggle with providing Rapid Antigen Tests to its clients considering their high demand, and despite this not being obligatory, according to Carpenter it was a good example of how they have redefined their role.

“A big part of our value is that we created this safe hygienic workplace, which is a shift in thinking for a cleaning company. It used to be mops and buckets, and now it's health and hygiene and workplace productivity.”

Vivid has also begun to consider creative solutions such as robotics technologies as it considers the best way to live out its purpose.

According to Carpenter, investing in its own proprietary platform has been not only a key differentiator, but a critical tool when it comes to the business’ responsiveness to changing external pressures.

“You can run into trouble as a company investing in your own platform and having to manage it and all the rest of it. I was a little bit skeptical about it. But what's proven to me during this period is the value of having the ability to make the changes you need to make whenever you need to make them to service a client or to enable your business to continue,” said Carpenter.

“One of the things that's come through in all of this for me is we are a company that should be led by our innovation and technology in this industry, more so than ever.”