Toilets to Technology
Facility Maintenance’s future
By Colleen Sheehy Orme
Chad MacDonald, CEO of Dulles-based ServiceForce USA, a leader in facility maintenance services, is once again championing his industry.
A business prodigy who began his first facility maintenance business at the age of 18, he continues to possess insight that keeps him ahead of the competition. A “thought leader,” MacDonald is known for continually creating and developing the next generation of service and supply chain technologies and business models to create and sustain his company’s position as the preferred provider to many of the Fortune 500 corporations in North America.
With a 97-percent customer retention rate, ServiceForce USA is a testimony to understanding its own industry’s wants and needs. Listed as one of Washington Business Journal’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies, ServiceForce employs more than 1,100 employees and a vendor network of 8,000-plus, generating tens of millions in annual revenues.
With his impressive 26-year track record of building both public and private facility service, distribution and supply chain technology companies, what innovative concept could MacDonald be bringing to the facility maintenance industry now? He has leveraged $5 million of his own capital, and years of institutional knowledge, to transform this typically manual labor-driven industry toward a remarkable technological marriage.
Who would think that cleaning toilets, mopping floors, changing light bulbs and replacing filters could benefit greatly from sophisticated technology?
MacDonald, of course. “We took our lessons learned from years of managing a very transaction-intensive business and built a very robust service management and procurement platform.”
Hence, MacDonald developed the proprietary Connected-Services Technology (CST) Platform—incredibly sophisticated, yet affordable, easy-to-use software that mobilizes the next generation of integrated facility management services. The optimal word being integrated. The software allows their customers to connect and procure all service providers, product suppliers and managers with real-time business intelligence and immediate, accurate responses to maintenance, repair and operation service events.
“Fifteen years ago at a comparably sized operation of today, ServiceForce would have had 60 people in the back office managing customer relationships, accounts payable, receivable, etc,” MacDonald explains. “Today with the same revenue, they have 15 employees in the back office as a result of the CST platform. We have built a business tool that not only supports our customers’ need for real-time data but also creates enormous cost savings for them too.
“The common mistake most software companies make in our industry is to try to utilize technology to replace people and not understand the nature of our business and the complexities involved. When in fact, to be successful and create sustainability, you need to empower people with technology, not replace them.
“Our system was designed, developed, managed and maintained by industry professionals, not programmers. Our tagline reads, that we are ‘The optimal integration of People, Processes and Technology … People are not first by accident.’”
MacDonald adds, “Every industry is rapidly changing. In a society today where customers are younger and more Internet savvy, we clearly have a first-mover advantage in an enormous and very inefficient industry.”
Who’s using it?
A list of Fortune 500 companies using the Connected-Services Technology Platform:
- Home Depot
- Starbucks
- Sears
- K-Mart
- Petco
- Food Lion
- Cricket Communications
- Office Depot
- Borders Books
- Morton’s Steak Houses
- Petsmart
- National Vision Centers
- Bealls Department Stores
- Lego Brands
Source: ServiceForce USA
