I remember back in 2011, the first time when I started working with the property preservation industry, most people were using Field-Comm from East Point Systems as the software to manage work orders and results. Today though, you will find very few preservation companies that uses
the software and instead Property Pres Wizard is the one that is leading the market. There are quite a different number of reasons why there has been this massive shift of preservation owners towards using PPW, despite the fact that other such data management software such as, EZinspections and InpectorADE being in the market.
1) PPW Has Been a Game Changer
Back when most people were still using Field-Comm, I remember how ridiculously slow the software was sometimes; in my own personal experience, the software crashed or simply froze a multiple number of times in the most crucial moments.
Processing work orders was an extremely time consuming task even simple grass cut and inspection orders as invoicing and closing orders in Field-Comm took a lot more time than submitting the results to Vendor Management system did.
But this all changed with PPW, it was a web based software, one of the first of its kind, that was much faster and easier to use. Even though, Field-Comm had more detailed options to running reports than PPW, ultimately that didn't mean anything if you had to waste time using it.
2) Great Interface
One way for software or managing systems to attract consumers and have current users be happy is to ensure that it has a great interface that is very easy to use. PPW has exactly done that. If you compare with some of the other competitors that are in market, such as EZinspections or even Inspectorade you will easily see the difference. PPW is very user friendly, from the time you login to processing orders you will find the interface to be easy to use and understand.
3) Introduction to The Mobile App
PPW had been one of the first to provide mobile applications to contractors so that they can upload photos from the field. Prior to that, contractors had to get back home and upload pictures from their PC to send their results.
This was a massive waste of time as contractors would find themselves having sit in front of their desktop to do this after working 12/13 hours in field. But PPW changed all of that and now they could just do that from the field, thus saving a lot the contractors time.
Today, PPW owns the majority of the market for Property Preservation Data Management in comparison to its competitors. Looking back, one of the biggest reasons why Field-Comm failed and gave way to PPW to lead was because it failed to adapt to the change.
While its competitor was providing a much faster web based software for its consumers to use, East Point, the developers for Field-Comm still stayed the much heavy and slow software. While it did ultimately decide to adapt, with the launch of Infield Express a few years back and the more recent Field forward.
Its a little bit to late to make a comeback and own the majority of the market again. With EZinspections an InspectorADE, the case has been a little different though, EZinspections has been fraught with complaints from its users, something that has mostly stagnated its growth in its consumer base, InspectorADE on the other hand is more designed for managing Inspections mostly, (its in their name) and has not garnered much vote from PnP and REO vendors.
And so, for most new contractors who have entered the property preservation industry, and is looking for a data management system. Its more likely than not that they will find themselves signing up for PPW than other such similar software.
Zayed Ahmed, CEO and Founder of ASL Preservation Solutions.