By Pam Cargill, Special to Solar Power World
The large solar installers and financiers get a lot of attention. They get a lot of media airtime, use comparatively large marketing budgets to acquire their customers, and can support diverse operational roles in the overhead of their company. And yet the top five national solar installers only comprise 36% of the market share (according to GTM Research).
If you are a growing solar installer that is part of the other 64%, what can you learn from how the big guys have set up their solar operations that you can apply to your business? This is the first part of a series on best practices in operating your solar company.
Enter The Cloud
Cloud operations are making it easier to scale and “right size” your business. They do this by effectively outsourcing the database and application layers of software to remote servers or clusters of servers and serving the interfaces up via the web.
As a business owner, this means you won’t need to keep track of software versions and manually update dozens of software tools sometimes at great cost. Everything from accounting software to project management tools have moved to the cloud or have extended options into the cloud. It also gives you more flexibility in terms of adding and subtracting seats as your business fluctuates, a challenge in a tight margin construction-based industry as solar energy installation.
Ensure when you are evaluating these solutions that you negotiate carefully based on your estimated usage not just now but based on your growth plan. Can your cloud system scale with your business plan?
Find out how it will integrate with your current business process, especially integrations with humans and customer handoffs. A wise investment to consider is an implementation consultant. They can evaluate any and all unintended consequences of a shift to the cloud including robustness and security of your current internet infrastructure, mobile options, remote access strategies as well as process and people integrations.
Finally, develop a sound change management strategy as part of your IT implementation. Perhaps more critical than the scoping, selection, and setup of the solution, the lack of effective change management strategy can hamper the successful adoption of cloud solutions and create lasting ill affects in company culture and thus, adversely affect customer relationships.
Pamela Cargill is the founder and principal of Chaolysti, a business consulting firm located in Alameda, Calif. She has grown and developed new programs at some of the largest national brands in residential solar on the East Coast. Read more of her business insights on her blog or contact her for more information.
Tell Us What You Think!