VARs Go To Market With OnForce
The idea that drives the marketplace is surprisingly simple: work needs to be done, but the company contracted for that work may not have enough man power to fulfill it, or may not be located close enough for it to be fiscally responsible to send a technician out to a customer site. The company looking for a service provider can sign up for OnForce, register as a buyer and post the work order. Once a work order is placed, a service provider who has the expertise and is located in the right location can bid for that work, becoming a seller because they are selling their services. If the buyer feels that there is a good fit, they can route the work order to the seller and be sure that the work will be completed.
While the idea of posting and bidding for work orders is simple, OnForce is a community site and there are several wrinkles to take into consideration, regardless of which side of the fence an individual falls on. OnForce users who are looking to perform work for other companies have to build a reputation by performing quality work in a reliable time frame and within the buyer's parameters.
Similar to EBay, buyers and sellers can comment on another user and rate them depending on the service provided, the expertise with which it is performed and the customer service provided onsite. As the reputation of a user improves, they are likely to be awarded more work orders and may become a preferred provider for some buyers.
Buyers Beware Of Best Practices
But nothing is guaranteed either for the buyers posting work or the sellers out in the field performing the services. George Harris, owner and CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based GA Services, mainly a digital signage provider, came across OnForce several years ago and has quickly become one of the marketplace's largest buyers.
"I stumbled into OnForce because we, as a small company, had many roll outs that would stretch my company thin," said Harris. "We'd take on large projects and complete them, but it was painful. We did one roll out a couple years ago where we went to nearly 950 locations across the U.S., and had to complete the work in three weeks. Trying to find that sort of personnel on your own takes a lot of backend project management."
So Harris and his company started using OnForce tentatively.
"No one wants to give up customer control," said Harris. "I was uncertain as to how we were going to use these [service providers] and maintain the quality reputation we've received. We started with a few calls here and there."
By starting with a small number of service providers from OnForce, Harris was able to gauge the quality of the individuals while simultaneously expanding his company's reach without having to pay for expensive travel. If a customer requires service on a product somewhere in Texas, far from his California home office, Harris can post the work order and check the responses then assign the work. But he stresses that buyers shouldn't just take the first bid that comes in because it's the right price.
OnForce is a community as well as a marketplace, and Harris urges to check the comments and the ratings to ensure that the service provider is right, not just the price. Once the right person is found -- and chances are good that individual will be local to Texas; OnForce has service providers in nearly every zip code in the U.S. -- the work can be performed and Harris won't have to fly anyone from California to Texas.
Eventually Harris came to realize that there were good service providers looking for work with OnForce, but the key -- from a buyer's perspective -- was figuring out the best way to use the marketplace and what type of infrastructure needs to be in place.
Not everyone using OnForce is going to have the capabilities to use the platform as a buyer. But Harris believes he figured out the best way to continue to grow his business, perform quality work for his customers and only use the best service providers available on the site.
"Why don't other folks go contract," Harris asks rhetorically. "It's simple; we've kept an administrative infrastructure in place -- that's the challenge. We control the service call as it comes in, know the response times required and gave dispatchers the authority to post the call to OnForce."
Service Providers Staying On Task And In The Black
Working with the OnForce marketplace from the service provider side is less difficult because there is less internal administrative infrastructure needed, but the benefits to a service provider's business can be just as profound.
Seth Kaplan, owner of North Easton Mass.-based Kaplan Computers, has been using OnForce since 2005 and believes it has provided an enormous uptick for his business. Kaplan has built up an established customer base with his company over the course of the past three years, but has been able to supplement his business by bidding on work orders through the OnForce platform.
"OnForce has been a catalyst for growing my business and spurred me into seeking additional education in other areas," said Kaplan.
Initially Kaplan's company specialized in computer repair, networking and server installation. But once he started using OnForce, he noticed a number of work orders coming through asking for expertise in plasma TV installation and repairs, and Kaplan decided the market for those services was too large to ignore.
"I wasn't as adept with plasma TVs before I started using OnForce," said Kaplan. "I had set up my own at home, but the OnForce platform has allowed me to increase my knowledge and now I take calls setting up and repairing plasma and LCD televisions. It is one more thing I can offer that to my clients."
OnForce encouraged Kaplan to pursue the new service opportunity and provides online training courses and Web applications that service providers can use to continue to expand their technical expertise which, in turn, allows more services to be offered and more work orders to be accepted, resulting in an expanding business and higher revenues.
Like Harris, Kaplan stresses the importance of building a good reputation in the community aspects of the site, noting that is the easiest way for service providers to win work bids and get the most of the marketplace.
"Getting work through OnForce was slow at first," said Kaplan. "But it was only a matter of time until I built up a reputation with high ratings. The higher the rating, the more work you'll get. But I built up that status."
Kaplan won't quite characterize his current business as 50 percent OnForce work orders and 50 percent of his own clients, although he does say it's close. He notes that he'll receive "between 10 and 20 work orders a day" since he started being an active participant in the community.
Thet high volume of daily work orders that can be received through OnForce can tax service providers, warns Crisantos Hajibrahim, director of business development and senior technician for Los Angeles-based Virus Woman.
"I know the top OnForce service providers and they will get burned out," said Hajibrahim. "If you're a top provider, think about it. I was doing OnForce work non-stop, and took every order I could. I was busy for three years, nonstop."
Hajibrahim went on to highlight the challenges that service provides will face, specifically in L.A. Noting there is a lot of driving involved and, sometimes, a lot of traffic to be waded through in order to make it to customer sites. Still, the amount of work orders he was filling let his company expand to the point where they were able to take on a new role.
Hajibrahim and Virus Woman are in a unique spot with OnForce because the company is listed as both a buyer and a seller. Hajibrahim stumbled onto the online marketplace not long after it was launched and worked with the OnForce team to build his company's reputation up on the site, ultimately landing a few Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies as clients.
"Some companies have even gone far enough to use us as government contracts," said Hajibrahim.
The business continued to expand and the reputation of Virus Woman continued to get better and better until the company eventually reached a point where they realized they needed to start contracting out some of the contract work that was coming their way.
"We've always been the recipient, always taking in the work orders," said Hajibrahim. "We've managed to grow. OnForce gave me my start. After so many years, with the economy being what it is, we lost some big clients that used the marketplace. After the clients went out of business we started getting into managed services -- a lot of clients required service, wanted to cut cost, to cut tech, so became account managers."
It's impressive to see how OnForce has helped both the buyers and the sellers expand their business, win new contracts and build a solid reputation as reliable service providers. Harris, Kaplan and Hajibrahim continue to find work through the online marketplace, even with the downturn the economy has taken over the past few years. even in these tough economic times.
"I view OnForce as a safety net," said Kaplan. "Even with the economy and the talk of recession, OnForce has stayed as they were before, the amount of work that comes through and what I accept hasn't changed in one bit."