As the name suggests, the term ‘real-time systems’ refers to systems that carry out tasks in real time – generally, tasks that are time-sensitive and need to be carried out with some degree of urgency. In simple terms, real-time tasks relate to either controlling certain events or reacting to them. Air traffic control, for example, [...]
Have you ever held on to a pair of running shoes much too long? They’re comfortable, they’re familiar and, besides, you’re just too busy to get along to the shoe shop and find yourself a new pair? But you know deep down that you really should. Shoe design improves all the time, your old shoes [...]
From university graduate to Chief Technology Officer, our long-serving employee Nic Grange takes us through his journey at Retriever Communications since joining the company in 2004. Tell us how you ended up at Retriever and about your first role as a software engineer. In early 2004, I was just about to graduate from a software engineering [...]
Contracts aside, customers can sever their relationship with you at any time and go elsewhere. Presumably they keep doing business with you because they want to, because you are giving them something different, something special, something reliable and something they can’t quite get anywhere else. But how do you ensure that this is what you [...]
In February 2021 there was a press report about new rates for drivers working for a certain food delivery app. A significant bonus was now available, but to earn it a driver would have to make 70 deliveries a day. Even with a 10-hour shift, that’s seven deliveries an hour. Now managers of drivers actually [...]
Who among us is organised and proactive enough to think, ‘Six months have gone by – it’s time for me to book in a dental check-up’? We all have so many concerns and responsibilities that we have to attend to every day that these regular but rare commitments are very difficult to keep top of [...]
One of the most tried and tested truisms of life is that people like to do business with people they know – that’s why they’re called business relationships. The reassurance consumers feel from conducting transactions with people they know, trust and feel some personal connection with takes much of the uncertainty out of doing business. [...]
In the simplest of terms, return on investment (ROI) measures the return on an investment relative to the cost of that investment. It is a key performance indicator (KPI) businesses use to identify the profitability of an expenditure or investment made by the business. It also ensures a company is achieving the best business outcomes [...]
Chris Calamos, CEO Retriever Communications gives insight into the Five Critical KPIs for Field Service Success. Over the last year and throughout the pandemic, business leaders and staff managers everywhere have begun to understand what managers of field service workers have always known – the specific challenges of managing staff who aren’t working alongside you. [...]
Future of Maintenance vs Repairs - Part 2, our previous blog Part 1 discussed the advantages of preventative maintenance over reactive maintenance or repairs, the business proof of ‘a stitch in time saving time’. It’s important to bear in mind that for preventative maintenance, it’s necessary to consider the age of the equipment. If it [...]
