Start with Where

Written by by Darren Newman

October 23, 2024

6 minute read

The power of the right solution in solving your biggest business challenges.

In the fast-paced world of business, challenges are inevitable. Whether it’s managing inventory, ensuring stock quality, optimising storage, adapting to fluctuating delivery schedules, identifying under-performing assets or understanding which consumables have been lost, every organisation faces a unique set of hurdles. Whilst conventional wisdom advises us to ‘Start with Why’, there’s a growing school of thought that suggests a different approach – ‘Start with Where’.

In this article, we explore the ‘Start with Where’ approach with Darren Newman, Managing Director of GlobeRanger. With 25 years of experience helping organisations to solve their business challenges, Darren and his team have found that success often begins with a simple question: Where are your assets?

Overcoming challenges, not selling technology
Understanding the value of asset-tracking
The power of the right data
Real-life challenges solved
Why place trust in GlobeRanger
What makes GlobeRanger different
What next?

Essentially, GlobeRanger operates as an asset-tracking company, yet the company’s main focus appears to be addressing customers’ business challenges. How do you explain this approach?

Well, we don’t just sell asset-tracking solutions. As a company, we immerse ourselves in your business, grasp your unique challenges and offer the right solutions to solve them. What sets us apart, is where we start.

According to research, 96% of businesses will fail within a decade, and only 0.5% will last 100 years. While some businesses fail due to major disasters or catastrophic events, most falter under the weight of everyday problems they can’t solve. Issues mount up as they fight to stand out in increasingly competitive and commoditised markets.

When GlobeRanger was established, it quickly became apparent that many customer pain points could be resolved by ‘knowing where your assets are’. Today, the purpose of most organisations is to turn assets into profit, in a sustainable way. By identifying which assets contribute the most to profits and which cause the most losses, we can provide the data insights needed to optimise resources and improve performance.

So, I guess this is where asset tracking technology comes in. Tell me, how does it work?

Asset tracking technology leverages the Internet of Things (IoT). It connects physical and digital objects embedded with tags, labels or sensors to the internet, enabling them to exchange and transfer data with other IoT devices and the Cloud. The Cloud serves as secure digital storage for the data, making the data available to read, use and manage at any time, wherever there is an internet connection. Most of us use IoT devices on a daily basis – whether that’s a smartwatch, a video doorbell, Amazon’s Alexa, or a smart meter for utilities.

IoT technologies pervade the home – but soon will have transformed business too

GlobeRanger uses RFID tagging to uniquely and automatically track inventory and assets through wireless radio frequency waves. Attaching a tag to an asset generates a continuous real-time stream of critical data, and the key to addressing your business challenges lies in what we do with that data.

So, could you explain some of the things you can do with that kind of data?

Leveraging asset tracking data gives you a superpower to achieve what you couldn’t before. For instance, it allows you to handle inventory management more effectively – both inside and outside your business. In manufacturing for example, you can monitor your assets throughout their lifecycle, pinpointing bottlenecks. You can track key dates, such as when a product is ready for the next stage in the production process, when consumables are due to expire or when a batch has been recalled. In addition, you can use the data to optimise your delivery schedules to avoid delays. You can also monitor field equipment and keep track of all pallets and tools, ensuring they’re returned rather than having to be constantly replaced.

Furthermore, by reducing the labour required for manual processes you’ll free your workers to do what they do best – which is making you the most money.

Just some of the business challenges that are best solved by starting with “where are our assets?”

Can you provide examples of the customer challenges solved using the ‘Start with Where’ approach?

Our experience spans a wide range of industries ranging from pet food manufacturers and second-hand clothes retailers to aviation companies and the military.

Take Jim Beam, for example. Our GlobeRanger team deployed our iMotion™ IoT Edgeware Platform to help them track millions of barrels of whisky throughout their entire production lifecycle. This three-stage project involved commissioning, tagging and tracking of each oak barrel, ensuring complete visibility of the inventory during every step of the liquid maturation process. The system provides a digital trail facilitating the automatic and seamless movement of whiskey between plants, warehouses and trucks. As a result, every drop maintains Jim Beam’s high quality – not a drop is lost. Moreover, each bottle has its own unique story.

Now, let’s consider a commercial airline. After implementing Fujitsu RFID technology on one airline’s production line to track components, we collaborated further with their team to develop an Emergency Equipment Management Smart Check solution. This innovative system leverages RFID tags to allow flight crews to quickly and easily scan essential equipment pre-flight. It provides a seamless and cost-effective solution to streamlining this critical process, reducing the time needed for tedious, repetitive and back-breaking under-seat inspections from over an hour to just 90 seconds. In addition, it removes human error and frees crews up to add an essential human touch to their passengers’ onboarding experience.

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Left: Tagging essential emergency equipment to cut pre-flight checks from an hour to 90 seconds.
Right: Jim Beam: Tracking millions of oak barrels to ensure that every drop lives up to the name and not a drop is lost.

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What makes organisations trust GlobeRanger to solve their business challenges?

Simply put, we understand that digitalisation can be daunting, especially for long-established businesses with legacy systems and equipment. That’s why we strive to make finding and implementing the right solution as quick, simple and affordable as possible.

We begin with an onsite visit to thoroughly understand your business challenges from the inside out. We identify where your assets are and determine what improvements can be made through better asset management. From there we choose the appropriate IoT technology, build a prototype and run a small on-site pilot to demonstrate how we can solve your challenge. In taking this approach, we ensure minimal disruption to your daily operations. This helps us to showcase the benefits and value of our solution, making it easier for you to explain them to your team. It also allows us to refine the solution based on your feedback, ensuring quick, smooth and cost-effective implementation on a larger scale.

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GlobeRanger’s 6-step process minimises risks, costs and disruption.

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Sounds good. I’m curious, what sets working with GlobeRanger apart from other RFID solution-providers?

While any IoT solution can generate data, that data’s usefulness in solving your business challenges is another matter entirely.

At GlobeRanger, we are deeply invested in making our customers’ businesses successful. We care about their assets and are driven by a relentless desire to help them optimise these assets to boost profitability.

Unlike providers who sell off-the-shelf solutions, GlobeRanger is tech-agnostic. Our priority is partnering with organisations to fully understand their unique challenges. Frequently, what managers perceive as the main issue often turns out to be different. When we start working together, we discover there’s a more critical issue, or the cause is something unexpected.

So, right challenge, right IoT-enabled asset tracking solution and right data adds up to the right solution to overcome the business challenge.

Moreover, we don’t just implement and walk away. Once businesses gain access to real-time data, they’re on their way to becoming a digital business. With a world-class ecosystem of partners, such as Fujitsu, we guide them through every step toward digital maturity, taking end-to-end accountability and ensuring comprehensive support throughout.

As we always say, going digital isn’t a revolution, it’s an evolution. And it starts with … yes, you’ve guessed it…. Where!

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What are your key business challenges? Let GlobeRanger guide your evolution from the business you are now into one that will remain competitive into the future.

Get in touch with our friendly, expert team – they’re ready to address your challenges.