EMAIL INTERVIEW – Hector Hernandez and Ken Sinclair

Hector Hernadez, Founder & CEO, Cube-USA

Hector Hernandez is a Miami-based controls industry veteran with over 16 years experience in the HVAC controls industry. He founded his first company, South Florida Controls in the year 2000 and grew the controls business exponentially.  Hector is currently the CEO at Cube and sits on the board of directors for many organizations within the HVAC, Controls and Technology industries. When he’s not dreaming about the future of Cube, Hector travels and enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hector-hernandez-a5426035/

Sinclair:  Why even talk about the adoption of mobile technology? Shouldn’t owners be talking about something else?

Hernandez:  As a business owner of controls companies, I am personally facing many challenges. We are facing a heavy increase of competition, technology changes, the fast explosion of the VRF is reducing a lot of our traditional system, and system integration is becoming easier which allows more players to get into the market.

However, the biggest challenge we are facing is the tremendous shortage of human talent in our markets. Everyone is looking for someone to fill a position on their companies; therefore, I think the short-term solution to the lack of human resources is business optimization and do more with what we have.

The adoption of mobile technology will play a significant role in this process because it can assist a technician to complete the service information in fewer steps or a project manager to purchase the equipment from virtually any location at any time. The objective of this process is to radically reduce the amount of time your staff spends on their daily tasks thereby optimizing their roles which in turn enhances productivity and efficiency for the labor force.

Sinclair:  In your opinion, why is there such slow adoption of mobile technology by BMS contractors?

Hernandez:  The first thing that comes to my mind is the lack of options. There is a limited amount of platforms designed for controls contractors such as what Cube offers and even less in a mobile format. We now offer most of the features in our mobile application; this means that our customers can do sales management, project management, estimating, service management and purchasing from a native phone application.

The second item that comes to my mind is that many owners are very skeptical. Our business is very complicated, and most decision makers do not believe that such complex process can be embedded in a phone. Therefore, they chose to continue in the usual traditional manner.

A third item may be that customers may not have the resources or knowledge which will present a challenge to them should they consider the decision to implement this technology.  Upon implementation, it is important that the app is maintained and controlled by the customer.  The different aspects of choosing and implementing the mobile technology can seem too challenging for the customer to overcome.

Sinclair:  What do you say to those owners that are still on the fence about this topic?

Hernandez:  I have conversations with many business owners on a daily basis, and every time the topic comes up my answer is the same. The implementation of new systems and the adoption of business management software requires for owners to have a different mindset. In your phone is the equivalent of switching from a beeper to a cell phone, we first resisted the change, but once we did, we could not live without it.

Mobile technology can no longer be ignored, as it has become an integral part of our daily lives.  This type of technology provides an insight on how to take their businesses to the next level which will assist in achieving their primary goals and giving them a competitive advantage in an already competitive market.

I am on the road most of the time, which means I do not have my laptop with me. However, I have all the information I need to make a decision on my phone. This level of flexibility makes me faster and better equipped to deliver superior results to my customer.

Sinclair:  What are the areas in your opinion will benefit your company the most?

Hernandez:  Well, I know from our own experience that the use of mobile technology will impact every process of an organization. We are accustomed to limiting the use of mobile apps to a specific section of the company such as sales management; however, today we have every process of the company embedded in our employee’s phone.

Take the procurement process, for example; the traditional method is that an employee calls the office to request a part and then this request is moved from one position to the other until the part is delivered.

Today we put the procurement process on the technician phone and therefore, there is no need to call anyone, or print paper, and the process is reduced to a few steps and in a much shorter timeframe.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Sinclair:  What do you think is next and what role does the mobile technology play in the evolution of IoT?

Hernandez:  The possibilities are endless not only for what we can deliver but also because of how we can facilitate integration. The ultimate goal is to deliver the information that one needs to make our business decisions faster.

Mobile devices are the mechanism to deliver the information to the user real time, and as a result of more artificial intelligence with more processing capabilities we will become more and more effective in executing our jobs.

In most companies today, a technician is sent to a project to do a service that was scheduled by coordinator as a result of a customer call.

Just to give you a preview of what we will be delivering soon,

And maybe that ought to be the future. I want to thank you for this opportunity and hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did.

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