For Part 3 of our Agricultural Tyre feature, Commercial Tyre Business had the opportunity to speak with Steve Daly, Commercial Director at CAM Systems, about its approach for the agricultural sector. It is always interesting to look at how the industry’s specialist software providers approach specific niche sectors within the tyre market. With that in mind, we wanted to find out CAM’s take on what challenges agricultural dealers are currently facing and what demands they are placing on IT suppliers like CAM to help ease the workload.
Commercial Tyre Business Talk to CAM about their Offerings in the Agricultural Space
What we are seeing with agricultural dealers, according to CAM, is that they are diversifying their work to include commercial work alongside the agricultural service work they normally carry out. This means that one of the key challenges they are facing is the availability of technical resources to provide full support around the sale of the tyre.
From a systems perspective, though CAM points out that it is very much at the forefront of the market. “Dealers want a one-stop shop for their work, which is what the likes of e-jobsheet and fitter-forceTM provide,” explains Daly. “The software is equally proficient if businesses are doing commercial, plant, van, or agricultural work, meaning the technician does not have to switch software for different work types.”
The primary products CAM has in place for the agricultural sector are e-jobsheet, and fitter-forceTM, which are suitable for all the types of work tyre businesses carry out. In addition, fitter-force assists with invoicing and stock management levels, which, like e-jobsheet caters to the full spectrum of tyre applications, including agricultural vehicles.
In the background, CAM also maintains its hugely comprehensive Online Tyre Catalogue, which covers all manner of tyres, including for agricultural machinery and equipment.
“Interestingly, the TiDaeXTM hub, which connects e-jobsheet to fitter-force, is also connected to some tyre manufacturers in the agricultural space, as well as the commercial segment. We are seeing these exclusive links expanding categories too.”
The benefits of these systems are simple to explain because they provide users with easy to use and fully connected platforms that ensure all facets of the job are accounted for from start to finish. An example of this is that a job may be originated by the technician on the e-jobsheet tablet app, where it will come back to the fitter-force platform. This means the back-office user can utilise the system’s functionality to reconcile the stock, delivering excellent inventory management characteristics and providing greater control over what is happening with the tyres when they are being used on a job.
In addition, the technology can be implemented both in terms of speed and ease, which makes it ideal for independent tyre businesses, particularly those needing to service a diverse variety of vehicles, including agricultural models.
CAM has ensured that its software solutions can help farmers and agricultural users facilitate the move from agricultural tasks to agricultural and commercial activities. Through offering technical solutions, CAM is ensuring that users in the sector can better focus on production or the selling of commercial components without losing excessive time on inventory management. With agricultural businesses utilising a selection of different tyre types, this allows the technician to maintain using e-Jobsheet and fitter-forceTM without changing software. This move towards a centralised software solutions package is very much the one-stop shop that users in the sector are looking for and will appreciate lightening the load in day-to-day operations.