Small businesses and big solutions: a babysitter management app?

Babysitters, kindergarteners, walks with dogs and more: the application has also reached industries where the computer is not opened together with the work day.

Amir Nehemia, an entrepreneur of a dedicated management application, talks about the way in which technology is changing the "low-tech"

Talia Levin

09/17/2022

Saturday, September 17, 2022, 06:01

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Dogwalker: a management application for low-tech jobs (Photo: ShutterStock)

It sounds trivial, getting up in the morning to go to the office and turn on the computer.

check e-mail, sign a card and receive messages on the office WhatsApp, but with all due respect to high-tech and professions that require sitting in front of a desk and a computer, most small businesses and those that serve us in our day-to-day life are net low-tech.

What it means?

that most of the workers in the economy do not have a workplace e-mail box, and their relationship with the managers may be cumbersome.

Although digitization and advanced technology have already entered various branches of the labor market, now both the old companies in the economy and the well-known businesses of grandparents that are passed down by inheritance, realize that there is no choice but to switch to online management.

This, by the way, also contributes to success.

Most of the small businesses and those that serve us in our daily lives are purely low-tech (Photo: ShutterStock)

renew or close

45,000 small businesses close every year, the vast majority of them are mismanaged, cumbersome and ineffective.

Amir Nehemia, a 35-year-old young entrepreneur, developed a unique application that makes it easier to operate and manage employees, thus enabling a wiser and more efficient control of what happens in the business.

In the US it has already succeeded in changing the low-tech industry almost completely, now it is also happening in Israel.

, believes that Dean Strauss is the law of the neighborhood grocer, "The efficiency that technology brings to the giant companies must enter the small businesses. The world has changed, and A new generation of managers and employees who do not accept that the shift arrangement is written on the board at the entrance to the business and that correspondence goes through notes and not in an orderly manner. Beyond that, technology makes it easier to operate and manage employees."

Technology makes businesses grow quickly, improves them and allows them to manage the business in a better way, but what about the small businesses that have gone through two difficult years and are still fighting for survival and in danger of collapse?

How do you make those businesses that we encounter on a daily basis on every street, and are sometimes managed by older people for decades, adapt to the modern era, manipulate the employees and the business effectively and attract more employees?

"It starts with the understanding that not all employees at Fox, Baged and even Ichilov receive email. So not only are they not sitting in front of a computer and don't have a company email, this means that it puts them and the managers in a certain situation, which makes it very difficult to manage and communicate with these employees," he explains.

The application that Nehemiah developed together with the company's team addresses low-tech companies that at least 70% of their employees do not have access to a computer.

"These are security companies, cleaning, maintenance, drivers, hospitality, and even babysitting and dog walkers. Most of us are not at all aware of this situation, and even I was surprised to find out that this is the case. But walk around outside and most of the construction companies and even the stores and chains in the mall are low tech."

"Not so much today, and this is the essence of the change. I remember myself five years ago in New York going down to a staff room with the CEOs of the companies and realizing that not everyone has a smart phone.

It used to be more expensive, think that in these industries there are populations that are more 'problematic', let's say in the US, the Mexican immigrant who came to the US a month ago and still doesn't know the language."

"In the past, even here, a smart mobile device was an expensive business. Think about the prices of internet and surfing in the past. In Israel we don't know about it today because the 'window revolution' was a long time ago, but in the US only two years ago the prices of mobile and surfing became cheap, and companies were not ready to download an app for their employees.

Today, no one checks how much data goes through the application."

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Amir Nehmia, CEO of Connectim (Photo: Gil Hayon)

Management at the click of a button

The unique application that is personally adapted to each business, contains a time clock, shift management, task management, an inquiry box, an internal corporate chat, a phone book, digital forms, "and everything a company needs to manage and deal with its employees. Even conduct in high-tech companies known as the HR department, documents, trainings and even choosing gifts for the holiday. The employee who until today was completely disconnected from the organization, has one application that does everything related to the organization, and the CEO who until today had a very difficult time communicating with the employees, he sees exactly and at the click of a button who did what Do it, without it passing a few stops along the way."

Four years ago, in the previous incarnation of Nehemiah's start-up, he was generally marketing mobile training for leading companies in the economy, especially in high tech and advanced technologies, but he understood from conversations with potential customers specifically in smaller businesses with 5 to 30 employees , that they need upgrading and streamlining and don't even know how to put it into words.

"It started with the product we made being sold to high-tech companies like Nice and Amdocs, and the like, and as I got to know more and more low-tech companies, I realized that in high-tech mobile training is nice and in low-tech the ability to reach every employee and give employees the tools they need on a daily basis is a game changer "Seriously, and there was the turning point of the company."

"I remember meeting a CEO of a hamburger chain who told me he had 40 branches and he couldn't even estimate the exact number of his employees.

He wondered if such a thing was even possible to create a system that would give him information at any given moment what was happening in each of the branches, and if there was even an option to send messages to all employees when needed.

In this conversation, the token fell to me that this is exactly what needs to be developed."

"Yes, and four years ago this thing was almost impossible. Nor did everyone understand that all employees have smart phones, and do they even know how to use the functions that seemed complicated to them. I admit that the company as it is today, 7 years ago would not have been as successful, nor Because there is a problem with the product, but because there are a lot of processes in these years that made this thing successful."

"Precisely, the corona virus did not bring about the significant change, although it is surprising. I think the change started earlier. There was a generation that changed during this period. Today we can say that every worker up to the age of 60 and even a little more, can use applications. People who until today would not use technology, Or they didn't know how to operate a computer, suddenly they are able to sit on Facebook and WhatsApp. Even my wife's grandmother."

"What has happened in the last four years is that entire generations have become a little more technologists, ones who were not at all to begin with. Today everyone knows how to use one application or another, and it is easy for them to adopt new technologies."

connectteam produc, "Technology streamlines and facilitates the management of employees" (Photo: PR)

A new generation of younger managers

"This is a very interesting phenomenon. Managers in their 30s and 40s don't want to work like their parents. It no longer makes sense to them that they would receive faxes or that they would have to sign their employees and chase after everything and call a hundred times to get a form or deliver a message. Life Our private ones have become more upgraded and it is very strange not to take it in the business direction."

If in the beginning Nehemiah and his team had to actively reach out to small businesses, today the situation is different.

"It comes from the need for things to be much more transparent and fast in the business, and more clear than it used to be. And still, from time to time, we come across those who are used to working in a certain way and working with a huge board, because they've been doing it for the past twenty years and that's fine."

"I think it's not high tech that has an impact like our everyday products that we consume as human beings, if as a company manager I use Facebook or order the shopping online something is already happening, my perception that everything happens quickly and everything is measurable is irreversible. Those who get used to Walt and know At any given moment when the food is supposed to reach him, it is difficult for him to go back. So what happened is that our private lives have advanced technologically in such a radical way, that you reach such a dissonance that makes you look for digital things regardless of whether it is a small or large business."

"It's a night and day difference, the example I like to give is about offices in the 1970s and early 1980s, not everyone had computers yet. Think for a moment about a lawyer's office with a computer and one without a computer.

Is there a safety hazard?

As an employee, you can immediately report in the app, has something been stolen from the store?

A theft form is available.

No need to bother anyone on the phone.

For example, the manager does not have to wait for a weekly or monthly report, as above regarding employee training. And the CEO of the business can know at any given moment if he is making more or losing more this week.

And this is a critical matter for many businesses."

You work mainly in the US, and now also in Israel.

How different are we from Americans?

"You might be surprised to hear that Israel is a relatively advanced market, compared to the US, where 70% of our audience is currently found.

Israel is very advanced in everything related to employee welfare and the HR culture is stronger.

Israel, as I perceive it, is a year and a half ahead of the USA in everything that concerns methodologies and the implementation of mobile technologies,

"The most significant challenge is to change the concept and thinking of managers who think that employees cannot get along with technology. This happens in small businesses that are old school. And they often find out that they were wrong, and that it is also for the benefit of the employee. This was a certain perception that we experienced in an extreme way a few years ago and today You hardly see it anymore, but it still exists."

"Precisely in the USA, a young girl who founded a babysitting business, and simply uses the application to manage her time with all the girls who work with her.

It works well in these areas as well."

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Tags

• Working

• High tech

• business

• small businesses

• application

• Management