How to make a solar energy startup grow?
Most of solar energy startups begin their adventure with photovoltaics with a lot of optimism and small installation crew.
Like in most of startups, same people perform different tasks: sales, marketing, PV design, administration and operation.
In-field or in-house?
The first step to organize solar business is usually separating office personnel and installation crew. Plus its necessary to divide duties into in-house duties, such as customer service and in-field functions, such as visiting permit offices. At the beginning customer care specialist can be the operation manager and design specialist but once a company grows, it can start hiring new specialists.
When the orders are stacking up, it’s time to think about adding another crew and truck, ideally with same size as the first one so that parts of installation can be easily replenished and the process can become more efficient. Alternatively, companies can outsource the installers.
Adding other locations
Adding new location is a big step for a company. One of the challenges that can be encountered is managing a second location without senior management on-site and maintaining company standards. The right thing to do when adding a new location, is to identify the person who will be in charge for the financial outcome of the new office and who knows the market and the territory. Targeted internet marketing will also be very important here. Plus, if solar energy startup goes global, nobody need to convince it about the strenght of Internet channel.
Workflow between departments
A growing business needs to develop separate departments such as: sales, marketing, engineering, finance, administration and operations. But they all need a great communication because only together they can contribute to success of a solar business.
Perhaps the most important and difficult to get is the excellent relation between sales and operation department. Operation, tech-savvy people are task-oriented and they need to provide information about what serves the customer well based on their experience. Sales staff, that is more people-oriented needs to share information about customer expectations. The best way to deal with this workflow nowadays is to use a software that can track status of the project and reduce costs by automating a lot of steps. What’s more companies do not need large servers anymore, since they can store the data in the cloud.
Solar energy company success
Always keep the focus on efficiency, including excellent team communication, control the cost and quality. Don’t give up if something goes wrong and remember that things can always get improved so it is worthy share ideas and listen to your employees. In many cases, the tool that can help you with team workflow an when tasks such as design and sales are overlapping between the employees is EasySolar app.