AdminBase: The Ultimate Anti-Virus Software

When Ab Initio added Mobile Apps and Web-based functionality to AdminBase, little did they realise they were creating the perfect ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE.

For more than 20 years AdminBase has been the go-to sales, marketing and project management system for hundreds of UK window and door installation companies, with nearly 3,500 of their employees between them hooked up to this highly popular administration tool.

Rhonda Ridge, who wrote the original version in the late ‘Nineties and who has been the driving force behind AdminBase ever since, continuously reviewing and developing the system she created to utilise the latest IT tech developments and advances to ensure users always enjoy a slick and flawless experience.

Last year Rhonda and her team introduced mobile tablet-based apps that allowed salespeople, surveyors, installers and remedial engineers to access the system on-site. Each app was developed to offer site-to-system connectivity and essentially, to greatly improve efficiency on-site by reducing notetaking, providing a clearly defined structure for each function and overall, reducing the amount of time spent on customers’ premises. Additionally, late in 2019 the Ab Initio team introduced a web-based version of AdminBase, which essentially allows full access and use of a company’s system, using virtually any device and anywhere.

In these two key developments, conceived and created long before the term Covid-19 became a brand more widely recognisable than Coca Cola, AdminBase has become one of the more potent tools in the fight to keep hundreds of Britain’s window and door installers open for business and safe for staff and customers. And in doing so, providing Ab Initio with record sales for August and then again for September; sales for the year to date are up 10% compared to 2019.

Ab Initio never went into lockdown, remaining open to support and maintain the systems for its customers, many of whom were ‘housekeeping’, even if they could not trade. But during those weeks of outward inactivity, the owners and managers of installation companies throughout Britain began to look at how they could emerge from lockdown as slicker, more purposeful outfits, even before the realities were understood of running businesses under the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus. Rhonda explained: “We always experience a spike in interest in AdminBase from new potential users, in the period immediately after Christmas and into the New Year, when owners have time on their hands to do a little housekeeping. The lockdown provided a similar scenario and even before the realities of working in a Covid-restricted world became clear, we had dozens of new companies installing AdminBase, something that we always do remotely anyway. The main interest was generated by the remote apps and the web-based version, as it became clear that returning to the office any time soon was out of the question.”

What nobody could have predicted was the explosion in sales of windows, doors, conservatories and other glazing related home improvements, as the creative juices fermenting in the minds of millions of home-confined Britons, were unleashed as lockdown was cautiously lifted. As installers experienced enquiry levels of 3 to 4 times the usual volumes, many sought assistance in managing the unprecedented surge in demand which, when combined with the need to protect staff and customers, placed great strain on resources: “We received an even greater number of enquiries,” recalled Rhonda, “as installation companies realised that they needed to manage their operations more efficiently at every stage but also, under new rules of engaging with customers and working on site, safely. And to do so by staff operating away from the office.”

The Ab Initio team was reinforced but system installations and training have long been carried out remotely as standard, which enabled speedy deployment of AdminBase to record numbers of users: “We were able to get dozens more companies up and running quickly and we now have approaching 3,500 users on AdminBase throughout the UK,” says Rhonda. “And demand keeps growing with no let up. In fact, as the reports of materials and component shortages continue and installation times lengthen, installers are reporting even greater pressures to make things work more efficiently on site, with full control exercised by staff working from home. We believe that demand will continue well into next year.”

AdminBase was created with the express intention of driving efficiency through the front to back processes of selling and installing windows and doors in British homes. And it is these very qualities written into the system since its launch, that have now also positioned AdminBase as being the ultimate Anti-Virus Software.