Working with social distancing.
How is FairFleet working with social distancing instead of against it?
The concept of social distancing is either celebrated or hated. It has forced companies and people worldwide to rethink their way of life and business. For some, that has been devastating.
But for others, in the drone industry in particular, it has presented new opportunities.
Corona, as seen from above.
The internet is overflowing with reports on drones technology being used to aid the battle against the current epidemic.
Everything from enforcing social distancing to delivering medical supplies and identifying infected humans using thermography. For obvious reasons, remotely operated systems work amazingly well during social distancing.
At Scopito, online meetings are the norm, as we are used to collaborating across borders, and our team enjoys working this way.
But, for many of our customers, it has meant a lot of changes to their daily routines and operations. For the most part, usage of the Scopito platform has increased dramatically, because it suits the needs of businesses in this “new normal” so well. Being able to manage and share data online, in a standardized way, helps overcome the challenges created by social distancing.
But companies have to adapt in more ways than one, so we asked one of our long-time customers FairFleet, how they are navigating the COVID19-crisis.
The Covid-19 crisis is both challenging and beneficial for us. 10% of the countries we operate in are really restrictive, meaning lockdowns made us postpone a few projects there. On the other hand, we won more projects and provide our clients with detailed information about their assets remotely – without putting anyone at risk of catching the virus.
Dario Manns
FairFleet
FairFleet during social distancing.
Dario Manns, CIO & Co-founder at FairFleet GmbH was happy to share insights about the difficulties and opportunities they are experiencing.
His interest in aviation was sparked at an early age, by his grandfather who was piloting planes carrying photographers. Through his film and television studies at university, Dario met his co-founders, and they started a business filming aerial marketing imagery. This collaboration eventually grew into FairFleet.
Today, FairFleet is more than just the idea of creating a worldwide network of professional drone pilots. The co-founders brought extensive expertise in business, aviation, and sensors to the table and found a team of dedicated talents. By managing resources and technology Dario connects the dots between pilots, drones, and data for FairFleet’s clients.
FairFleet works for insurance, media, construction, mapping, engineering, disaster relief – and of course inspections especially in wind & solar PV. Their network of pilots works from the same standards of permissions and planning, to provide a one-stop option for drone-services.
We match pilots to the jobs, they capture the raw data and we return a deliverable to the customer.
We fired up Google meetings to ask him a few questions.
How has COVID-19 impacted your business?
“The crisis has been both good and bad for us. To us, the crisis is in the nationwide lockdown.
There are some countries like Malaysia and Spain, where aviation authorities have stopped working completely. For us, it means that we can’t get the permission we need. Not being operational in those countries at the moment accounts for about 10% of the projects being delayed. Which is obviously a big hit.
Luckily, we have found other ways of increasing our missions.
A lot of our customers – old and new – have difficulties approaching their assets, as they are located far away and sometimes across borders.
Thanks to the decentralized FairFleet network, we always have a pilot near the site of interest. That allows us to create digital twins of our clients’ assets and share them remotely.
The general picture for us is really positive: Compared to the few delayed missions, we won way more new business. So we are happy to help our customers with drone-powered solutions.
The general picture for us is really positive. We have gained more new missions, than the 10% we have put on hold.”
What are your expectations and predictions?
“It is very hard to predict anything right now, so obviously we are being very cautious.
Actually, just a week before Germany shut down I was in California, meeting with some clients. Everyone kept telling me to come home, but I never expected it to escalate so quickly, so I can’t offer any predictions. But, as long as our clients’ businesses are thriving, ours is as well. We’re just happy to be able to help them during this crisis.” Dario emphasizes.
At FairFleet, they have adapted to the new situation. They were able to do so because of their unique business structure, and because they take advantage of Scopito’s cloud-based platform for their deliverables.
Scopito can also help you maintain your business during social distancing.
Contact us to investigate your opportunities further.
What does your journey with Scopito look like?
“I came across Scopito ages ago, I don’t even remember where – maybe a tradeshow?” Dario says, scrolling through his inbox in search of that first email.
“Here it is. I first spoke to Dani on the 7th of March 2017. He said he was going to call me and do a demo. And then .. a week later I signed up. On the 14th.”
At the moment, FairFleet is primarily using Scopito for roof-reports and is planning to expand the usage into the wind-sector in the near future.
Want to hear more about how our clients are navigating this new situation? Let us know in the comments.
