Fingers on buzzers and 100 points for any answers to the following question:
How on earth is it 2023?
2022 was a monumental year for us at Infraspeak. If we weren’t so busy already, even just a few days into the new year, we’d probably still be patting ourselves on the back for all we achieved. But alas! The show must go on. Pinch yourselves Infraspeakers (present or potential!) — it’s only upwards from here.
For now, though? Let’s enjoy some congratulatory self-indulgence over last year’s highlights:
We built a global community!
2022 was the year of the IFM Community. IFM, Intelligence for Maintenance, is an Infraspeak-powered community launched to directly respond to the pains caused by the pandemic. It became abundantly clear that Facility and Maintenance Management professionals needed a space to discuss significant challenges caused by our arrival in the age of Maintenance 5.0.
The Slack-based community now has over 700 global members spread across the UK, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Latin America countries and is growing rapidly. Our members use the IFM Community to access multi-format, up-to-date information on the industry, ranging from e-books, training courses and how-to guides to our hit podcast, IFM Talks, and live events and gatherings. As for 2023? Well — we have big plans for IFM and remain committed to adding more and more value, based on feedback from you, and our community.
On the topic of live events… did we mention…
… that we went on tour?
As part of our efforts with the Community, we also organised the first-ever IFM Tour. 10 events were held in cities in 4 countries (Portugal, Spain, UK and Brazil). Hundreds upon hundreds of Facility and Maintenance professionals joined us for dynamic events featuring guest speakers, live technology demonstrations, round table discussions, networking drinks and more.
It was heart-warming to see so many smiling people together under one roof to tackle the biggest challenges we face as an industry and do so with incredible enthusiasm and dedication.
In fact, we loved it so much that we decided to organise another tour this year — bringing communities together in 7 (seven!) countries this time. The more the merrier.
We love an event!
We really value the organising power of in-person events. We love them not just because they’re a great way to meet partners, prospects and customers, but also as opportunities to learn about the industry and see the latest developments in technology and innovation across the Facilities and Maintenance World.
Learning is all part of the process, right?
Infraspeak proudly attended 16 industry events last year, including The Workplace Event and Facilities Show in the UK; BTL in Portugal; Equipotel and INFRAFM in BR and many, many more.
Down to the nitty gritty — let’s talk platform!
Just like the year before, in 2022, our platform users helped us smash several important records and achieve many more milestones.
We’ll start by saying a massive thank you to over 200+ of you who joined us on our quest for intelligent maintenance and committed your trust in us by becoming new clients. Welcome! We now have operations in over 27 countries including new exciting destinations like France, India and Panama. If all goes to plan, we’ll be running maintenance operations on the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal and the Great Canal by the time we sit down to write this article in 2024!
As for our existing customers, well… what can we say! You were on fire last year. You created 1,455,701 work orders (475k more than in 2021) and closed 1,360,339 of ‘em! Not bad at all. That’s a hit rate of 95%!
The only part of our platform you seemed to love as much as work orders in 2022 was quotes! You couldn’t get enough of them. Approving just 1,885 quotes as a customer base in 2021, this grew massively to 7,006 in 2022! Just a 3.75x YoY increase on one of our most promising features… no big deal.
Closely related to quotes, another interesting trend we picked up on last year was a major increase in usage of our platform as a tool for managing maintenance sales and purchase flows. You handled a total of €12.4 million in Sales and €11.3 million in Purchases respectively. We love looking at your behaviour to see how we can plan our roadmap better so that we best meet your needs and expectations. Who knows?
Maybe we have a little something special up our sleeve for 2023?
But what did we do?
Touché! We’ve established that you were busy with work orders and the such, but what were we doing this whole time? Releasing new platform features! Here are our Top 5 Releases for 2022:
Infraspeak Next™
Infraspeak Next™ is the next-gen mobile app for Maintenance and FM. It’s typified by a simple interface and is a big part of our future — keep an eye on this one.
Housekeeper
A dedicated app for hospitality professionals which will help you optimise the management of housekeeping and maintenance operations in spaces such as hotels, chalets and other types of accommodation.
Infraspeak Gear™ Automations
We launched Infraspeak Gear™ in 2021, but don’t think we rested on our laurels this year! We launched important updates and new automation patterns. Surprise, surprise — we’ve barely scratched the surface. Expect more automation types in 2023.
Infraspeak Maps
This release saw us introduce an intuitive, map interface to the platform that facilitated work for both managers and technicians — no more getting lost!
Usage-based maintenance
We also revolutionised the Planned Jobs capability by adding usage-based maintenance to the list of Planned Job types. These thresholds added predictability and security to your preventive maintenance.
And how did we stay warm?
With an ever-growing, unbeatable team! People and Culture added logs to the fire throughout 2022. We welcomed 74 new Infraspeakers to the party across all areas of the organisation, including critical hires like Rob, our new VP of Sales.
Adding new faces is great, but we all know that a company’s growth isn’t just quantitative, it also has to be qualitative. We’re incredibly proud of our world-class career development enablement strategies at Infraspeak, and the fact that 100 members of staff received promotions is the proof in the pudding. From 1:1s to development initiatives like Management training courses, we always invest time and resources into our Infraspeakers to help them thrive (as well as survive!).
We’re also firm believers that the best way to stay focused in a company is to have a laugh along the way! You’ll be happy to know there was no shortage good vibes at Infraspeak. A non-exhaustive list of our team socials can be found below:
- An Infraspeak Farmer’s Market — A bring-your-own extravaganza of fruit and veg grown by our Portuguese Infraspeakers.
- An Infraspicnic — A hommage to the humble picnic, a cornerstone of Portuguese summer culture.
- 12x Beer Celebrations — our famous and favourite team social!
- 2 in-person company retreats — wine and water (canoeing) — lots of fun!
- A Lord of the Rings Series watch-a-thon — one social to rule ‘em all…
- … and many, many more!
💡Sounds like fun? Join us, we’re hiring.
Time to do it all again!
And that’s more or less that! Thank you to everyone who made 2022 so unforgettable. Clients who signed, those who didn’t, tech partners, industry leaders, new Infraspeakers and old!
The exciting times have only just begun! We can already reveal an exciting kick-off event for the 2023 IFM Tour will be taking place on the 26th January — the IFM Summit Global. Tune in for an introduction to the theme of this year’s tour, Collaboration, and the official announcement of an absolutely massive product feature — you won’t want to miss this!
We can also look forward to more product improvements, more broken records, more exciting job openings and more frustrating DadJokes on social media — it’s gonna be an awesome year!
Buckle up! Are you ready for the ride?
