ETV has been a member of CloseOut family since December 2023. Being our first Serbian customer, this contract carried a lot of weight, both professionally and symbolically. CloseOut’s established presence on the local ground has made it a proven and relevant figure in the world of telecommunications in its home country as well.
The core activity of the Public Company for Broadcasting Equipment and Connections (JP Emisiona Tehnika i Veze – JP ETV) involves wireless telecommunications. Its primary mission is to plan, construct, and maintain broadcasting infrastructure across the territory of the Republic of Serbia.
This infrastructure ensures the transmission of sound and TV images from radio and TV stations to household radio and TV receivers.
During our conversation with Aleksandar Damljanović, Head of Department at Emisiona tehnika i veze, who oversees the technological aspects of ETV and ensures that all machinery is properly maintained, we discussed the challenges that led this large company to seek a solution like CloseOut.
The Challenge: What specific industry related problems or issues led you to seek out our solution?
Aleksandar: We primarily needed help keeping track of the maintenance processes on our numerous locations. Otherwise, travel orders became a big challenge as well.
Turns out, the paperwork became a huge challenge for ETV management, so they started looking for something which will help reduce the paperwork load and help with knowing the exact progress and current state involving each tower location they maintain. Managing more than 200 of them, the help was more than welcome.
Relying on the more traditional practices wouldn’t cut it anymore. ETV decided it’s time for a digital tool which will transform the way they handle routine, preventive and urgent maintenance visits at their numerous locations.
Other than keeping track of the maintenance progress, travel orders needed sorting out as well. As a company with such an impressive number of towers and physical locations, sending technicians on business trips has become an expensive and logistically demanding process.
It seemed that all the trips were funneling an enormous amount of money, and the plain old paperwork hasn’t been able to keep track of it all.
The Solution: How was the implementation process for our solution?
Aleksandar: There were some hiccups during the implementation process, but nothing out of ordinary bearing in mind the transition from traditional to digital mode of business always hits a few bumps on the road.
In a process of such a scale, one cannot expect a completely smooth ride. Aleksandar finds the CloseOut solution to be everything they have been looking for, but for a company as large as ETV, switching to digital means having to educate a lot of people to do the work in a new way.
The CloseOut team was there every step of the way, being a helping and guiding hand during the implementation process, and in the end, everyone was trained and educated how to use our app.
Once the app became a routine tool for everyone within the ETV workforce, the management realized they have started to save at least 10% on monthly basis only through travel orders.
With the sophisticated levels of optimization CloseOut provides, travel logistics became less complicated, more precise and completely transparent, which resulted in noticeable savings.
Aleksandar: At this point, everyone is quite aware of all the benefits of using CloseOut, there’s no more any sort of resistance. People are now so used to it, they wouldn’t switch back even if presented with a choice.
The Result: How has our solution impacted your business since implementation?
Aleksandar: Looking back, I can say with certainty that CloseOut is saving us a lot of resources; starting with time, which affects everything else.
ETV experienced a lot of challenges with Project Management and travel orders, which were two main points they wanted to address through CloseOut. Since they started doing things digitally and using our solution, the time spent on simple but repetitive tasks, such as filling in travel orders, has been reduced significantly.
The same goes for following through on maintenance. With CloseOut, the company experienced firsthand that tasks have been performed with more precision, more on time and even more thoroughly than ever before.
Aleksandar: Since adopting CloseOut, we’ve seen a significant benefit: tasks are now completed by fewer people and in less time. Before using CloseOut, we weren’t aware that we were assigning too many people to a job.
