Enterprises that require heavy investment in equipment assets also have to ensure the operational health of the equipment for maximizing the returns on their investment. Without adequate and timely maintenance, the costs of Maintenance Software can quickly spiral out of control, and also have negative effects on production due to delays and quality control. One of the most popular solutions is using computerized maintenance management software systems that keep track of these various requirements and ensure that all the necessary tasks are done on time.
Equipment management and maintenance software, or simply equipment maintenance software, is a specialized type of maintenance management software that streamlines its functioning by automatically generating work orders for preventive maintenance tasks and also includes predictive maintenance scheduling at optimal times.
The goal of these systems is to maximize the runtime and lifespan of different equipment by ensuring optimal maintenance operations in the real world. Essentially, the system automates all the tasks required for maintenance and ensures that scheduling is optimized so as to keep the costs (such as downtime) at a minimum. An added advantage is that it provides a detailed report of the maintenance history, so business decisions can be taken accordingly.
Equipment is the key asset of medium to heavy industries, and ensuring its maintenance and upkeep is crucial to the organization’s functioning. Many of these organizations employ an enterprise asset management software, called EAM software, that essentially tracks the physical movement of assets between different facilities, and tracks and monitors the operating conditions, while also creating a detailed record of the financial costs of asset maintenance.
Equipment maintenance is a major aspect of this software since it focuses on different equipment in use. The goal of such different software is to ensure maximum functionality while prolonging the assets’ runtime with minimal expenditure.
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Organizations that benefit from Equipment Maintenance software solutions
Enterprises that work with machinery have to be weary of overhead costs, such as in manufacturing and construction since downtime will have a severe negative impact on overall costs as well. When businesses operate at less than full capacity, it affects the overall functioning of the organization and leads to missed opportunities. With the right equipment maintenance and management software, you can ensure that the performance and productivity of the organization is seamless.
Different industries will require different approaches to maintain their equipment. For example, in manufacturing organizations, the equipment management software schedules maintenance functions that can prevent problems from arising. Moreover, it also provides a detailed spare parts inventory to ensure that all the requisite parts are available before they become inevitable, and thus prevent breakdowns and downtime.
In facilities management, there is a need to coordinate actions and responses within maintenance departments so that there is no delay in responding to any issues that may arise. The equipment maintenance and management software is crucial for all facilities to be available and functioning, without any gaps.
Even in the hospitality industry, hotels or restaurants need help to track whether equipment such as kitchen fryers or dishwashers are properly evaluated regularly, and maintenance is taken care of. If such equipment were to break down during working hours, it will not only affect your service but also have a serious effect on the brand.
In important industries such as the aviation industry, there are customized solutions such as aircraft MRO software which streamlines the maintenance, engineering, and logistics of the planes. Professionals such as maintenance directors, managers for inventory parts, flight schedules, and dispatchers require a complete solution that can help them track airplane fleets and ensure optimized schedules for minimal downtime.
Functions of Equipment Maintenance Software
Complete Asset Management
Every asset has to be monitored for health, performance, and risk in real-time with real-time variables. Managers and top management should be able to access an overview of the different equipment, which have to be grouped into categories and subcategories according to their functions, so business decisions can be taken with all the relevant data available. Moreover, the asset’s maintenance history including dates and costs, warranty, depreciation, and any notable requirements will help schedule operations better, without harming the customer experience. This data is also very important to ensure industry regulations compliance, without which the organization can be open to fines.
Maintenance Request Management
In real life, employees working with the equipment will be in the best position to provide real-time feedback on the performance, and also recognize the need for maintenance. In such cases, the equipment management and maintenance software should enable them to send maintenance requests to management for approval. The software should ensure that the relevant authorities view the requests, and also prioritize these requests based on the urgency.
Order Management
It is important to have a unified record of all the maintenance work that needs to be done and establish how it is to be achieved. Especially for the maintenance managers, who need to be aware of the tasks in a prioritized manner. With equipment maintenance and management software, it would be easy to deploy rules-based approvals and scheduling management tasks that can help with tracking and editing orders for maximum efficiency.
Inventory Management
Vital supplies will be required for efficient maintenance and repair of the equipment. When using an equipment management and maintenance software, you can streamline the spart parts inventory management with barcodes or QR codes, automatically update inventory when parts are attached to work orders, and also ensure timely restocking of inventory with integrated purchase order functionalities.
Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance
Modern equipment generates data that provides insights into its performance. This is very useful when setting up condition-based monitoring so any potential issues can be immediately identified, and the relevant employees are alerted about it in advance. You can also establish the boundaries of functionality for different assets, and if the data shows that the asset is working beyond those limits, can automatically generate work orders that will ensure timely maintenance.
Preventive Maintenance Management
Equipment resources will have to be ready whenever required, and some resources will also have a specific date by when to be used. It is also possible that they may need assembling, which would require the right people, materials, and other factors which is important to keep the schedule. Any errors or unavailability can lead to serious disruptions, injuries to workers, and even cause damage to the equipment. With equipment management and maintenance software, you can create schedules, arrange maintenance routines, streamline workloads, and also ensure timely inspection and compliance reports.
Advantages of Equipment Management and Maintenance software
As with all other technology solutions, there is a continuous evolution of equipment management and maintenance software too. In recent years, it has become possible to use SaaS solutions, employee smartphones, GPS technology, etc., which makes it easier to accomplish equipment management tasks. Some of the biggest advantages of employing this solution include:
Improve Equipment lifetime
Regular maintenance and upgrades are crucial to ensure that equipment can maximize its lifetime performance. This is important not only for better returns but also cut down on costs that would go into replacing the equipment. Over a period of time, the savings can be quite substantial in improving the bottom line of your business.
Another thing to remember is that when your equipment is beginning to show wear and tear after a few years, the effectiveness is automatically diminished. Usually, organizations would try to get rid of the equipment through sale rather than undertake the repair and maintenance that would be required. But with proper equipment lifecycle management inspection and maintenance software, you will have a better view of the current status of the equipment. Even if there are any issues with the equipment, you can decide whether you want to sell the product, and thus reduce the financial losses on it.
It is actually not a bad idea to discontinue the equipment and resell it. It is a truth that machinery deprecates in value through its lifetime. Equipment management and maintenance software usually include all the features of the fixed asset management software, such as depreciation tracking, current value, etc. Just by determining the depreciating asset value, you can identify the optimal asset management strategies while enabling better business tax filing.
The main advantages include reducing the lifetime asset costs by calculating the real value of the asset regularly and thus planning for the retirement of the asset. Senior management can leverage this data to make better buy vs. lease decisions. The real value, including depreciation, helps with the right tax planning, and also includes the labor costs, depending on the lifecycle stage of the equipment.
Prevent Major repairs
With machinery, there is rarely any major repair that could not have been identified with regularly scheduled monitoring. A planned routine maintenance schedule is important to prevent or at least reduce critical issues such as production errors, work injuries, and asset damage. This is essentially the most important function of the equipment management and maintenance software, which is better than the reactive maintenance solutions where the focus is on repairing broken down or malfunctioning equipment.
It is only when repairs are not recognized and addressed in time that they end up becoming major problems since they compound the initial damage. Most organizations do not appreciate the importance of maintenance since it seems an unnecessary expense, as the results are not always apparent. This is how they end up with reactive maintenance culture, where the problem has to become big before it is resolved.
The associated costs with this approach, such as equipment breaking down during inconvenient times or when the deadline is looming, would further necessitate costly repairs or project penalties. It is a no-brainer that equipment requires proper preventive maintenance and care to ensure that there are no major or expensive repairs necessary.
Optimizing Maintenance Costs
To reiterate, major repairs come about only when we fail to identify and address any equipment errors exhibited by the equipment. Maintenance also includes the costs and efforts of labor that could have been better utilized elsewhere. Organizations that fail to appreciate the importance of timely and regular maintenance of equipment would attest to the importance of the approach. If some companies prefer to wait for repairs to become serious before attending to them, you can be sure that they would be spending much more than what they would have initially spent on maintenance, with lesser damage to their equipment.
The smooth functioning of assets is critical in improving the productivity of the organization across all levels. To put it simply, if the equipment is functioning at a less-than-optimal level, employees are expected to expend more energy in ensuring that they catch up to the schedule, which are indirect costs of production that increase unnecessarily. These days, delays in deliveries can also attract severe penalties that can irrevocably harm your brand and your company’s finances.
What to know about Equipment Management and Maintenance software Pricing:
It is not possible to arrive at a common figure about the cost of equipment management and maintenance software, but there are a few pointers that can help you figure out an average price point. Entry-level software solutions in the market today for less than 3 users start at around $30 per user per month but usually cost less than $70. They usually include features such as work order management, preventative maintenance management, and a digital record of the asset’s history. There would also be a one-time onboarding fee, which would depend on your software partner and the level of the services required, but you can expect anywhere from $500 to $2500.
Organizations may also require advanced equipment management features such as unified maintenance request portals, KPI dashboards, custom interfaces with their own branding, and interactive solutions that can range as high as $500 per user per month. These are mainly for mid-level and enterprise-level organizations and require solutions for a higher number of users.
Almost every equipment maintenance and management solution today in the market is subscription-based and web-based. This is the SaaS model of software sales, which is the most advantageous for the users and the developers. One of the reasons for its popularity is that it provides the flexibility of using smartphones to access and work with the software. Moreover, with the earlier sales model of one-time purchases, it would be difficult to provide future updates and develop upgrades that make financial sense. With the cloud becoming ubiquitous, SaaS software solutions make it easier for any upgrades.
21 Best Equipment Management and Maintenance Software:
1. MaintainX: iOS, Android
MaintainX is a global leader in mobile-first workflow management platforms which is a great tool for frontline and industrial workers. Its major goal is to improve workflow completion through a strong workflow communication solution with an internal messaging system. It’s a perfect solution for small to large businesses, with IoT-enabled cloud-based tools for equipment maintenance and management, safety, and even operations on different kinds of equipment and facilities.
Users can create an unlimited number of work orders and track any number of assets that they employ. MaintainX includes a wide range of templates that can be customized for different procedures and checklists. Another great feature is the ability to create annotated pictures in the inspection reports for clarity on the asset status. It tracks both reactive and preventive maintenance schedules and also streamlines daily operations like safety inspections, quality tests, and even operating checklists. Since all of these are digitally recorded, it provides a complete picture of the equipment.
2. Limble CMMS: iOS, Android
Limble CMMS is another extremely popular equipment management and maintenance software that is mobile-first and is very simple to use. It aims to help organizations manage asset maintenance work, automate work scheduling, monitor history, generate reports, and organize assets. It claims to increase the productivity of customers by 41%, reduce downtime throughout the organization by 37%, reduce spending on equipment parts by 29%, and increase the overall life of assets by a whopping 23%.
It is a great solution for small to enterprise-size businesses but also works very well with even government organizations and non-profits. Its mobile app for iPhone, iPad, and Android empowers all the employees in the organization to instantly access the history and view the current status of any equipment throughout different facilities. With real-time reports of customized maintenance KPIs and advanced reporting features, it improves the working experience across all levels of the organization.
3. Asset Essentials:- iPhone, iPad, Android
Asset Essentials is designed to be a highly configurable platform for manufacturing, education, government, and even membership organizations. It is a next-generation platform for smarter and more efficient equipment maintenance and management solution. It makes it easier for employees across the organization to initiate, assign, and track the progress of maintenance work orders, manage different assets and equipment types, and develop advanced workflows with preventive maintenance scheduling. This software leverages IoT technology to provide functional insights into inventory management and also predictive maintenance solutions. The solution includes document management and inbuilt reporting features.
A major differentiator or USP of Asset Essentials is that it connects seamlessly with the rest of your software ecosystem so that you can build on the synergy of the different parts of your organizational solutions into a unified view of the operations.
4. UpKeep:- iPhone, iPad, Android
UpKeep is a modern CMMS solution that focuses on asset maintenance and management for all the members of your team. With UpKeep, employees can access the software from a desktop, tablet, or even mobile, which makes it extremely handy for organizations of all sizes. It is very easy to create work orders on the go, receive notifications instantly on their personal mobiles every time tasks are updated, and also set up alerts when equipment faces a repair or is down due to malfunctioning. Due to instant updates, all employees and management can be aware of equipment issues, and thus respond faster and reduce costs.
With UpKeep, the relevant employees can access a unified communication center where they can manage all the work orders, assets, and maintenance tasks efficiently. Even the frontline workers can be streamlined in dealing with the maintenance issues, so there is no redundancy of effort. Not just the data and the tools, but teams can collaborate seamlessly to ensure that everyone is aware of the bottlenecks and contribute to resolving them.
5. MPulse:- iPhone, Android
MPulse software’s easy-to-use equipment maintenance and management solutions are great for reliable scheduling, tracking, and reporting tools for ensuring regularized maintenance for equipment and facilities. With a central goal to ensure greater productivity and efficiency, MPulse caters to a wide range of organizations with four different tiers. MPulse Bronze is aimed at small organizations that require entry-level solutions for work order management and provide preventive maintenance schedules.
The Silver package also includes the ability to receive, manage, and update any service requests by employees, and an unlimited number of requesters. With the Gold package, organizations can access the full suite of equipment maintenance and management features and functions, from managing preventive maintenance to managing work orders to service orders, while offering complete tracking of inventory, including vendor management.
Organizations that deal with equipment mainly require proactive management of preventive maintenance, track and record repairs, and ensure maximizing of equipment life with minimal downtime. Since its scalable, MPulse’s computerized maintenance management software empowers employees to protect their organizations’ equipment and assets. With its asset tracking abilities, employees can also seamlessly manage their work orders and maintain a detailed record of the equipment’s lifetime performance and the preventive maintenance schedule that can optimize its functioning through the course of business.
6. ManagerPlus:- iOS, Android
A robust enterprise equipment management software that is designed to empower managers and maintenance professionals to optimize the value of their assets. Essentially, ManagerPlus helps you manage work orders, create preventive maintenance schedules, and create historical records. The main goal of this software is to ensure a faster and more efficient solution to organizations that require equipment maintenance and management.
The greatest advantage of ManagerPlus is its ability to be customized for a wide range of industries and equipment. It allows users and managers to automate maintenance schedules, manage all work orders, monitor inventory levels, generate trends, usage, and performance reports, and also access the work history of different equipment. You can also set alerts for upcoming repair work, and also notifications for updates on equipment maintenance and management milestones.
Every asset will have its own profile that includes detailed classification according to its category, important dates, etc. It includes an automated stock placing feature to ensure that the inventory is always within an acceptable range. The best part is that ManagerPlus can scale according to the needs of any growing organization and offers modular solutions. With its comprehensive asset management, maintenance management, and purchase features, ManagerPlus is one of the best solutions available in the market today.
7. FT Maintenance Select:- Windows, On-premise
FT Maintenance Select is available either through a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) subscription model or by purchasing for a one-time fee. The one-time purchase can be used either for cloud-hosted deployment or for on-premises setup. It is a comprehensive solution for a computerized maintenance management system that empowers businesses with greater control over their equipment, assets, and facilities. With automated work order management, asset management, inventory management, and setting up preventive maintenance schedules, FT Maintenance Select offers a high degree of control and supervision on different equipment being used by any organization.
The robust technology solution is geared towards providing preventive and predictive maintenance schedules for equipment of all sizes while ensuring that normal operations are not disrupted. One of their USPs is that the FT Maintenance Select team guides your organization throughout the setting up the stage, and also offers extensive training for your team to get used to working with the solution. The technical team will ensure that you are leveraging all the exceptional features available in the solution and provides assistance as long as it is needed.
8. Hippo CMMS
Hippo is one of the most powerful and efficient solutions for computerized equipment maintenance and management solutions. With its cloud-based capabilities and easy-to-use functionality, it is very popular for its applicability to a wide range of industries. Hippo CMMS is famous for prioritizing functionality over design, which is not to say that design is bad. But their design principle simply reiterates that it is more important to find features and use them in a straightforward manner than to use irrelevant design principles.
The core focus of Hippo CMMS is to provide an efficient work order management solution. So, the features enable users to create tickets that can be reviewed by the relevant managers, prioritized automatically, delegated to the right employees, and then tracked it until completion of the work order. The digital work orders capture a wide range of data that enable better decision-making at all levels of the organization. Since the technicians are also allocated job orders automatically from the backend, it ensures that their idle time is minimized, and their working hours optimized.
Every work order also can be linked to the requisite materials and parts, so inventory management is also taken care of by the system. The high level of data collection and analysis helps provide preventive maintenance for the different equipment. Additional modules can be added as required for streamlined maintenance operations such as maintenance request portal, real-time work order management, preventive maintenance schedules, inventory management, fleet maintenance, data analysis, insights tools, etc.
9. Fiix
Enterprises usually build up maintenance backlogs over time and require specific solutions to get back on track. Fiix is wonderful cloud-based equipment maintenance and management solution that empowers different businesses to manage their maintenance departments more efficiently. Moreover, they enable organizations to work towards creating the most optimal preventive maintenance schedule that is customized for its specific requirements.
Fiix partners with organizations to ensure that the assets are accurately organized, and there are thorough solutions for inventory management, work order management, and data collection and analysis. It offers dashboards that can be customized for different employees which provides a unified view of different work orders, inventory and parts required, costs, schedules of preventive maintenance, and even KPIs. They claim to be the easiest way to plan, track and optimize equipment maintenance and management for organizations in manufacturing, oil and gas, utilities, construction, warehousing, distribution, and many other industries.
10. Equips
Equips is a revolutionary product that helps businesses manage, maintain, and protect critical equipment and assets that are used in their operations. Their comprehensive cloud-based solution is designed to provide a unified process for all the different employees to identify and address various issues that arise in equipment management.
The central dashboard provides real-time visibility of the different types of equipment across all the organization’s locations so that any issues can be promptly resolved with the right technicians and service providers. In fact, Equips also offers an automatic smart dispatch feature that instantly alerts the relevant technician of any issue in the equipment so there is almost no downtime.
Work order management (including routing), chronic issue identification and alerts to the relevant employees, customizable dashboards for different employees, preventive and predictive maintenance scheduler, etc. are all some of the most popular features of Equips equipment maintenance and management software, which makes it an excellent solution for organizations that require external service providers and technicians, such as financial institutions, hospitals, laboratories, construction, etc.
11. Redlist:- iOS, Android
Redlist is a mobile-first, cloud-centric equipment maintenance and management solution that can be accessed by employees through mobiles and other handheld devices. It offers a variety of tools that provide a simple and streamlined process for organizations to plan and execute their production schedules, ensure safety and maintenance for their business operations, and create the most effective equipment maintenance and management solutions for their assets.
It allows users to create rules-based notifications, creates a streamlined and effective workflow for speed and performance, and also deploys automation wherever possible for seamless productivity. No wonder this solution is very popular for increasing productivity and employee morale. The intuitive mobile app combines disparate data from different sources and replaces the paper-driven processes with data-driven methods that accelerate growth and boost revenues.
12. Fullbay:- iOS, Android
Fullbay is considered by some to be an industry leader in equipment preventive maintenance. The cloud-based web applications help users plan, track, manage, and optimize preventive maintenance work, with all the relevant asset performance and repair history. It provides one of the easiest methods of work order management and includes the real-time status of parts and inventory. It is focused especially on heavy-duty commercial repair shops and is customized for shop owners, technicians, managers, and even the customers to stay updated on the different operations in the organization.
With Fullbay, it is easy to access a vehicle’s maintenance history, enable customers to directly create repair or maintenance orders, and even settle payments through integrations with QuickBooks. It is also capable of being integrated with the most popular applications in the market and provides a seamless work experience for various stakeholders.
13. Azzier
WebWork Azzier CMMS is complete equipment maintenance and management software that is perfect for industries that work with large capital assets with its corrective, preventive, and emergency maintenance management solutions. It is a global leader in maintenance solutions that enables real-time data entry and access to all employees with a wide range of reporting features. As a mobile-lead solution, it is easily accessible to employees through their smartphones to streamline the organization’s operations. Their work order management module helps users to customize their orders based on their unique requirements and can be assigned to the right people where users can monitor the progress of their work order in real-time.
Azzier’s asset management features also include a defined hierarchy for different assets and can be assigned to parameters such as location, status, or even priority. The KPIs are inbuilt, and users can access all this information through their dashboards themselves. It is capable of being third-party integrations with almost every popular application so that there is a seamless operation.
14. WebTMA
TMA systems is actually a very comprehensive facilities and assets management solution that can be deployed for a wide range of requirements including equipment maintenance and management solution, CAFM, EAM, or IWMS. Users are assured of trustworthy and reliable solutions that focus on boosting the value of each asset by reducing downtime, increasing maintenance productivity, ensuring longer runtime of equipment, and greater efficiency, all of which boost revenues for the organization.
As a SaaS software solution, WebTMA is a key management software that includes features such as customized access for different users, audit trails, master key management, etc. It is a very good equipment maintenance and management option for mid-size businesses, small businesses, and even enterprises with more than 50 employees.
15. FSI CMMS
FSI’s suite of cloud-based equipment maintenance and management tools is perfect for optimizing your enterprises’ maintenance operations. Developed with global best practices, FSI boasts of highly intuitive navigation, intelligent reporting, and comprehensive predictive and preventive maintenance solutions for the best equipment management solution. Equipment can also be tagged to different locations, the application can be accessed through mobile applications, and users can even access real-time status for different operations across the organizations.
You can be assured of accurate data collection and monitoring, streamlined operations, and seamless work productivity. The flexible user interface makes it easy for all levels of the workforce while ensuring high quality, data-driven decision-making for the senior management.
16. Asset Panda
Asset Panda is a ‘no-code’, cloud-based equipment maintenance and management solution that delivers customized applications for organizations with the goal to save effort and money. Its feature suite includes asset tracking, maintenance management, and many more essential aspects of equipment maintenance and management solution.
Employees of an organization can track assets by location, and also be notified of their current depreciation. It works very well with a barcode scanner that can automatically look up the equipment details and delegate the list of work orders on a priority basis. Users can be provided different levels of access, which include the relevant tasks for them. Asset Panda is one of the few solutions that includes specialized modules for asset audits, facilities management, equipment support management, and even compliance and purchase order management.
17. EZOfficeInventory
EZOfficeInventory is a complete IT asset lifecycle management solution that comes with inbuilt work order management, purchase orders management, services scheduler, and also vendor management. With its cloud-based approach, it is very convenient for even remote workers to reduce downtime, ensure total compliance, and improve troubleshooting processes by tracking all the different kinds of IT hardware and software assets. It provides a complete overview of the IT equipment landscape with complete asset management capabilities, automated purchase order management, maintenance scheduling, usage optimization, and a wide range of third-party integration solutions.
18. mHelpDesk
mHelpDesk is mainly for service professionals to streamline their operations automatically, from the first contact with the customer to the final payment. Obviously, this would mean complete customer management, quoting, dispatching, invoicing, billing, and reporting capabilities with a wide range of mobile and online tools. The main focus of the mHelpDesk is to increase the performance, reliability, and functionality of the equipment while ensuring a hassle-free working environment for service professionals. Businesses can manage their on-field technicians and provide all the support they need with efficient work order management, invoice generation, follow-up, billing management, etc.
19. Fracttal
Fracttal is a completely mobile equipment maintenance and management solution that offers comprehensive maintenance management for a wide range of industries. With a major focus on extending the equipment’s lifetime and ensuring its optimal productivity, it enables users with a unified dashboard for operation tracking, work order management, and also vendor management. It makes it very easy to plan, assign, execute, and report various tasks and KPIs to different levels of employees so that there is a granular view of the organization’s performance.
20. ServiceM8
This is another field service-focused software that empowers service-based businesses and is built exclusively for Apple hardware. It is a perfect tool for trade contractors such as electricians, HVAC & refrigeration technicians, locksmiths, etc. It is mainly a scheduling software that helps users create digital job cards, send quotes, manage different locations, and also empower customer communication with a wide range of tools.
21. AssetCloud
AssetCloud’s powerful equipment tracking solution is critical for organizations that want to monitor, audit, and report on various IT devices and software products being used in an organization. With inbuilt tracking for inventory, packages, attendance, and even barcode labeling, it is a perfect solution that can be deployed either in the cloud or on-premise. It is especially useful for IT administrators to reduce manual workloads with automation wherever possible while providing real-time updates on the equipment. You can also track warehouse inventory through the unified dashboard, and create data visualizations for easy status reporting.
Author Bio:
Mr. Mihir Shah is CEO of Yatharth Marketing Solutions which offers Sales Training Programs, Sales Consulting Services, Leadership Training Services, and Entrepreneur Training Services. Mr. Mihir Shah is also well known as India’s best sales trainer and India’s best sales consultant.
Mr. Mihir Shah is the only trainer who offers customized training and consulting solutions to their clients, also to date, Mr. Mihir Shah has served 10 lakh+ individuals and 750+ corporates companies to solve the training and consulting related hurdles.
