Daniel Golub is Vice President of Growth Segment Sales and Process Controls for the iOFFICE Asset Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Mike Petrusky asks Daniel about his experience in the asset management software industry with Hippo CMMS and ManagerPlus and he explains the value of these tools to help deliver a return on investment through asset maintenance while tracking the health of assets all the way through their lifecycles. Mike and Daniel explore the changes happening in the marketplace today and offer practical advice and inspiration to help you be an asset champion for your organization!

Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-golub-748a76b4/

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikepetrusky/

Learn more about the iOFFICE Asset Division and explore more interviews at: https://www.assetchampion.com/

Share your thoughts with Mike via email: podcast@iOFFICECORP.com

Read the full transcript:

Daniel Golub (00:00):

Make a deliberate effort to carve out 30 minutes, daily or weekly, a really easy way to stay abreast of the best practices and share ideas with peers around the world and see how it can improve your business. Stay focused, driving more value out of your assets and find solutions and tools that will help to get you to there.

DJ Mike P (00:21):

This is the Asset Champion Podcast, where we talk with facilities, maintenance and asset management leaders about the industry trends and technologies impacting your organization. This show is powered by the iOFFICE asset division, delivering easy to use maintenance management software tools to help you drive powerful asset performance.

            Hey there, and welcome to the show everybody. This is episode 10 of the Asset Champion Podcast. I am your host DJ Mike P, and I’m in a really good mood today folks, because we’ve reached a milestone, double digits, episode 10. It’s happened so fast, and I’m really excited about that. Plus, I am excited to share with you another really fun conversation. I had the chance to catch up recently with another one of my colleagues here at the iOFFICE asset division. His name is Daniel Golub and it was another great opportunity to not only get to know him better, but I also learned more about the work we do here with our Hippo CMMS and Manager Plus product offerings.

            Dan explained to me a little about, not only our software, but some other technology tools that are available today and what he is seeing with regard to trends in the asset management marketplace. But first, we talked about music as I always like to do, and we also shared some inspiration to help us all keep positive during these challenging times. And at the end, Daniel offers some great practical advice for asset management professionals to keep you moving forward in your career. We had a really fun conversation and I know you’ll enjoy listening in. So here we go. On the Asset Champion hotline calling in from Winnipeg, it’s my friend Daniel Golub joining the show today. Hi Daniel.

Daniel Golub (02:16):

Hey Mike, how are you doing?

DJ Mike P (02:17):

I’m doing great. Can I call you Dan? Do people call you Dan?

Daniel Golub (02:20):

They call me Dan. They call me Daniel, Danny, anything you like.

DJ Mike P (02:24):

Wow. Well, great, thank you. I’ll call you Dan then. So we know each other. We’ve been working together a little while. We had the chance to meet actually in Houston when Hippo CMMS became part of the iOFFICE team. And you flew in from Winnipeg and I came in from DC and we met in Houston for a little team building experiment. But tell us a little bit about how you ended up with the company and what you do for the iOFFICE asset division.

Daniel Golub (02:49):

Sure. It’s kind of an interesting story. I might be able to start quickly with, I lived in Taiwan for actually 10 years. So at the age of 25, I ended up moving to Taiwan.

DJ Mike P (03:00):

Wow.

Daniel Golub (03:00):

Working as a, yeah, as an English teacher. And I got involved in Taiwan actually with my first brush with a technology company, worked with some colleagues of mine and created an online English learning program.

DJ Mike P (03:13):

Cool.

Daniel Golub (03:13):

So I spent 10 years in Taiwan, yeah, and then I ended up doing my MBA. And then I made a hard choice to move back to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I was born. So I’m the VP for the Growth Segment Sales and Process Controls. So what that means is, I oversee sales and operations for the small, medium sized business, the SMB market.

DJ Mike P (03:38):

That’s wonderful. And I feel like I have so much I could learn from you today, Daniel, and I have a lot of questions that I want to ask about your experience in this industry of asset management. But before we get too far, I always like to get to know a little bit of more of the personal side. And I did get to know you a little bit in that Houston meeting. And I know you’re a fan of music like I am. So tell me what you’re listening to Dan? What gets you inspired these days?

Daniel Golub (04:03):

Well, I think along, similar to you, I’m also a big 80’s, am I right?

DJ Mike P (04:09):

Oh, yeah.

Daniel Golub (04:09):

You like 80’s music?

DJ Mike P (04:10):

That’s my wheelhouse.

Daniel Golub (04:11):

Yeah. I love 80’s. I’m a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. So I like that song yeah, Born to Run.

DJ Mike P (04:18):

I grew up in New Jersey, man. Tramps Like Us, Daniel. Baby, we were born to run.

Daniel Golub (04:25):

Yeah, cool song.

DJ Mike P (04:27):

Join in any time.

Daniel Golub (04:28):

Oh no. I’ll leave that to you and Suzanne. I listened to her sing, I can’t.

DJ Mike P (04:33):

Yes. She was great. Yeah. Got to go back and listen to that one folks, if you haven’t heard episode two and three of the show. Suzanne Greenman did a fantastic Kenny Rogers and Bob Marley. But what else you listening to? You got, so 80’s music, yeah.

Daniel Golub (04:46):

Yeah, yeah. When I was listening to your podcast, I actually heard you give a shout out to Rush and crazy, I really do like Rush, as well. I even went so far as buying a tee shirt online, like one of the old retro shirts.

DJ Mike P (04:58):

Oh, with the black sleeves and the white body, the long sleeves?

Daniel Golub (05:02):

Yeah. It’s black and white. It’s a tee shirt. It wasn’t one of those three quarter length sleeve shirts. I think I know what you’re talking about, but it had the logo with the kid in the front, the star in the background, just had some of that nostalgia that I wanted to go after.

DJ Mike P (05:17):

Everything old is new again, man. We’re coming back into style, us kids of the 80’s. I love it. Big fan of Rush.

Daniel Golub (05:22):

Yeah. Limelight?

DJ Mike P (05:23):

Yeah. Oh Dan (singing)

Daniel Golub (05:37):

That’s awesome.

DJ Mike P (05:37):

(singing) Know that part?

Daniel Golub (05:37):

Yes. Best drummer.

DJ Mike P (05:38):

I’m sorry. We can go on and on with the music. Can we take a moment and inspire our audience today? Dan, what do you have in mind when it comes to an inspirational or motivational quote?

Daniel Golub (05:49):

So in my college days, when I went to university, I went and studied business. So I was always, on the case studies, always looked up to Phil Knight, the leader behind Nike.

DJ Mike P (06:00):

Sure.

Daniel Golub (06:00):

So he has a saying, “Play by the rules, but be ferocious.” And that always stuck with me because obviously, you want to do things right and do things the right way, but also go after it. And as long as you’re doing things within the boundaries that are good and legit, I think you got to get creative and think outside the box. So I like that. I like the word ferocious.

DJ Mike P (06:21):

Yeah, cool.

Daniel Golub (06:22):

Yeah. I think more recently, one that really sticks with me is Seth Godin. I think that’s how you pronounce his name.

DJ Mike P (06:28):

My favorite marketing guru, Seth Godin. Love it.

Daniel Golub (06:31):

Yeah. So, “There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas. What’s missing is the will to execute them.” And it’s a constant reminder of, you can always be thinking of great ideas coming up with, brainstorming and having these things that you wanted to do, but really putting them into place, putting an action plan into place to getting them done is a whole other story. So yeah, I think about that one and it just reminds me to get stuff done or GSD.

DJ Mike P (06:57):

Cool. Yeah. Because it’s easy to come up with the ideas, but making it happen, putting it into practice and being persistent and consistent over a long period of time is the hard part. That reminds me of one of my other mottoes that probably came from something Seth Godin has said over the years, but this idea of getting out of our comfort zone and being comfortable being uncomfortable.

Daniel Golub (07:19):

Right.

DJ Mike P (07:20):

It’s really hard to do that and it takes ferocity. So we’ll combine your two, we’ll take ferocious attitude from Phil Knight and persistence and consistency to execute on these ideas. So excellent. Really inspirational stuff, Dan.

Daniel Golub (07:35):

Yes.

DJ Mike P (07:35):

All right. So I feel like I can learn a lot from you Daniel, from your role here at iOFFICE in the asset division, working with our teams at both Hippo CMMS and Manager Plus. So let’s start with the basics about this discipline of asset management. I’ve asked all my guests this question, and it’s always helpful to me to get different perspectives based on different experiences. How would you define asset management? What does it really mean to you?

Daniel Golub (08:02):

Well, it’s firstly, it’s a really broad term. So for all intents and purposes, I think for our business, it’s really a process that guides or directs the management of assets through the entire life cycle. So this involves the acquisition or purchasing of assets along with their use and then all the way to their disposal or replacement. So really the end goal is to make the most out of the assets, optimize the return on an investment or ROI throughout the life of assets.

DJ Mike P (08:31):

Yes, it seems like a very broad discipline, lots of facets to it. Is there an area that you have really focused on or become really good at? Is it something that we do really well when it comes to helping our customers?

Daniel Golub (08:43):

Absolutely. I think it’s important to define too, or talk about CMMS and also EAM, because there’s a lot of overlap there and sometimes there’s a little bit of confusion. So this is something both Manager Plus and Hippo are entrenched in, where both, Hippo is more of a CMMS, meaning like a computerized maintenance management software, which really focuses on maintenance of assets. Whereas Manager Plus, it goes deeper and it’s more of an enterprise asset management software, which is a more comprehensive system. It incorporates multiple business functions. It tracks the assets all the way through the asset life cycle. So we do focus on maintenance. That’s your day-to-day work orders, your preventative and plan maintenance, asset health and tracking assets all the way through their life cycle. That’s where the EAM comes in. So that’s really what we do really well. Hippo again, is like, it’s catered more to the small, medium sized businesses, organizations with slightly smaller operations, possibly. Where Manager Plus covers the whole gamut from small to enterprise.

DJ Mike P (09:53):

Excellent. And your dog says, hello to us all out there in podcast land. What’s your dog’s name?

Daniel Golub (09:58):

Lily. She’s a one-year-old Shar Pei, barks every time she hears a sound, so I apologize for that.

DJ Mike P (10:04):

That’s all right. Lily’s got her moment in the spotlight here on the Asset Champion Podcast. That’s awesome. So you’ve been in the industry for almost a decade now, Dan. So I imagine you’ve seen a lot of change in the marketplace as technology and the software tools have advanced. Can you describe some of the big shifts you’ve seen?

Daniel Golub (10:23):

Yeah, there’s been a lot of change. So when I started at Hippo, it was in 2011 and one of the biggest changes that I’ve seen in this last nine years has been the shift towards the cloud. So when I started at Hippo, a lot of companies were seeking on-premise solutions and there has been a huge shift to cloud or web based software. There’s also a trend towards looking for something that’s super user-friendly. So this is something that Hippo was really successful with, was being one of the first companies, I think, that came up with a solution that was a very intuitive and user-friendly interface. And a lot of the systems out there, at the time when I started, they were really robust solutions, but they tend to be somewhat complicated to use. Not the easiest for the end user. So user experience is becoming a huge requirement for all customers.

DJ Mike P (11:15):

It’s interesting, I see that same type of trend across different industries, different types of software. I see this trend towards the need to have the technology tools we use in our work, match the experience we get with our personal technology, our iPhone or Android device, or some other type of personal tech. We have a very frictionless, seamless experience that is user-friendly, very intuitive. Do you feel we’re meeting that demand? Are we evolving as the market does? And is that something we are deliberately trying to map out to kind of give the same, in our business life, as well?

Daniel Golub (11:54):

Absolutely. So mobile is definitely a requirement and consumers are looking for that. Asset managers, technicians, all users are wanting to access asset information, whether it be maintenance requirements or work orders or looking up asset locations. They’re all wanting to do this from mobile devices. So this is a huge requirement. I think we’re seeing about 70% of our customers are coming in and saying that this is a must have. We’re also seeing the inner connectedness of different applications. Having an asset management system be a standalone is not enough these days. You’re wanting it to integrate with your accounting systems, other types of software that you use on a day to day as well. So just kind of bringing all departments together and supporting the corporate strategy. So having the interconnectedness through API is definitely a functionality that is well sought after. Having all the systems integrated, but doing it in a way that makes sense of the data, doesn’t get overly complicated and brings the company and the organization together.

DJ Mike P (13:00):

Put your futurist cap on here for me, Dan, and tell me what you anticipate the needs of the market to be maybe 5, 10 years down the road. And then what technology advancements or new tools that become available might really have an impact on this industry?

Daniel Golub (13:16):

So there’s been a major shift, I think, from reactive, being reactive, then talking about maintenance to planned maintenance, and now we’re moving towards predictive. And I see that going well into the future. The challenge is really making sense of all the data, but predictive maintenance and that’s basically gathering information based on historical data through sensors, condition-based monitoring. So all of this is going to allow companies to make decisions well ahead of time and plan and budget, and obviously cut costs, reduce downtime, improve the services that they deliver to their customers. So I see there’s going to be, obviously there’s a big shift towards the predictive side and that’s using AI technologies, internet of things. So that’s where I really believe that the future is going. All things are showing that. We’re seeing a lot of organizations asking you for sensors to be attached to their equipment and integrating with the AM or the CMS system.

DJ Mike P (14:20):

Yeah, it’s exciting, isn’t it? I mean, this is a cool time to be doing what we’re doing. And I imagine you have a lot of great conversations with colleagues and peers in the industry. Where do you find that community? And what can you tell our listeners about the best way to really connect with this asset management community?

Daniel Golub (14:40):

Sure. So me personally, I mean, I’ve been getting involved with local groups within Winnipeg. So I am involved. This is what gets me that face to face time. Obviously, with COVID right now, we don’t have those types of meetings, but I’m involved in groups like PEMAC, which is the plant and engineering and maintenance association of Canada. Actually, Suzanne Greenman is the president. So we work together there.

DJ Mike P (15:02):

Awesome, yeah.

Daniel Golub (15:03):

I’m involved with the local chapter IFMA. But then I also, I do spend some time on LinkedIn. I scour LinkedIn and connect with people that way. So I look to analysts and look at user reviews to learn more about different solutions out there. I also follow great companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, even though these are not in the enterprise or asset management space, they’re great software solutions. So I think these companies are really innovative and they spark a lot of ideas. So that’s just something that I do.

DJ Mike P (15:34):

Really great. Final question here, Daniel. What would you say to those maybe early on in their career, or maybe looking to improve and advance their careers in the world of asset management? What advice would you give during this time and into the future?

Daniel Golub (15:47):

Yeah, so I think it’s important to keep your ear to the ground and don’t be afraid to try something new. Everyone’s really limited in their time that they have, because they’re so busy. But I always try to carve out 30 minutes a day, or maybe it’s 30 minutes a week and keep current. Like, read articles from industry experts, tune into podcasts like this.

DJ Mike P (16:09):

Thank you.

Daniel Golub (16:12):

Well, I mean, I just listened to a couple of them last week and I really found them inspiring and educational and you learn a few things.

DJ Mike P (16:12):

Awesome.

Daniel Golub (16:18):

So it’s always good to, there’s just so many outlets out there just with the internet and being online where you can just access information so quickly. So if you make a deliberate effort to carve out 30 minutes, like I said, daily or weekly, a really easy way to stay abreast of the best practices and share ideas with peers around the world. So I’m always looking for something new and see how it can improve your business and stay focused, driving more value out of your assets and find solutions and tools that will help you get you there.

DJ Mike P (16:51):

Excellent. All great advice. Really well said. Thank you, Daniel for that. And thank you for being with us today. This has been really great to get to know you even better. And I also learned a lot, so I appreciate you taking time to be on the Asset Champion Podcast.

Daniel Golub (17:06):

Thank you. My pleasure. This is, it’s been a lot of fun. Thanks Mike.

DJ Mike P (17:10):

There you have it, everyone. Daniel Golub from right here at my very own iOFFICE asset division sharing with us just a little bit about his personal story and what he is seeing in the world of asset management and how technology tools are helping organizations like yours keep pace during these fast changing times. I hope you enjoyed hearing a little bit of our chat together. These podcasts are edited to fit the 20 minute format of the show. And the fact is that Daniel and I talked for much longer than that and I really had a great time with him, had a chance to learn a lot from him. So thank you Dan, as always, for the conversation.

            And if you would like to learn more about what Hippo CMMS and Manager Plus can do for your organization, please check the show notes. I’ve left you a link to connect with Daniel. Tell him you heard him here on the show. I hope you enjoyed some of the practical advice and inspiration that Dan offered to us because that is really what this podcast is all about. And if you have enjoyed these first 10 episodes, I hope you’ll head over to Apple podcasts and leave us a rating and a review. It means so much. And if there’s someone out there that you think might benefit from hearing these podcasts, I hope you’ll share a link to the show with them. As we continue to gather here each and every week to bring you the encouragement and the inspiration you need to be an asset champion. Peace out.

Mike (18:49):

You’ve been listening to the asset champion podcast. We hope you found this discussion beneficial as we work together to elevate asset management success by improving efficiency, reducing costs and building best practices. For more information about how the iOFFICE asset division can boost the performance of your physical assets by providing comprehensive enterprise asset management software solutions, please visit assetchampion.com.