Harnessing the Power of Microsoft’s Azure and the Internet of Things

Last April, Microsoft featured on their blog a spotlight piece on Anticimex and how the company is using Microsoft’s Azure platform and the IoT (Internet of Things) to develop new business models, increase analytic capability, refine processes and make data-driven decisions. This new network is being employed across Anticimex’s companies—Flick included—to help better serve our customers and their needs.

Now that we are working on a global platform of connected devices—over 100,000 and counting—we are able to collect more data and share it more widely than ever before. One example: by using heat sensors to track how pests are moving, and sharing the number of pests captured at certain locations and times, we can better understand how and when infestations develop and move to eliminate them well before the presence of pests becomes a major issue, or even a noticeable one. 

The platform has also helped us transform the quality of our field service, allowing us to better time scheduled maintenance and more efficiently plan the routes of our technicians, saving on time, fuel and headaches for our customers. One prime example is the upkeep of our SMART Pest Control Box devices. Azure constantly monitors the battery life and other metrics of the SMART Boxes and uses advanced analytics to create battery depletion estimates. Using this data, we can ensure that our SMART Boxes are charged and other maintenance performed before any issues arise that would put them out of service.

For us, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We are continually working on ways to analyze and employ the data now at our fingertips in our ongoing effort to become a global leader in preventative pest control and deliver the very best in customer service.

Read the full blog here.