Honeywell Spells Success ‘CCES’ For Contractors

By John R. Hall

GOLDEN VALLEY, MN — Honeywell is rolling out a new program that it hopes will help HVACR contracting firms grow and increase their profitability.

CCES stands for Honeywell Commercial Comfort & Energy Specialist. According to Honeywell, CCES contractors will be given several tools to help them build their businesses, including “quality products at an affordable price with comprehensive and convenient training and marketing support.”

“A lot of mechanical contractors face quite a challenge orchestrating and streamlining their operations so that they can provide pretty consistent growth,” said Bob Sundberg, market development manager, Building Control Solutions, Trade Business, Automation & Control Solutions, Honeywell. “It’s been a pattern in our industry to wait for the phone to ring rather than trying to be proactive and finding out what benefits we can offer to our customers.

“This is a way to get closer to customers, to partner with them and not become just one of several who bid on a job.”

Sundberg noted that slowdowns in the economy usually have had adverse affects on contracting companies that didn’t have a solid design-build relationship with their customers. He also said that there are opportunities to improve a business that are often overlooked.

“Many times a service staff can be on location performing one operation and are oblivious to indications that there are opportunities to improve energy efficiency, equipment operation, air quality, etc.,” he added. “For example, 50% to 60% percent of buildings don’t have a setback, which is a primary energy-savings strategy.”

Honeywell's CCES program includes extensive training materials, such as product and educational resources, as well as marketing support.

THE PROGRAM

Honeywell claims that it can help generate $25,000 in new business by providing products, training, tools, and marketing support. “The entire purpose is to support a contracting firm’s growth and effectiveness at delivering greater value to their clients,” Sundberg said.

The program’s basic elements include:

Product solutions (controls, DDC systems, stand-alone controls);

Substantial direct and indirect training support (training programs from Honeywell and its distributors, Web broadcasts, CD self-paced learning);

Honeywell website resources (start at www.customer.honeywell.com and explore the product support, cross-references, and links to commercial HVAC) and substantial discounts on professionally developed websites provided by hosting partners to contractor partners;

A collection of product/system/training resources referred to as the “Knowledge Library”;

A list of additional resources including the latest version of “Savings Estimator” software for rooftop units. This allows CCES contractors to choose a building type, configure the type of city, utility rates, etc. They can select from 239 US cities (US Weather Service data) and project a savings estimation for different control upgrade strategies (setback, economizer, demand control ventilation and combinations of these).

For a small threshold fee to join the partnership with Honeywell and select distributors, contractors can receive initial discounts on products for “Your Building Showcase” or “Your Next Project,” according to Sundberg. “This allows for people to be compensated for the time that it takes to be experts enough for the first or next installation,” he said.

“Contractors are also provided with one free complete set of light commercial software, i.e., LonStation Workstation, for their own firm’s training. If a contractor only participated in half of the programs Honeywell offers, it would be a $10,000 value.”

Sundberg added that not all contractors would be accepted as partners. “They have to make a commitment for themselves, their staff, for training and they have to make commitments to work with our distributor partners to develop a client base.

“We think this is a truly unique and substantial program where our only success is really when the partner’s firm is able to grow their business and improve their staff’s technical and marketing/sales skills,” concluded Sundberg.

Publication date: 09/23/2002

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