The value of access to accurate and up-to-date information continues to increase, especially for organisations with mobile workers
Remember when you had to wait days for an air conditioning unit to be repaired, and you had no visibility of where a delivery/engineer was, or if a delivery was going to be on time? Enterprise mobility has put an end to all that. It is no longer acceptable for supply chain or service companies not to proactively implement technology that ensures they are providing their customers with the right person, at the right time, with the right goods. Today, supply chain and service companies need to be first time right, every time.
Importantly, today’s enterprise mobility solutions deliver real-time visibility that enables companies to meet the increasing demand to deliver the highest level of customer service without placing unnecessary pressure on ever tightening budgets.
There has been a shift in focus from cost management to a focus on productivity improvements to drive service profitability. Recent research suggests that the highest performing companies are actually investing in enterprise mobility solutions with reports of an average 36 percent increase in employees’ productivity (1), driving improved customer service and significant cost savings.
There has also been a change in the way enterprise mobility investment is considered. Organisations are selecting solution providers that offer integrated enterprise mobility applications that include location tracking, navigation, scheduling and telematics software running on a single mobile device. This enables real-time visibility of the location of workers and assets at any given time. These integrated applications can be provided on a pay per user, per month basis spread over 3-5 years, enabling organisations to spread the risk and achieve significant ROI from the point of implementation.
Mobility can provide benefits across the organisation – whether it is for the field worker, the customer, or the environment. Once the investment is made, the accurate and real-time information delivered by an enterprise mobility solution enables measurable business process improvements.
Enterprise mobility solutions are fully integrated software applications that run on handheld mobile computers. Information is captured in the field by workers and then sent wirelessly to the back office where it is available in real-time for management or online to the customer. This enables the organisation to gain real-time visibility of their operations and ensure their mobile workers are fully equipped and enabled in the field.
With real-time mobility there is an instant connection between the mobile worker and the back office. Once collected, job information can be actioned immediately. Progress is visible and can be monitored against targets or service level agreements, with remedial action taken as necessary without delay. Without real-time, organisations are ‘blind’ until drivers or engineers return to base, often the first they know of a problem is when a customer calls to complain.
Equipped with a single tool, designed specifically for their needs, mobile workers become empowered and effective ‘customer service’ agents. The mobile technology replaces a clipboard, paperwork, satellite navigation kits and mobile phones, and provides your mobile worker with the means to fully support the customer; enabling them to present a positive image and drive improved customer satisfaction.
Recent statistics from Aberdeen (2) show that by deploying navigation services for vehicles, savings in the range of 4 percent can be achieved and if navigation is integrated with a real-time mobility application then the overall savings can be between 10-15 percent.
Greater efficiency is also delivered by enterprise mobility. Mobile workers are equipped with the right information and right parts, ensuring jobs are completed quickly. On average organisations implementing mobility are achieving first time fix rates of 81 percent1, enabling a service company to complete additional jobs per day. This results in significant improvement in productivity. Supply chain organisations can achieve similar results - courier drivers can save 10 seconds at the door step per delivery through improved job management and electronic proof of delivery, equating to hundreds of hours saved per week. A large mail operator is saving over 8,000 hours per week through its enterprise mobility solution.
A mobility solution that delivers job management on the mobile device also helps eliminate errors in manual entry and reduces the paperwork required to complete a job. A UK field service company with over 500 engineers is currently saving over one tonne of paper per week with its mobility solution.
Enabling your workforce
For organisations with a high percentage of mobile workers, a key challenge is to update the entire workforce with the latest information. The logistics of training a diverse team can pose a number of challenges. Once the mobile workforce is enabled with a mobile device, training can be centrally dispatched and monitored. Training modules (text, audio or videos), can wirelessly be sent to every worker simultaneously. The quality of the training is centrally controlled and reporting or feedback can be gained on everyone that received the information.
Employee security continues to be important. With mobile workers this challenge has an added complexity. Organisations today are leveraging the investments they have made in enterprise mobility to incorporate alerts for lone worker features. Giving the mobile worker a method to instantly communicate with the organisation reinforces a link to the larger team and helps them improve their performance. Arguably more important, if the mobile worker found themselves in an emergency, by using the mobile device, they can notify the organisation for immediate help.
However, enterprise mobility solutions can go beyond capturing information and ensuring that deliveries and engineers arrive on time, with the right goods. Market information about other services the customer uses with competitors can be captured by the mobile worker at the point of service and then fed to marketing and sales departments for potential business opportunities.
Now more than ever enterprises will be investing in mobility as they are challenged to get back to the basics - reduce costs, improve service, focus on their existing customers and invest in their employees. The enterprise with a mobile workforce that deploys an integrated mobility solution will optimise its business processes and take proactive steps in increasing productivity and reducing costs across the entire business.
1 More Mobility – Less Budget: Enterprise Strategies in the Current Economic Downturn, Aberdeen Group
2 Impact of Mobility in Today’s Service Organisation, Sumair Dutta, Aberdeen Group.