It is not always easy being green but, it is easier than you think. As we all become increasingly aware of just how potentially fragile our planet is, it remains a frightening fact that businesses of all sizes, across all sectors, continue to view the need to operate a Green business as a ‘nice to do’ rather than a ‘must do’.
Aberdeen Group’s recent State of the Market 2009 report backs this up by suggesting that operating a Green business takes a back seat to efficiency improvements , cost reductions and improved service delivery. Perhaps in today’s fluctuating economy this is not surprising. However, one third of respondents indicated that efficiency and productivity improvements which could be tied to green IT initiatives would have a significant impact on their companies desire to become more socially responsible from an environmental perspective.
Now, more than ever, it is possible for supply chain organisations to ensure that their operational processes, including those relating to their mobile field workers drive Green business. The key to achieving this is the deployment of enterprise mobility solutions.
Enterprise mobility solutions, when implemented to leverage their full potential deliver increased efficiency and productivity, enhance customer service and reduce operational costs, all of which increase the ever present bottom line.
But what is often not made clear to organisations looking to put a toe in the enterprise mobility marketplace, or even those deploying first generation enterprise mobility solutions, is that these solutions provide a huge opportunity to operate a Green business.
Let’s take a look at a few specifics. The ability to replace paper based mobile workforce management systems with electronic data capture solutions make mobile workers and back office admin employees more efficient and productive.
Mobile workers no longer have to make frequent visits to the main office to collect their paper based work schedules. These are sent directly to their hand held mobile computing devices. They no longer have to manually complete work sheets and return them to the main office where admin staff often struggle to transcribe before manually entering the data, correctly or incorrectly, into the back office systems. The mobile worker simply enters data into the mobile device and it is then sent directly to the back office systems.
The time mobile workers spend on recording their tasks is greatly reduced enabling them to increase the time they can actually spend carrying out tasks. The risk of losing paper based work sheets is eliminated. Admin staff no longer need to input data into back office systems and so are able to concentrate on other perhaps revenue generating areas.
The automatic transfer of data from the field to the back office systems can activate the invoicing process immediately a job is completed, hugely speeding up the time invoices are despatched and helping to reduce the risk of cash flow issues.
As well as achieving all of the above key business benefits, just think of all the pieces of paper that are no longer having to be passed around the office!
Capita, the UK’s leading provider of BPO and integrated professional support services solutions, has deployed a Blackbay solution to improve the TV licensing service it delivers to the BBC. The mobile worker software has enabled Capita to benefit from tangible return on investment (ROI), including the elimination of a staggering 52 tonnes of paper from its operation per year.
But what does a reduction in the amount of paper used within the business world actually mean? Well that’s easy to calculate. Every tonne of paper saved, saves approximately one tonne of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. The more paper we save, the more trees we save, the more trees we have, the more we reduce CO2. It really is a no-brainer.
Looking to the future, and the likelihood of legislation around offsetting carbon and carbon trading, organisations will be looking to offset their paper usage. If a business using 1 tonne of paper per week needed to offset this, it could cost them approximately £23,830.00 a year! This is without even taking into consideration other CO2 emissions which could increase the cost of offsetting this even more!
The ability to deploy integrated mobile worker software and GPS navigation software provides another massive opportunity to reduce the amount of fuel used and therefore CO2 emissions. Savings in CO2 not only have huge implications for the environment but also can be translated into hard cash savings through reduced fuel costs.
Navigation software helps to ensure that mobile field workers take the most ‘fuel’ efficient routes to and from jobs. The GPS capability of today’s mobile devices enables mobile workforce managers to allocate their workers on a geographical basis. This visibility of a mobile workforce enables managers to send the nearest worker to the nearest job, once more increasing productivity and reducing the amount of fuel used and the resulting CO2 emissions. Getting mobile workers to the next job as quickly as possible improves customer service.
We have already talked about reducing the need for mobile field workers to travel to and from the main office to collect and return work schedules, but with an enterprise mobility solution there is no longer the need for them to deliver signed collection and delivery notes. Not only is this saving paper and fuel, it again improves customer service. The transfer of electronic signatures (we are all getting used to ‘signing on glass’) from the mobile worker’s hand held device directly to an organisation’s back office system allows customers to speedily track the progress of goods.
In a rather scary way from an environmental perspective, the above examples of Green business may be considered as a ‘by-product’ of the business benefits delivered by enterprise mobility solutions. After all, the research referred to at the beginning of this article shows that Green business is still taking a back seat.
I wonder how long it will be before businesses are deploying enterprise mobility solutions because of their ability to deliver Green business as a ‘must do’ along with increased efficiency, improved service delivery, improved customer service, and a reduction in operational costs?