Enhancing the performance of field staff, reducing customer fulfillment costs and multiplying efficiencies by creating a system that can handle the complex workflows of workforce management using real-time data while simultaneously being user-friendly and easy to use
The Carriers, in their pristine Triple and Quad play avatars, have found innovative opportunities to boost the revenues. 3G has already initiated multiple applications across education, health, finance, enterprises, gaming, entertainment etc. There is a proliferation of devices and customer premises equipment (CPE) as M2M gains ground. And as we move to 4G, the data pipes will become huge and the present-day value added services will become the core services.
The challenges for the service providers are and will continue to multiply with every new offering, services and user applications; sometimes exponentially. Spoilt for choices, the customers are placing more and more emphasis on providing high quality uninterrupted service sometimes across multiple screens and locations.
As operating budgets shrink, carriers are relying on operational efficiencies to boost the bottom lines. Workforce management (WFM) is one system of carriers’ ecosystem that is capable of meeting the dual objective of bringing operational efficiencies by optimizing workforce and improving customer satisfaction by reducing fault detection and service delivery time.
The Opportunity: Workforce Management
In the present times of increasing labor costs and high employee churn, it is critical to optimize performance and ensure high productivity from the workforce. More completed jobs per day/ per staff, fewer repeated jobs, fewer accidents lead not only to improved customer satisfaction but also to reduction in operational costs.
WFM has a tremendous impact on business productivity. That being said, a single application; no matter how sophisticated; rarely provides for the necessary automation or optimization; which can only be achieved by integrating WFM to multiple complementary applications to share or aggregate needed inputs of data and triggers.
Most of the Improvement/ Problem areas, no matter where they lie in the workflow, can be targeted by integrating WFM with other key systems like enterprise mobility, CRM, Fault Management Network inventory, Billing, Service Provisioning, BI and even HR.
The Business Benefits to Carriers
Today, most of the system; that form a part of the critical workflows of field staff; work in isolation with other key systems in the workflow and only partially automate field service thus creating lacunas.
System integration of WFM unleashes the untapped potential of applications to meet the dynamic planning needs of demand-oriented multi-skilled environments. By; for example, allowing for timely feedback or quicker rescheduling for repeat jobs; the decision makers can take better decisions on field force; effectively.
In one customer where WFM was integrated to fault management system we observed a dramatic boosts in productivity and efficiency, a reduction in the response-time by approximately 25% & increases the efficiency by up to 40%. Similarly real time integration with inventory management systems enabled them take better decisions on procurement and identify the defective equipment batches well in time. They could secure the replacement from the vendor in time, and since they avoided installation of equipment from that batch they made saving on repeat visit to client and avoided the customer dissatisfaction. Further marginal savings included savings on outbound call and cost of agents making those calls.
Optimization- better service delivery in lesser time
Application integration of WFM with key applications provides for the reduction in both fault detection and service delivery time by simultaneously and cohesively working on faults, service requests, availability of service agents, absences, scheduling, dispatch, rosters, tasks, configuration, outage management, inventory needs, work orders, hierarchy, re-assignments, escalations and reporting, to improve customer satisfaction.
Consider a scenario- CRM or fault management system automatically generates the work orders, based on automated triggers (e.g., time- and condition-based without waiting for formal customer complaints). The WFM system assembles the crew according to skills required for the jobs and schedules the work. The orders are transmitted to the field staff via their PDA. Once the fault is repaired the NMS triggers are automatically captured to update applications like the CRM and billing systems. The unfinished tasks can be re-scheduled automatically.
The staff also receives details on inventory along with details of newly introduced equipment’s, maintenance procedures for that asset, even the detailed schematics of a given asset model. WFM system also automatically sends alerts to the field staff on specific privacy and security issues.
Business Analytics
An integration of key systems enables the transformation and constructive processing of data make it in more meaningful for various business functions.
It provides the necessary support for business decisions by enabling the users in better control and task management through well-organized drillable reports, and key performance indicators (KPIs). Since everyone is using the same, consistency and reliability are high.
Reduced cost of operations
System integration of WFM provides the carriers with much needed complete and unified view of field service organization, field service processes and functions, operational needs, inventories and the service level agreements (SLAs). This enables them to organize the client service workforce in the most optimized fashion and meet the objective “Right number of people with the right skills at the right time”.
Accuracy- Elimination of human errors
Sharing data and triggers across systems is an obvious business requirement. In the culture of silos, manual intervention is required at various stages thus making the system prone to human errors making them inefficient and compromising on data integrity. Integration between the various systems will not only eliminate human errors, it will also make them capable of delivering beyond the original blueprint thus providing better return on investments.
Catering to evolving needs of users
The user needs evolve continuously with new services, unprecedented competition, tough SLAs, increasing spread of networks, security and privacy concerns. As the applications age, users start getting anxious of the limitations in the applications. No application can cater to 100% needs of the users. System integration can empower the existing systems to meet the new requirements without re-inventing the wheel or producing an entire new system and saving lots of capital.
Fringe Benefits
Other benefits of the integrated syste include better management of inventory, expedited billing and cash flow, better administrative controls, reduced errors and most important improved customer satisfaction.
Challenges and Caveats
With limited operations budget, carriers want more from existing business applications and IT systems. System Integration makes it possible to build the desired automation and intelligence. WFM System integration strategy starts with defining the key objectives, existing systems, workflows and workload and leads to a system that will cater to the specific demands of the carrier.
System integration brings the much desired evolution of the application and processes to cater to the emerging needs of the business. It however comes with its own set of challenges that can turn into important obstacle if not planned for in advance. System integration requires careful planning and a deep understanding of organizational priorities. It will be long iterative process where feedback from multiple sessions like scope, feasibility and budget will be continuously incorporated.
Scope Creep
It is important to define the scope. Multiple business units are always vying for the same IT budget. Invest time to build an understanding of user requirements, challenges, immediate priorities and long term goals. It is important to understand what needs to be done and minimize the clamor. The most pragmatic approach under these circumstances is to plan for with system integration in phases and addressing various sets of challenges as you go.
Feasibility
It is also important to conduct a thorough technical feasibility. System integration uses not only WFM components but also a large number of existing components designed under different set of requirements, objectives, assumptions, fault tolerance, reliability and security protocols. A good design can help you get through the challenges of system incompatibilities - inadequate APIs, non-coherent data structures, partial interoperability-where it is almost impossible to trigger a command into one system from another; different reliability and uptimes, anarchy issues where subsystems have different methods of authorization authentication and user rights management. It helps to include the existing vendors at the feasibility and planning stage itself.
Design for Robustness
The key design challenges will be to avoid introducing the system instabilities when faults and failures in one component cascade along, leading to system wide failures. Thus SI design must be capable of isolating and shunting out the problem system from other as needed.
Budget
Budget is the most common pitfall. It is necessary to budget not just for SI but also for ongoing maintenance and testing for new links that can make the structure more complex.
Governance
Good governance is a critical enabler and fundamental component of any SI initiatives. To overcome this challenge, emphasis should be laid on collaborative decision-making given the evolving user needs and typically large number and diversity of stakeholders and applications with multi-dimensional linkages.
Aricent Group
Bharti Maan is Asst. Vice President at Aricent responsible for PMO and consulting practices.
