Case study A case study from The Economist Intelligence Unit cablex AG Going paperless: Cloud-based support keeps technicians on the job cablex AG is a subsidiary of Swiss telecommunications giant Swisscom; it is one of Europe’s leading providers of high-performance information and communications technology (ICT) and network infrastructure The firm employs more than 1,000 field workers, including 350 field engineers and technicians, across 20 service locations cablex used cloud-based solutions to transform multiple paper-based systems into a mobile, paperless tool for supporting workers in the field providing technical service to customers The manual maze “We needed to look at the whole process chain because otherwise we’d just be taking incremental steps.” Alexander Weinert cablex ICT project manager cablex previously used a paper-based system for supporting service calls that provided little opportunity for collaboration Typically, technicians on the road would receive a call from a dispatch centre assigning them to help a customer with a problem Technicians would travel to the relevant local office to pick up the paperwork for the job, including four or five technical documents describing the location infrastructure After venturing out into the field to conduct the necessary maintenance or repairs, the technician would then have to go back to the local office to get the paperwork for the next job—often requiring extra travel even if the new job was only a stone’s throw away from the first Aside from excessive driving time, this process involved other obvious inefficiencies Dispatchers had to manually track responses to trouble tickets, starting with arrival of the technician at the customer’s site and continuing to the resolution of the problem Then accounting staff had to follow up to trigger the billing process Almost all collaboration was done through phone calls between individuals cablex officials realised that this system could be automated—but would have to be done with no significant downtime or service disruption No more paper The impetus for change came from the sheer overload of service tickets, which reached 75,000 in 2012, the last year of the paper-based system The need for automation was obvious, but stakeholders also saw an opportunity to integrate the dispatching and billing components of the operation Alexander Weinert, cablex ICT project manager, says, “We needed to look at the whole process chain because otherwise we’d just be taking incremental steps So we made the decision to eliminate paper across multiple systems with a single solution integrating various systems.” A perfect interplay of links The process require collaboration across the organization The IT function had to integrate new interfaces into the company’s enterprise resource management (ERM) infrastructure Dispatchers needed a way of distributing documents from the ERM system and for co-ordinating orders and schedules The mobile © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2015 Case study workforce required access to documents on the job And administrators needed finalised tickets to trigger the billing process “Only the perfect interplay of every link makes this whole process chain work,” Mr Weinert says “Dispatching, planning and attributing the right tickets to the right people at the right time Without that we would lose a lot of time and be punished by our clients for not honouring service-level agreements.” A one-stop integrated solution “It’s a one-stop solution, from customer relationship management to integrated workforce management.” Alexander Weinert cablex ICT project manager The mobile nature of the required solution quickly led to a cloud-based approach Swisscom provided a platform running on a private cloud The system features shared folders integrated into a project team interface where employees across every customer support function can collaborate Field staff use tablets to view all the files associated with a specific job and share them with subcontractors when required and permissible They can annotate documents and illustrate them with photos of technical infrastructure that are synchronised with the ERM system Unexpected problems, for example, damaged underground infrastructure, are quickly visible to specialised teams that may need to intervene and work together to find a solution All of this information is protected by encryption keys to control access to customer data “It’s a one-stop solution,” Mr Weinert says, “from customer relationship management to integrated workforce management, with dispatching and document management that works on our databases.” From friction to familiarity Technical issues resulting from the connection of multiple systems with complex interdependencies were significant but planned for in advance Organisational friction presented a greater challenge, as technicians with decades of experience had to adjust to unfamiliar technology and disruption of established routines Management responded by forming teams composed of both veterans and junior technicians who were conversant with mobile devices The former were quickly brought up to speed while imparting their skills and experience to the new generation, forming “a nice interplay” Unexpected synergies The initial goals of the cloud collaboration initiative were quickly exceeded Benefits included pure efficiency gains—a drop of more than 1m kilometres of travel per year and a reduction of about 25% in the ticket-to-billing time The quality of customer service also improved substantially because dispatchers had greater visibility into the service delivery process Costs became more transparent because technician hours are charged directly to the project These benefits were magnified as team members learned to think outside their own routines and to take advantage of one another’s expertise, discovering unexpected synergies along the way As a result, technicians and other customer support workers are collaborating to work more efficiently and better coordinate tasks Best of all, Mr Weinert says, “Because of coordination of the different systems, we can now have polyvalent technicians able to perform whole ranges of tasks” © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2015 ... service-level agreements.” A one-stop integrated solution “It’s a one-stop solution, from customer relationship management to integrated workforce management.” Alexander Weinert cablex ICT project manager... solution,” Mr Weinert says, “from customer relationship management to integrated workforce management, with dispatching and document management that works on our databases.” From friction to familiarity.. .Case study workforce required access to documents on the job And administrators needed finalised tickets