Field force automation involves using technology and software to automate the management and dispatch of mobile field workers. This document provides an 8-step guide to successfully implementing field force automation and realizing benefits such as improved productivity, customer service, and invoicing. It discusses selecting the right software and suppliers, piloting the system, and continuing to focus on benefits after full implementation. Case studies are provided of companies like BT, Romtelecom, Northumbrian Water, and Kirklees Community Healthcare that improved efficiency, reduced costs, and better served customers through field force automation.

1. Field force automation
A practical guide to benefits realisation
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Field force automation
A practical guide to benefits realisation

2. Field force automation
A practical guide to benefits realisation
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The share of the service sector in both production
and employment has been growing for at least two
decades in most developed countries. Service
productivity and quality is one of the few remaining
differentiators and automation of the management
and delivery of field-based services can deliver
significant benefits to the organisation and its
customers.
This paper is a practical guide to realising those
benefits. It is based on BT’s experience as a
practitioner and provider of field force automation
services for mobile employees such as service
engineers, utility workers and community nurses.
The author, Paul Cleaver, was responsible for
transforming the performance of BT’s engineering
field force through automation in the 1990s.

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A practical guide to benefits realisation
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A successful field force automation programme will enhance the productivity of
employees and the efficiency of corporate assets (such as vehicles and specialist
equipment) across a range of industries including transport & logistics, utilities, retailing,
local government and healthcare. The following eight steps will help you maximise the
return on your investment.
1. Do your homework
The first step is to make sure that you understand what you can and should achieve by
introducing field force automation. It is important to recognise that automating the
management of service delivery is not about technology, but about people and processes,
underpinned by the right software application. The cultural and people issues cannot be
understated. It is essential to make sure that your whole management team is on board
with a common understanding of the objectives and the reasons for the changes. And it is
also essential to understand your current manual process to ensure that no important
functions are eliminated through automation.
2. Identify and define your benefits
When you are confident that you understand the scope and potential of automating
service delivery, you can start to identify and define the benefits you want for your
organisation. They can include:
Eight steps to successful workforce automation
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Productivity gains.
In BT’s experience, a 10 to 20 per cent improvement in productivity is realistic,
depending on your starting position. Be specific about what improved productivity
means. For example, it might mean that an employee will complete eight jobs in a day
instead of seven. Do not be persuaded that five minutes saved per job will equate to a
productivity gain of X per cent. You must have a hard measure that everyone can
understand – the more complex the calculation, the less likely it will be delivered in real
life. If you have 1000 mobile field workers costing approx £50,000 per annum each,
a 10 per cent saving will give you £5 million a year. This will pay for the automation
programme within 12 months.
Customer service improvements.
Automating the field force will reduce missed/late appointments and ensure the best
qualified person with the right equipment is sent to the job. One way to quantify the
impact on customers is to measure the number of appointments or other commitments
that are achieved on time. A realistic expectation is that an automated solution can often
enable a 15 per cent improvement in meeting customer commitments successfully and
on time. Improved service should also be reflected in reduced customer churn. If you
want to measure the impact of automation on customer churn, you should do so over
time, and ensure that there are no other initiatives taking place that may also influence
the customer experience.
Faster invoicing.
The ability to invoice customers more quickly can deliver important financial gain and
should feature on any list of desired benefits. Automating field service means you can
record billing information the same day as work is completed. This has been shown to cut
five working days from the invoicing cycle, considerably improving your cash position
Enforcing service policies/SLAs.
Many customer service agreements include penalties for under-service but when you
allocate work manually through human controllers it can be difficult to ensure total
compliance with service policies and agreements. Automated work allocation means that
jobs are allocated according to service policy so that customer needs are consistently met
and you avoid incurring financial penalties for non delivery.
Deliver better quality work.
The first hand experience of BT (and many of our customers) suggests that the greater
transparency of performance which comes about with automation can lead to
behavioural changes as employees respond with greater attention to detail and quality.
Many organisations choose to leverage this behavioural change with additional quality
initiatives in parallel with the automation programme.
A more accurate understanding of performance.
An automated workforce management system will enable truly objective evaluation of
employee performance so that you can recognise and reward good performance and
quickly address any areas of under-performance. In a manual operating environment,
your performance data can be corrupted. It is essential to ensure that performance data
about the pre-automated process is 100% accurate because if the pre-automation data
inflates productivity, then you risk a perceived drop in performance when you automate.

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3. Agree the management information you will require
Consider and agree the key management information required to ensure you realise your
benefits. A maximum of six reports should provide all the productivity and customer
service data you need. Ideally, this is available in real time, or next morning at the latest, so
that any corrective action can be taken quickly.
4. Understand your existing processes and operational environment
The most successful field force automation programmes are built on a solid understanding
of what really happens in the business. It is critical to understand the operational
environment ‘as is’ before considering automation. This will help clarify potential benefits
and ensure the project team understands what really goes on in the field.
Pay special attention to the start and end of the working day. What appears in the process
diagram may be very different from reality, where dozens of engineers start the day trying
to contact dispatch for their schedule or waiting at the depot for the right equipment.
There will be an immediate improvement in productivity at the beginning of the day if the
work schedule has already been downloaded to the individual and any specialist
equipment delivered in advance. And what happens at the end of the day,
if someone finishes a job but there is not time to start and complete another? Automatic
scheduling will make good use of this previously ‘idle time’ by assigning computer-based
training, for example, helping the individual to improve his/her skills and developing your
pool of talent.
Romtelecom is a leading supplier of telecommunications services to
domestic and commercial customers in Romania. The company had
identified a specific operational area where better deployment of field
engineers would reduce costs. It also wanted to accelerate compliance with
EU health and safety legislation. A team of BT field force automation
consultants carried out hands-on research, shadowing engineers, handling
equipment and climbing ladders in order to fully understand exactly what
was required of Romtelecom’s employees. BT then redesigned
Romtelecom’s field engineering practice so that only one engineer was
required for jobs where previously two would have been allocated, enabling
the company to reduce its field workforce by around 25%. In addition,
BT designed and documented new processes and recommended tools and
equipment that would provide a more secure environment for field
engineers.
5. Design new process
Once you have understood how your organisation really works, you can design new
processes and associated systems, plus a map of how to get from where you are now to
where you want to be. This blueprint should allow ample time for the implementation and
settling down period. Do not rush. A new solution must be properly implemented to
deliver benefits.
Improving productivity and safety for Romtelecom

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6. Select suppliers and products
The right software is key. You are not buying a few lines of code: you are buying a new way
of working.
• Make 100% sure the software will do everything you want. Test it and any associated
claims. Speak to other users about their experience.
• You will get what you pay for: do not be seduced by low cost suppliers.
• Ignore claims of an uplift of 50% in productivity. If a software supplier persists with
unrealistic targets, then it probably has not understood the realities of your business.
• Choose a supplier with a track record, and whom you trust. You want a company who
will fully support you throughout any pilot and implementation, so that you get what
you want. Ask if you really want to manage the new solution in-house? If not, then
look for a supplier who can provide project management or a long term managed
service.
When you have selected your software partner, only then should you choose the
supporting mobile technology. There is a host of possible devices on the market; your
software supplier should also be able to advise what would be right for your environment
and your people. You may require ruggedized equipment. And remember not just to
consider the initial purchase price but the total lifetime cost of any hardware.
Northumbrian Water understood that field force automation could help it
bring about a cultural change and transform its business performance. It
appointed BT deliver a field force automation solution that enables
dispatchers to monitor engineers’ job status and location instantaneously
on a single web page. Vehicles are fitted with GPS tracking devices and
engineers have handheld mobile devices (PDAs) to receive and send
information about jobs. To make the system easy to use, information
screens on the engineers’ mobile devices resemble previous paper forms
and 70 per cent of data is input via drop down menus. Productivity
increased by some 10 per cent during the pilot stage, from optimal job
allocation and less travelling, thanks to satellite navigation. The solution
substantially reduces paperwork and saves each engineer around
40 minutes each day. Together with a reduction in unnecessary journeys,
driven mileage was cut around 20 per cent, reducing the company’s carbon
footprint. Field force automation now covers 850 mobile operatives and
760 vehicles over three operational regions. Northumbrian Water reports
that “the combination of technology, process rationalisation and greater
visibility of jobs and vehicle fleet are having a remarkable impact on
efficiency and effectiveness”.
Driving cultural change for Northumbrian Water

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A practical guide to benefits realisation
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7. Pilot, measure and review performance
The purpose of the pilot is to prove that everything works and that the solution will deliver
the results you want. A meaningful pilot should cover 10 per cent of your workforce. Pilots
can be manipulated (for example, you pilot with an already high performing team) so
make sure you have a realistic benchmark before you start any trial. Do not rush the pilot;
let it run its course. A successful pilot will build confidence in the solution among
employees and managers. At the end of the pilot, complete a factual closure report and
use this to review and learn before moving to a complete roll out.
It is important to fully understand what the pilot is telling you before moving to full
implementation.
Kirklees Community Healthcare Services provides health care to more than
402,000 people in the north of England. In common with many NHS
organisations, its geographical spread means health care practitioners spend
a lot of time travelling between patients, offices and GP surgeries, limiting
the number of patients that can be seen in any one day. To improve patient
care and operational efficiency, the trust decided to implement
BT Mobile Health Worker for its community-based health and social care
practitioners. Kirklees CHS’ community-based employees have lightweight
but tough laptops with high-speed mobile broadband facilities and an
integral NHS smart card reader, allowing them to remotely access clinical
records and email using a secure connection that safeguards patient
confidentiality. Because nurses can communicate with each other in the
field, and don’t need to return to the office to collect paperwork, they are
able to carry out one or two extra visits per day, significantly improving the
quality of patient care and overall productivity. Kirklees CHS estimates that
the solution will save around £600,000 a year in travel costs alone but when
overall productivity gains and efficiencies are taken into account the
anticipated financial benefit equates to almost £10 million a year.
8. Implement, use and embed new ways of working
The final step is to implement the new solution across the organisation. Adhere to your
plan but remember that implementation is not your goal – it is easy to focus so much on
completing the project that the organisation forgets the wider goals. A technically
successful implementation is not synonymous with delivering business benefits. Benefits
to the business come not from implementing the solution but from using it. So read your
management reports and act on the data. Continue to encourage users and provide
training. Successful implementation is only the beginning. You will need to remain focused
on the benefits you want to achieve and continue to chase them throughout the lifetime
of the solution.
Improving productivity for Kirklees Community Healthcare

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A practical guide to benefits realisation
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In the 1990s, BT launched a major programme improve the efficiency of its
service operations by introducing automation and mobility to its field force.
Key initiatives included an advanced work scheduling system to automate
dispatch of jobs to a fully mobile workforce, resource management software
to ensure the workforce was in the right location plus ruggedised laptops
and PDAs to eliminate paperwork. The results were remarkable. Improved
productivity led to a reduction in the engineering workforce of nearly
30 per cent and 30 per cent fewer field managers. Over 80 per cent of all
BT’s field engineering work is now scheduled and allocated automatically,
with a 60 per cent decrease in the number of job controllers. Fully
automated allocation and despatch of work reduced the number of job
allocation centres from 100 to just seven. Customers benefited from shorter
service lead times and a faster response to faults. And at less than seven per
cent, repeat work is at an all time low.
Transforming BT

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A practical guide to benefits realisation
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In a world where the quality of customer experience
is increasingly a fundamental differentiator,
automating the management and delivery of field
service provides an untapped opportunity for many
organisations to improve performance. BT is an
acknowledged leader in helping organisations
realise sustainable benefits from their investment in
field force automation and has a team of specialist
advisers, a portfolio of applications and services as
well as models of good practice that others can
learn from.
Further recommended reading: Service Chain Management – Technology Innovation for the
Service Business by Voudouris, Owusu, Dorne & Lesaint, British Telecommunications plc, published by
Springer, 2008
For more information please contact Paul Cleaver paul.2.cleaver@bt.com or Alison Wiltshire
alison.wiltshire@bt.com.

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A practical guide to benefits realisation
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