August | 2014
This blog is in reference to the original article “Mobile enabled work force transformation in the transmission and distribution utilities” published on intelligent utility portal.
In our recent engagements with various Transmission and Distribution utilities it is found that although a mobile enabled workforce culture is increasingly being adopted, what many of these organizations lack is a properly developed business case which provides them with a continuous improvement strategy and transformation roadmap. Return on capital investment can be achieved only when there is proper tracking and measurement on effort, time and cost parameters.
Collaborative working is the buzzword today mainly because it enables innovative ways of doing the same work but with lesser resources. A transformed field workforce receives “right” instructions at the “right” time to do the “right” kind of job. They do not waste their precious time in waiting for materials, tools or services of external stakeholders. Customers are happier because they are well informed on the progress and promised appointments are adhered to by the field force.
Anything that simplifies an existing complexity is intuitively adopted. Mobile enabled transformation is a natural outcome of this simple fact as it relinquishes the requirement for innumerous phone calls, manual co-ordinations between back office and field staff, paper based inputs that needs to be manually logged after carrying out the work etc. However, in order to reap the maximum benefits out of mobile transformation initiative, organizations have to do much more than simply select the best technical solution available in the market.
An experienced system integrator can help the non-technology savvy engineering staff to improve their productivity by defining and implementing the right processes, procedures and practices. Technology and people elements are to be substantiated with right processes and the definition of these business processes that cuts across multiple systems and applications including mobile solutions is what needs be defined and simplified.
Capability Maturity Models based SWOT and value lever analysis on the mobile enabled business processes can help organizations to understand where they stand, how do they compare with the leaders and laggards in the industry, what best practices they lack and then enable them to accordingly prioritize the initiatives that need to be worked on.
In summary, for organizations to reap quick benefits, here are some crucial steps:
Do you think utilities are transforming themselves through mobile enablement? Do write in with your views.
C R Prasanth Kumar is a Principal consultant working with Wipro ENU domain consulting division. He has 16+ years of experience in various Energy & Utilities domain areas and transformation programmes and can be reached at prasanth.kumar@wipro.com
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