From The Trenches: Firsthand Experiences With Field Mobility
By Sarah Nicastro, publisher/editor in chief, Field Technologies
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Each month, we interview a number of end users — your peers — for the articles in Field Technologies magazine. Month after month, year after year, I continue to learn so much from hearing all about their experiences. You never know when hearing about a peer’s experiences is going to spark a thought about what might work especially well in your organization, or even show you a mis-step to avoid. The insight these individuals share with us is invaluable. Here, we share a couple of excerpts from our interviews with 3 companies we interviewed recently about some of the challenges they’ve faced when it comes to deploying field mobility.
Field Technologies: What was the most challenging aspect of your field mobility deployment and how did you handle the challenge?
J. Chris Allio, executive vice president and CFO, Wittenbach Business Systems: Training is always an issue when it comes to technology, especially given the various levels of expertise among the technicians. Some people take to it easier than others. When you have 100 technicians, you have some that resist change or who are not as up on current technology as others.
We're spread out across 11 states up and down the Eastern Seaboard. We did some centralized training and some training in the field with smaller groups of technicians. It took us about two months to get this rolled out among the technicians, because we had to do it in chunks.
Field Technologies: In your opinion, what makes technology selection and deployment especially challenging for a small business?
Tammy Dunbar, Manager, Maid Brigade of Chicago: I think it depends on what you are looking for. Right now we're looking at getting phones for our employees that we could use to swipe credit cards in the field, and that could help us move forward. We're trying to come up with apps that a customer could use to have direct communication with us.
But if our franchise doesn't have those tools, we have to create it on our own. It's hard to stay current with technology, and it isn't really available to us if we don't develop it. Maid Brigade is very good about keeping us up to date on the technology they are using, but you really have to run with your own ideas and figure out what works for your business. That requires a lot of research that a small business doesn't always have time to do.
Field Technologies: As a company with an incredibly large mobile operation that's been using technology in the field for quite some time, what's the best piece of advice you can provide a company that's looking to deploy a mobile solution?
Jackie Woods, vice president of IT, UPS: Know all your requirements up front, make sure you get everyone of your stakeholders involved in describing the type of device that you need, and make sure you canvas the industry for best possible vendor. Have a forward-looking five-year or seven-year plan of what you want to use the mobile device for, because you are making a big investment in it. The last thing you want to do is buy a device and then have to immediately upgrade it.