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With the growing reliance on digital business processes in most companies today, the IT department has more responsibility than ever. But, according to new research, businesses are disrupted within the first few minutes of an IT outage and poor communications management means finding the right person to investigate the issue can take as long as, or longer than resolving it.

Forty-five percent of IT professionals reported their business is impacted if IT is down just 15 minutes or less, and 17 percent said disruption occurs the instant an IT outage develops, according to new research from Dimensional Research. The “Business Impact of IT Incident Communications: A Global Survey of IT Professionals” report was commissioned by xMatters, inc., a leader in communication-enabled business processes.

However, 60 percent of respondents said it takes that same 15 minutes or more just to identify the right individual to respond to an issue. Nearly half of the IT professionals surveyed said it takes as long as or longer to identify the person as it does to resolve the problem.

Showing strong agreement that improved IT alerting systems benefit the business, 91 percent of those surveyed said poor incident communication increases downtime. Eighty-seven percent indicated that guaranteed alert delivery would accelerate issue resolution, and 85 percent said issue resolution would be accelerated by a response system that initiates steps with a single click on a mobile device.

[quote float="left"]Eighty percent of respondents said loss of digital data would have a more significant effect on the business than loss of buildings, vehicles or goods.

Eighty percent of respondents said loss of digital data would have a more significant effect on the business than loss of buildings, vehicles or goods. That illustrates the extreme importance of IT responsiveness to issues, yet a surprising 41 percent of the IT pros said they have ignored IT alerts and communications.

 

According to the report, part of the challenge with IT alerts and notifications is that often those notified had personal events that may compromise their responsiveness. A dynamic and automated system that could be updated based on team availability could generate better response by IT professionals, leading to better accountability and faster resolutions and minimised business impact.

In recent years, IT’s role has expanded from basic system support to enabling the business to facilitating online business, while supporting employees’ numerous devices.

The IT professionals indicated they are willing to do more. Ninety percent said IT can offer more strategic services to the business; 74 percent indicated IT expertise should be leveraged for other automated systems; and 77 percent acknowledged that the business thinks IT is too slow in resolving key issues.

The report concluded, “Businesses trust IT to keep critical systems running smoothly while securing highly valued data. But, when issues arise business stakeholders overwhelmingly feel that IT isn’t resolving them fast enough. Fast issue remediation will require that the right people be contacted efficiently based on availability and expertise.  This may indicate that the communications management alerting systems that have served IT in the past may simply not be able to support IT’s growing role and that a new solution is required.”

The survey polled over 300 IT professionals from the United States, Europe and Mexico. Participant companies came from a mix of sizes – from large enterprises with over 10,000 employees to medium-sized businesses with 1,000 employees – and from a variety of industries, including technology, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare and more.

 

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Red Hat  a leading provider of open source solutions, today announced its vision to help organisations succeed in the mobile-first economy. Customers can take advantage of Red Hat’s experience and leadership in enterprise IT, and its portfolio of enterprise-grade open source technologies – including mobile capabilities from the recent acquisition of FeedHenry – to overcome their mobility challenges.

Mobility is increasingly becoming a top priority for business as a means to drive innovation and streamline operational efficiency; however, it is also creating demand for faster and continuous development cycles that challenge traditional IT infrastructure and development methodologies. To become mobile-centric, enterprises must evolve in a way that supports both the agility of new mobile initiatives and stability of core IT.

In response, Red Hat is focusing its enterprise mobility vision on four areas: platform architecture, developer experience, technology integration, and collaboration in two-track IT environments.

• Platform architecture: The public cloud or private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)-based architecture of the Red Hat mobile platform facilitates agile development and DevOps processes, leverages RESTful APIs and microservices, and accelerates time-to-deployment to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Developer experience: A developer-centric approach that embraces modern toolchains, collaboration, and continuous development and integration allows organisations to use existing IT skill-sets for new mobile initiatives.
• Technology integration: Simplified integration of the platform with other enterprise middleware components, based upon a common REST API architecture, captures and stores new data generated by connected devices to help unlock the value in existing systems of record.
• Collaboration in two-track IT environments: Adopting a two-track IT approach, using mobile as the catalyst for building a “fast IT” organisation, helps balance agility with stability and fosters greater collaboration and cooperation between the two tracks.[/unordered_list]

Since accelerating into the enterprise mobile market with the October 2014 acquisition of FeedHenry, a leading mobile enterprise application platform provider, Red Hat has achieved several notable milestones in its mobile journey, including:

•  Release of platform enhancements for mobile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and collaboration.
•  Integration of the platform into Red Hat’s award-winning integrated development environment (IDE), JBoss Developer Studio.
• Deployment of FeedHenry technology as a mobile service in OpenShift as part of Red Hat’s xPaaS strategy for cloud-based application development.
• Customers in industries ranging from manufacturing and transportation to workforce management are using Red Hat mobile technologies to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and extend critical enterprise systems to mobile devices.
• Recognition of the FeedHenry platform as the top Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) in a sector analysis by GigaOM Research./unordered_list]

Red Hat plans to expand deployment options for the FeedHenry platform and roll out new integrations with the existing Red Hat middleware product portfolio, giving enterprises greater freedom of choice by extending its industry-leading capabilities across hybrid environments.

Commenting on the announcement Craig Muzilla, senior vice president, Application Platforms Business, Red Hat said “The mobile phenomenon has had a profound impact on the way we think and act and consume information in our daily lives.

 

That impact is now rippling throughout enterprise IT as organisations come face-to-face with the reality of doing business in a new ‘mobile first’ world, where speed and agility must be prioritised without forsaking the stability of core IT. Our vision is to help enterprises evolve in a digital world and provide them with an open and flexible architecture and the technologies that accelerate this transition.”

Chris Marsh, principal analyst, Enterprise Mobile App Strategies, 451 Research also commented stating “51% of organisations recently surveyed are further increasing their mobile budgets this year.

The enabling technologies are falling into place for companies to break out of the way they think about mobile from the silos in which it has traditionally resided, but the process needs to evolve to support this.

Over the past year, it has become clearer that traditional waterfall development across the software lifecycle is ill-suited to mobile, and that agile methods are more applicable."

 

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Trimble has recently announced that it has added new features to its Field Service Management (FSM) solutions to significantly improve workflow visibility and streamline operations for businesses and their mobile workers in the field.

New features have been added to Trimble's Work Management solution, an intelligent scheduling engine and FieldMaster Technician, a downloadable mobile app that enables workers to access and update information in real-time. These solutions work together to enable real-time information sharing between mobile workers and the back office and are part of Trimble Horizon, a new dynamic platform for Trimble's FSM solutions and service. Cloud-based and modular, Trimble Horizon enables organisations to drive an agile, dynamic field service operation.

"Empowering workers in the field with the collaborative tools and immediate information they need to manage their day effectively is a necessity when delivering service out in the field," said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble Field Service Management.

 

"These workers are constantly looking to solutions that provide them with the instant visibility to get to the right place at the right time with the information they need to do their job correctly the first time. The enhancements we are announcing today are integral to creating a more streamlined workflow and enabling a more dynamic workforce."

Work Management - Intelligent Scheduling

The new Work Management 3.1 solution will now support multiple crew assignments and equipment bookings. Several technicians can be assigned to a task for improved efficiency. In addition, a scarce or specific piece of equipment can be booked against a task to help organisations better manage their assets and resources and increase first-time case resolution.

FieldMaster Technician - Mobile App

New features in FieldMaster Technician include the ability for a technician to copy or create a task on site so they can carry out and account for work immediately. Site history can also be accessed and viewed in the app, allowing the technician to arrive with the necessary knowledge of work previously carried out. Details of each crew member assigned to a task and the tools that have been booked can be viewed, enabling the improved visibility of resources. In addition, technicians are now able to upload forms and photos to attach to a task or job.

FieldMaster Technician 1.2 will also send the mobile workers' location from their GPS-enabled smartphone or tablet in real-time. This allows businesses to better understand the progress of their field operations and dispatch work based on a technician's accurate location.

 

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The next event put together by non-profit knowledge sharing organisation The  Service Community is to be held on the 16th April at the Fujitsu's Stevenage office located at:

• 14 Cavendish Road,
• Stevenage,
• Hertfordshire,
• SG1 2DY

Continuing on from the excellent sessions that have been held at previous events the agenda is once again packed with key figures from industry and academia sharing their insights into what makes great service.

The days agenda is as follows:

• 12:00 Arrival, Coffees
• 12.30 Welcome and Introduction: Martin Summerhayes, Fujitsu
• 13:00 Presentation 1:  Dr. Veronica Martinez, Cambridge Service Alliance. "Outcome  Based Service"
• 13:45 Presentation 2: Alex Bill, "Advanced Services in the Power Generation Industry: competing through advanced services" 
• 14:30 Networking break
• 15:15 Presentation 3: Des Evans, Honorary Professor Aston Business School and Former CEO MAN Trucks. "Acheiving 'disruptive' growth in the UK Commercial Vehicle market with outcome based services"
• Presentation 4: Chris Farnarth, Allocate Software. "Customer success and outcome based software services" 

Attendance is free of charge and these events have proved to be highly engaging and thought provoking sessions in the past so attendance is highly recommended. To arrange your attendance email The Service Community on this link.

 

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Security integration specialist Scottish Communications Group (SCG) has cut thousands of pounds from its annual fuel bill following the introduction of Fleetmatics’ fleet and vehicle tracking technology. The firm, a leading supplier of integrated security systems including CCTV, access control and digital radio communications, installed the Fleetmatics system and has reaped the rewards of reduced overheads and improved customer service over the past three years.

Scottish Communications Group was seeking real-time insight into the movements of its 10 field-based engineers, who serve commercial customers throughout Scotland and as far afield as the South East of England.

Liam Mowat, technical director of Scottish Communications Group, said: “We primarily decided to use a tracking solution so we could identify and assign support call-outs to the nearest available engineer, due to the fact that we cover such a large geographic customer base. Response times are very important in upholding the level of service that our customers expect, and the system has enabled our service desk to respond even more quickly and efficiently.”

An additional benefit of the system has been a significant reduction in fuel costs, which adds up to thousands of pounds over the course of a full year. “By utilising the nearest available engineer and ensuring they follow the optimal route to a customer site, we have reduced travel costs, which has been very significant at a time when we are growing as a company,” said Mr Mowat.

Further efficiencies have been secured by using the timesheet feature and fuel card integration module to save on administrative time and accurately correlate costs. “The system has enabled us to determine exactly how much fuel has been used on a particular job, how much time was spent and how efficiently we are operating, all of which had to be figured out manually before,” added Mr Mowat. “There’s absolutely no question that the system has more than paid for itself and I would highly recommend it.”

From a health and safety perspective, Scottish Communications Group is also using the Fleetmatics system to confirm that legal speed limits are always adhered to. The company also has the ability to provide evidence in any case where a complaint is made about driver performance, although this is not an issue that the company has encountered to date.

Scottish Communications Group, founded in 1979, has built such a reputation for outstanding customer service that it was awarded the coveted Royal Warrant for the supply of communications equipment to Her Majesty the Queen. In addition. The company has achieved the highest industry standard, NACOSS Gold, as well as holding many other industry accreditations.

 

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Enterprise collaboration tool Intellinote recently announced its new Field Service Management Solution, developed to help field service companies lower costs, increase revenues and provide a significantly enhanced customer experience.

Delivered as a user-friendly cloud-based tool, Intellinote for Field Service Management lets users capture, document and collaborate around service requests and other fieldwork using iPads, iPhones and desktops. Built for the field & the office, Intellinote for Field Service Management is easy to deploy and no IT is required.

The solution provides customers with the ability to:

• Document fieldwork with fillable PDF forms, notes, pictures and geo-tagging.
• Share, in real-time, details of completed fieldwork with key stakeholders including customers, supervisors and accounting departments.
• Provide field workers with real-time access to Policies, Service Catalogs, Form Libraries and Training/Reference Materials
• Integrate with Billing Systems, Work Order Databases and other in-house developed/3^rd party applications
• Work in both offline and online modes[/unordered_list]

“The old way of managing field work required a chain of events that wasted time and money as each service request, work order or job went through many manual and often error-prone touch points,” explained Intellinote CEO, Tony Lopresti. “As the field service management space continues to demand cloud-based solutions, we’re excited to provide companies with a solution that helps them collaborate better between field and non-field employees, and ultimately deliver a superior customer experience. Intellinote for Field Service Management is a powerful, competitive differentiator with clear advantages for users.”

Intellinote for Field Service Management eliminates the many inefficiencies that have plagued services companies: paper forms, incomplete task information, lack of clarity, lack of visibility into the real-time status of a service request and manual handoffs between field workers, supervisors and customers.

 

With Intellinote for Field Service Management, the entire process is greatly simplified. Customers realize ROI from handling more work orders every day, eliminating form errors, avoiding the 2nd or repeat service call, avoiding overtime pay, reducing customer disputes and by arming field workers with service catalogs and other tools on their mobile devices to upsell customers. For a mid-sized company, these could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings and additional revenue every year.

“We choose Intellinote to help us do three things. One: Help our field workforce document each job - from initial requirements to installation. Two: Help management monitor progress and collaborate in real-time with our on-site team. Three: Keep our customers informed on the status and progress of their jobs," said Chris Newsome of A Place For Everything Closets. "Intellinote is delivering on these fronts. Our team is more productive and we are able to serve our large and growing customer base better with it," Newsome added.

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Smith Construction Group, a civil engineering and groundwork provider, has cut its yearly fuel bill by 15% after implementing a telematics system from Masternaut, one of Europe’s leading telematics provider.

The Group, which includes the skip hire arm Smith Recycling, has implemented telematics into its 60 strong fleet of heavy duty commercial vehicles, including tippers and skip lorries.

Masternaut’s technology has provided Smith Construction Group with detailed reports on every job done by a vehicle, detailing MPG readings, carbon emissions and idling.

This information has helped to reduce vehicle idling by 87%, whilst overall the technology has saved Smith Construction Group an estimated 15% off of its yearly fuel bill. Reducing carbon emissions and fuel is helping Smith Construction Group reduce its impact on the environment, in line with its sustainability ethos.

 

The technology has been used on a number of occasions in insurance claims from third parties, to prove that the vehicle in question was nowhere near the area for the alleged incidents.

The tracking technology has been beneficial in keeping customers up to date about when a vehicle will arrive, as well as providing Smith Construction Group with proof if a customer claims a driver hasn’t arrived. The technology has helped to improve vehicle utilisation by cutting down on wasted journeys (e.g. customers not on site to take delivery), through introducing a wasted journey charge backed up by telematics data.

At Smith Recycling, the recycling arm within Smith Construction Group, the system is used for communicating with customer’s to provide information on when a job can be done, using Masternaut data to see which driver can get to a job first. This has allowed Smith Recycling to ensure it meets customer timescales and helps guarantee fast delivery and pick up.

Smith Construction Group’s commented,"It’s important for us to have complete control over project schedules, so having the Masternaut system available has enabled us to give customer accurate details on arrival times for skip jobs, which has made a real difference. Not only can we give customers much more information on when a job can be done, but we’ve got the added security if there’s ever a dispute.”

 

He continued, “The system has helped us to make a saving on our annual fuel costs, which means that the system pays for itself through the savings we’re making. We’re working with Masternaut to see what else we can do with the technology and hope to implement the data into HR systems in the future."

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director added: “In the construction industry, it’s especially important to keep tight control over project schedules, so being able to accurately predict arrival times for skip and tipper hire can make a real difference to operational efficiencies. Masternaut’s telematics system provides 100% accurate readings via patented CAN Bus technology rather than GPS-based readings, which gives Smith Construction Group access to reliable and accurate figures on mileage, fuel consumption and vitally gives them complete control over their fleet and project schedules.”

 

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Logistics companies and field service engineers are being urged to pay special attention to diesel particulate filters (DPFs) on their vehicles, as the cost of having a unit off the road at the height of a nationwide skills shortage could be detrimental.

The advice comes from national automotive parts reconditioning specialist DPF Clean Team, which is advising drivers to have a filter cleaned rather than replaced when clogged, in order to return drivers to the road quickly, and at a lower cost than a full replacement.

DPF Clean Team Director Cameron Bryce explained: “At a time when logistics companies are updating their fleets with the latest Euro-6 trucks in order to benefit from reduced emissions, sustainability, and lower fuel costs, they need to make sure that they are making the most of this investment. For field service engineers too, having a van or small unit on the road whenever possible is the difference between completing, and passing up work, and money.

“The cost benefits and efficiencies that these vehicles deliver can be wasted if operators need to take vehicles off the road for days to purchase and fit a replacement DPF, in the event of them becoming blocked. With an industry-wide driver shortage, every day a driver is not in a cab means lost capacity, unhappy customers, and lost business.”

Should HGV and van drivers be alerted to the DPF warning light, the advice from DPF Clean Team is to have a filter cleaned rather than replaced. A DPF clean can be completed and a vehicle returned to the road in a matter of days, which is considerably faster than the time associated with sourcing a new DPF, ordering and receiving the part, and then having it fitted. And the cost of a clean is also significantly lower than a full replacement; potentially saving haulage and service companies tens of thousands of pounds per year for multiple vehicles in their fleet. DPF Clean Team states that the average price of a new DPF unit for MAN, Volvo and Iveko trucks is up to £5,000.

 

DPF Clean Team itself has recently increased the number of DPF units it can clean, up to 1,000 a month, following a five-figure investment in state-of-the-art cleaning equipment which is capable of cleaning DPFs and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) units. The investment has been made following an increase in demand from the logistics industry for this service. And for a short time, the company has slashed the price of DPF cleaning from £450 to £250 for any logistics operators looking to have their DPFs cleaned for the first time.

Cameron Bryce continued: “With logistics companies and service engineers being overstretched in order to keep up with demand, more and more operators and fleet managers are paying closer attention to the maintenance and performance of their vehicles. They rightly recognise that the consequences of having a vehicle off the road can be costly at a time when resources are tight and demand high. Regular DPF cleaning can not only ensure that vehicle operators are seeing a return in new fleet investment, but it can also reduce the risk of unscheduled downtime, keeping vehicles on the road, and deliveries arriving on time.”

DPF Clean Team already works with many of the UK’s car supermarkets, Leicestershire and Metropolitan Police Force, Avis and Europcar. The company’s new equipment not only cleans DPFs, but the dry-cleaning process is also used for a host of different automotive components which can be expensive to replace if they become worn.

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A new industry body is aiming to improve standards across British business fleets by establishing best practice in the use of fleet data.

Fleet Data Insight brings together thought leaders from across the fleet industry, including both operators and suppliers, to share practical advice about using data to achieve operational excellence in fleet performance.

Founded by TomTom Telematics, alongside partners Zurich, the FTA and the Energy Saving Trust, Fleet Data Insight will meet twice a year, using the collective knowledge and experience of its participants to create a series of free best practice advice guides.

Each forum will be independently led by Real World Strategy and the guides will aim to provide practical information in a multimedia format. The community will also be invited to continue the discussion online via Twitter and the Fleet Data Insight LinkedIn discussion group.

The first forum meeting focused on using data to manage risk and brought together fleet professionals from a number of prominent organisations, including Skanska, Sainsbury's, Iron Mountain, Fife Council, BT Fleet, Waitrose.

"The core ethos of Fleet Data Insight is to co-create value and best practice for the industry, by the industry and to promote excellence in data-driven fleet management" said Peter Button, Chairman, Fleet Data Insight.

 

"A vast amount of data is now available to fleet managers, so it is essential they are provided with the right guidance and advice to enable them to get the most out of it," said Irvin Gray, Senior Marketing Manager, TomTom Telematics (founding partner). "We are confident that with the gold mine of experience and best practice our partners and contributors bring, we can give fleet operators the tools they need to become more efficient, safe and profitable."

"Identifying the right data and using it properly is essential in today’s fleet. The Fleet Data Insight group addresses this need in a new way – co-creating valuable best practice and sharing this with the industry through developing a community."

Operators are invited to join the conversation in the Fleet Data Insight LinkedIn discussion group. More information can be found at www.fleetdatainsight.com where you can apply to join the next event, join the community and download the best practice guide. The forum's first free guide on managing fleet risk together with some best practice videos from the forum are available now.

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