Once the projected benefits are offset against the mobile working costs put forward by suppliers; software licences, mobile devices, SIM and network data, managed service etc., you will have your Return on Investment figures. This should give you a clear picture of what your service will achieve and provide a solid foundation for your business case.
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Building a Mobile Working Business Case
Mobile working solutions have proven to be one of the most successful ways for organisations to deliver transformation and efficiency savings. They offer numerous benefits, from cost reduction to improved customer service, lower carbon emissions to better staff retention.
However, to release the funds for a solution you need to build a resilient and realistic business case to determine what the impact upon your organisation will be and if it is worth the investment.
The business case requirement
Your business case needs to outline the benefits of moving from your ‘As is’, to your ‘To be’ working model. The ‘To be’ outcomes need to not just be high level but also to go down to the minutiae detail; cost of printing job sheets, minutes spent travelling to the office / depot, time spent on timesheets and expense claims etc. It is with these figures that you will have a far better idea of how mobile working will impact upon your service.
It is also important that the Business Case and Return on Investment Calculation are not left in a drawer once a solution has been procured. After all, the business case is an indication of the efficiencies your organisation can achieve through mobile working and it’s an effective yardstick in determining how your project is doing.
How to build the business case
The first step to building your business case is to identify what business processes in your current method of working, or your ‘As is’ method, you think need to be addressed. Some of these service bottlenecks will stand out and will no doubt be the reason you are considering mobile working in the first place. If teams whose core tasks involve them spending their time out of the office (such as a mobile inspection workforce) are returning to the office to pick up and drop off work, then it is obvious that giving them remote real-time access to jobs held in the back office is going to help them focus their time on carrying out inspections rather than wasting it on excessive travel or admin.
Once you have a general idea of which business processes need addressing your next step is to see what mobile working solutions are out on the market and to open up a dialogue about your requirements with providers. This will help you to run through your ‘As is model’ and see what ‘To be model’ they can offer you. It is very likely they will be able to offer you improvements you hadn’t thought of. You may have been concentrating on efficiencies on one area of your service and not have thought about what solution are available to other areas as well. You may also have been concentrating on one aspect of mobile working such as real-time capture of data, when you could potentially become more effective when you combine it with a variety of other tools; automated job scheduling, workforce management systems, mobile worker electronic whiteboards (automated timesheets and mileage claim forms), GPS/GIS mapping, lone worker protection etc.
Once you have discussed your requirements with suppliers you should now have a firmer idea of what business processes can be made completely redundant;
Which processes can be streamlined;
And ideas about how you want to do it:
Return on Investment calculation
As you have now narrowed down the options it is time to go into the business case, and your return on investment in more detail. If you are finding it difficult to get your business case off the ground then discuss this with solution providers. These companies should have some form of Return on Investment calculators that directly show you what benefits you will achieve, based on their previous customer implementations. They will also be quite detailed, covering financial (e.g. cost savings, increased revenue) and non-financial outcomes (carbon reduction, improved customer service) so that you can directly compare the projected outcomes with your performance indicator targets.
More Advice
If you would like more information about any of the points above or would like to discuss your business case, regardless of what stage it is at; contact us by mailing info@kirona.com or get us to call you back.