Disaster Recovery – Making the Move to Mobility

Many field service organizations are crucial to the first response when dealing with a natural disaster and are often needed to enable the emergency services to gain safe access through blocked routes or into damaged buildings.

The speed of the initial response is vital and the more that can be done in the time immediately after the event, the better the chance of improving survivor rates and reducing the danger from damaged roadways, buildings and critical infrastructure.

Mobile solutions are critical in the response efforts to keep field workers in contact with back office and support teams, keep communication flowing and ensure worker safety at all times.

Whether you are looking at developing your mobile strategy or starting out, how do you know what is important to you and the work that your field service teams carry out?

From working with a range of companies, we’ve found that there are some common principals.

• Any mobility solution should be easy to use. Overly-complicated systems will be bypassed and worked around or ignored all together. This is especially critical for those working in high-pressure situations, using the solution should be second nature and not adding to any difficulties. The easier to use, the quicker the adoption, the more straightforward the workflow and the better the ROI.
• Implementation needs to be as quick and straightforward as possible. A lengthy implementation process will defeat its objective. Not all disaster management work can be predicted or scheduled, so being up and running in days, not months, should be the realistic goal – achieving operational objectives and delivering a much faster ROI.
• All mobility software needs to be agile and able to move with the next generation of mobility. Developments are moving fast and your provider keeping up to speed with these changes is important. You cannot afford to be caught out at times of the greatest need.
• Ease of integration is key. You don’t need to have to think about changing other systems and solutions that your work depends on. Extending the life of your current systems is all important so look at mobile solutions which will leverage and expand their use.
• It is crucial for any mobility solution to work across mixed digital devices.  The apps will need to work across different operating systems too.
• Vitally, and even more so in disaster management, mobility is about the anytime, anywhere access to information and it is essential that your solution makes it as easy as possible to achieve this.

Learn more about how a move to mobility can help your day-to-day field service operations, especially at times of extreme conditions. Download our eBook - ‘Making the Move to Mobility: The Digitalization of Field Service’