1. You've Made the Decision - Now What?

After what seemed to be forever, you have chosen a vendor and are ready to start the implementation of a new workforce / dispatch solution.  While you still have lots of questions, you hope that your vendor will live up to their promises and implementation will go smoothly. This article focuses on what you can do to help ensure that your firm has a pleasant experience during the implementation process and that your company achieves the goals and objectives initially set out. 

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2. Cementing Your Goals and Objectives.

Why did you embark on this project? It is extremely important that you, and your senior staff completely understand what your goals and objectives are.  Without this understanding, you have no way of measuring your performance.  Do not rely on your vendor to do this for you.  This understanding is something that is intrinsic to your business.  You need to drive it! We suggest that you, your senior staff and your project implementation team make a short and concise list of what you expect to achieve.  You may consider sharing these objectives in internal company newsletters, putting them on wallet-sized cards for the implementation team to refer to or even posting them on the notice board in the lunchroom.  You must also communicate your objectives to your vendor.  Often they will have constructive suggestions that may assist in the implementation.  In addition, your vendor should review your goals and objectives for "do ability" to ensure that the system being delivered will achieve the desired results. Once you understand and have documented your objectives, check to see if you have the necessary historical information as a reference from which to evaluate your new system.  For example if your goals include:

Reduce call taking expenses by $20k per year

Then you will need to have historical data such as:

This historical information provides you with a reference point from which to evaluate the effectiveness of your new system.   Similarly you need to review all your goals and objectives and make sure you have the necessary historical information before you embark on the implementation.

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3. Who's On First?

All those implementation fees, do I really need to have the Vendor do so much or is there something I can do myself?  The answer to the question lies in the capabilities of your staff and whether of not you want them to perform these tasks.  If you already have an IT person on staff or you have worked with one in the past then it may be better to use them.   Irrespective of how you decide to proceed, it is extremely important that you develop a list of tasks between your company and your vendor listing the responsibilities of each.  Without this understanding, you may end up with significantly higher expenses than anticipated.  It is reasonable for you to ask your vendor for a detailed list of tasks that must be performed to in order to physically implement the system.  This can be a starting point to determine what you feel comfortable taking on and what you will get the Vendor to do.

For example a partial view of the list should look like this:

It is important that tasks are clearly identified with scheduled dates.  The resource expected to complete the task must also be identified.  In the case where the Company is assigned to complete a task, you should assign a specific person to this responsibility.  The more information you put in this plan, the smoother your implementation will go.

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4. Phased Implementation or The Whole Enchilada?

This is often a key area that is over looked.  We strongly suggest that you work with your Vendor and plan a phased implementation.  Do things in bite sized pieces!  Your vendor should have some specific recommendations as to what has worked at other firms that have implemented their application.  For example, you may choose to implement the system for a select city or division and not initially try to implement a system company wide. You may choose to implement certain functionality on a phased-in basis.  For example, if your system includes both business management and wireless dispatch capabilities, you may want to implement the software first and iron out any operating difficulties, prior to turning up the wireless dispatch component.  

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5. Preparing Your Company For Change

There have been many textbooks written on this topic.  MBA schools offer courses solely focused on managing change in an organization.  This is not an easy topic and it can make or break an implementation.  In one live example, we have seen an implementation fail and the system removed because a Dispatcher did not accept the new dispatch system.  He claimed that it took to long to enter the new calls.  The real issue was that he felt technology was going to cause him to loose his job.  Since the dispatcher had quite a bit of influence and made a lot of noise, the company lost site of their initial objectives. One key objective in this case was to get pickup information to their courier drivers efficiently, so that pickups could be piggy-backed with deliveries, to achieve an expected efficiency increase of 1.5 times.  The net result was the systems was removed, rather than teaching the dispatcher better typing skills. In the end, the Company did not achieve their objectives and will likely have an even more difficult time implementing change in the future because of the negative experience. For more information, please refer to the article entitled Preparing Your Company for Change.   While this article is not exhaustive, it provides a good overview on how to manage the change process.

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6. Communications - With Customers and Staff

This is one of the most often overlooked factors in system implementation, yet critical to the process and not really difficult to manage.  Let your customers know what you are doing.  Send them a simple letter explaining that you are implementing a new workforce automation system.  Think of as being a sign that says "Sorry for Any Inconvenience - Under Construction".  Let the customer know how this project will benefit them.  Keep your customers informed of your progress by sending then periodic updates. This will allow them to feel ownership in the program and hopefully they will be more understanding if you experience a glitch in the implementation. 

Encourage your customers to change their behavior if it will achieve mutual benefit.  For example, if you implement a web-based order entry system, let your customers know it is there.  This can be accomplished in a number of ways:

In addition, employees also need to be kept updated.  While it is obvious that you should communicate your success, it is also important that you communicate significant issues and your plan to solve them.  By the way, your employees already know what the issues are so it won't be a surprise to them.  They will want to know how you are going to address them.

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7. Track the Results

If you have been following the suggestions in this article, you will have already collected all the necessary historical data to compare your operational results to. (see section 2) Review and understand your goals and objectives .  Periodically measure your firm's performance against these objectives.  Before you do this, give your organization some time to implement the system.  Rome was not built in a day.  Typically, we recommend a review every 3 to 6 months.  From these reviews you should be able to determine if you are you getting the expected results?  If you are, then pat your self on the back, if not, then start digging.  You need to understand what the problem is.  It could be something very simple that needs to be fine-tuned. As important as measuring your progress against your objectives is the process to understand what else you may be gaining or losing.  We have seen customers install a system for very specific reasons, but as they used it, they realized the real gain they received had nothing to do with the original objectives.  Dig around and see if you have any of these hidden gems.  Conversely, you may have lost something.  Talk to your employees and get their feed-back.  Most importantly, talk to your customers, after all they are paying the bills!

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8. Fine-tuning

Just when you thought the job was complete we are here to tell you that it never ends.  The message here is be vigilant!  Maintain a regular schedule of operation reviews that involve the system.  Look for ways to further streamline your operations, provide better customer service, new product offerings etc.  After all, your competition never sleeps.  They are doing the same thing you are.  They are trying to reduce their cost base while providing better service.  

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9. Conclusion

We believe that if you follow the steps outlined in this article you will have a successful implementation.  How successful, depends on a number of issues that involve you and your vendor.  At the end of the day it's your business, you are in control, so exercise that control!