In the months leading up to August, more than 750 South African businesses closed their doors and went into liquidation. While that represents a decrease in closures from the same period last year, it illustrates how fragile business can be, particularly in an economy as volatile as South Africa’s.
It’s therefore critical that businesses save money wherever possible. That’s also important in South Africa, where the latest employment stats show an unemployment rate of 33.5%, representing a two-year high.
One way that businesses with field workers can achieve worthwhile savings is by using intelligent, or automated, dispatching. Whether the business is in the plumbing, construction, home repair, or maintenance space, intelligent dispatching can solve many of the costly challenges associated with organising field workers. In essence, intelligent dispatching optimises resource allocation by assigning tasks based on real-time data and predefined criteria to maximise efficiency and minimise costs.
“As a company with field-service requirements, the most important job is the one in front of you,” says Anand Subbaraj, CEO of field service management software platform Zuper, which includes intelligent dispatching in its offerings. “Whether they’re repairs, upgrades, or instals, service calls take precedence over everything else. You have a short window to assure your customer that your technician’s visit is at the right time, every time. Integrated dispatching can help you achieve that while saving on costs.”
According to the Zuper CEO, there are several ways that intelligent dispatching can save businesses money, including:
1. Reducing variables
Businesses that offer field services, no matter which sector they operate in, have to deal with numerous unique challenges around dispatching employees for jobs. These challenges include having a high volume of jobs to dispatch each day, a large pool of employees to assign jobs, employees that are geographically dispersed across a wide area, and contractors who work varying schedules (different days/hours). Jobs with varying durations and travel times, a need to minimise the wait time between appointments for employees (to maximise their earnings) and minimise travel time to/between homes (to save time and fuel costs) present additional challenges. Other challenges include the need to adapt to seasonal work and to efficiently dispatch technicians with variable skill sets.
“An intelligent dispatching tool can take all of these variable challenges into account,” says Subbaraj. “And once all those variables have been plugged in, it can determine the best way to assign jobs.”
2. Streamlining workflows
Another area in which intelligent dispatching can save businesses money is streamlining workflows. These streamlined workflows, in turn, save employee time, allowing them to focus on other tasks.
“Because intelligent dispatching automates field service scheduling, the business has to spend less time manually drawing up schedules, dispatching workers to jobs, and checking that those jobs are completed to satisfaction,” says Subbaraj. “That allows the people tasked with organising those functions to focus on other things, including revenue growth.”
3. Reduced fuel and travel costs
Another benefit of intelligent dispatching technology is that it can consider all the variables it does and bring improved efficiency to field service operations. That includes the distances that field service workers have to travel between jobs.
“If field service agents drive shorter distances between jobs, that results in an immediate saving in fuel costs for the business,” says Subbaraj. “For businesses that serve more remote areas, it may also mean that agents spend less on overnight accommodation costs.”
4. Enhanced vehicle utilisation
If travel between jobs is more efficient, that also means that the business is using its vehicles more efficiently. That not only means saving on maintenance costs, it also means that the business can grow without necessarily having to expand its fleet.
“For businesses with field service offerings, vehicles are among the most expensive and fastest-depreciating assets,” says Subbaraj. “Any savings on expenses like vehicle maintenance, insurance, and replacement can go a long way to improving a business’s financial health.”
5. Improved first-time fix rates
This might seem obvious, but when it comes to maintenance, repairs, and installations, being able to do something properly the first time is a lot cheaper than having to do it twice. By ensuring that the right technicians attend jobs at the right time, intelligent dispatching can help businesses reduce the likelihood of there being any mistakes that necessitate redoing the job. Different technicians have different skill sets and ensuring that the right skills are used at the right jobs is an important element of overall efficiency.
More than just making a challenging task simple
Ultimately, Subbaraj says, intelligent dispatching is about more than making the challenging and time-consuming task of scheduling and dispatching simple.
“Intelligent dispatching can streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and drive cost savings, while also improving the overall customer experience, showing just how much value it can bring to a business,” he says.