The Right Time to Upgrade Your Software

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The Right Time to

Upgrade Your Software

Bringing business and IT executives together to

define the value, business impact and necessary

steps when implementing a new software version

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Traditionally, businesses have often left decisions regarding software upgrades to the IT department. This stance is changing however as executives are increasingly understanding how critical the software they use can be to their business’s overall health and performance. For today’s generation, competitive advantage is the key to success.

As delays and potential inertia from within the IT department prevails – often characterized by procrastination about implementation times, training needs, and budgetary constraints – it is increasingly the case that the business itself must convince its board-level executives that upgrading systems is not merely an IT exercise. It is also a business imperative essential to maintaining competitiveness in the market.

The operational dichotomy and business case are evident: IT departments seek risk mitigation, cost reductions, and high system up-time, whereas the business seeks improved communication with the field, higher customer satisfaction, real-time information and the ability to quickly make proactive decisions. Added

to this challenge is the growth in mobility and the need to operate on a flexible platform that aids change and its associated pace. Unfortunately, staying on legacy hardware and software platforms does not elevate a business’s competitive position: instead it only aids to weaken their position.

The catalyst for change is therefore unambiguous: the business must take the position that upgrading is a crucial investment for success. The compelling reasons for change must be sold to senior management for rapid upgrade decisions to take place.

At a time when many businesses are facing hard decisions about future hardware support with higher levels of service demanded by customers, and a challenging competitive environment, managing field service operations efficiently is becoming even more critical and staying on the wrong platform – hardware or software – is a recipe for disaster.

Executive Summary

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In recent times, we have been witnessing a new business imperative slowly emerge: the need to

implement field service management solutions. Behind this drive are many compelling reasons for businesses to invest in such technologies. Research shows that systems that support a customer-centric focus are the most important with 68% saying customer satisfaction was the most important factor in a field service solution, followed by customer retention (59%) and improving profitability, which was placed in the top three by 43% of organizations. Through better management of these factors, businesses give themselves a competitive edge. Those businesses that have implemented mobile workforce scheduling and optimization technologies - a critical area of the overall field service management proposition – have since realized considerable benefits including the desired increase in efficiencies and reductions in service delivery costs.

For many businesses however, certain internal obstacles are preventing them from also enjoying the full benefits that accompany their earlier decision to invest in efficient software. Primarily, overworked IT departments are reticent to upgrade software and hardware to the latest versions because they are overly concerned with implementation times, training issues and budgetary pressures. Such inertia quickly erodes any competitive edge that the business has gained. It is therefore increasingly the case that the business must convince its board-level executives that upgrading their systems is not merely an IT exercise: it is a

business imperative. Making this happen however is not an easy task because identifying the benefits of new software – or software upgrades - is critical but the business environment is constantly changing with new technical realities rapidly evolving. The future therefore always looks uncertain so what seems essential today may seem otherwise tomorrow so exactly where does

It is somewhat unsurprising therefore that in many businesses, their legacy systems are retained and they frequently fail to offer best business practices or the features that both decision-makers and the workforce require in maintaining their competitive advantage. Businesses are often delaying the inevitability of upgrading their systems and they are not fully appreciating the situation they are inadvertently creating: higher long-term costs with a loss of their competitive advantage.

The challenge however does not stop there. By casually dismissing software upgrades, the business is forgoing new features that could further enhance operations. Upgrades progressively introduce business users to new features that can require time to fully learn their intricacies. Skipping scheduled – incremental - upgrades leads to overloading users with a vast array of new features, which they must eventually learn and master. Considering that the new version may be generations beyond the original software implementation, this abundance of new information and processes can quickly become overwhelming and ultimately detrimental to the business’s efficiency.

The bottom line is that businesses are precariously overlooking efficiency-producing features which can, in turn, provide cost savings but if the IT department is reluctant to take action, then the issue of upgrading software becomes an immediate one for the business to manage and control.

Technology Issues

Although this discussion concentrates mostly on software upgrades, it is worthwhile noting that the problem often begins with hardware. Today, many businesses remain stymied by legacy hardware systems which handicap their software upgrade initiatives. This

Introduction

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IT department because, in some cases, earlier financial prudence delayed investment decisions but such prudence has more recently transitioned into financial necessity instead.

The notion of financial necessity is best illustrated using a simple example: the support of commoditized software. As computing moves from 32-bit to 64-bit processing, major software vendors – such as Microsoft – are terminating support for the older operating systems as well as the software that runs on them. For that reason alone, any excuse for delaying investment will make little sense to the business’s stakeholders. For example, in May 2012 research conducted by IDC found that 42% of the commercial Windows install base was still running the Windows XP operating system.

In this situation, supporting the aging Windows XP will become an onerous and wasteful exercise for IT staff. When Microsoft finally ceases support in 2014, businesses will be forced to upgrade. Financial prudence will clash with financial necessity.

By delaying the introduction of a new operating system into the operation, businesses will start encountering the issues of increased risks – of failure and security breaches - and higher costs because without Microsoft’s support the likelihood of system failure through viruses or overload becomes increasingly probable.

IDC’s research indicates that simply upgrading from indows XP to Windows 7 pays for itself in one year but when including the business’s increased productivity and reduced support costs, the upgrade then provides a full return on investment (ROI) of 137% over three years2_.

From a more positive angle, cloud computing is fast becoming an established platform that offers businesses lower implementation costs while

producing higher satisfaction results than many other software roll-outs3_{. The advent of cloud computing} therefore potentially solves the earlier challenge presented by supporting aging operating systems. As businesses seek to future-proof their systems, having a cloud-based alternative available may be considered as a prudent option.

The Mobility Angle

The ongoing struggle to manage legacy systems is further compounded when the IT department has to incorporate complex – and rapidly evolving – enterprise mobility capabilities. For some businesses, the entire notion of assigning employees with a mobile solution is still regarded as merely a ‘nice to have’ option. Businesses that adopt mobile workforce solutions quickly see how vital they are to the efficient running of their field service operation. According to Aberdeen Group, mobility solutions are recognized as being critical to maximizing productivity within the best-in-class service businesses - whose technicians are twice as likely to use mobile devices - compared to those businesses that are considered as ‘laggards’4_. It is therefore essential that new software solutions must handle and cope with today’s extensive variety of mobile devices working under Android, iOS, RIM and Windows Mobile operating systems. Not only is the technology itself vital for providing and receiving real-time information to-and-from the field, but the increasing use of bring-your-own-devices (BYOD) also helps to cut the business’s hardware costs.

1. Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP is a Bad Idea (IDC White Paper) http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/ details.aspx?id=29883

2. Ibid

3. Forrester Research, Inc., “Drive Service Management Adjustments With Peer Comparisons”, May, 2012

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The risk for businesses that are incapable of joining the accelerating mobility trend is that they may quickly find themselves far behind their competitors and operating at a competitive disadvantage. Globally, 88% of executives report that employees are using their personal devices for business purposes today. Some 60% of businesses are therefore adapting their IT infrastructure to accommodate this trend rather than restricting their employees’ use of personal devices5_. This flexibility can, however, come at a cost: businesses are allocating, on average, 25% of their overall IT budgets to manage some aspect of this so called “consumerization” of IT6_{. Upgrading to software that} is device-agnostic and which seamlessly integrates and supports this trend somewhat mitigates the inevitability of this extra - and associated - expenditure. Field service businesses with future-looking IT

departments are however looking far beyond just integrating back-office software with mobile devices - having the capacity to exploit the capabilities of mobile devices and easily designing and deploying apps bring an additional competitive edge.

The Business Case

While some businesses may find mitigating operational risks – such as simply keeping systems online - and lowering IT costs as the compelling reasons for upgrading their software, the benefits to business responsiveness should not be overlooked. For this reason, there are numerous other factors that are contributing to the business case for software upgrades and which remain unsupported by dated versions of the software.

1. Customer Satisfaction: One frequent goal of running any field service management system is attaining high customer service satisfaction scores. Achieving this requires service businesses to build an infrastructure that fosters collaboration across the workforce and that helps to produce innovative ideas. The latest versions tend to better facilitate such creativity.

2. Improved Field Communication: Aberdeen Group’s studies of best-in-class businesses indicates

that new IT investment is the most important facilitator in helping decision-makers improve their management of – and communication with - field-service employees. Such investment also produces innovation in the form of developing new services7_. 3. A Proactive Business: While the efficient – and

optimized- dispatch of field service resources has long been recognized as critical to any field service business, having the capacity to be proactive is also vital. Businesses need to adapt to changing market forces, new regulations, and changing internal structures, therefore a solution with purely reactive capabilities is inadequate to any service business. 4. Real-Time Information: Modern field service

management applications must handle and communicate information - in real-time - in a way that can also be used by flexible business analytical tools. Research by Aberdeen Group8_{found that of} best-in-class companies, 41% identified real-time

4. Aberdeen: Field Service 2011: Key trends in workforce management

5. Avanade: Global Survey: Dispelling Six Myths of Consumerization of IT, January 2012 6. Ibid

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solutions as the second most desirable tool in the field service solutions toolbox. Not only do these features result in a more actively engaged dispatch center but they also help field managers raise the utilization of their workforces.

5. Business Analytics: Most business decision-makers recognize that business analytics is often the rallying cry of many software vendors. However, the effectiveness of many solutions is often nullified because of unnecessary product-related complexities in generating worthwhile reports from the data. Alongside an inability to distribute useful conclusions to the business’s stakeholders these often compromise the actual usefulness of any analytics.

Learning different modules and applications and just trying to find task-related information can sometimes be a time-consuming and frustrating task.

The capacity for users to generate reports without the need for IT support in designing the interface and underlying metrics means service businesses are seeking ready-made - yet flexible - solutions. A study by Nucleus for IBM indicates that enabling end users to build dashboards and reports minimizes the amount

of support sought by IT departments. This enables employees to make better-informed decisions, helping to increase revenues and eliminate operating costs9_. It is probably unsurprising that graphically presenting key performance indicators leads to easier data interpretation and a commonality of feel across the system, which reduces user training time and boosts productivity. The latter of these benefits is highlighted by the increasing prevalence of web-based user interfaces which offer the capability to drag-and-drop graphs, tables and data, making a user’s time more productive. According to ClickSoftware, graphical user interfaces increase the productivity of dispatchers by over 5%.

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While businesses’ IT departments are typically cost-averse and do not necessarily embrace the latest – and possibly even the greatest – version of their enterprise software, the business case is clear: risk mitigation, cost reduction, and higher system up-time are all critical factors in making that upgrade decision. Based on the technical angle of the business case only, it is unsurprising that delays ensue. In today’s fast-paced technology industry, where having a competitive advantage really counts, such delays in updating the technical platform will quickly, and sometimes decisively, erode any advantage versus competitors who are more willingly adopting the newer products.

For the business and its operational departments, such potential inertia from the IT department is not attractive: for every delay there is a potentially missed order, or another missed opportunity that is harmful to the business’s performance. The business’s requirements are often complex and rapidly changing. Any delays in deploying the latest version makes it increasingly difficult to cover the delta in performance from where the business is today to where it wants to be in the future.

The business case does not stop there either. There are the employees’ usability perspectives to also consider that can further enhance service offerings and delivery. A business upgrading to the new version can:

• Speed deployment of new solutions to the mobile workforce.

• Provide a clearer – and more intuitive - user

interface that helps users become more productive and efficient.

• Develop a deeper understanding of the business process, which facilitates the development of better working practices.

With efficient field service management systems now a clear necessity, the opportunity to utilize a world-class solution is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage, corporate agility, cost optimization, and employee and customer satisfaction.

Delays simply put all these benefits at risk, so now is the time for management to take control and to “make it happen”.

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ClickSoftware is a global leader of automated

workforce management and optimization solutions for the service enterprise.

Available via the cloud or on-premises, our solutions provide organizations with end-to-end visibility and control over the entire service process, while providing them with tools to drive their business

forward by optimizing forecasting, planning, scheduling, mobile workforce management and customer communication.

ClickSoftware solutions boost productivity and increase customer satisfaction, while decreasing overall service costs. ClickSoftware is the number one choice to deliver superb business performance to organizations of all sizes, in all service sectors.

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