, providing a significant boost to the efficiency of the mobile worker.
Automate to innovate
· The survey respondents believe broadband mobile communications (60%), integrated vehicle telematics (44%) and RFID (38%) offer the most promising return on investment to their organisation.
· The efficiency gains from new technology could extend to back office staff as well. Across European respondents, for example, companies report that they are receiving 418 calls per day from customers asking for order status updates.
· By providing proactive shipment updates, a process enabled by location-based and mobile technologies, these same companies believe they could eliminate 20% of these calls immediately.
· This equates to 84 calls per working day, a time saving that could then be used to better serve a wider range of customers.
The need to re-engineer
· 44% of companies feel that process re-engineering is the most effective means of improving operational efficiency levels.
· Overall, transport and logistics managers feel that a process re-engineering effort can improve efficiency levels by over 13%.
· Yet despite this, over a third (39%) have failed to complete a process re-engineering effort in the last year.
· Of these, nearly three quarters (72%) have not evaluated their existing processes for at least two years.
"Customer expectations in the industry are growing ever higher, putting increasing pressure on mobile workers to meet tighter deadlines," said Sibio, "Our survey shows that the use of technology not only reduces call and pick up times for workers, it also offers customers the chance to make fewer calls".