Maps Are Going Google

Manage Mobile Teams Efficiently

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Manage Mobile Teams Efficiently

The archetypal nine-to-fiver behind a desk represents only a small fraction of our global workforce. In many industries — from emergency management to utilities to retail — entire teams spend most or all of their time in the field, responding to round-the-clock situations and customer needs.

Maps Are Going Google

By 2015,

A

37

%

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of the workforce will be mobile.

ccording to IDC research, the world’s mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion by 2015. That is 300 million more mobile workers than in 2010.1

For the companies that employ these roving workforces, it’s important to keep mobile teams connected, customers satisfied, and dispersed assets protected every hour of every day. There’s no doubt about it; managing mobile teams takes chops… and the right tools. Now that location data is so easy to come by from a multitude of mobile devices connecting teams in real-time, innovative companies are finding new ways to more efficiently manage resources — human or otherwise — using dynamic maps coordinated in the cloud. Read on to learn how leading companies are dispatching workers, rerouting them on-the-fly, accounting for people and assets during emergencies, and keeping customers informed along the way — all from a map.

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Manage Mobile Teams Efficiently

Keeping Customers on the Move It’s dark, it’s raining, and your car just broke down on the side of the highway. If you’ve ever been in this predicament, you know the frustration and dread of being stranded in an unfamiliar, potentially unsafe place.

Getting There Faster in the First Place

John Hnidec, senior analyst developer for Allianz Global

In the past, Allianz Global Assistance operators had to rely

Assistance, understands the importance of reacting quickly

on mobile phone contact and, sometimes, the best guesses

when customers are in distress on the side of the road.

of roadside operators for their locations. And without a way

Australian and Kiwi motorists trust the roadside assistance

to visualize mobile workers’ locations or where they were

and travel insurance company to come to the rescue when

headed, dispatchers counted on phone calls to track down

their vehicles break down.

drivers and assign jobs.

In 2013, Allianz Global Assistance responded to distress

Now Allianz Global Assistance uses cloud-based mapping

calls from over 150,000 stranded motorists and provided

technology to pinpoint members and mobile teams on one

overseas medical assistance to over 14,000 customers. To

real-time map. Using Street View, dispatchers can locate

do this well, it enlisted help from a map.

customers quickly — even if they’re lost or confused — and

Allianz Global Assistance’s goal is to get help to stranded customers as soon as possible, before anything else can go wrong. That means knowing the location of each motorist and the closest driver available to respond.

match up the most suitable operator. “Because we now know where our guys are and where they’re going, we can dispatch jobs in a smarter way,” John explains. “We no longer have operator vehicles crisscrossing all day. Instead, we send whichever is the best choice — not necessarily the one that’s closest, but based on what’s in the queue.”

Maps Are Going Google

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The hardware in our vehicles has both GPS and G-force sensors, so we know immediately if one of our own vehicles has been in an accident and can respond quickly. After all, we’ve got two groups of people to keep safe — the ones stranded on the side of the road, and our drivers who are headed to help them. Feedback from both has been great.” The result: Initial call times have been greatly reduced, and

— John Hnidec

customer fovllow-up calls have greatly declined as well,

Senior Analyst Developer

because drivers are getting there faster in the first place.

Shaving Off Dollars while Keeping People Moving

“If someone breaks a leg in the middle of India, we need to know exactly where he is and the location of the near-

Using data from the map, Allianz Global Assistance can also

est preferred hospital,” says John. “Just as importantly, we

predict how many vehicles it will need on any given day, and

need to know which hospitals not to recommend.”

more importantly, exactly where to place those vehicles during peak traffic times.

With maps in its arsenal, Allianz Global Assistance keeps customers kept safe and healthy, whether they have a

This enables the Allianz Global Assistance mobile team to

flat tire in Australia, a car accident in New Zealand, or a

help a greater number of customers in less time. Added

broken bone in India.

bonus: The company cuts down on fuel costs by shaving off inefficiencies and saves money on driver overages.

The Right Information, Wherever You Are Although based in the southern hemisphere, Allianz Global Assistance does business all over the globe. Through its travel insurance service, Allianz Global Assistance maps hundreds of thousands of POIs, hospitals, and medical centers on every continent so that it can recommend medical help to customers who are traveling abroad, no matter where they might be.

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Manage Mobile Teams Efficiently

The Solution: Location Precision For companies like Allianz Global Assistance, efficient management of a mobile workforce is the very thing that keeps customers safe and happy.

Welcome to the Mobile Era of Business Most of us are now mobile workers to some extent. Whether your team telecommutes every day, works

Maps are a brilliant way to manage all of their re-

from home on occasion, or spends all day in the field

sources — from physical assets to the humans they’re

like in the instances we’ve highlighted below, not all

responsible for.

work happens behind a desk these days. Just consider the following:

But it’s not just customer service enterprises like Allianz Global Assistance at the vanguard of geo technology, using maps both to streamline budgets and make lives a little easier for mobile workers. Keep reading to find out how sports teams, utilities companies, law enforcement, and retailers are innovating operations using maps.

48

%

of workers already use smartphones for business. (Forrester Research, 2013)

32

of our workforce relies on two or more

1.2B

By 2015, the number of connected smart

36

Tablet shipments will reach 1+ billion by

%

%

devices. (Cisco, 2012)

devices in the world will reach 1.2 billion (IDC Australia)

2017 for a compound annual growth rate of 36%

(The Yankee Group, 2013)

Maps Are Going Google

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Insight

Keeping Google Safe & Secure By Kimberly Birdsall Global Security Operations Center Manager at Google

With 70 campuses in more than 40 countries and the number of Googlers constantly growing, one of our top priorities is safety within our ranks, and maps play a crucial role.

A typical day at Google runs pretty smoothly, but occasionally there’s a medical or other emergency. The map lets us quickly dispatch the closest EMT-trained mobile unit to the scene, ensuring help arrives ASAP. And officers can use their mobile devices to communicate on-the-fly notes about events. This is very useful for helping us capture information and important numbers — data we can

At the Googleplex in Mountain View, more than two dozen

use in the future to better plan security at our locations

trained security officers roam the campus every day,

around the world.

dealing with incidents and requests as they come up — anything from visitors who need escorts to tripped alarms.

We haven’t always used such high-tech maps to organize

We can’t always predict what a given day will bring, but we

our security team. In the “olden days” of Google, dispatch-

can be prepared to dispatch officers quickly.

ers relied on radio calls alone to track down officers and assign them to tasks. This made for a lot of radio traffic,

For this, we use Google Maps Coordinate, a workforce

and a little bit of chaos. While we still use radios for many

management tool that displays the location of each mo-

things, our growing use of maps reduces confusion and

bile security officer on a wall-sized screen. Those shown in

response time, helping us keep our growing workforce

green are available; those in red are already working on an

safe around the clock.

assignment. One glance at the map tells us exactly where all officers are and who is free to take on new tasks.

All in all, we handle about 3,000 security tasks a month in Mountain View alone! Without maps, it would be mayhem.

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Manage Mobile Teams Efficiently

Fresher Food, Faster Ocado, the world’s largest online-only grocery retailer, operates round-the-clock, delivering food from three U.K.-based distribution centers to hundreds of thousands of customers a week. Ocado is taking the headache out of grocery shopping. But if bananas go bad and milk sours en route, an online delivery service isn’t very helpful. To keep customers happy, an online grocer must be organized, efficient, and transparent. Challenge: Ocado’s online ordering service produces 2.5 megabytes of data every second, and all of that information must be captured and put to use in a scalable way. More importantly, it must be visually translated for customers so they can tell where their groceries are at a glance. Solution: When a business’s transactions take place exclusively in the cloud, it makes sense to use cloud-based tools for business operations. Ocado recently built a new “Where’s My Order” app, which lets hungry customers see exactly when their perishables leave the warehouse and when their deliveries should arrive. They can even follow progress of their orders through the streets on a map, right to their front doors. With its modern spin on the traditional grocery, Ocado is creating — and conquering — brand new business challenges every day, thanks to maps.

We’re all about making things simple for our customers. But behind that simplicity, there’s an immense amount of complexity and technology. The cloud is key for that.” — Paul Clarke Director of Technology, Ocado Limited

Maps Are Going Google

Put Maps to Work for Your Business With less and less people reporting to an office every day, business management solutions that help organizations coordinate from the cloud offer a huge competitive advantage. Map-based tools let organizations monitor and communicate with remote employees and customers in a streamlined, visual way. Employees are more efficient. Customers are happier. Assets are well-protected. And all of the above are kept safe and sound. That’s just good business.

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