The solution is being rolled out on a phased basis and will be available to all 115 staff by April 2015.
Siclops is an integrated service management system designed for companies which provide installation, service or maintenance via a field or site-based workforce. The solution will be key to reducing administration costs, enhancing business intelligence and consolidating sales, marketing and customer services.
The increase in productivity will be driven by improved maintenance scheduling and field staff coordination, increasing DBG’s capacity to support more clients. The company predicts it will be able to support 1,000 additional clients per year.
DBG maintains dental equipment used in more than 7,500 dental practices and 2,500 GP surgeries nationwide. The company operates a team of 65 field-based staff who provide compliance support and training, pre-scheduled engineering maintenance appointments and provide emergency engineering support on a reactive basis. The solution will enable DBG’s 15 area controllers to communicate schedule and appointment information to field staff via smartphones and tablets.
The service management solution will enable area controllers to identify engineers who are closest to a particular client site and available to respond to emergency call-outs. Following the completion of each job, field staff will update Siclops via their smartphone or laptop, providing key information about the training or maintenance work they have carried out. This information will then be imported into DBG’s accounting system and an electronic invoice immediately emailed to a client. This replaces time-consuming manual billing processes.
Lee Kingshott, Operations Director, Dental Buying Group comments: “Siclops will enable us to improve our operational efficiencies. This is key to providing the highest possible level of service to our existing customers and expanding our capacity to work with new clients. Reducing the time between job completion and raising an invoice expedites cash flow and relieves pressure on back-office staff who are free to spend more time focusing on providing client support.”
Siclops will also be used to improve business intelligence; providing the company’s management team with detailed information about every aspect of the business. To date, this information has been difficult to collate as it has been held in disparate software systems. The data will be fully integrated with a reporting system.
Kingshott says: “Business intelligence is central to strategic business development and helping us to understand trends and patterns, which we haven’t been able to do before. The Siclops solution will enable us to analyse every aspect of the business and build a comprehensive understanding of our clients. This information will be used by DBG’s management team to underpin their decision making.
“The information will also enable our marketing team to identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling new services to existing clients and will be used as the basis for highly targeted campaigning. As a result, we are expecting to see a steady increase in sales.”
Advanced Field Service is part of Advanced Business Solutions, a division of Advanced Computer Software Group plc. Advanced is a leading supplier of software and IT services to the health, care and business services sectors. In 2014, the Group won Tech Company of the Year in PwC’s UK Tech Awards and ranked in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50, which recognises the 50 fastest growing technology companies in the UK.