After months of research and sitting through demos, you’ve finally chosen a new software for your field service business. What a relief! Now comes the hard part. Implementing any kind of new technology or business process in the workplace is a change that can really stress people out. Change, itself, isn’t so scary. What’s scary is the adaptation process, the frustration of the unfamiliar, the discomfort with something new, and the risk of doing all this work for an unsatisfactory return. Thankfully, there is a formula for successfully managing change in terms of implementing new software, driving adoption among your teams, and maximizing the return on your investment.
Here are some must-haves to guarantee a successful implementation:
1. Be a Leader
- Staff are more likely to trust and follow Managers who are dedicated to using technology to improve organizational efficiency.
2. Find Your Champions & Recruit Strong Team Members
- Assign and recruit staff members who are enthusiastic about learning more about the new system to take the lead. If you can harness the enthusiasm of your Innovators and Early Adopters to create momentum behind this new software, they will be able to motivate the rest of your employees to utilize it as well.
- If you have more than 50 maintenance contracts, allocate a person responsible to them.
3. Establish a Common Understanding
- You can almost guarantee low adoption rates if employees can’t discover a compelling reason to use the new product. As a result, make sure your champions are clear on what the tool is, what it does, and why you chose it. People should be involved early in the implementation process. Encourage inquiries and be honest in your responses. The better your champions understand the product and why you chose it, the more effectively they can communicate its value to the rest of your team.
4. Test
- Devote enough time to test your new business procedures in a test environment or controlled setting.
What we can do. On the FIELDBOSS side, the implementation process consists of 8 “phases” in order to ensure a successful implementation for your field service business.
- Planning: This is a high-level project plan and budget including multiple analysis and assessments.
- Infrastructure: This includes Office 365 migration, Microsoft Azure and Dynamics provisioning if required.
- System configuration: This includes integrations, automations, templates, dashboards, views and more.
- Client specific configurations: Including workflows, customizations, and unique functionality.
- New system testing: Business processes, mobile and reports.
- Go live process: Training, data migration, transactional support and month end billing and accounting support.
- Stabilization period: Typically ranges from 30-60 days.
- Project close: Documentation and transition to support.
You can view the full FIELDBOSS Implementation process details here.
Change is essential, especially in this difficult economic climate. But that does not make it easy. Because of this, your organization’s drive to implement new software must come from the top. Set the expectation and continually reinforce the messaging that your new tool will not only boost productivity and make your company more profitable, but it will also make your employees’ jobs easier. By being a leader of change and a motivator coupled with the tips above, you increase the chances that your software implementation will be a successful endeavor that delivers a high ROI and improves the organization.
Contact FIELDBOSS to learn how to plan for a system conversion, expose implementation risks before they occur, and set and monitor the benefits, ROI and Payback on such projects.