Outsourcing

Are you ready to outsource? Do you even need to outsource? We’ll help you answer those and other questions regarding outsourcing and your company.

Once we’ve determined that outsourcing will render your organisation more focused on your core competencies, more cost-effective, and more flexible, we’ll offer you the full spectrum of our services. Our specialists can assist you in every stage of the entire outsourcing life-cycle.

Starting from evaluating what can be outsourced, through finding the right outsourcing service provider, building the contract and agreements, getting everything in place, and managing the outsourcing relationship – we’ll be with you every step of the way.

Learn more about some of the outsourcing services we offer:

Outsourcing Contracts and Agreements

When an outsourcing project fails, both customer and service provider are quick to put the blame on the other party. But in most cases, the actual culprit was really just sitting there since day one – a poorly planned and implemented agreement.

We understand how costly and disruptive a failed outsourcing project can be for your business. That is why we put utmost attention to each contract and SLA (Service Level Agreement) that our customers enter into. This always reduces the likelihood of having unmet expectations, one of the major reasons why some outsourcing relationships fail.

We make sure that each agreement is fair, not only for our customers but also for the service providers themselves. Why? Because a disadvantaged provider will most likely end up delivering poor service as an offshoot of efforts to improve its profitability and ROI.

To accomplish this, we’ll thoroughly assess the infrastructure, resources, and expertise of your potential service provider to ensure they have the capability to meet your expectations. We’ll also make sure that their expectations are realistic and clear to you as well.

Here’s what you can expect from us when we start managing your outsourcing contracts and agreements:

A thorough assessment of your specific needs and the service provider’s profile to determine whether you have the right match before proceeding with any agreement.
Professional assistance when the time comes for you to discuss the scope of work, expected service levels, and when negotiating for appropriate pricing. We’ll also help you set up provisions for possible changes in the scope later on.
Expert counsel during drafting and finalisation of the contract and Service Level Agreements. Whenever applicable, we’ll help you propose penalties whenever service levels are not met and rewards when they are exceeded.
Regular reviews to determine whether everything agreed upon in the past, like pricing and service levels, are still realistic or competitive enough in view of current technological advancements and the prevailing social and economic environment.
Mediation expertise whenever the outsourcing project appears to be falling apart. We’ll work with you and the service provider to resolve conflicts and avoid the expensive exercise of having to terminate the contract. But if the best solution is to part ways, we’ll make sure you make an exit with the least disruption, missed opportunities and financial loss.

Application Outsourcing

I’m sure you’ve come to realise that to gain competitive advantage these days, you really need to invest in IT applications.

There are applications for enhancing your customer relationships, speeding up production, streamlining processes, advancing collaboration, protecting your systems from malware and many more. Selecting the right application, testing it, implementing it into your system, and then managing it can deviate resources which would have otherwise been used in other areas to build business value, increase profits, and enhance innovation.

Wouldn’t it be nice to unload yourself of the management processes which usually accompany IT applications? Actually, you can – through application outsourcing. Application outsourcing providers possess the expertise to either partially or fully assume responsibility of your IT applications.

Our job is to see to it that you link up with the provider who can best answer your needs. The overall proficiency of these providers spans both proprietary and opensource solutions, allowing them to cater to a wide range of preferences and budgetary limits. At the very least, they can provide professional support for well established applications.

If needed, they can develop applications for your organisation, taking charge of every step in the system development life-cycle: starting from system initiation, requirements analysis, through design, construction, acceptance and eventually to implementation.

Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy once we start managing your application outsourcing initiatives:

Freedom from time-consuming tasks such as installations, upgrades, configurations and repairs.
Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
24/7 support from well-trained personnel. This can substantially cut downtimes caused by inexperienced troubleshooting.
The option to have your applications housed in more secure and reliable environments with much higher availability and much lower planned/unplanned downtimes.
Dedicated specialists who can focus on providing better regulatory compliance and risk mitigation initiatives.

Infrastructure Outsourcing

Keeping up with the competition nowadays usually requires technological advancements as well as the capability to manage and maintain the infrastructure that has to support them. These undertakings can suck your resources dry.

If you’re looking to reduce costs even while improving the performance of your networks, servers, databases, firewalls, desktops and mobile devices, you might want to consider IT infrastructure outsourcing among your top options. Infrastructure outsourcing service providers have the resources dedicated to a stable, secure, scalable and always available IT infrastructure.

Typical service provider facilities include data centrers equipped with high-speed networks, reliable power, dependable security, as well as provisions for upgrades, consolidation, disaster recovery, or even business continuity.

These providers employ specialists and staff who can manage and maintain all of these for you. While your provider juggles your core IT-related tasks, you can keep your eye on the ball and refocus on your company’s business goals.

Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy out of infrastructure outsourcing:

Freedom from time-consuming tasks such as installations, upgrades, configurations and repairs.
Since service providers, who are expected to have better horizontal and vertical scalability, will deal with the technological intricacies, your company’s strategic development initiatives can proceed unhampered.
Greatly reduced electricity expenses as a result of consolidation.
Easier, faster, cheaper, and more reliable disaster-recovery solutions through virtualisation.
Lesser risks of disruptions caused by power outages, cyber attacks, or Internet connection downtimes.

Business Process Outsourcing

With the sheer number of business processes your company has to attend to, it wouldn’t be surprising if you rarely have room to innovate.

Through business process outsourcing, we can free a considerable part of your financial and manpower resources which are currently focused on routine activities. With more resources to drive innovative initiatives, you’ll be able to accelerate production, improve customer service, enhance overall business value, and arrive at a stronger bottom line.

Some of the business processes that may be outsourced include data entry, finance and accounting, form processing, procurement, and HR, among others. If you’re interested in finding answers to the what, how, who, and where of BPO, specific to your organisation, we’ll be happy to enlighten you.

Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy once we start managing your BPO initiatives:

Professional guidance to ensure that your BPO undertakings will really result in substantial savings and significant improvements to your organisation’s business value.
Careful monitoring of service levels to ensure faster turnaround, accurate data, and high quality outputs.
Expert evaluation of information handling processes to guarantee full confidentiality.
Professional and unbiased management dedicated to establishing a strong, reliable, and fruitful relationship between you and your provider.

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Why integrating your Field Service Management with IoT Applications makes sense

Your customers want a smooth experience when hiring your services. Whether there are pests that have run amok in their homes and you have been called in to exterminate them, there is a leak in the pipes and your plumbing repair business is the go-to for repairs, you’re in charge of a cleaning business with clients spanning across the residential and commercial niches, or even a locksmith making new installations and providing aftercare for their clients ? it is vital to make the process as hassle-free as possible for your customer. The priority is getting the job done in time, and to quality standards. On the other hand, your mobile workers need access to complete and accurate data to approach the task more proactively, get it done right, and increase the rate of first-time fixes.

When you have multiple clients and a huge workforce, things can get messy with all the paperwork involved. Preparing documents and reports, keying in the data, keeping track of your mobile employees, following up on current jobs and scheduling new appointments ? the workload can put a strain on your staff. Field service scheduling software like FieldElite come in to keep your central office staff abreast with all customer details, sending alerts when new issues arise. These are then relayed to the appropriate technician for the situation to be taken care of at the earliest possible time ? directing the right employee to the customer based on the skill-set availability and location. While field service job management software, by itself, is a powerful solution, you can crank things up a notch by having a system that integrates IoT into its operations.

Powering Field Service Scheduling Software Systems With IoT

FSM gives maintenance firms, distributors, manufacturers and other service businesses an interactive platform that optimises the workflow. From the customers booking maintenance work, office staff tracking operations right from their desk, workers interacting with it while on-ground through the mobile app, to the billing and invoicing ? it is all handled through the same system. IoT applications can boost this becoming a critical tool to show the field managers about the precise locations where attention is needed, for accurate worker and job scheduling and improved customer satisfaction. What if you could also have features like auto-scheduling coming on board? Let’s delve deeper into what it means for your FSM system.

Benefits Of Using Service Management Software With IoT Solutions

Its impact of IoT on field management is seen in the transformation of maintenance data into proactive service actions. Research by Gartner shows that in 2020 there will be over 20 billion connected devices, making the reach of IoT really vast. This will fuel the field management industry, unlocking more potential with the mobile workers interacting in real-time with their equipment and headquarters. This speeds up response time to service requests and transforms interoperability across the different devices.

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The interaction with IoT benefits the technicians, managers, and customers themselves. For instance, while the worker on ground interacts with the FieldElite mobile app, the office staff at headquarters will be engaging them via browser on their smart devices, and even the client gets access to the system through the customer portal.

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It doesn’t stop there. Integrating the mobile service management software to the IoT facilitates inventory management, automobile tracking, and even automates accounting, invoicing, and other internal processes of the business, giving you more visibility over your field assets and operations. Here, the sensors that have been enabled in the network will notify you of damaged equipment, and go further to route and dispatch the technician who is most suited to go on-site and repair it.

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Updates from sensors on the remote equipment are sent over a dedicated network. This is intelligently interpreted by the IoT platform to decide the next course of action, depending on a predefined set of rules. This course of action can be assigning and dispatching the technician through the FieldElite app to fix the equipment before permanent damage occurs. This whole process is automatic, shifting the company from a reactive mode of operations to a proactive and preventative model, resulting in better utilisation of assets.

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Less time is spent going checking for flaws in the systems. Take management at a wastewater treatment plant for instance. Simply place IoT sensors on the different pumps, mortars and valves to give you this data. In case of leaks or damage, the appropriate operator is alerted, taking away the need for manual monitoring. Monitoring is done remotely. Hazardous situations such as in the oil and gas industry where workers are faced with issues like flare stacks are handled better, where the IoT sensors minimise downtime and ensure that only necessary visits to the plat equipment are done.

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The field service workers are also equipped with effective communications through aspects like the chat feature on the mobile app, and reporting abilities where they can make notes, take photos and relay this to the headquarters during the course of the job. Information on the system is readily available to the customer and future technicians who will be handling jobs at the facility.

How does the FSM work with other systems? FieldElite’s core role is to manage the mobile workforce. How do you keep track of the sensors of the different equipment, in order to know when maintenance is needed?

Enter ecoVaro: IoT In Energy Management

The 2018-2025 Global Building Energy Management System Analysis and Forecast showed energy consumption in residential buildings accounts for close to 40% of the world’s energy consumption.? Commercial buildings like shopping malls, hospitals, retail stores and hotels take 30%. IoT tools aid in collecting and analysing the real-time data consumption in these falsities, to improve maintenance and reduce down times. It’s a holistic view that is achieved through a network of smart devices monitoring the ventilation, humidity, air-conditioning and lighting systems.

Home automation tools like smart thermostats and bulbs are already becoming popular. Here, they bring savings to the consumers without them having to use up much effort. For broader energy management, these systems will include units like sensors, controls, meters, data analytics tools, and user-friendly applications that the consumers access all this from. It cuts across the board, from households and commercial establishments, to utility firms and government bodies keen on effectively monitoring and managing their energy resources. Industrial and commercial users need data analytics tools to maximise their productivity and reduce costs, while residents in households want to reduce their monthly bills and take a more proactive role in their energy management.

From Smart Devices To Accurate Loggers

The first step in saving energy is cutting down wastage. Smart light, humidity, temperature and air conditioning controls come in to maintain optimal indoor conditions. Lighting units, smart thermostats, sensor-based HVAC control systems are part of the IoT, taking centre stage in automatically maintaining the perfect indoor environment that will keep the building?s energy use at optimum levels. They have been designed with different sensors that check the humidity, light, motion and even CO₂ levels, dynamically adjusting the conditions in the facility. Here, you have situations like smart lights dimming when there is more daylight getting into the room, and then automatically turning off when people leave the room. The smart thermostats can precool the indoor space before the day gets warmer, so that during that scorching midday sun there will be less energy spent by the HVCA to bring down the heat levels.

The whole set up ? from the LED lights adjusting to user preferences and routines, learning thermostats that reduce consumption during peak load times, sensors and data analytics that give the user more control over their consumption, creates a smart energy infrastructure, be it in homes or industrial spaces, from retail stores and factories, to entire cities. This is all geared at cutting down energy costs, with the systems automatically adjusting the building?s lighting, temperature and ventilation, to reduce the energy consumption without compromising the comfort of the building?s occupants. LEED bulbs already record 20% lower maintenance costs than the typical commercial buildings.

Adopting IoT Applications For Your EMS System

How can you take advantage of this? With the EMS loggers, you monitor your facility’s consummation in real-time. Platforms like ecoVaro enable both the utility companies and end-users to access this data. The utility firms will be in a position to tailor the power supply in response to changing demand and also adjust their pricing. The end-users, on the other hand, will be in a position to control their usage at a granular level ? responding to changing environmental conditions, power consumption, and reducing energy waste.

There are also those appliances that come with sensors, from boilers in the household, to heavy production machinery in industries. The EMS systems allow you to continuously monitor the load on the sensor-enabled assets, predict when overheating will occur and pinpoint risks of outages or damage on the line. Maintenance can then be immediately carried out to vent damages to the equipment. That way components like motors are protected from damages that would have ended up costing the firm lots of funds to replace. The data analytics from the EMS platforms enable the energy manager to strike that balance to optimise performance and reduce wear, thus prolonging the life of the equipment.

Even the heavy hitters in the energy sector get to benefit from the IoT. Take power production for instance. When you’re dealing with stations, solar farms and wind fields ? as they provide that much-needed power, they also consume energy and need plenty of maintenance. These are resource-heavy stations and as a manager, you want to keep a close eye on things. This involves a complex approach, from the sensors at the facilities, data analytics, to predictive maintenance. EMS software comes in to continuously monitor the equipment and wiring through the sensors. This enables you to prevent issues like overloads, and ensure that a balanced load is maintained on the line. The EMS goes a step further by enabling you to undertake predictive maintenance, for the timely repair of the equipment on the power grid, minimising accidents, preventing blackouts, and averting the costly down times.

Electricity utilities connecting their power plants and grids to available IoT solution networks get to be more transparent to their consumers, by showing them where the energy they use comes from. This empowers the consumers with the information needed to select the cleanest energy source during that period, which is particularly beneficial for those keen on adopting greener practices. For instance, you can have a system monitoring a network of grids, and dynamically shifting to power sources that have the least amount of emissions at the moment ? what’s gaining popularity as “automated emission reduction”. These lead to utility firms that produce clean energy getting more consumers and growing their revenue base.

Field And Energy Management: How FieldElite and ecoVaro Work Together Through IoT

So, on one hand, you have the energy managers following up on the consumption trends at their facilities, keeping an eye on their equipment.? On the other hand, you have field workers needed to carry out repair and maintenance works at different locations.? How do you join them together to ensure a seamless flow of operations?? The IoT.

This can be seen with ecoVaro and Field Elite interaction. Here, you have two independent systems that are interlinked through the internet and secure cloud systems, bringing more convenience on board for the users.

Picture this: Loggers collecting data from the meters and sensors on-site detect an anomaly, which you will immediately be able to view through the ecoVaro platform. This can be a myriad of issues, from plumbing to electrical systems that need to be worked on, and they are at multiple locations. How do you get them resolved? Dispatch your technicians through FieldElite.

Here’s a snapshot of how this works:

This way, you get to optimise your operations and cut down on coasts ? taking advantage of the data analytics tools brought to you by ecoVaro, and streamlining your workflow through FieldElite. IoT powered workforce and energy management systems thus become key in reducing operational expenses, scheduling repairs and maintenance, and planning for peak hours

Accessing real-time data has the welcome benefit of cutting down on the hours spent on energy management processes. Jobs like meter reading that would have taken lots of time are handled by the system. When it comes to field management, operational efficiency is increased by taking away the manual processes involved with all the paperwork.? The sensors monitored via ecoVaro alert the field service manager about equipment that needs to be checked, and FieldElite shows the field manager issues that are on queue to be resolved. In both cases, you get accurate data that will inform the decisions made ? from the maintenance measures required, to scheduling the jobs for the technicians to handle them. It’s a win-win situation.?

Building Blocks For A Brighter Tomorrow

What’s more, this sets you up for the future. Adopting IoT solutions for your field and energy management operations will score you higher ROIs going forward. The global community is working towards enhancing the efficiency of its operations and putting in place sustainable practices in line with their Social Corporate Responsibility (CSR). This is from service providers like plumbing and electrical repair businesses, to utility firms and power generation plants. Lighting systems, homes, office buildings, factories, communities, transportation and whole cites are getting connected through the internet and more control done via smart devices. This is further accelerated by cloud systems enabling real-time, reliable and secure access to the information. By incorporating these setups into your business structure, you will gain a competitive advantage in your niche. After all, we’re still in the early stages of IoT across the industries.

How Alcoa Canned the Cost of Recycling

Alcoa is one of the world?s largest aluminium smelting and casting multinationals, and involves itself in everything from tin cans, to jet engines to single-forged hulls for combat vehicles. Energy costs represent 26% of the company?s total refining costs, while electricity contributes 27% of primary production outlays. Its Barberton Ohio plant shaved 30% off both energy use and energy cost, after a capital outlay of just $21 million, which for it, is a drop in the bucket.

Aluminium smelting is so expensive that some critics describe the product as ?solid electricity?. In simple terms, the method used is electrolysis whereby current passes through the raw material in order to decompose it into its component chemicals. The cryolite electrolyte heats up to 1,000 degrees C (1,832 degrees F) and converts the aluminium ions into molten metal. This sinks to the bottom of the vat and is collected through a drain. Then they cast it into crude billets plugs, which when cooled can be re-smelted and turned into useful products.

The Alcoa Barberton factory manufactures cast aluminium wheels across approximately 50,000 square feet (4,645 square meters) of plant. It had been sending its scrap to a sister company 800 miles away; who processed it into aluminium billets – before sending them back for Barberton to turn into even more wheels. By building its own recycling plant 60 miles away that was 30% more efficient, the plant halved its energy costs: 50% of this was through process engineering, while the balance came from transportation.

The transport saving followed naturally. The recycling savings came from a state-of-the-art plant that slashed energy costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Interestingly enough, processing recycled aluminium uses just 5% of energy needed to process virgin bauxite ore. Finally, aluminium wheels are 45% lighter than steel, resulting in an energy saving for Alcoa Barberton?s customers too.

The changes helped raise employee awareness of the need to innovate in smaller things too, like scheduling production to increase energy efficiency and making sure to gather every ounce of scrap. The strategic change created 30 new positions and helped secure 350 existing jobs.

The direction that Barberton took in terms of scrap metal recycling was as simple as it was effective. The decision process was equally straightforward. First, measure your energy consumption at each part of the process, then define the alternatives, forecast the benefits, confirm and implement. Of course, you also need to be able to visualise what becomes possible when you break with tradition.

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Energy efficiency- succeed and benefit

Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it is only transformed. This being the law of conservation of energy, and given that the process of transforming energy is inefficient resulting in loss of usable energy in the process of transforming one form of energy into another form, Energy Efficiency finds a home.
Talking of Energy efficiency, think of how much useful energy can be obtained from a system or a particular technology. It is also about the use of technology that requires a lesser amount of energy to carry out the same task.

Energy efficiency is the responsibility of both demand side and supply side. Supply-side energy efficiency refers to a set of actions taken to ensure efficiency through the electricity supply chain. Supply side efficiency measures are about efficiency in electricity generation; be it operation and maintenance of existing equipment or upgrading existing equipment with state-of-the-art energy-efficient generating equipment.

The demand side energy efficiency on the other hand refers to the actions taken to use less/demand less energy. Think of less energy usage in relation to improvement of energy efficiency in buildings, solar water heaters, energy efficient lighting systems such as Compact Fluorescent Lamps, conducting energy audits to identify potential energy saving opportunities, efficient water heating systems and the list is endless.

Success of energy efficiency is a win ? win to YOU-ME-US – the energy consumers, to THEM the energy producers and suppliers and to our precious ENVIRONMENT.
Gain to energy suppliers: – Less energy usage and better energy usage patterns among consumers consequently reduces the customer load which reduces losses on the supply side. Less energy loss creates capacity on the system to serve more customers.

Gain to you-me-us: – Less energy usage and better energy usage patterns Benefits the customer through reduced Electricity bills / $ savings through lower bills.

Benefits to the environment: – Usage of less energy reduces use of fossil fuels, hence reduction in GHG emissions hence conserving our environment. Companies look at means to make rational use of their least efficient generating equipment. The objective is to improve the operation and maintenance of existing equipment or upgrade it with state-of-the-art energy-efficient technologies. Some companies have on-site electricity generation alternatives and thus tend to consider the supply side in addition to demand-side energy efficiency.