Digital projects can have a dramatic effect on worker productivity. Digitizing paper forms enables workers to be more productive. It also enables better customer service, faster data insights, and reduces risk. However, often initial digitization projects fail. Read about the benefits of low-code software development and an example of digital transformation for field services.
Empowering Employees to Analyze Business Data
Employees are happiest when they're empowered. A recent study from ThroughSpot and Harvard Business Review revealed compelling data about empowering employees. The report found that organizations empowering front-line employees to make analytic decisions outperformed their competitors.
According to respondent answers, when companies gave employees better access to data and facts:
- 72% said they would increase their productivity
- 69% said that they would increase customer employee engagement and satisfaction
- 67% said they would increase the quality of their products and services.
This is a compelling argument for giving front-line employees better access to data so they can make better decisions. And data analysis and decision-making are only as good as the data going into the system for analysis.
Poor Data Quality can Hurt Data Analysis and Frustrate Employees
The other half of the equation is enabling employees to collect more accurate, business data on the front lines. This will power better analysis and therefore, improve decision-making. Unfortunately, many companies do not do a great job of collecting data. Business data is often housed on paper forms, such as order forms, inspection forms, etc., that are often incomplete, inaccurate, hard to read, or waiting to be keyed into a business system.
Businesses may pride themselves on using data analytics tools and hiring business analysts, but the costs of low-quality data are staggering. One recent article on data ladder.com cited a number of research figures that highlight the high cost and ongoing troubles businesses face around collecting quality data. According to the article:
- Bad data costs companies an estimated 15% of their revenue. (Gartner)
- The average financial impact of poor data quality on organizations is $9.7 million per year. (Gartner)
- In the US alone, businesses lose $3.1 trillion annually due to poor data quality. (IBM)
- Multiple research reports have shown that bad data is on average costing businesses 30% or more of their revenue.
- Nearly one-third of analysts spend more than 40 percent of their time vetting and validating their analytics data. (Forrester)
- ...and the list went on.
When companies collect more accurate data, ensure it's complete and make it quickly and readily available to the entire organization, these problems can be solved. One way to do this is retiring paper forms and digitizing those forms for better, faster data collection.
Empowering Employees to Collect Better Data
Digital transformation projects can enable better data collection and also save time because workers can optimize and streamline routine data collection or business processes that can be analyzed. Many of these projects involve turning paper forms or manual processes into mobile forms apps. Unfortunately, these projects sometimes fail because, while they turn paper into mobile apps, they:
- do not closely mirror the company's unique field process
- do not enable the field worker to be more productive than with their existing paper forms.
When digitizing forms, it's important that citizen developers how drag and drop software or low-code tools that can capture the critical steps used previously, add the power of mobile data collection capabilities to speed data entry, and create applications with great user experiences.
A Better Solution for Apps that Streamline Field Work
The best low-code and no-code application development solutions give team members the ability to add the functionality they need and development teams the ability to write code into the app if needed. This flexibility provides security apps that provide outstanding employee, partner, or customer experiences.
The Alpha TransForm no-code development platform offers an excellent path to digitization by including critical features and capabilities necessary to make field workers productive on a mobile device.
We've produced an excellent example of a business solution -- the Alpha Software Field Service Solution -- that offers the flexibility and enterprise requirements necessary for truly successful field apps. We've recorded a demo of the app to showcase the unique features that allow businesses to customize the form to closely meet their process.
View a demo of the Alpha Software Field Service Solution:
Digitize and Customize Field Apps with Alpha TransForm
Alpha TransForm enables workers to digitize business processes and deliver tangible business impact. It also simultaneously enables IT to control data integration with systems of record and data security compliance. Businesses can use Transform to digitize service repair work orders, inspection and incident reports, audits, safety checklists, dispatch and delivery, and inventory tracking. Spark digital innovation at your organization by using the no-code platform that is powering mobile forms at major corporations.
Try Alpha Transform Yourself!
Access the no-code app builder and start building field service apps in minutes. View our pre-built low-code solutions, including app templates for a range of companies.
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