Developing a business case

richiee

I work for a an organisation employing around 70 tradesmen/women. We work on repairs and services of a variety of machinery and equipment in a number of sectors. Our parent company recently replaced all the company computers and laptops. Approximately 40% of the service technicians are provided with laptops and the remaining 60% submit reports, time sheets and various other correspondence with HQ via paper documents. I am hoping to come up with a business case to put to senior management to outline the benefits of supplying laptops to all technicians. In my eyes, as I deal with a lot of the paperwork, its a no brainer. Its pretty difficult to quantify however, what the benefits are in Euro terms. Any suggestions on how to go about this?

Thanks

antoinolachtnai

You quantify the time savings essentially. What it comes down to is that people will be able to do an extra job (or whatever) per day. There will also be a saving in keying stuff in and you need to quantify that.

You can do this easily enough by looking at the performance of the current laptop users.

One big thing you have to take account of, and which is very difficult to quantify are the 'soft costs' - training for these people. Part of the reason they didn't get one before may be that they don't really want one or don't know how to use it.

At this stage of the game, I'd be suggesting you look at the case for a smart phone or tablet rather than a laptop. They are more suitable for people doing that sort of fieldwork. The camera is useful for recording the state of the job before they began work and when they finished, for example, and to take a photo as an aide memoire of what parts where changed or repaired.

The other thing to bring into it is job dispatching via a phone or tablet. This allows more flexible management of the workforce.

All this does require investment in software and training as well as actual hardware to get the benefits and that is the tricky part.

pedroeibar1

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

.....I'd be suggesting you look at the case for a smart phone or tablet rather than a laptop. .......The camera is useful for recording the state of the job before they began work and when they finished, for example, and to take a photo as an aide memoire of what parts where changed or repaired..............All this does require investment in software and training as well as actual hardware to get the benefits and that is the tricky part.

+1 several times over. You need to look at something like Snapfile.