Consolidation, Consolidation, Consolidation
In this post we explore 3 different dimensions to consolidating your critical and non-critical communications and messaging.
In the pre-Internet era, retail strategy centred on location. As the saying went, location, location, location! Companies vied on the high street and mall for the best place to capture visitor and buyer footfall. Where you were, physically and geographically, was everything, and rents and leases were set accordingly.
In the twenty-five years that have passed, we’ve seen an explosion in the technologies and mechanisms used for commerce and communicating with each other, making many of the old ways redundant or forcing them to adapt. Progress comes at a price, however, and that price is bewildering complexity and multiplicity of systems and programs for managing the different ways companies communicate. So much so that one of the key strategies of B2B companies is now consolidation, consolidation, consolidation. Consolidation brings simplicity, and with simplicity comes greater productivity and less chance that things can go wrong.
Consolidating suppliers means fewer relationships to manage and generally leads to better value for money, since each supplier is providing more products and services to the same customer. Similarly, consolidating technologies tends to simplify processes and makes people more productive. In the domain of lone worker safety and communications, here are three broad areas – and three opportunities – where we see consolidation developing.
Communications Consolidation
In a typical company you’ll find many different communication mechanisms and devices. These might be telephone landlines, smartphones, traditional mobile phones, pagers, walkie talkies and other types of alerting devices. That’s a lot of different communications systems to manage, and a lot of devices for workers to use, log into and carry around with them. Using software to simplify this complexity and consolidate different communication methods saves time, reduces confusion or frustration, and increases the adoption of critical devices and systems. This all contributes to greater cost savings and increased productivity.
For lone workers, consolidating communications makes their lives easier, rather than increasing the burden of things for them to do. The lone worker logs on to their device – or perhaps it’s a shared device they’re using from a pool – and the system connects the user to the number. On this single device could be software for calling, SMS, chat and push-to-talk for group communications. Furthermore, running in the background of the same device could also be additional lone worker safety and protection measures, such as timed check-in, SOS alerting and ‘man down’ detection. In the background, one communications and messaging management system monitors all connected users and their locations at all times, and processes and relays all critical and non-critical calls, messages, alerts and responses.
Alarm Response Centres Consolidation
Larger organisations, both public and private, have a wide range of different divisions, departments and regions, each with varying remits and communication requirements. It’s not unusual for government bodies to have a number of different alarm response centres (ARCs) or CCTV monitoring centres in different locations to manage different operational areas of the authority’s business.
Taking a software-driven approach – by equipping all workers within each department with ‘smart’, connected devices, and doing the same with important equipment, machinery and alarm systems – allows these larger organisations to centralise their monitoring through one platform to manage all communications. This means they can then channel all their alarm management and critical messaging through one response centre rather than managing different ARCs as though they were separate silos. Automating the various elements of the communications process allows organisations to cut down on both the human side and the bricks and mortar side, yielding considerable savings and generating a more watertight system that ultimately benefits both the organisation and its lone workers.
GSM and LTE Networks Consolidation
Many companies are moving to private GSM and LTE networks to manage their communications, and indeed are choosing to install LTE over wifi. Once installed, an LTE network can be used with any affordable, off-the-shelf LTE phone. It's resilient and has better scope than wifi for handling lots of data traffic. At the same time, customers of these technologies are asking their providers what else they can use their private networks for, what services they can add, to help defray the cost and get better value for and use of their investment.
GSM and LTE network providers are responding by offering specialist lone worker communications solutions like those of Isle Systems as additional cost-effective services to their customers, because they’re using the infrastructure that’s already there. For the provider, it’s another string to their bow, another value conversation they can have, and another way of cementing the relationship with their customers. For the customer, it's about layering important software-based lone worker capabilities over what they already have.
All Isle Systems solutions work over an LTE connection, allowing organisations customers to consolidate their telecoms and their lone worker, monitoring, alerting and communications over their private networks.
Talk to us about consolidating your critical messaging systems, your alert response processes, or to add our solutions to your GSM and LTE offerings.
