Case Study
Eliminating a mountain of paperwork... for 60 field service technicians servicing 15,000 pieces of equipment and filling in 5 docket books in the back of each vehicle.
Intro
With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central NQCranes have now got everything in one place, wherever their teams are
Each NQCrane field technician has one tablet computer, and access to everything in one place, in real time.
All other teams have access to the same information too, bridging the gap between departments and helping everyone be even more effective.
Pushing The Boundaries
NQCranes have always pushed the boundaries of what technology could do for their business, now with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central they can take that much further.
What's available out of the box with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central enables administrators to focus on client management rather than data entry.
Scaling The Mountain of Field Service Paperwork
We've all seen those scenarios, haven't we? Bits of paperwork flying around in the back of a technicians truck, leaving the docket book behind on a client site, vehicles being stolen (or worse).
There's also the inefficiencies of an administrator having to make sense of what's been written by hand, and re-typing it (maybe 2 or 3 times into different systems) including the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Field Service product for onward billing of the client, etc.
NQCranes found that Microsoft Dynamics 365 was the only platform that could be fully integrated to meet their current needs - and lots of opportunities to provide a better quality of service to clients in the future, as well as internal improvements to business processes.
Other benefits include the fact that it's an evergreen solution - so no capital costs - it's always being updated as part of the Microsoft subscription and extendible with little or no code.
The transition provided major improvements to business process automation and visibility across the business.
If you'd like to gain similar benefits for your business, as a Microsoft Cloud Solution Partner we can provide you with Microsoft Dynamics Business Central Microsoft 365, help you implement the solution and train your teams to maximise the benefits.
Details
Nobody needs to be locked to their desk - run the business from where it makes most sense
Challenges
NQCranes had no single business system that tied together all aspects of the business from accounting, customer care to field service.
Administrators were having to manually retype information on dockets from field service technicians when they, along with the paperwork, came to the office - often a gap of 3, 4 or 5 weeks. Sometimes the same data was entered into multiple systems, with the chance that errors could be introduced along the way.
This also meant there was a significant delay with invoicing the customer, updating records to show what parts were used on the job and the possibility that reserve stocks of frequently used parts were not replenished, affecting customer service levels.
Solution
NQCranes replaced their legacy systems with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Field Service, provided their field service technicicans with tablet computers so they could update Dynamics in real time.
They also used Microsoft Flow (now Power Automate) to automatically create a work order, Sharepoint for document management and other products in the Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office solutions.
NQCranes are also planning to implement Connected Field Service to predict equipment failures and ensure proactive maintenance is carried out so customers don't experience down time, and many other areas for improving the business.
Testimonial
"The ability to bring the health and safety KPIs and show the number of customer assets on agreement, the number of technician hours expected on services for the next month by area, to one screen, is gold"
Stephen Goodson, Systems Manager