Catherina Hyde, Author at CACI

What have we learned about our communities in response to Covid-19 and How can data be used to support our recovery?

Posted on: 16 June 2020

What Do We Know?

Data and intelligence has always been used by local government to better understand residents and communities as well as inform decision making associated with the prioritisation of resources and the delivery of services to meet need.

Although the Coronavirus pandemic has brought people together and promoted a feeling of community cohesion, it has also put issues within our communities including deprivation, social exclusion and health inequalities under a microscope. It is here where up-to-date insight is crucial if we are to tackle these challenges now and in the future.

If we take a look at the review of disparities in risk and outcomes published by Public Health England it outlines a variety of factors – many of which we’ve been aware of for some time – such as age, gender and deprivation where the virus has been felt the most.

It found that the largest disparity was by age, where people 80 years or over were seventy times more likely to die as a result of COVID-19 than those under 40. These disparities exist after taking ethnicity, deprivation and region into account, however do not account for the effect of comorbidities or occupation, which may explain some of the differences.

Areas of disadvantage and deprivation also have a much higher diagnosis and death rates than those living in more affluent areas. The mortality rates from COVID-19 in the most deprived areas were more than double the least deprived areas, irrespective of gender. These results demonstrate that there is greater inequality in death rates, due to COVID-19, than in previous years.

Although age, gender and deprivation feature heavily in this report, the analysis also shows that members of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity have between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British. And people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death than people of White British ethnicity.

Talking on ITV News (04.06.20), the NHS Chief Executive, Sir Simon Stevens said “There are very deep-seated inequalities in this country and coronavirus has shone a very stark spotlight on those. We can see that different groups, different communities are affected unequally by this terrible pandemic and that is going to have to act as a major spur to some very profound changes in the months and years to come”.

We have also seen an increase in those more financially vulnerable groups who have been affected by furlough, cuts to pay and redundancies as lockdown has progressed. Many of the people who have found themselves in these situations have turned to the benefits system and charities for help and support. This is supported by the Trussell Trust who have reported an 89% increase in need for emergency food parcels during April 2020 compared to the same month last year, which includes a 107% rise in parcels given to children. Furthermore; 48% of the increase in emergency food distributed from food banks is due to people reporting a fall in income from work or benefits.

Whilst these challenges may seem like a big mountain to climb and our recovery a long way off, data and intelligence is a key part of our roadmap out of lockdown and recovery.

How Can Data Help Support The Response Best?

Often, the first port of call for public sector organisations is Government data (Open Data) available via the Office for National Statistics (ONS), NHS Digital and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). These are official sources and, since it’s on the Open Government Licence, free to use. But there are limitations: although a variety of demographic, health and income related data may be available these sources are rarely measured at low-level geographies and can be several years out of date.

Administrative data held by local authorities provides an understanding of residents who have made use of their services. Cross-referencing different databases can also help to give a more detailed picture of people who use more than one service. It’s a uniquely detailed source of data not available to commercial organisations.

In isolation, Open and Administrative Data only provides a snapshot of the bigger picture, preventing organisations fully understanding communities to be able to prioritise and deliver services to meet demand particularly in these unprecedented times.

Commercial sources offer a bridge between open and administrative data providing a more detailed and up-to-date picture of residents and communities which adds scale and completeness to the data mix. They can be huge; for example, CACI’s Acorn datasets are built using a variety of data including a lifestyle database, with detailed demographic profiling at postcode and household levels.

As well as its scale, the beauty of commercial data is that it’s constantly refreshed. The data is kept up-to-date, and in some cases, real-time. This brings together digital activity and behaviours, postcode and household-level granularity and the ability to segment community groups to discover their needs.

It is for this reason that using a blend of data sources is so important, particularly when tackling something as big as COVID-19.

Furthermore; we are living through unprecedented times and this was recognised by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock who tweeted “Public information: GDPR does not inhibit use of data for coronavirus response. GDPR has a clause excepting work in the overwhelming public interest. No one should constrain work on responding to coronavirus due to data protection laws.”

In April, CACI launched its COVID-19 local government data initiative with the aim of giving free access to up-to-date data and intelligence to local authorities. This insight has provided a detailed understanding of the demographic, lifestyle, behavioural and health characteristics of local residents, particularly those at-risk and vulnerable groups (over 70s and those who need to shield with underlying health issues) identified by the Government at the beginning of lockdown.

Many authorities who have been actively making use of data and intelligence to support their COVID-19 response and now recovery have typically benefited from the following;

Up-to-date understanding of residents’ health and wellbeing
Deliver relevant support to those disadvantaged residents who are financially vulnerable and those who face acute hardship
Better insight about those who are shielding
Understanding changes to those residents claiming benefits
Assessing increases in demand for specific services
Develop and implement communications and engagement based on preference
Prioritising the delivery of food parcels
Underpinning Council’ emergency response and recovery plans

In order to be able to understand the true effects of the coronavirus, data and intelligence about our communities will be crucial to support this Country’s move from response to recovery.

The Public Sector has faced significant cuts to funding because of austerity and the coronavirus pandemic has amplified this. In order to be able to deliver services to the at-risk and vulnerable members of our communities with limited budget and resources Council’s must make use of data and intelligence in a blended way.

To find out more about what this means for your residents and how we can help you better understand the communities you serve you can contact us now.

How Can Transport Operators Make the Most of HS2?

Posted on: 14 May 2020

The HS2 project has been subjected to much public wrangling, but whatever your view on the project, it is planned to be delivered and it is, therefore, prudent for transport operators and haulage firms to start considering the benefits that they may be able to derive from it. Away from the opinion pieces, there are efficiencies that can be unlocked and emissions that can be reduced at the individual firm level.

According to a Department for Transport Rail Freight Strategy, when HS2 opens, it will allow an extra 144 freight trains per day to be deployed across the rail network, carrying over 2.5 million lorries worth of goods every year. Transporting freight by rail, rather than road, reduces CO2 emissions by some 76%.

Put simply, HS2 will mean rail will need to be considered by all when moving their goods up and down the country. It will enable more firms to manoeuvre more goods at quicker speeds. The attraction is obvious.

Managing Demands

With many eyes already cast on HS2, the smooth running of the service will be essential. Rail operators are already well versed in managing the twin demands of passenger and freight services. When it comes to HS2, ensuring the correct scheduling and workforce management solutions are in place will be essential, on the part of the rail operator and the firms transporting their goods on the line.

Staff management will play a vital role in ensuring that firms and operators get the most from HS2. Understanding staff working patterns and ensuring that the appropriate people are in the right places will underpin the successful delivery of the service. For those using HS2 to transport their freight around, ensuring that their own logistics are in place to make the right deliveries and collections to and from the service will inform their understanding of the benefits of utilising HS2.

Environmental Impact

If HS2 will save 2.5 million lorry journeys per year, what are the benefits of this to individual firms? Knowing how many lorry journeys it will save your firm, for example, will help to promote your green credentials and monitor the environmental impact of adjusting the journey your freight goes on.

This is all about improving scheduling of staff and resources. If a lorry is being taken off one leg of a journey, how can it be recommissioned to improve capacity and turnaround times? With more goods being transported in and out of two major hubs, where will your staff resources need reallocating to?

Whilst HS2 is a long way off, the ability to gain better insight, scheduling and data analytics about your staff and network exists now, meaning that you can be better prepared to take advantage of future infrastructure improvements when they are presented.

Getting Ahead

Alongside the topic of improvements, advancements in engine technologies will result in greater fuel efficiencies going forward, with the introduction of hybrid and electric vehicles gaining speed. If firms are to utilise infrastructure such as HS2, this will result in shorter journeys for road transportation, bringing the prospect of using different vehicles into the equation. Elements such as knowing how long each journey is, in terms of time and distance, as well as understanding fuel consumption, will make analysing such decisions more straightforward.

Transport and haulage operators can gain oversight and develop analysis into their operations now. By operating scheduling, competency management and staff management from a central system, it is possible to develop such insight and make informed decisions in the face of future developments.

The impact of CV-19 on retail

Posted on: 19 March 2020

The last 10 days have seen unprecedented change and disruption to the UK as we know it, with schools now set to close on Friday, and most of the UK’s workforce immobilised or working from home. We have seen footfall drop by up to -60% in the last week, and it is expected that centres and operators will close this weekend if they haven’t done so already. The widespread disruption has had notable impact on customer behaviour, and we are now seeing the first CVAs and indefinite store closures. We believe there is a deeper story to the headlines, one which looks at understanding the store, centre, town and region level of how communities are being impacted. Here we outline what the nation thinks about the future of retail as a result of CV-19.

How Have Customers Reacted?

Unsurprisingly, awareness of the pandemic is universal, and has impacted consumer’s retail behaviour, with 86% reporting that they have made some change to their retail (non-grocery) shopping habits as a result of CV-19. Behaviour shifts are not equal across the UK with Londoners and Northern Irish far more likely to have already made this shift, as are particularly young and older shopper groups. This is likely a function of the more rapid reaction of Ireland and the greater penetration of CV-19 into London. Regions less likely to have changed their behaviour are the East Midlands, East of England and the North East, which house a high proportion of middle-England.

What Can We Expect Next?

The coming weeks will see a significant escalation in the number of cases and likely further restrictions of movement. Across the UK 50% of consumers are planning on further reducing their in-store spend. The groups most anticipating changing their behaviours are among the core shopping groups for many brands and centres. 39% are anticipating to shifting their online retail spend (this excludes grocery) in the period, but of these 85% are expecting to return to their previous patterns of behaviour. Whilst the consumer intention to revert to previous patterns in positive, it must be remembered that we will emerge from the crisis with a unique situation where everyone’s market share is near zero and all operators are targeting all customers.
This is an unprecedented opportunity to target previously very challenging markets as all shoppers are up for grabs; landing the right message to the right audience at the right time in a likely very crowded space is key.

Impact On Place

Recent years have seen a growing trend towards localisation, with a rise in authenticity and valuing community. The lasting legacy of CV-19 may well be a rapid acceleration of this trend. Destination centres will see a fall not just on domestic footfall but also a notable impact from tourism, both international and domestic, and will need strong communication with customers to recover once the situation has normalised. In some areas rising community spirit is clear, with local shops running door delivery, and community groups supporting outreach programs to those who are isolated, actions that are driven using social media channels. Ironically it is this wide engagement with digital that is facilitating a return to traditional values.

Impact On Operations

With falling footfall, stockpiling, closures of brands and shifts in people’s patterns of movement the impact on how retailers and centres operate on the ground will be significant. Looking beyond management of supply chains and stock control to the customer experience we can see notable shifts – for example many shops will be moving to contactless transactions and dedicated shopping times. It is key that brands adapt quickly to growing demands of operations such as home delivery services.

Impact On Leasing & Occupiers

The latest guidance from the Treasury suggests that the imminent threat of administration for solvent, profitable chains (such as Mountain Warehouse) this week have lifted, nonetheless many occupiers will be looking for rental holidays. Grocery, convenience, household operators and pure-online players are experiencing stock-piling and strains on supply chain – due to unprecedented levels of demand. Conversely, destination, luxury operators, casual dining and the leisure sector will be hit especially hard.

To succeed in this environment, operators must be nimble and empower local stores to do what is right e.g. home delivery, different opening hours, local ranging and be open-minded to change. This could represent an opportunity to fast-track existing trends such as connecting digital and physical channels – innovative brands should capitalise on it.

Impact on Marketing

In the current climate the role of marketing changes, it is not possible to persuade customers to still come to a centre, and nor should you. Focus needs to shift to how you better connect to those that have been retained; this will come through understanding who they are, what they need and how to meet their needs. This is possible using app data which is available to within 24hrs. It is key to both a) mitigate and reward those who are still coming; these are your core and loyal customers and will be key to future success and b) identify your target customer, where they live and how to re-engage them. Doing this presents a significant opportunity as market shares will be reset at 0% during the relaunch of these channels.

Coming Out The Other Side

The evidence suggests that most people are anticipating a return to typical behaviours. There is however an indication that younger shoppers are anticipating a surge in spend and are also expecting a permanent shift in behaviour (likely more online). While most think they will return to ‘normalcy’ the reality is entrenched behavioural patterns have been broken and the opportunity exists for centres and brands to redefine catchments and where people go to shop.

This is both an opportunity and a risk greater than anything ever experienced previously. Understanding how, and who has fallen away, and where opportunity to gain market share, will be crucial to maximising the return.

Conclusion: What Does This Mean For Insight?

More so than ever understanding the ‘so what’ and informed decision making is key. Matching the right tool to the job should be the focus. Pre-summer exit survey programs should be suspended unless there is explicit need. Short term focus on who is still coming and how to service them will mitigate short-term impacts. This is best done using mobile app data in tandem with Acorn and understanding why. Attention should then turn to gaining market share as restrictions on movement lift. It will be a level playing field so undertaking market gap analysis to see where the opportunity was pre-crisis is important, but so is speaking to your customers now to understand their sentiment. CACI online surveys allow you to listen to your customer in the crisis and position yourself to react accordingly. As retailers seek rental relief the opportunity exists to secure longer term commitment with innovative rent deals that value the online halo, and in any fast-moving bear market investors will be seeking opportunity. Decisions taken now must be informed with intelligent data and insight.

For a better understanding of how the changing behaviours of people in and out of your locations and stores might affect your business, please get in touch.

Improving safety inspections in multi-stakeholder scenarios

Posted on: 9 March 2020

Operating safety inspections is a vital component of running any public service or infrastructure. Be it checks on personnel, suppliers or rolling stock, understanding the stakeholders involved and the risks associated with them is something that not only keeps the service operating, but instils public faith in it, too. Yet gaining a complete picture is not always as easy as ticking a few boxes – it requires coherence and input from each stakeholder.

A recent case on the UK rail network highlights the confusion that can occur in conducting and completing thorough safety inspections. On 17 October 2019 a passenger train collided with a fallen oak tree at 55mph in Pembrokeshire. The train did not derail, although the driver’s carriage sustained visible damage and the driver was left with a minor injury and a state of shock. Suffice it to say, the incident could have been a lot worse.

You can read the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) report into the incident here. The accident, in short, had been caused by a diseased ash tree falling onto the oak tree, which sent it across the train tracks. As the report notes, all expected safety inspections had been carried out:

On foot tree inspections are required every 36-44 months
From train cab inspections every 12-16 months

The area had been inspected on foot on 28 June 2017 and from a train cab the day before the accident, on 16 October 2019. Neither inspection flagged any risk to the railway.

Shortcomings in the Inspection System

This is where the shortcomings of the available information begin to be exposed. Since the trees involved in the incident lay on private land, Network Rail, the owner of the railway infrastructure on this stretch, does not have a legal right to access trees which lie beyond the railway boundary. The oak tree which the train hit was not in a defective state and had been passed as safe by both inspections.

The oak tree itself had been growing 0.8 metres beyond the railway boundary but had been caused to fall by the falling of the diseased ash tree which had been growing 4.4 metres from the railway boundary. Gaining a clear understanding of the risks prior to the accident was incredibly difficult, and Network Rail is hamstrung in some of its inspection endeavours by the law of the land.

To further complicate matters, Network Rail contacted the adjacent landowners, both of whom stated that the land concerned does not belong to them.

This incident falls into a void of unaccountability. The tree which caused the accident had been, quite reasonably, passed as safe. The requisite inspections had been conducted and the tree appears to have been residing in a legal no man’s land. But does this make the incident unavoidable?

Prevention is Better Than the Cure

Had the train’s collision with the tree resulted in far graver consequences than those which occurred, the legal wrangling over the incident would have been far greater and blame would have been attributed somewhere along the line. It’s in no one’s best interests for such incidents to be at risk of being repeated; not for the train operator, Network Rail or the private landowner.

Establishing responsibility before an incident is possible. As part of the fallout from this incident, Network Rail is to publish guidance to landowners on its website. Landowners themselves have a responsibility to inspect any trees which may affect the railway and to take appropriate action to ensure that they do not pose a risk. The railway owner, where reasonable, should know who occupies neighbouring land to the railway and provide information about the potential risks.

By holding such information centrally, railway owners can keep a track of inspections to ensure that they are being conducted with the requisite regularity. Furthermore, they can open their websites up so that neighbouring landowners can report back with their own findings, essentially filing their own inspection reports.

Sharing Information

This information can then be fed into the railway safety inspection routes, whereby if a landowner has raised a concern, the railway owner can involve itself in the process of remedial action to ensure that any work has been undertaken satisfactorily. An automated system could be implemented using workflows to prompt landowners to inspect their adjacent land at the required intervals.

Such as system can also be used to capture the relevant information from the inspection and automatically schedule any remedial action if required. This could make the process far more efficient while improving rail safety.

While such incidents as the one in Pembrokeshire are complicated, by achieving a coherence of effort and understanding, the risk of repeat incidents in future can be greatly reduced.

The consumer impact of coronavirus

Posted on: 6 March 2020

Introduction

On March the 3rd the UK government started to move from containing Coronavirus to delaying the inevitable, and we are preparing for a widespread outbreak across the UK. We have already seen people wearing masks in public spaces, the panic buying of hand sanitizer, and cancelled flights and sports matches, however this merely marks the beginning of how this virus is likely to impact global markets, consumer behaviour and global supply chains. Alongside the headlines there is a human aspect, we are all consumers and whether we like it or not our behaviours are all set to change. Here we outline some of the impacts we can expect to see.

Consumer

CACI sees two key likely scenarios from the point of view of consumers:

The natural progression of the outbreak leads to the inevitable point where the government’s advice shifts from business as usual and to ‘self-isolate yourself if you feel unwell’ to encouraging the public to stay away from public places and to avoid large gatherings. This will lead to a significant drop footfall within city centres and regional malls.
Panic causes a drop in visitation to public spaces before any changes in the government’s advice, similar to what we already see following large terrorist attacks. This scenario is more of a concern, as the impact is likely to be more significant, and could last much longer than the first scenario. There are some signs that this is already underway.

Places

For big destinations, either scenario will have a negative impact in the short term, as footfall is likely to drop in towns, city centres and large destinations, if it is not doing so already. There is however a lifespan to these scenarios; the panic and mass hysteria will subside, and people will return to public spaces as Coronavirus falls away from the headlines of the news, meaning that footfall and visitation will bounce back in time.

Local destinations will feel less of an impact; the likes of retail parks and supermarkets will be less affected, possibly even busier, which already seems to be the case in China, albeit this market very different from that of the UK.

Impacts on Corporate

From a corporate perspective, the high proportion of the workforce that will be taken ill at any one time will (and already has) impacted the speed of decision making, meaning that brands may be less reactive, and delays may occur in strategic decisions, for example progress on new developments and store openings.

Fashion

Of more immediate focus is the impact on supply chains; fast fashion is likely to be hit hardest, particularly for those brands relying on China as a part of the production line, which was already stretched during Chinese New Year. A key global fashion brand has already implemented a plan B, which involves shifting production to India and Turkey. Not all will have this option however, which will lead to low supplies on stock. We have already heard of issues from a major premium fashion client that their Fall/Winter collection has had to be moved back by 2 weeks due to a factory closure in China; they are considering merging collections if the situation gets any worse. In the premium and luxury sector, their reliance on the Chinese middle class as a major consumer group will be highly problematic, and we are already seeing a shortfall in sales.

Leasing

We also expect the leisure and catering sectors to be hit hard; the new James Bond film has already been delayed by 7 months due to concerns over a lack of visitation to cinemas over the next few months. Restaurants are also likely to witness a decline in visitors, whilst conversely delivery services such as Deliveroo and JustEat are likely to witness growth in demand. In the immediate future, it is also likely that online shopping will see a spike as consumers are hesitant to visit shopping destinations.

Local Independents

On the flip side, this could mean good news for local, independent shops who are not a part of the global supply chain and are not dependent on high destination footfall. In the same manner, the second-hand market could also benefit from the global supply issues of fast fashion and the sort, with more consumers using charity shops or making second hand purchases on the likes of Ebay and Depop.

A Challenge Too Far?

Those that have already experienced a difficult winter trading period, and have already blamed the weather and the floods for poor performance will feel the impact of this change in behaviour hardest. What we are likely to see is that brands that were on the cusp of CVAs are likely to be pushed over the edge, with FlyBe having already announced that it is going into administration this week. Landlords are more robust as most rent agreements are already committed, however the decline in footfall will mean that retailers are likely to demand reductions.

Conclusion

Retail is the largest employment sector in the UK, and was already in upheaval, and this will further challenge everyone more so than ever. There is a need for brands and landlords work together to mitigate the impact of Coronavirus on the industry.

There are windows of opportunity for smaller businesses to benefit from the halting of the global supply chain; if smaller and larger brands work together in this context the impact can be mutually beneficial. An example of this is the ‘Brands at Topshop’ concept in the Oxford Street store; independent designers are showcased within the store.

This could be a solution to plugging the gap in supply, whilst also offering a leg up for less established brands. Similarly, cosmetic steps such as hand sanitizer, the availability of contactless payments and showing consumers you care will be key. In short, there is a need for both landlords and brands to adapt quickly to whether the imminent storm that will be caused by Coronavirus.

Empowering your workforce to do what it does best

Posted on: 25 February 2020

How much of the working day does your workforce spend on its actual work? It’s an interesting question to ponder and one that is brought sharply into focus by the drive for efficiency that we are seeing now. Gaining deeper insight into your workforce and empowering staff to focus on the job for which they have been hired are two of the main goals of efficiency. How can we achieve this?

Put simply, a lot of firms do not understand how their workforce operates. We recently conducted a survey with Surveys in Public Sector to ascertain how well public sector organisations structure and organise their mobile workforce. 77% of respondents said that their organisation struggles to plan and manage activities and resources associated with their mobile workforce.

The problem goes beyond mobile workers, too. Depending upon which research you wish to believe, roughly one third of the working week is taken up by administrative tasks; tasks which are distracting employees from their core functionality. Whilst administration is a natural process in a working environment, are we devoting too much time to it?

This is where efficiency comes in. How can firms manage their mobile workforce and their office-based workforce efficiently? How can they better understand how employees are performing their tasks?

One major transformation that any firm struggling with workforce management can make is to better utilise technology. From the same survey, 57% of respondents noted that their organisation uses Excel and/or paper-based methods of workforce management. This is extremely inefficient, resulting in the need to re-key data and instances of duplication of work.

Such manual processes take up considerable time and are wide open to user error. The technology solutions exist right now to address this. User error can be eliminated by insisting upon uniform data entry prior to exiting a record and workforce management platforms enable the scheduling and monitoring of tasks from a central source of truth.

Where organisations are relying on field-based workers, for example in the transport industry, schedulers can rely on a workforce management system to support them in their work, being able to take into consideration existing staff workloads as well as aspects such as a member of staff’s proximity to a job. This facilitates smoother scheduling and reduces the administrative burden on the member of staff.

As Rosalie Marshall of the Government Digital Service commented at the 2019 Public Sector Enterprise ICT conference, “We need to build simple, faster and clearer systems. We don’t want to be building a kitchen every time we have a meal.”

Utilising the right technology gives organisations that foundation upon which to structure their workforce. As an example, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which uses CACI’s Cygnum workforce management tool, deployed the system in order to move away from paper and Excel to automate the scheduling of their inspectors. In 2019, 45% of their scheduling has been automated, bringing greater clarity to schedules and workloads.

Cygnum learns from the input of the inspectors and schedulers via a genetic algorithm to better inform future work. It is helping CQC to better structure its workforce and, in turn, is helping CQC’s workforce to better concentrate on the task at hand.

With the ability to capture data in the field and interact with schedules online, workers no longer need to check in at a depot, download and edit spreadsheets or spend roughly a third of their week on administrative tasks and outdated processes.

The tools exist to empower your workforce to focus on what it does – delivering results, not completing onerous administrative duties.

How does your firm organise its mobile workforce?

Posted on: 21 February 2020

Most public sector organisations have employees working out in the field, those who are not always office-based but play a vital role in underpinning the operations of the organisation, from carrying out inspections to being at the coalface of operations. Being able to effectively and efficiently manage such employees is crucial in meeting targets and running smooth services. So, we thought we’d find out how organisations do it.

CACI recently ran a survey with Surveys in Public Sector which elicited responses from central government, emergency services, healthcare, housing, local government and third sector employees. The question we’re going to focus upon here is, how does your organisation plan and manage its mobile workforce resources and activities? You can see the responses here:

The results are as one might envisage. Of the 129 respondents to this question, more than half use spreadsheets, whilst two-fifths utilise specialist software to manage their mobile workforce. With 12% still using paper-based methods, however, there is clearly room for improvement in certain aspects of this subject.

The extensive use of spreadsheets and paper-based tools highlights that many organisations can improve upon their mobile workforce management, with 69% of organisations relying on these methods to inform at least part of their strategy.

Given that organisations often use multiple systems, respondents to this survey were asked to select all options that apply. It is interesting, therefore, to delve a little deeper into the responses:

5% said that they only use paper-based methods
7% said they use paper-based and spreadsheets
18% said they only use spreadsheets
12% said they use spreadsheets and a specialist system
18% said they only use a specialist system

This presents a clear picture of hybrid modelling, of patching together different methods in the search for the right answer.

It also presents an issue, in that 30% of organisations are relying on paper-based and/or spreadsheet methods exclusively for managing their mobile workers. The manual processes these represent is inefficient and worse, insecure. What if paper goes missing? What if spreadsheets go untended to? What if they get deleted? Who takes responsibility for the procedures and formatting? These are also incredibly inefficient means of working, relying on tasks being manually input and updated. There are better and more efficient methods of managing a workforce.

Moving away from pen and paper and Excel makes life a lot easier for people. Using specialist or ERP software enables employees to interact with their schedule and provides schedulers with a single source of truth. Red flags can be established within the software to alert schedulers to situations where an employee might be handed an unreasonable workload or where gaps might be occurring.

Gaining intelligence on the workforce is crucial in identifying areas for improvement and for seeing what works well. Little things like the software developing mobile working patterns within reasonable geographical proximity can help to get more jobs done in a day, reducing the wastage of unnecessary travel between jobs.

Furthermore, software can inform where employees have gaps in their diary that can be used to fulfil outstanding tasks. The employee can then receive an alert from the system to accept the job. There is no need to visit a central hub to receive schedules and tasks; these can be informed in real-time on the road.

The options provided by automation are vast and modern workforce scheduling technology is flexible and agile to the demands of every organisation. What works for one organisation may not necessarily work for another, so developing new solutions and integrating with different partners opens such software up to a whole new world of possibilities.

There is no need to utilise analogue systems in a digital world. A lot of public sector organisations have recognised this and are, at least in part, looking towards software solutions to inform their workforce management, with 45% using ERP or specialist solutions at some point.

Whilst there is a cost attached to implementing and maintaining software, it provides an unparalleled level of security and opens a new world of efficiency in workforce management. At a time when public services are facing increasing financial pressures, can they afford to ignore such upside in their efficiency?

Digitally transforming your way to efficiency

Posted on:

Efficiency can appear to be some form of professional nirvana, a distant utopian dream in which everyone is operating at full capacity. Efficiency is a buzzword of our times more generally too, in terms of our diets, energy consumption, transport, finances and time. It can often feel mundane.

Efficiency has become something of a goal of modern life, not least at work. As technology has started to play a prominent role in our professional lives, it has been natural to explore how it can make us better.

CACI recently conducted a survey with Surveys in Public Sector exploring how public sector organisations manage their mobile workforce. Mobile working has different definitions and can still viewed with some scepticism; are employees as productive when working away from the office environment? Where employees are working from home, this question is valid, but for many workers, being out in the field is necessary; from inspectors and auditors to consultants and transport operators, many jobs are not office based.

For them, mobile working is, simply, working. You can’t inspect a school or drive a bus from an office, so how can the workloads of such workers be made more efficient? Spending more time away from an office or depot is actually a sign of this and empowering these employees to interact with their work and schedules in a mobile fashion is a major help for them. Being tethered to a central location is extremely inefficient.

Furthermore, many desk-based employees cover a broad geographical area, necessitating time away from an office environment for meetings and conducting core functionality. On top of this, life can simply get in the way, with the need to minimise disruption caused by transport issues, illness and family life. Opening the working environment to access from beyond the confines of the office helps to alleviate the issues caused by such ad-hoc events.

This is one of the major drivers behind transformation projects that organisations have been carrying out. Digital transformation is the reimagining of business for the modern age, underpinned entirely by technology. Every company you know and work with uses the internet, which opens many possibilities.

In our survey, we asked; “Thinking about transformation strategies across your organisation, how much of a priority is increasing efficiency?” 77% of respondents said ‘high priority’, 21% said ‘medium priority’ and 2% said ‘low priority’. In the interests of rounding off the question, 0% of respondents said ‘don’t know’.

What this highlights is that efficiency is on everyone’s mind. Across other responses in the survey, ‘don’t know’ started to feature more prominently (you can see the full report here). Furthermore, 98% of respondents have efficiency as a priority, with three-quarters having it as a high priority. The search for efficiency is on.

The search, however, needn’t be overly arduous. It may seem like your own epic journey, but efficiency doesn’t have to become your Golden Fleece. Advancements in technology are making efficiency far easier to find. Automation and support of tasks such as scheduling, expenses, compliance, analytics and reporting make efficiency far easier to achieve.

Those 98% who consider achieving efficiency as a goal of their transformation projects should be able to discover it without too much of a detour. This will underpin not only future growth of your organisation, but also facilitate the work of your employees.

Those working remotely, away from the office, needn’t be disconnected from it. Rather, they can be empowered to spend as much time away from the office as is necessary to complete their function. They don’t need to be tethered to the office to fulfil their jobs.

This means that your workforce can achieve more. That, ultimately, is what efficiency is about.

How can field sales managers retain talent?

Posted on: 6 February 2020

Our recent blog titled How much does it cost your business to replace a field sales rep highlighted the cost can be as much as €103,655 ($115,000). Once you’ve found the right person for the job, you will want to maximise your chances of retaining them.

Reps move on for several reasons, but the decisions you make when deciding where to recruit, how you adjust your territories to accommodate that recruit, and your approach to route optimisation will have an impact on staff retention.

The Impact of Recruiting in the Wrong Location

So, you’ve finally found the perfect field sales rep who has all the credentials you want but they live off patch. What would you do? Employ them? Or take a step back and consider the potential impact on their longevity, other reps, and ultimately the success of your business?

I often hear people say ‘I want the best person with the best skill set for the job’ which is of course critical to success, but recruiting a good candidate in the best location can be more effective than recruiting the best candidate in a poor location, especially if you want to retain talent.

If you decide to recruit off patch your new rep will have to spend more time driving on to their territory every day which, whilst tolerable at first, will quickly become frustrating and stressful. They might say “it’ll be fine, I’ll handle it”, but in our experience, it seldom is. Depending on your approach to commuting (let’s not open the can of worms right now on whether the drive to first visit, and home from last visit should be viewed as falling inside or outside working hours), this could mean they have little choice than to work longer hours than their peers. Call rates will inevitably suffer resulting in lost opportunities and lower sales, not to mention morale.

Over time, poorly sited recruits will cumulatively give you a headache. When several people live in the wrong place you can’t change the territories to suit the needs of the business. You are locked in a situation where you want to make change to be more efficient, but your hands are tied and you find yourself giving people too much, or too little work because there’s no other way of cutting it. It doesn’t need to be that way. Recruiting in the ideal location, or close to that ideal location can lead to sales reps having to commute 43% less than if you recruit them in the wrong location.

Do You Really Need an Extra Head?

Reassessing whether you have a drive time efficient, balanced territory structure could mean you don’t have to recruit at all. The next time you have a vacancy, it’s worth considering if recruiting a replacement is necessary. It often isn’t! Instead, take the time to review your customer base and team workloads, and crucially include a robust measure of the time reps spend behind the wheel, which is often described as the hidden workload of a sales rep. This will confirm the size of the field sales team needed before you assume you need to recruit again. Efficiency often means being able to cover more work with the same headcount and makes recruitment unnecessary.

Optimising an ideal territory scenario that is driven by where your customers are located, rather than where your staff live, can be hugely insightful and bring to light a much more cost-effective field deployment that highlights the true gaps in your field sales network.

What’s the Impact of an Imbalanced Territory Structure?

When we run data on current team deployments through our application, InSite FieldForce, we see that the average territory workload imbalance is 18%. This is the equivalent to a rep trying to fit 6 days’ worth of work into 5, which leads to the new rep having to work longer hours to achieve the KPI’s set, confounded by frustrated customers who haven’t received a visit due to the territory previously being vacant.

The biggest cause of stress at work, according to this LinkedIn survey is workload and a poor work-life balance which is a concern for more and more companies. Territory and route optimisation will help ensure corporate goals of hitting a certain number of visits per day, and personal goals of leaving and getting home at a reasonable hour, can both be achieved. CACI has investigated the effects of work-life balance and how it can affect a field sales team. If you’d like more information, click here to download our white paper.

What you need is for all your reps to be working the same hours and living on patch. Our experience tells us that that this goal is rarely achieved without leveraging an optimisation tool coupled with a solid process of change management.

Optimised Call Schedules Will Help a New Field Sales Rep Hit the Ground Running

Giving a new rep an optimised call schedule for the next call cycle will help them hit the ground running and helps ensure that your route to market strategy is delivered, and the rep maximises every opportunity.

Imagine you’re a new rep and you have been given the task of building a journey plan for the next call cycle. You must consider visit locations, call frequency, drive time, decision maker availability, and a whole lot more. Even an experienced field sales rep will never be able to achieve an optimal sequence of calls on their own – despite their insistence that they ‘know their patch’ – and their priority should always be selling. You need to ensure your reps are driving less and selling more. CACI’s route optimisation software CallSmart can reduce driving time by as much as 22% in a fraction of the time it takes a rep to do manually.

If you want to hear more about how CACI’s field force optimisation software & expertise can help your company retain field sales talent, get in touch now.

The True Business Cost of Replacing a Rep

Posted on: 14 January 2020

Discover Why Turnover in Your Field Team Could be Costing You Millions…And What To Do About It

Hiring new sales people isn’t an activity that most people enjoy… unless they’re a recruitment consultant who makes commission on it! I certainly didn’t enjoy my last round of recruitment. It took nine months…that’s right, nine months to source the right candidate. I could have created a new human being in that time (though the time required to upskill that individual would have been impractical for recruitment purposes!).

Recruitment distracted me from my day job: I’m sure everyone involved in this activity would empathise with me. Anecdotally, every new recruit takes up six or seven working days from existing managers and thus affects everyday operational performance.

Unfortunately, for sales leaders, the problem rears its ugly head even more often than for their peers in other disciplines, with the Harvard Business Review (2017) finding that turnover of salespeople is around 27% a year – more than double the rate in other business functions – with a LinkedIn study the same year putting the figure as high as a staggering 35%.

Finding the right person for a role is a time-consuming business and very few organisations can claim a 100% success rate, however rigorously they screen, assess and interview candidates. A global survey conducted online by Harris Interactive, canvassing more than 6,000 hiring managers and HR professionals, found that over half the companies had been affected by a bad hire.

If you’re recruiting to grow your team, that’s a good news story, but even so, bringing new people into a well-balanced field team can create tensions and pressures that affect performance. If you’re hiring to replace a trusted team member who’s moved on, it can be hard for a newbie to step into their shoes and the team’s stability may suffer.

Putting a Price on the Gaps

It’s a rare situation when one sales rep seamlessly hands on the baton to their successor. More commonly, there’s a gap when a territory is left exposed. Sales education specialist De Paul University estimated that it takes an average of just over six months to fill an open position.

That may be higher for field sales, lost sales on that territory could make a €45,068 ($50,000) dent in your bottom line, according to De Paul University, during the period when your competitors are influencing key decision makers, unchallenged. Of course, it depends what you’re selling and to whom, but that figure could equally be an underestimate if you’re in the market to sell or merchandise higher value goods or tech.

How do you measure the impact on current and future revenue if customers or outlets miss one, two or half a dozen regular visits? What happens to the rest of the team’s performance if they’re asked to step up and cover the missing rep’s client calls while you find and induct a replacement?

If you have the data, you might be able to quantify a drop in the orders your reps or place or sales they record, and observe a rise in the popularity of your rivals’ goods amongst your customers. How long will it take to reverse that trend across neglected outlets? You might never make up the ground without extra investment in promotions or support to tempt them back.

The Total Cost of Recruitment, Induction and Training

Recruitment is one cost that’s fairly easy to size, in terms of advertising, agency fees, interviewing, HR admin, induction and equipping a starter. De Paul University conducted research in the US into the cost of sales rep turnover. They estimate €26,139 ($29,000) for hiring, up to the point when the new candidate walks in on day one and training typically adds €32,449 ($36,000): even a skilled and experienced rep from a direct competitor needs to learn about your organisation’s processes, your products, your systems and tools and unfamiliar customer accounts.

Maximum Alertness, Minimum Recruitment

The total estimated cost of replacing a rep, according to De Paul University, is therefore €103,655 ($115,000). What’s your turnover rate? Using Harvard Business Review (2017) figures, if you have 27 reps per year moving on, your organisation has lost over €2,817,912 ($3,105,000) in profit. And in a profession where skills are transferable and high performers are in demand, there’s plenty of pressure on employers to retain their best people.

Managers of rep teams and divisions need to keep an eagle eye on trends and factors that influence attrition – through observation, good communication with reps and from data analytics. Any warning sign of increasing rep turnover needs investigating. When reps move on, it’s critical to find out why.

There are things you can do to minimise ‘push’ factors: work-life balance is a key priority. In our thirty years as Field Sales Planning specialists we’ve seen businesses get this wrong time and time again. If you have too many reps, staffing and associated costs are higher than they should be as well as reps being under-utilised. If there are too few, reps will feel stressed, overworked and generally disgruntled. Either scenario can fuel attrition, forcing a business to recruit once again and perpetuate operational instability and a lack of coverage.

Recent analysis by CACI shows that 32% of a sales person’s time is spent behind the wheel, the impact of recruiting in the wrong location can lead to sales reps having to commute a whopping 43% more than if we can recruit them in the ideal location.

Breaking The Cycle: How to Sustain an Optimal Rep Team

If you want to hear more about how CACI’s Field Force expertise can help your company reduce recruitment costs, improve rep retention rates through better work-life balance and employ the right number of field sales reps in the right location, get in touch now.

CACI has investigated the effects of work-life balance and how it can affect a field sales team. If you’d like more information click here to download our white paper.