Unlocking The Power Of Business Communications With Data Apps
Supercharging Digital Radios With Data
Whatever the business, whoever the user, our extensive range of radios and accessories helps your people tackle challenges head-on. With the right devices in the right hands, everyone can respond and react quickly to every eventuality.
But how can those devices be made even more effective, so every task is more productive and safer? In this section, we look at integrating data applications into your digital radios to extend their functionality beyond just voice. We identify the benefits of having real-time information at your fingertips and pose the question: is this something you need? Or more specifically, would your people work more effectively if they could receive instant project updates on their devices, access special skills and knowledge at the touch of a button and message colleagues in seconds?
Deciding whether to add data applications to your communication system is an important step. And with a useful overview of our extensive range of applications, available for multiple tasks on MOTOTRBO devices, this section helps you evaluate whether it’s a step worth taking. Without doubt, many organizations are already benefiting from the power of data applications through enhanced productivity, efficiency and safety. So, is it for you? And if so, which specific applications meet your requirements and how do you get started?
Evaluating Your Business – Spotting Shortfalls
Every business faces multiple challenges that have to be overcome to run smoothly and seamlessly. Identifying these challenges is a vital starting point. You may recognize, or be a victim of the most common, which include:
Workforce Skills Shortages
Do all your employees have the necessary knowledge or experience to handle every task efficiently? If not, they’ll need to locate and ask colleagues for help or rely on others, all of which takes up time. And if they try to do jobs themselves without the right skills, quality and safety could be compromised.
Slow Reaction Times
We all want to be proactive, or ready to respond in an instant to any unforeseen eventuality. But in a hectic business environment, with no time to assess operations or spot warning signs, it’s so easy to be the reverse: reactive or slow to respond. When that happens, we waste precious time fighting the fallout.
Organizational Delays
The bigger your business and the more sites you operate, the harder it is to keep everything slick and fluid. You need precise planning, organization, execution and delivery to efficiently manage resources – even the slightest delays can have serious commercial implications.
Inadequate Safety Measures
How well do you protect your employees, clients and guests? Safety is easily compromised, but the implications can be disastrous – from injuries that weaken your workforce to tragic fatalities, leading to fines and prosecution that could close your business.
Information Overload
Data is great, but you can have too much of it. Too many options, too many feeds, too much data that isn’t relevant. Information overload bogs you down and makes prioritizing important tasks even more difficult, leading to oversights and mistakes.
Evaluating Your Communications – Identifying Gaps
Your communications system also faces multiple challenges that need addressing before your people and assets can connect seamlessly. These challenges include:
Unsuitable Communication Devices
Do your devices allow your people to do everything they need to do? If they don’t, then an employee may need to carry multiple devices providing different services and information to perform tasks – an expensive and cumbersome option.
Uncoordinated Control & Management
Are your systems coordinated? A lack of central control combined with devices that don’t talk to each other creates operational inefficiencies. Time delays, information oversights – employees with a poor view of the job at hand and no clear sense of direction are more likely to make flawed decisions.
Communication Breakdown & Confusion
Cross communication between employees leads to different people doing the same job or nobody doing the job at all. While a duplication of effort is highly inefficient, having tasks left unassigned and overlooked can potentially jeopardize a whole project.
Delayed Emergency Response
How quickly can you identify an emergency situation and put in place a rapid response? Delays increase the impact of incidents and injuries with potentially catastrophic consequences. They also extend the time workers are out of action, disrupting the smooth running of your business.
Systems Unchecked & Failures Unidentified
Are you able to instantly spot a system failure before the problem becomes a crisis? If you rely on manual checks without remote monitoring and automated alerts, chances are failures will go undetected – something that poses a serious threat to your business.
8 Ways Data Insights Tackle Your Challenges
Earlier in this section we identified some general business and communication shortfalls that can challenge, or even derail your business. And we’ve highlighted data applications as a possible solution. But how do you decide which apps are right for you? Or more specifically, having pinpointed the gaps, which apps are most suited to fill them?
The features of data applications can be segregated into eight key areas. Let’s take a look at these:
- Alarm & Telemetry
Challenge: How to react faster to emergencies and spot system failures.
With alarm and telemetry apps, you can instantly receive information from sensors and detection equipment and take action. Automatically deliver alerts to the right people via text messaging and you empower an immediate response during an emergency. Because the alarms are sent to their device, they can be read on the move so there’s no need for them to return to base. These apps help you avoid downtime and protect people and assets. - Control Room Solutions
Challenge: Improve central control of your systems and operations.
An integrated control room solution allows centralized management of your data and gives you a complete overview of systems and operations. You can see real-time activity at-a-glance and send critical notifications to staff or equipment. Having all essential data in one place helps you optimize efficiency, productivity and safety. - Interoperability
Challenge: Connect all your devices and networks for seamless communication.
If your people use multiple devices, look at WAVE, a powerful Push-to-Talk platform that connects all your disparate devices and networks, so everyone can easily communicate between smartphones, radios, computers or landlines. It turns Android and iOS devices into multi-channel PTT handsets, allowing fully secure, real-time voice communications anywhere there’s a network connection. - Situational Awareness
Challenge: Know where everyone is, all the time.
With a complete overview of activity, it’s easier to track people and assets and identify problems. Some apps include location tracking using GPS or Bluetooth iBeacons and include lone worker and man down features for greater safety and efficiency. Workers can also benefit from the latest information and communicate instantly with colleagues to gain an up-to-the-minute understanding of what is happening around them – vital when dealing with the safety of staff or members of the public. - Digital Media Recording And Management
Challenge: Capture vital information for faster, more efficient action.
Call recording apps securely and reliably record data from radio messages and talk groups, preserving a vital source of information. Call logs can be used to train new staff, or to define process improvements that can help initiate faster, more efficient future responses. And since call data and voice recordings are preserved, you maintain a clear audit trail for evidential analysis. Data is time stamped, making it easy to find specific recordings. - Workforce Efficiency And Management
Challenge: Maximize the productivity of your people.
Getting the most out of your workforce is critical. These apps provide a whole range of productivity enhancing features including work ticket management for efficient assignment and re-assignment of jobs, e-mail and SMS messaging, system monitoring and reporting. Work ticket management is especially useful when you are managing a large number of operational tasks across multiple team members. - Messaging Solutions
Challenge: Clear, simple communication between people at all times.
Sometimes, time pressures and environments make communicating by voice challenging. Text messaging opens up radios to a whole new level of communication based on speed and convenience. Users can text relevant updates to multiple people or groups, enabling everyone to stay aware and minimizing cross communication. - Device And System Management
Challenge: Identify device and system issues immediately for rapid resolution.
With full control and effective management of your radios and systems, you preserve the security of your business. Automated tasks including monitoring and software upgrades keep systems up to date and operating at optimum performance. They allow you to spot potential problems in your radio fleet and take action before those problems escalate, while preventing unidentified system failures.
Apps In The Spotlight
SMARTPTT PLUS
A control room software application for MOTOTRBO radio networks that includes voice dispatch, texting, job ticketing and event logging. Optional features such as GPS tracking, indoor location, voice recording, interoperability, telephone interconnect and a web client for remote system access can all be added. It’s a powerful software solution providing integrated dispatch control over multiple sites and channels.
TRBONET PLUS
A comprehensive control room solution for MOTOTRBO radio systems. TRBOnet PLUS is an IP-based dispatch application that enables you to fully control and manage all available resources using voice communication supplemented with text messaging, voice recording, telephone interconnect and other features. This is a very flexible and scalable solution that can grow with your needs.
Summary
Voice And Data, A Powerful Combination
Whatever your business or industry, three criteria are paramount: efficiency, productivity and safety. With voice and data communications, so much more is possible. Efficiency is improved as devices and networks connect seamlessly and assignments are managed with precision. Productivity is boosted by centralized control and better situational awareness so you always know how your people, systems and devices are performing. And safety is increased with alarm management, location tracking, man down and lone worker applications.
Motorola Solutions’ range of apps make us an ideal communication partner for your business. As you can see in our online catalogue, everything is based around the power of customization, allowing you to choose the portfolio of apps best suited to your own specific challenges.
Three Things To Consider
- Is your performance being hampered by a delay in assigning work tasks?
- Do you have a centralized workforce management system?
- Are there communication difficulties that are preventing your people from working more efficiently and effectively?