Leading Transportation Provider Optimizes Operations via Managed Mobility

A leading consumer transportation company wanted a partner that could help it meet the mobility needs of its thousands of locations. Stratix answered the call.

Logistics is bound to be a formidable challenge when serving a global transportation provider with thousands of locations throughout North America. This is especially true when it comes to managing mobile technology.

The company’s former vendor for mobile management was overwhelmed by the highly distributive nature of its business. Building, staging, kitting, configuring and shipping tablets and other equipment to employees across the United States and Canada gradually became impossible.

“They just didn’t have a robust enough system to manage all those logistical aspects,” said the company’s director of enterprise mobility. Clearly, a change was in order.

After putting out an RFP for complete managed mobility services, the company narrowed its list to three possible partners. Members of its business vendor management group visited with each. They were impressed with Stratix’s processes and capabilities. “We wanted a partner to help us with everything from staging, kitting and logistics all the way through support. Stratix’s ability to be a one-stop shop was key for us,” said the enterprise mobility director.

Aced a 25,000-Kit Deployment

Stratix’s first major test involved deploying 25,000 kits to the field. The company had already decided that each kit would include a rugged Samsung tablet integrated with an Ingenico payment sled via Bluetooth and a Zebra mobile printer.

Stratix handled the technology deployment and everything that led up to it smoothly, which came as no surprise to the enterprise mobility director. “That logistical aspect is probably Stratix’s biggest differentiator,” she said. “We have a massive number of locations, so the distribution piece is crucial. Few companies can do that well on that kind of scale.”

All told, Stratix has provided provisioning, kitting and deployment as well as services spanning mobile lifecycle management, mobile help desk, project management and mobile solution architect (MSA) consulting. Stratix also offers “white glove” service for RMAs, where UPS picks up the old, defective device from the field location and delivers a new replacement device.

Over time, the company has given Stratix an expanded role in mobile help desk/mobile operations center (MOC) management. As a result, many of its most senior engineers have been freed up to work on more strategic initiatives rather than addressing rudimentary customer service tasks. The customer experience has improved as well.

“In the past, the MOC often had to send end users through multiple channels to get their issue resolved,” said the enterprise mobility director. “With Stratix, the MOC has become the first line of support and the first line of resolution. If end users have an issue, we get them to the right people right away — and that gets them back out into the field faster, where they can be productive.”

‘Always Try to Do the Right Thing’

The company also required visibility and detailed metrics of their mobile device ecosystem. Stratix’s itrac360 mobile assets management portal aggregates data from multiple sources to give organizations a cradle-to-grave view of every device. Reflective of the value it places on high-quality, comprehensive data, the company has upgraded to customized reports to gain even deeper insights into its mobile ecosystem.

“itrac360 has become an integral piece for us in understanding where assets were deployed and how we charge back to our individual locations,” said the enterprise mobility director. “We also look at itrac360 in partnership with Stratix around Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance — when orders were placed versus when they were shipped.”

Among the key metrics included in the company’s most recent quarterly review, Stratix either met or exceeded SLA requirements:

• Mobile help desk answered 84.5% of calls within 60 seconds
• Mobile help desk resolved 93.1% of all mobility incidents on the 1^st call.
• 94% of respondents described the quality of service they received from the MOC on a mobility issue as “excellent.”
• Devices returned were repaired in a mean time of less than 5 days.

Results like these have left the enterprise mobility director extremely pleased with the company’s engagement with Stratix.

“We’re big believers in bringing in partners who do things well that aren’t in our sweet spot so we can focus on our core competencies,” she said. “We’ve had a very strong partnership with Stratix. My experience has been they always try to do the right thing for me as a customer.”