Geo-productivity and geo-management: a practical guide

As technology advances, our lives change in all sorts of ways; geo-productivity and geo-management are here to stay. Why? How we shop, how we entertain ourselves and even how we receive services like healthcare has changed dramatically with the full spread of the internet and smart mobile devices.

Work and its dynamics are no exception. Enormous changes are already under way across industries, all tied to one broad premise: technology and connectivity mean time and distance are no longer constraints.

That is how the terms geo-productivity and geo-management have entered practically every industry.

What are geo-productivity and geo-management?

Put simply, geo-productivity is the value created between staff working at different geographic points at the same time.

Geo-management, on the other hand, is the evolution of traditional management toward a model built for liquid organizations — ones that break their traditional structures and make themselves present at several geographic points through their field staff. This kind of management allows decentralized processes to be designed, executed, managed and controlled in the most efficient way.

To be quite clear: through good geo-management we improve our geo-productivity, and conversely the best way to raise geo-productivity is to improve geo-management. Working on them results in better use of our resources and, ultimately, in maximizing returns.

How do you raise geo-productivity through geo-management?

As we said earlier, the challenge of geo-productivity and geo-management is breaking the barriers of physical distance and time. That in no way means time and space are unimportant; on the contrary, we may be at the historical moment when those factors are valued most and demand the most attention.

Our main challenge is to understand those factors and keep them from becoming a barrier to delivering value and providing services across wider areas.

Perhaps more than breaking the barrier of time and space, the main challenge is to use both to our advantage, breaking through our own ceilings and allowing us to create more value.

A task of that size cannot be achieved without acting along two broad strategic lines:

implementing technology tools and, of course, acquiring new practices and knowledge.

That is why we can say our geo-productivity and geo-management depend on how much knowledge and how many tools we have at our disposal.

What technology is used to improve my geo-management?

Geo-Management Software (GMS) is the main technology used to improve geo-productivity and geo-management.

Its main characteristics are giving staff operational mobility so they can carry out their work regardless of where they are, and giving decision-makers a holistic view of the business so they can optimize resources and maximize returns in real time.

Any GMS can link to other internal systems, such as a CRM like Hubspot, an ERP like SAP, a BI platform or whatever software you use.

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To understand how a GMS works it is important to grasp the following concepts:

Operational mobility

This is achieved by giving staff mobile devices that grant them new capabilities and dramatically increase the value they can deliver. With a mobile device a worker can carry out tasks that until recently could only be done at an organization's head office.

Operational mobility gives the worker the ability to always have the resources needed to do the job, and to serve end users better, since they can answer questions immediately.

We can say the main qualities a mobility tool gives a field worker are contextual relevance and fluidity.

Contextual relevance

This is the worker's ability to adapt to the context they are in without any change in the value they deliver. For example, an emergency medical unit can have the patient's medical history in real time and, no matter which patient it is, the doctor will have the relevant information at all times.

Contextual relevance, then, is a worker's ability to handle the n cases anticipated within their workflow.

In a world as dynamic as today's, anticipating 100% of the situations a field worker might encounter is very difficult, but we can certainly do our best to cover most of them and so reduce staff downtime while raising how end users see us — and they undoubtedly value efficiency enormously when it comes to getting their problems solved.

Logistical fluidity

This is the worker's ability to exchange information with the operations center dynamically, often without even having to take a specific action. Returning to the same example, the emergency unit can share its location in real time and the next calls to attend will be decided from the center, without the field worker having to make complex decisions.

A worker with a mobility tool will have the right tools for every situation and will also be able to receive and send information without much effort.

The field worker's fluidity is no small matter. Sending information effortlessly produces high-quality data, since it does not depend on manual entry.

Data like that is enormously more valuable than data captured through paper forms, because it has a lower error rate and is generally easier to organize, being digital from the moment it is created to the moment it is used.

This data creates a hugely important link between the worker and the decision-maker, since it becomes information once the GMS organizes it. That information becomes intelligence once the software applies its analysis and forecasting tools, and finally becomes intelligent decisions once the decision-maker uses their holistic management view to adjust field staff's work in line with business goals.

This is known as the holistic management view.

The holistic management view

This is a decision-maker's ability to see the full picture of what is happening with their staff.

Operational mobility supplies real-time data, and through various dashboards and reports the decision-maker can take action that improves results.

The holistic management view is chiefly characterized by automatic data capture, the turning of that data into organized information, the generation of intelligence from that information, the ability to act, and finally the full view of the whole process, which allows planning, execution and control in real time.

The holistic view produced by using Geo-Management Software (GMS) lets the organization optimize resources through dynamic real-time planning: because data entry is digital, decisions can be made in real time and adjusted according to different factors.

A clear example arises when an organization has several maintenance crews in the field repairing different services at various points across a city.

With data such as the average time those repairs take, the distance between the sites and how urgent each repair is, it is perfectly possible to predict which repair each crew should handle next. More importantly still, the process can be adjusted quickly if any variable changes — a shift in which repair takes priority, say, or one of them taking more or less time than expected.

Almost immediately that could be reflected in the different crews' schedules, and decision-makers could follow the case without losing sight of business objectives.

The holistic management view and operational mobility meet at what is arguably the most critical point of a geo-management ecosystem: the Mobile Workflow.

Mobile Workflow

This is the dynamic process that generates specific tasks for field staff, either from an automated system or from a decision-maker's instruction. Every action a worker takes is reflected in the Mobile Workflow and monitored by the decision-maker who, on spotting a chance to improve, makes changes to the workflow that ultimately affect the worker's tasks.

This keeps direct contact between decision-maker and worker to a minimum, letting technology and process mediate between the two except in very particular cases, and producing a workflow that works better for both sides.

The main characteristic of a Mobile Workflow is that it centers on an organization's operational mobility — that is, it is built for entirely variable data input, which produces a workflow that, besides being centered on mobile staff, has to keep a degree of flexibility in its processes to fit each circumstance.

A clear example of this kind of workflow appears in logistics companies, where factors such as traffic directly affect delivery time and are not always predictable.

Information about estimated delivery times can be sent automatically through a GMS, and the timings and owners of the following deliveries can be estimated perfectly well.

So the Mobile Workflow for that transport company will always be dynamic, both in its data input and in how specific tasks are distributed among staff.

When should you start thinking about your geo-productivity and geo-management?

While it is true that every organization can improve its processes, certain parameters make an organization ideal for implementing geo-management strategies.

Geo-management software is normally a very powerful tool, and implementation, training and rollout are justified once the data to be processed becomes hard to handle without technology.

Studies by GoDoWorks's Business Intelligence team find that organizations with more than 20 people working away from head office benefit most from implementing geo-management tools, improving their field resources by somewhere between 20% and 40% on average.

What are the first steps toward improving my geo-management?

Establish whether my organization is a match and could benefit from applying this kind of tool.
Design a Mobile Workflow. Generally, the companies providing a GMS have consulting teams that take this on. It is without doubt the most critical point of the whole process. Technology and knowledge are worth nothing if they are not aimed at improving the workflow.
Implement a GMS: once you have established that the organization is a perfect match for geo-management and defined a Mobile Workflow that optimizes resources conceptually, it is time to bring the concepts down to earth, and for that implementing a GMS is essential. It is, after all, the tool that lets us improve our geo-productivity.
Optimize, optimize and optimize: once the tool is in place we cannot assume the job is done. Like any tool it needs attention and professionalism that only time and experience will bring. It is essential to schedule adjustment sessions in the early stages of the rollout to tailor your GMS to your specific needs.
Train and certify: a tool is only as powerful as the person using it. This kind of technological process must serve the people who make up the organization, and for that to happen, mastering the tools available is essential. Periodic training is considered a minimum requirement, and it generally leads to a Geo-Management Certification (GMC). The certification GoDoWorks provides is a market standard, accepted across the industry as a guarantee of competence in geo-management as a discipline and in GMS platforms as working tools.

In short, a great many variables bear directly on your business's productivity, and many of them have been shifting because of technological change. We have to shift at the same speed so as not to be submerged in a highly competitive market.

With that in mind, it makes sense to be specific and take action aimed squarely at the sector your organization operates in, since applying general rules to your particular circumstances is not enough.

So if your organization faces the challenge of managing resources across different geographic points, don't hesitate to apply geo-management tools.

Breaking the barriers of time and space is not only possible: you can turn those precious resources into your greatest allies.

With strengths like those, there will be no limit to your productivity.