Unified Workforce | Brief
REFERENCE LINKS FROM ARTICLE EASI Community www.abmlq.com ABM Learning and Quality social hub: www.facebook.com/abmlq ABM Learning and Quality Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/abmlq Unified Workforce: www.unifiedworkforce.abm.c om Register for EASI Community: www.abmlq.com/register
WHY? We help you… by empowering clients, employees and partners with context rich applications and smart products to help them know which way to turn in their moments of need
What UW Is | Highly Elastic Middleware Unified Workforce (UW) is a middleware product that provides its users with contextual insight and promotes collective intelligence. Three primary roles consume and contribute to UW: field, office and client. Leveraging a pure cloud based PAAS model (platform as a service), UW flips upside down work activity delivery mechanisms found in traditional work order and knowledge management systems. A socially governed user environment designed to match work activity with labor resources blurs the lines between employee based and local labor based resources allowing unfettered delivery of service spanning urban, suburban and rural service regions. Providing what the user needs BEFORE they know they need it is simplified by the elegant manner in which UW optimizes the use of the foundational service buss and metadata management components. UW is NOT a work order system, financial system or relationship management system. UW IS a holistic framework which optimizes contextual service information to its participants, thus sharply increasing productivity and amplifying field level esprit de corps.
What UW Means | Profitable Growth Systems of engagement will fuel business growth and innovation over the next decade. The journey will require some jolting decisions and a sophisticated approach to solution development but it is also inevitable. Our targets are set on some of the following: o Improve satisfaction, stickiness, and trust o Serve customers at the lowest possible cost and instill in them a self-service habit o Increase business productivity and drive cost out of internal processes o Create significant new revenue sources from smart products and services
Unified Workforce | Brief
What are we thinking? | Evolving Blueprint “Design for Mobile First!” mantra to ensure that every business team knows that mobile engagement is not business as usual. Here’s the approach: o Start by understanding the tasks people do on their mobile devices The goal is to identify the tasks, the context, and the sequence of events in any personal or professional workflow so you can deliver focused functionality to help people get the task done. MPowered solutions are driven by people; UW atomizes their experience and delivers tasks that they actually want to accomplish. o Focus on the user experience — not just on the user interface The cornerstone principle is that the interface not only looks pretty, but it also works in a natural and responsive way. In some instances UW needs to address the "casually connected" users, having an environment which works ONLY with an internet connection is not acceptable. The UW community will be governed and contributed to by socially available competition and continuous recognition. o Make informed choices between native and HTML5 or hybrid apps A technology agnostic approaches needs to be respected. We cannot let good engagement principles get lost in religious technology debates. The right tool selection charts out the cost, support, and performance tradeoffs between native apps and mobile sites. Sophisticated companies like Time, which publishes Sports Illustrated, and Twitter are using HTML5 and hybrid technologies to deliver great experiences. UW is primarily focused on HTML5; however; the tool choice is based on the business outcomes needed: for example, HTML5 for reach and agility versus native apps for richer user experience. o Adopt rapid-release, Agile development processes Mobile apps fronting systems of engagement are “products” that demand a rapid response to business requirements and feedback. The UW platform as a service (running in the cloud technology MSFT Azure) provides robust and elastic
Unified Workforce | Brief
o
o
o
o
systems, open authentication environments, and flexible live tiles with agent and non-agent based functions to expose dynamic business information in context with the work activity. Use systems of engagement to create new business offerings Now that the core capability of UW is exposed through a mobile platform, it’s also available to be used in smart products or a new service from the business or a partner. For example, within minutes mobile screens may be personalized to a client, delivering the interface and tiles which are important to our customer. Personalized screens or tiles all provide opportunity for our field personnel to continue to differentiate ABM in the market. Embrace the open Web as an architecture guidepost One of the many attributes of UW is the ability to leverage the right technology at the right time. For instance, let's say that today we are using an eProcurement system named POA. PO-A is plugged into the UW service buss and information is being exchanged between other UW applications leveraging the platform. Next year, we move or add PO-B, no problem, plug PO-B into the UW service buss. The velocity of change which exists today is only going to accelerate, the UW platform is designed from ground up to adapt and embrace Fund back-end investments The initial multi-million dollar investment for the three year UW cloud based platform is being funded by ABM Corporate for use and exploitation by the business units. Capital investment is one thing; however, what happens with the expense? Operating expense was key from the beginning and a large part of the reason to use a cloud based platform as a service (MSFT Azure). Traditional software for enterprises is determined by client access licensing; however, UW is a utility based licensing model, similar to your home utility: pay for what you consume. Reface — or re-architect — the middleware UW for many will be a contextual tile based interface collection of agent and non-agent based live tiles. As an
Unified Workforce | Brief
o
o
example: The new ABM University (live 2013) will leverage the UW platform and route all participants through a set of live tiles to drive contextual awareness of all learning components available. In this way we manage an experience and not an interface focusing on the objective of delivering meaningful learning content (where the University is only one of the cogs in the wheel) Lead the industry and shift to cloud solutions  The mobile shift will accelerate cloud computing and "as-aservice" adoption. The complexity of multiple mobile platforms coupled with the physics of the last mile can kill a mobile experience. Cloud solutions are designed from the ground up to deliver a task-oriented mobile experience on every popular device over any network. Our work, which started in 2012, will place us years ahead of the competition who are still myopically focused on "work order" or other single function, isolated applications. Manage the ecosystem of mobile partners and channels  The rate of innovation coupled with the complexity of the platforms and delivery dictates that firms must corral a stable of solution providers. Certainly right up our alley as we preach and prove the effectiveness of outsourcing activities which are outside of your core competencies. Our UW framework is deliberately architected to allow multiple partners to provide solutions leveraging industry development standards. Example: UW2013 will be using four partners working in harmony to deliver the solution set
About Us | ABM Learning and Quality (ABMLQ) Serving ABM Corporate, Business Units, Partners and Clients ABMLQ tirelessly endeavors to pioneer methods to drive productivity and compel inclusive collaboration. We accomplish this by harnessing collective strengths and inspiring spontaneous innovation through our EASI Community. Our Evangelists, Advocates and Supporters influence (EASI) contribute daily by staying connected via the EASI Community. Engage in the EASI community today: http://www.abmlq.com/activity or register and join hundreds of others committed to making a difference at http://www.abmlq.com/register