When you are purchasing a new platform, it is a good opportunity to review your own, both operational and technical processes, and perhaps
also update them at the same time. In this way, you ensure that you can effectively and fully utilize the advantages of automation and digitalization offered by the platform in operative and strategic operations.
When studying the processes, you should think about which processes or their parts you want to automate and what you want to achieve with the automation, e.g., whether manual work, routines and error possibilities will be reduced, whether human risk will be minimized, whether process documentation and event-specific instructions will be digitized and/or whether self-service will be enabled for different users.
Automatically and digitally moving real-time data significantly increases the dimensions of leading with data. So, it's worth spending some time thinking about what kind of data is needed, for example, in different situational awareness views of the processes, how the obtained data should be analysed and utilized, and who needs this new data or information refined from it. The additional benefit of the fact that previously manually collected information, statistics and trends are now available to all those who need information at the push of a button, is most likely to positively surprise the different levels of the organization.
When studying the processes, it is also worth noting that the introduction of the platform enables new operating methods, which offer an excellent opportunity to develop processes and also business. At best, the new way of actions provided by the platform enable expanding the customer base, diversifying the product and/or service portfolio, improving competitiveness, etc.
The platform allows you to bring completely new viewing angles to the existing processes, as the example of the Smart Parking Platform I use shows. Instead of the traditional renting of the property's individual parking spaces, for the property is offered business opportunities, of which a few examples are below:
- The parking business model in the parking facility is freely decided by the property. In the fixed model, the parking spaces are named, in the dynamic model all spaces are freely selectable, and in the hybrid model, both fixed and dynamic parking spaces are used.
- Parking products, e.g., weekday, weeknight and weekend parking, and their prices are completely freely decided by the property per target group. A wider parking product portfolio increases the potential target group of parking users, better responds to different needs and enables an improvement in the utilization rate of the parking facilities.
- Possibly available charging stations for electric cars and guest parking spaces can be freely used by the property's customers utilizing the Parking portal, and the invoicing of the spaces takes place automatically according to the agreements. Also, these charging station and parking spaces are possible to price as seen fit.
- The possibility of the overbooking is freely defined as a percentage of the total capacity of the parking facilities. The parking situational awareness created with the help of the Platform and the obtained statistics give a good basis for defining the overbooking percentage as appropriate. Of course, it is possible for the property to change the percentage as needed. In this way, the supply can be made to meet the demand.
- With the help of the automatic monitoring of the status data of the various systems and devices of the parking facilities, such as cameras, booms, doors, access control systems, etc., it is possible to anticipate the need for maintenance and also possible malfunctions are revealed without delay. This ensures the smoothness of the parking services in a cost-effective and effortless manner.
The benefits of the updated processes can best be seen immediately after the platform is implemented. Very successful automation and digitization
- create new earning opportunities,
- improve the use of resources,
- improve customer satisfaction,
- provide processed data for business development,
- reduce errors and complaints and
- automate repetitive routines.
If your processes need updating, involve in the change making also the members of the organization who operate the different phases of the processes. In addition to the fact that the knowledge of the processes deepens, and the activation of the new operating methods becomes more effective, the benefits brought by the change are also realized faster, the resistance to change is reduced and the communication is improved.