Alice Chambers |
What would you bring to a deserted island? We’ve probably all considered this classic ice-breaker question. Maybe you’d take your favourite novel or camping gear. Or, inspired by Tom Hanks’ castaway, an amiable volleyball.
For millions of field workers, on offshore oil rigs, in underground manufacturing plants with no service, or at refugee camps in Northern Africa, for example, the deserted island concept is particularly apt. And they bring Resco, says Andrew Lorraine, the remote solutions firm’s CEO.
“We help companies extend their digital transformation projects with the Microsoft business application into the field with our low-code/no-code mobile app building-platform,” he says. “That way, mobile sales, inspections and field service processes can work in any environment and workers can get their jobs done worry-free.”
Resco began its strong relationship with Microsoft more than a decade and a half ago by providing cutting-edge mobile technology for Microsoft business applications customers. Resco’s long term commitment to Microsoft was crowned in 2016 with the release of Dynamics 365 Field Service. This led to thousands of mobile service technicians using a Resco-based app as part of the Microsoft suite, which provided advanced mobility and offline functionality for field workers.
“We were one of the few companies in the world to have that kind of partnership with Microsoft where our technology was relicensed as part of the solution that they were selling,” says Lorraine. It’s this partnership that spurred Resco on to create and provide enhanced solutions for workers in the field.
Today, Resco aims to deliver value to Microsoft business applications users by fully integrating its products with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Microsoft customers can take advantage of mobile-first forms centered around exceptional user experience backed by industry leading offline, the most advanced data collection tools, custom reports, staff scheduling, and resource planning services via its Scheduling and Routes solutions, amongst other transformative use cases.
Resco’s solutions, built on its low-code/no-code platform, mobilise data so that each person has access to the right information at the right time.
“If you make information more accessible to workers then they are more likely to complete their jobs quickly and correctly in the field,” says Lorraine. “This then has a knock-on effect to improve customer service.”
Resco helps to prepare frontline workers for any working conditions
Combining advanced mobility functionality, customisable experience for field workers, and intelligent data tools, Resco provides companies the ability to redefine how they learn and grow.
“Without information, businesses would have to guess the best way to innovate and adapt, which is time-consuming, expensive and inefficient,” adds Lorraine.
Built for mobile from the ground up, Resco has a keen eye for spotting technology trends from fads. And who do they see benefitting the most from these trends in 2023? Field workers and their customers:
“We’re currently experiencing an increase in digital literacy across all industries meaning that blue-collar workers are expecting to work with personalised apps that accommodate their daily needs, much like their personal or entertainment apps. This – alongside the use of artificial intelligence to monitor data and an increase in customer and regulatory demands to prove the work that firms are carrying out for their customers – will dictate how businesses move forward with their mobility apps in 2023 and beyond.”
Resco not only has an eye to how technology is moving, but also how the workforce is evolving. Lorraine explains how trends like the ‘Silver Tsunami’ are influencing how they approach tools for workers.
“As older workers retire, firms will be looking to transfer service knowledge onto their younger workforces and considering solutions to repair machinery and produce guides and products for their new generation of service technicians,” says Lorraine. “We’re still some time away from robots carrying out intricate service tasks so we will still need to rely on people to carry out these jobs, with support from the right technology to cover gaps in knowledge and speed up the learning process.”
Moving forward, Resco plans to address these gaps by fully integrating its services into the Microsoft Power Platform so that its customers can create customised business apps in Microsoft’s Dataverse before using the technology to complete tasks in the real world.
“Our mobility products have always been oriented towards Microsoft Dynamics 365. Now we plan to take specialised tools that we've developed for mobile work processes – like our Inspections, Guides and Reports modules – and bring them natively to Power Platform,” says Lorraine. “There’s a lot of excitement in the Power Apps community and we believe we can add value to these market-proven products through our mobile work expertise to provide lasting transformative power for firms that will bypass current and future business challenges.”
While trends come and go, Resco knows providing an elevated mobile experience and delivering value to their community will never go out of style.
Learn more about Resco’s mobile solutions at: www.resco.net