Over the last couple of years IWMS vendors have extended their customer horizon from local region / country specific customers to the large Fortune 500 multinationals. When IWMS vendors are crossing borders, they have to face all kinds of internationalization (i18n) challenges. In this week’s post about I18n challenges of IWMS’s, multi-time zone will be discussed.
Business Challenge
Cooperation between local subsidiaries of a company is extremely important for all organizations. This can be a problem when those subsidiaries are based in multiple time zones in the United States let alone when we rest of the world is becoming the playground for Integrated Workplace Management Systems and their vendors. Within the IWMS domain some business functions are affected more than others.
(Video)Conference Meetings
One of the most affected areas within the IWMS domain is video conference meetings. Over the last five years virtual meeting technology has leaped forward. WebEx, GoToMeeting, Saba, Microsoft, and other vendors provide excellent meeting technologies that can reduce the number of flights dramatically. In our weekly poll about Virtual Meeting Software usage, 80% of the respondents indicated that they use Virtual Meeting Technology.
Although these Virtual Meeting Software providers are quite solid in technology for the meeting itself they do not take into account the meeting costs, video conference room charges, catering costs, etc. which are extremely important for the Facilities Manager / Building Manager of a particular property. Therefore close integration with an IWMS is imperative.
One of the key challenges that IWMS’s face in supporting these online videoconference meetings is the integration between the technology that enables the meetings with the core management of the videoconference rooms. Some IWMS vendors provide full integration with Microsoft Exchange / Outlook (Tririga, PeopleCube, Planon, etc.).
Service Requests and Service Delivery
The second business challenge an organization faces when spanning multiple time zones is about service requests and service delivery. As an employee in a particular building I’m entitled to a number of services which I can request via the corporate intranet or a telephone based help desk. Back in the days I probably knew the Facility Service Provider personally and I ensured quality of my service by dropping by his office.
Over the last decade RE/FM organizations have become increasingly centralized and need to improve relationships with their internal customers, the business management and their supply chain (Marty Chobot, FM: Systems).
The centralization of RE/FM departments ensures that in most cases service requests are collected centrally in an IWMS. Fulfillment of these service requests however can be routed to an external services provider that is in a different time zone than the requestor of the service. Monitoring on task completion is very much depending on correct time registration. Is the service provider living up to its’ SLA or not?
Guidelines for multi-time zone
When your organization is present both in the United States and the rest of the world you will face multi-time zone issues within Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate without doubt. Bear in mind the following:
1. Time zone entities
When thinking about your IWMS and multi time zones issues some immediately arise. A time zone is relative to what aspect of your IWMS you focus on. In most IWMS implementations I see four different time zone entities which need to be taken into consideration.
- The application / windows time of the server of your IWMS. This physical server is somewhere in your IT landscape in a certain time zone.
- The time zone of sites / campuses and properties. Each building is in a specific timezone and therefore facilities within that property are also in the same time zone
- The time zone of the end users of your IWMS. This is the local time zone linked to the specific user of the system.
- The time zone of service provider. As service providers are centralizing their efforts as well a ticket for this external service provider might be coordinated from a different time zone.
In your IWMS implementation performance calculations should not be done based on the physical time zone of the server but based on a combination between 2,3 and 4. E.g. Suppose that an end user requests a specific service which will be automatically directed to an external service providing company the system should be able to calculate with:
- The entry date/time based on the user property
- The priority based on the SLA
- The due date
And the due date should be recalculated to the service provider as well as the service provider might be in a different time zone. When you are selecting an IWMS solution please ensure that the system can calculate with different time zone entities.
2. Data Integrity
In every IWMS implementation the management team has be able to make decisions based on solid and trustworthy data. This calls in general for high quality data protection but when you are involved with SLA’s, KPI’s you have to ensure that the correct time zone entity is linked to the correct property, the correct service provider or the correct end user.
If data integrity is not quaranteed the management team will make very costly mistakes which can be avoided easily.
3. Analytical Reporting
If you have linked your time zone entities correctly to the application’s elements (properties, users, service providers) you should be able to guarantee data integrity however as a piece of advice I would recommend you report frequently on SLA performance. Not only will it help you identify underperforming service providers (and will reduce operational costs immediately) but these reports might give you an indication where time zone related errors occur.
What about you? Which would you recommend to cope with multiple time zones?
I’d love to hear your experience in coping with multiple time zones.
i18n, Internationalization, Multi-time zone
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