Industry, Logistics & Shipping

Transguard Group accelerates digital transformation

Business solutions provider, Transguard Group, has revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic has played a significant role in invigorating a wide range of digital transformation initiatives that have touched nearly every aspect of its operations.
 
“Digital transformation has long been a priority for Transguard, but the challenges of the last six months have given our specific initiatives a new urgency that has accelerated our progress in a number of areas,” explains Greg Ward, Managing Director. 
 
“Operations, training, welfare, logistics, payroll – all of these and more have benefitted from digital enhancements or completely new applications that improve customer experience and allow us to be even more efficient in how we deliver services, both internally and externally.”
 
This eye toward efficiency has led to several new streamlined processes over the last few months, including a digital overhaul of Transguard’s room allocation process, which has allowed for more efficient accommodation assignments for site-based employees, who are also now deployed faster thanks to an enhanced rostering process that was also reengineered over the last few months, said Andrew Stinton, Director – Transformation. 
 
The payslip generation process was also subject to an optimisation review during this time, with the result of a 1000% improvement in timelines for payslip generation, he added.
 
Transguard’s portfolio of self-produced apps also grew over the last six months; this started with the launch of a new app that was created to reduce paperwork in the company’s chauffeur driver division. 
 
The in-house produced app also tracks all trips, kilometres travelled, fuel cost per trip, photos and logs of any damage and even calculates the revenue per trip per day. 
Also in the final stages of in-house development is a meal management app for Taste of Home, Transguard’s catering division: Once complete, anyone with a Taste of Home meal plan will be able to review upcoming menus, change their meal preferences and redeem meals using the app’s ticketing feature. 
 
Not only is the new app anticipated to improve the dining experience for Taste of Home subscribers (both in Transguard’s own accommodations and in other accommodations serviced by the catering company), the resulting efficiencies in the back office translate into significant hard savings. 
 
Meanwhile, a new mobile app for technicians in Transguard Living, the consumer division of Transguard Group, introduced immediate improvement in terms of staff utilisation and travel time between jobs.
 
Also benefitting from the company’s holistic approach to digital initiatives are Transguard’s award-winning training programmes, which saw instructors providing classes for both site and headquarters staff in Lean Six Sigma, customer service, financial literacy and other topics. All told, more than 1,600 Transguard employees attended virtual classes between March and August 2020.
 
Realising from the beginning of the pandemic that amplifying the frequency of communications (as well as the channels used) would be crucial to ensure not only smooth daily operations but also staff morale, Transguard launched a number of virtual well-being initiatives: 
 
Since March, more than 20 online events, including quiz nights, Zumba classes and talent shows have been held online, and in some cases, were even broadcast live into socially distanced viewing areas in the accommodations. 
 
Transguard’s annual Town Hall and awards events were also held virtually for the first time, with more than 600 headquarters employees logging in to the live sessions. 
 
These included company updates, a live question and answer session with senior management, and a session dedicated to recognising the extraordinary efforts of individuals and business units who continually demonstrate excellence in all that they do.
 
“While digital transformation is a journey that never ends, Transguard has accepted the challenges and obstacles of Covid-19 as opportunities to accelerate our growth in that direction,” said Sam Currie, Senior Manager – Digital Transformation. 
 
“In fact, we are much further along that road today than we had anticipated at the start of the year. This is a great position of strength from which to face the challenges that continue to come at us from the pandemic.” -- Tradearabia News Service