Bristol City Council to Improve Customer Service and Save £2.7 Million Per Annum With Automated Workforce Management

LONDON, February 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Bristol City Council today announced plans to implement an automated workforce management system for its housing department with the aim of improving its 28,000 homes and increasing tenant satisfaction while saving some £2.7 million per annum in operational costs by 2014.

The new system will be implemented by Capgemini UK, the council's prime systems integration partner, working with ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd whose Workforce Management Platform provides the basis of the solution. Capgemini is one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, and ClickSoftware is the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimisation solutions for the service industry.

Councillor Anthony Negus, Cabinet Member for Housing, Property Services and Regeneration, said: 'The transformation has been designed around tenants' feedback. Their greatest concern is about repairs and maintenance and the reliability of the work.

'A good deal of work has gone into creating a new workforce maintenance system that will not only help improve customer service, but also promote greater collaboration and efficiency across the housing department.

'We will be able to better respond to tenant needs, for example by offering greater choice and certainty about appointment times, and by making sure that the majority of jobs are successfully completed on a first home visit.'

The new workforce management solution will enable the council to provide a more responsive service to tenants in areas such as repairs and maintenance, while improving staff productivity by aiming to ensure that its 300 field workers have the right skills and tools to complete each job first time, and with optimum routing from job to job. ClickSoftware's enterprise mobility solution is a crucial component of the project. Deployed on mobile devices it will allow the seamless channeling of relevant information, at the right time, between enterprise systems, field and dispatch staff. The project is a key part of the council's Landlord Transformation Programme which aims to increase tenant satisfaction levels from 74 to 90 per cent by 2014.

Crucial information relating to appointment times, customer details and property assets can be delivered direct to each worker's mobile device, whenever it is needed. The field operatives will also be able to capture relevant information and update work progress, passing the data seamlessly to the council's enterprise systems for future reference.

'We are delighted to be working with BristolCity Council,' said Hannan Carmeli, President and COO of ClickSoftware. 'Public sector organisations across the world are under pressure to reduce costs without sacrificing service levels. Business mobility and workforce management technology strike at the heart of this challenge and we are therefore confident that such projects will be of interest to municipalities around the world.'

The new solution will also improve the response to emergency situations and provide management with visibility of performance against objectives.

'Implementing this exciting new solution for the housing department is one of our first major projects in our long-term contract with Bristol City Council, and we will be harnessing our extensive experience of UK local government to ensure that it is completed successfully, on time and within budget', said Chris Riches, Account Director for Local Government at Capgemini UK.

Councilors will be monitoring the success of the project with a view to rolling out ClickSoftware across all relevant council departments as a single Workforce Management Platform.

About Capgemini

With over 115,000 people in 40 countries, Capgemini is one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. The Group reported 2010 global revenues of EUR 8.7 billion. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and delivers business and technology solutions that fit their needs and drive the results they want. A deeply multicultural organization, Capgemini has developed its own way of working, the Collaborative Business Experience^[TM], and draws on Rightshore ®, its worldwide delivery model.

Learn more about us at http://www.capgemini.com.

About ClickSoftware

ClickSoftware is the leading provider of automated workforce management and optimization solutions for every size of service business. Our portfolio of solutions, available as cloud or on premises, create business value through higher levels of productivity, customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Our patented concept of 'continuous planning and scheduling' incorporates customer demand forecasting, long and short term capacity planning, shift planning, real-time scheduling, mobility and location-based services, as well as on-going communication with the consumer on the expected arrival time of the service resource.

As the pioneers of the 'W6' concept more than 30 years ago, we have perfected solutions for solving a wide variety of problems on Who does What, for Whom, with What, Where and When. The combination of proven technology with educational services helps businesses find the right balance between reducing costs, increasing customer satisfaction, employee preferences and industry regulations/legislation.

ClickSoftware's solutions manage hundreds of thousands of resources in service businesses across a variety of industries and geographies. Our flexible deployment approach, breadth and depth of solutions and strong partnerships with leading CRM/ERP vendors and system integrators makes us the number one choice to deliver superb business performance to any organization. The company is headquartered in the United States and Israel, with offices across Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit http://www.clicksoftware.com  Follow us on Twitter.

Safe Harbour Statement

This press release contains express or implied forward-looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other U.S Federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those statements regarding expected benefits to Bristol City Council from using ClickSoftware's solutions. Such "forward-looking statements" involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those projected, including those discussed in the "Risk Factors" section and elsewhere in ClickSoftware's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2010 and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as otherwise required by law, ClickSoftware is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Press contacts:
For Capgemini:
Tom Barton
Capgemini UK plc
Tel.:+44(0)870-238-2491
Email:[email protected] 

For ClickSoftware:
Kristin Amico
Tel: +1-781-272-5903 ext. 2364
ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd.
Email:[email protected]

SOURCE ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd