Going digital has improved efficiency of Ademco staff

WHEN Maung Maung Ye Htut started working for Ademco in 2007, it was much more of an "analog" world.

As a service technician, he would go down to sites to address issues.

Back then, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras were still "simple analog cameras", unconnected to the internet, he recalls: "When we needed to change one, we just took it out and changed it."

Technology has since moved on. With CCTV networks now connected and online, today's service technicians require both electrical engineering skills and IT know-how, he says.

Yet in other aspects, the job has become easier.

Says the 40-year-old, who is now a team leader: "I've seen a lot of improvements and changes."

In the past, "everything was manually documented". Service reports were handwritten, with three carbon copies made of each one.

In 2010, Ademco switched to using handheld tablets for signing off on and submitting service reports.

"Previously you might forget to bring down the documentation, or paperwork would get lost," he notes.

With the tablets synced to Ademco's internal system, reports are now automatically received by the relevant department.

Customer service manager Kristen Lim, 48, joined the firm in 2014, after it had already made the leap to an integrated digital system.

She is happy with the efficiency of the cloud-based software. The customer service team handles service calls, putting them in a shared calendar - which gives Mr Maung Maung Ye Htut's team an overview of what needs to be addressed, as well as the relevant details.

Without this, customer service staff would have had to call the service team to relay such information. Says Ms Lim: "I could have spent 15 minutes on the phone just trying to tell him what was going on."

It is easy for her to field questions from customers on the spot, since she can retrieve information from the system immediately.

The system's history log also allows recurring problems to be spotted early, she adds.

For Zailan bin Zohri, 30, moving from his previous workplace to Ademco in 2016 was like travelling through time. "Ademco is much more advanced," he says. "I was very surprised by this new environment change."

In his previous job elsewhere in the security industry, the conditions were reminiscent of Ademco a decade ago: handwritten reports, carbon copies, and physical files.

"We had piles of documents to store," he recalls. In contrast, his job processes at Ademco are paperless.

Another benefit of the firm's digital system is the clarity it provides, he adds.

As part of Ademco's banking team, Mr Zailan attends to alerts such as suspicious activity near ATMs. In his previous job, the alerts they received were unrevealing: "You would have to check A to Z when you go down just to figure out what's wrong."

In contrast, at Ademco, his team receives "exact and precise fault calls" which specify the problem.

"We go down and settle the issue, that's it," he says with a smile.

Brought to you by The Future Economy Council