EFQM Good Practice Competition 2014 Creative Customer Solutions Registration form Contact person Dr. Yousef Ibrahim Al Akraf Job Title Executive Vice President Business Support and Human Resources Organisation DEWA Street Sheikh Rashid road Zip and city Dubai Country UAE Email Yousef.alakraf@dewa.gov.ae Phone 0097145150156 Activity sector Government Utility Electricity & Water Provider The registration form and submission report have to be returned together with the video to Vinciane Beauduin at EFQM (Vinciane.beauduin@efqm.org) by 16 May 2014 at the latest. Should you have any queries, feel free to contact Vinciane Beauduin via email at Vinciane.beauduin@efqm.org, or by phone on +32 2 775 3510. Good Practice - Submission Report Good Practice Title DEWA SMART Mobile Application Organization Overview Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) was formed on 1 January, 1992, by merging the Dubai Electricity Company and the Dubai Water Department with the objective of making available to the people of Dubai an adequate and reliable supply of electricity and water. DEWA is an inspiring success story known for its efficiency and reliability in every facet of its operations. Today DEWA employs a workforce on nearly 10,000 employees who constantly endeavor to see that both the quantity and quality of services provided are of the highest standards in consistency and reliability. In Dubai, DEWA provides over 660,000 customers with electricity and over 530,000 customers with water. Thus, the expansion continues in order to meet the ever growing demand for electricity and water, DEWA succeeded in achieving an overall electricity capacity of 9656 MW and a water capacity of 470 MIGD in 2013, compared to respective capacities of 2579 MW of electricity and 120 MIGD of water in 1998, functioning in the most professional ways to ensure its continued success, cementing Dubai position and contributing in the success of hosting Expo2020. DEWA had achieved the fourth rank on the international level in getting electricity as per Doing Business 2013 report issued by World Bank; in addition DEWA has achieved first position in customer satisfaction (94.30%) as per Dubai Government Excellence Program 2013, with a distinguished customer minutes lost (CML) reaching 5.62 minutes in 2013, compared to more than 15 minutes in other US and European countries. Desired Results Summarize the key objective(s) of the approach you have adopted 1
In alignment with H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, and his vision in making Dubai the smartest city, Dubai Government presented its vision for 2021. As international hub for attraction investment and businesses, global cities like Dubai are nowadays adopting SMART concepts of service delivery and envisaging the opportunities and challenges posed by the dynamics of the global economy. Anticipating our customer needs captured through market studies and researches, and to exceed customers expectations, DEWA had deeply understood the requirements of the new era and has adopted key objectives in this regard to cope with the global and local transformation, as follows: Designed service delivery solutions that support DEWA strive towards sustainability and Green environment. Adoption of latest technology in customer service delivery. Be more proactive in approaching customers. Increased reachability of customers at their convenient place and time. Integrated services so that customers can reach all services under ONE umbrella. Innovative service support through interactive and reliable communication channels. What has been improved in detail? DEWA launched it latest release of SMART services with many interactive features that give customer the empowerment to perform end to end real time transactions. This transformation approach has led to 100% enabelment.dewa is proud to be the first to exist on the most widely used operating systems including: ios, Blackberry, Android, Windows OS, and the internet of things such as, Samsung SMART TV, Samsung Gear SMART Watch, etc. In November 2013, DEWA launched its revamped version of the application on ios 7, which contained more than 150 services and features, followed by Android, working on both mobile device and tablet. Below are samples of the improvements brought by the Application: Increased scope of enabled services and features: The number of exiting e services was 11, while the number of the SMART services reached more than 150. Enhanced types of customer services: Most of the e services were informational, whereas most of the improved SMART m services are interactive and transactional. Personalized ways to receive /use services: Implementing favorites list which allows the customers to access their desired services. Educative means Providing Tutorial for the most important services in the application even for unregistered customers/visitors. Enriched and value added features such as: Adding HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid quotes, website, and social media link MYID supports integration with Dubai Government entities and services. Viewing transactions history for previous years View and compare electricity and water consumption through visual graphs Notifying customers about planned road works in their neighborhood View/compare multiple account details 2
Approach Describe the current approach within your organization Identifying clear objectives and streamlining expectations around the project under full support & personal involvement from DEWA leadership team in alignment with our strategic objectives. The scope & boundaries of the project were identified along with project sponsor and stakeholders, where we have identified IT, CS, Strategy teams direct involvement in addition to indirect support of other divisions. A project plan was developed focusing on resources needed (human, expertise, technology, financial, etc ) and main milestones to be achieved. Several scenarios were set to successfully manage risks and detailed feasibility study was developed. Describe which elements have been implemented A team was formed from all concerned divisions and subject matters experts, supported by customer focus groups, to come up with creative & innovative ideas and to better understand needs and expectations. A list of proposed services and features was generated. Moreover, feasibility study was conducted to prove our business case taking in consideration simplifying the process as part of the process re engineering stage. Then the functional specifications of these services were set, and the SAP technical development team was introduced to the process. All the project phases were executed by applying project management concepts. Then a user interface design manual was created, and at the final stage before going live, the quality and content team reviewed and tested the services and functions to guarantee optimal performance of the App. The main improvements were: Using Augmented Reality which displays the distance and location of any of DEWA's offices and payment channels through the device camera in real time. Utilizing SMART device camera to scan barcodes on DEWA bills. Compatibility with the latest operating system ios 7. Adding DEWA events and holidays to the SMART device calendar. Providing log in service using MYID which allows single log in name for all government departments. Integration with social media (i.e. Facebook, twitter, instagram) and Google maps. Providing conservation tips and video to guide the customer on how to reduce electricity and water consumption. A comparative consumption graph of the last year along with present year, which gives the customer an idea about his/her consumption patterns. Also customers can compare their consumption with their neighborhood average. Describe how this approach is linked to your overall strategy Building on DEWA vision to become a sustainable world class utility, and its mission which focuses on meeting customer satisfaction, DEWA strategy (2014/2018) focuses on sustainability as well as stakeholders happiness, in full alignment with Dubai Strategy in general and Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 in particular. The SMART application initiative is fully aligned and directly linked to DEWA strategic themes evolving around Sustainable Growth, Operational and SMART Service Excellence, Stakeholder Engagement, Strategic Innovation and Competent Capabilities, in particularly it is envisaged under IP09: Enabling SMART city and IP08: Innovative Solutions and technologies and IP04: World class Customer Service. Deployment Describe how this approach was implemented within your organisation 3
Following the announcement of Dubai Government vision of transforming government conventional services into SMART services, a series of brainstorming sessions were conducted with presence of various stakeholders, considering the comments/feedback received from customers related to improvement of services. The requirements were gathered, categorized into short objectives and long term goals, and high risk assessment study was conducted to assess the risks and develop their mitigation plans. A project team was formed headed by a Senior Program Manager, consisting of a group of Senior Project Managers associated directly to the project. The program is divided into five projects: Mobile Development, Functional Team, Infrastructure, Content and Quality Assurance, and Business Process Engineering. Agile project management methodology were employed in an adaptive and iterative way following the best practices in IT industry. The project team used to meet twice a week to review progress, solve problems, study and process emergent variations. A dedicated Business Intelligence team associated to the program to facilitate the monitoring and reporting of project progress, using sophisticated dashboard tools and techniques. Upon completion of the development, the application goes through a series of testing process, starting with Unit Testing followed by Functional Testing, Quality Assurance and finally User Acceptance Test (UAT). After satisfactory completion of all levels of testing, the application is bundled and sent to App Stores worldwide for publications. The process of application development is fully documented starting from the idea till the publication. What were the major challenges you had to overcome? While designing the DEWA SMART application, several challenges were faced. Beginning with design phase to implementation stages, DEWA faced a number of technical challenges and obstacles that were overcome successfully by handling them appropriately and on time. Compatibility with all Platforms: DEWA managed to overcome the compatibility of its SMART application on all platforms and devices by adopting Graphical User interface Guidelines available in the Software Development Kit; this provided a unified user experience for the customer. Integration of MYID & mpay : DEWA also faced a challenge in integrating with other government departments to provide MYID service and mpay through DEWA SMART application. DEWA managed to overcome this challenge by doing the necessary changes to the application to ensure it complies with the other services, this is through direct and effective coordination with Dubai SMART Government. Ease of use: Another challenge was providing a SMART application that provides services with the least number of taps with a user friendly interface, and it was overcome by redesigning and restructuring the application. Internal and External Processes Integration: Internal processes and procedures were integrated to ease providing the service through the SMART application. In addition to, integrating external processes and procedures with the concerned departments such as banks, government entities, and private entities. Time Constraints: Time was one of the greatest challenges, overcome by employee s enthusiasm and top management support to complete the project on time. Resistance to change: this was overcome through proper change management involving proper communication solutions and awareness messages sent for all stakeholders involved in particularly the customers Assessment Please describe what benefits have been achieved 4
After completion of the project, the team conducted a full assessment to evaluate the success of the project as per the objectives set in first place. The assessment covered several levels starting from the outcomes v/s. planned objectives to the implementation stage and re evaluation of the obstacles faced during the implementation. Even the performance of the team members were revisited to make sure that needed expertise was available in addition proper mechanisms to share knowledge were established. The developed application had proven to be a pioneer solution that provided customers with services and features beyond their expectations. It features diversified aspects in alignment with the project objectives, built on latest technologies and compatible with all market platforms. It also enhanced DEWA image by transforming it from a supply provider to a proactive sustainable modern utility. We are able now to reach customers at their homes, offices, schools, etc even customers outside the country can reach DEWA mobile application and get the answers to their inquiries on the spot. Through this application DEWA paved the road to a full integration of the government services that customers can benefit from by a SMART Unified umbrella. We are now able to support all customers in a new innovative and iterative way, reflecting the best standards in service delivery. The following benefits are the direct outcomes from the project after its implementation: Savings from Reduced physical visits to DEWA offices: DEWA's re engineered processes has resulted in reduction of customer visits to DEWA offices, saving customer time, efforts, and money, DEWA resources, besides reaping environmental benefits. Reduction of service steps: The SMART application enables the customers to submit their requests with minimum number of taps which facilitate their access to DEWA services. Reduction of documentation: The SMART application forms were simplified by reducing data and attachments such as reduction of required fields in submitting service requests such as move in/move out, change landlord information etc. Real time payment: This facilitates customers to pay DEWA bills in real time, keeping the customers informed of their account transactions. Personalization of customer accounts: the SMART application allows customers to add personal information including images, nicknames for their accounts to help them easily track their accounts by names instead of memorizing the complex account number especially if they own more than one account. Since its launching, DEWA SMART mobile application has seen successful trust and participation from DEWA customers. A latest statistics shown that up to date, the total downloads of the application since launch exceeded 582,000 serving all customers categories from residential, commercial and industrial. In 2010 alone, more than 26,000 thousand have been downloaded. In addition more than 1,034,614 transactions were executed through DEWA SMART mobile application to date. Application Downloads Applications Years Total 5
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Android 442 14,276 28,198 41,127 84043 Blackberry 5,778 9,620 10,562 3,146 29106 ios 26,636 66,071 91,195 144,072 96,534 424508 Samsung Smart TV 8,757 7,616 19,276 4,665 40314 Total 577971 Total Transactions(till Date) Refinement 6
What are the lessons learned? Throughout the development process, from its inception to final publication, DEW team was keen to collect and build improvement based on the obstacles and problems faced during all the project stages. Therefore, a dedicated intranet portal was made available to post the lessons learned from all stakeholders participated in the project. The posts are categorized into Technical and Project management lessons. The captured lessons were shared with the concerned parties and analyzed to either prevent future occurrence or to optimize solutions. Some of the lessons learnt that were of big value for DEWA are as follows: Establishing DEWA standard process for application development, with guidelines and procedure starting from the idea to the final implementation Establishing a method of proper timely escalation of problems, tight and active collaboration with business team to review and approve both functionality and content Establishing Change Advisory Board (CAB) consisting of senior management staff for constant reviewing, studying and approving variations Adoption of agile project management methodology utilizing the technology in monitoring and reporting progress. Provide the logistics to support project team, including easy access to office, a proper work environment, ease communication among team members, usage of handhelds and VPN access to be more connectable to project activities. Summarise the planned next steps if applicable DEWA aims continuously to increase customer satisfaction and enhance customer experience through a pool of advanced SMART services. Therefore DEWA SMART mobile application was a real successful story. To ensure sustaining of the achieved results, DEWA is always keen to continuously improve its services in particularly its SMART m services by extending the scope of the m services and features including but not limited to: Launching Video Chat service which will be available 24 hours to facilitate the communication between the customer and the customer service staff and receive direct feedback/improvement suggestion from customers. DEWA will add more features and services dedicated for disabled to enable them to use DEWA SMART application easily. Subscribe and Unsubscribe from the entity communication list. This feature will allow the customer to set his own preference with regards to receiving email notification from DEWA which will have a positive effect. Government Observation this feature will allow other government entities in Dubai to provide feedback to DEWA regarding the integrated services provided. DEWA SMART mobile application is now available in Arabic and English. However other language will be availed as a next stage providing the customer with a more friendly and personalized experience. 7