Oct '11 SkyPortal turns one!

The Skybridge iPhone app SkyPortal is the secret to Skybridge’s success when delivering high volume satellite and digital television contracts, processing more than 27,500 jobs in its first year of operation and saving more than 14,000 hours and 270kg of paper

SkyPortal is an iPhone application that automates the process of job fulfilment and is fully integrated with the company’s management system, SIMON. 

First released on 20 October 2010, SkyPortal is now used by the great majority of Skybridge contractors.  In the first year alone SkyPortal has been used on 27,515 jobs.  More than 85% of the company’s paperwork is now processed using SkyPortal.

To put that into context, SkyPortal has saved the equivalent of 270kg of paper and more than 14,000 hours (or almost 7 working years) in scanning and processing time.

SkyPortal is the brainchild of Skybridge CEO Glen Makin and CIO Nick Hutchins, who saw the need for a mobile solution to make it easier for Skybridge’s field contractors to meet the demanding administrative and quality assurance requirements of the company’s Federal Government contracts, including the Digital Switchover Household Assistance Scheme and the Digital Switchover Satellite Subsidy Scheme. 

“We had been investigating a mobile solution including tablets and ruggedised mobile devices for several years but didn’t find a suitable platform until maturity of the iPhone” says Skybridge CIO Nick Hutchins.  “The iPhone provided an ideal platform as it is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and readily available to our contractors.”

Sera Fanous, the Manager of Skybridge’s Field Workforce Team, agrees that SkyPortal has made administration a lot easier as it leaves little room for error.  “SkyPortal means instant delivery of information back from our contractors and best of all, techs are able to enjoy their own time once they get home because there's no paperwork required” she says.

Skyportal directs contractors on how to perform the job, for example by displaying samples of photos that need to be provided.  Dave Christian, Skybridge’s Field QA Manager, says that this has resulted in improved quality outcomes as well. 

Skybridge CEO Glen Makin believes it is not an exaggeration to say that SkyPortal has literally transformed the working lives of the company’s field contractors. “Skybridge has an outstanding record of meeting and exceeding customer KPIs and we keep raising the bar higher and higher. SkyPortal makes it easy for our contractors to meet these high standards and actually saves them two or three hours a day in completing paperwork” he says.

SkyPortal has been embraced by Skybridge field contractors who are equally excited about the system. 

“I cannot speak highly enough of the iPhone app Skyportal.  It is professional, user friendly and time saving.  The biggest saving without dispute is no paper work at end of day, it cuts out at least 2 hours plus.  The extensive iPhone features also have the added benefit of presenting a professional approach to our work management with the customer” says Paul Eardley from Queensland. 

South Australian contractor Shane Darwin agrees: “It is easy to use, saves me having to print out paperwork to take to the job and two hours per night in uploading paperwork.” 

The final word goes to Tim James, a Skybridge contractor from Victoria.  “How good is SkyPortal, it does almost everything for you” he says.  “SkyPortal’s worth its weight in gold.”