AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Field Service News

Upskill, a leader in enterprise augmented reality (AR) software, today announced Skylight for Microsoft HoloLens is available for public early access in the U.S. Enterprises can now take advantage of mixed reality experiences on the same Skylight AR software platform that also supports assisted reality and mobile devices, at no additional cost.

Certain use cases for AR call for more immersive digital interaction that provides users with a large canvas to visualize the necessary information to complete their work. Skylight for HoloLens delivers this mixed reality experience, which is particularly relevant for hands-on workers completing complex tasks in manufacturing, maintenance and repair, as well as for on-the-job training.

Using Skylight for HoloLens, hands-on workers gain immediate access to:

• Spatial Content Placement: Place, move and resize digital content in the real world and reference while completing work completely hands-free.
• Multi-window Viewing: Simultaneously visualize, resize, interact with and cross-reference numerous sources of content in one, large screen.
• Native Content Integration: Access and display original reference materials, such as work instructions and engineering drawings in PDF format, instantly and without the need to reauthor content—a key advantage for enterprise customers.
• Natural User Interaction: Use simple hand gestures or head gaze to directly navigate applications, interact with content and reposition information within a workspace.

All of the features available with Skylight, including enterprise scalability, security and the ability to seamlessly integrate with virtually any system or database, can be leveraged across multiple device types, including smart glasses and mixed reality headsets, such as HoloLens.

“Our customers see augmented reality as the force multiplier that allows them to fully realize the potential of their workforce and digital investments,” said Brian Ballard, Upskill CEO and co-founder. “Skylight for Microsoft HoloLens will serve as the foundation that delivers the latest advances in visualization, cloud computing and artificial intelligence in a mixed reality environment.”

Terry Farrell, Director of Product Marketing, Mixed Reality, Microsoft Corp. said, “As adoption of Microsoft HoloLens continues to rapidly increase in industrial settings, Skylight offers a software platform that is flexible and can scale to meet any number of applications well suited for mixed reality experiences. With Skylight for HoloLens, hands-on workers are provided with the ability to interact with content and information in the most natural ways possible, leading to a safer, more efficient workplace.”

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The United Kingdom’s army of tradespeople who monitor, maintain and fix the billions of pounds of equipment that keeps offices, factories and shops open have become the new frontline in the advance of the Internet of Things (IoT).

As the internet and smartphones become primary necessities over paper and landlines, trade services must embrace the next phase of business evolution in order to remain relevant in the market and to appear dependable, effective and cutting-edge for the modern customer.

Though not a brand new concept, IoT has become the herald of this new chapter, facilitating unique connections with the latest job management and service technology and forever changing the way the industry operates.

The Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT has been defined as the concept of connecting any electronic device to the internet and to other connected devices. It works an application or service that uses information collected from sensors – or the “things” – and then analyses the data from the sensor to perform a specific function.

Through IoT, a giant online network is created which allows previously unrelated technology to speak to each other and combine forces to create new functions that generate new levels of convenience for the user. Many tech experts have used smart TVs or fitness watches that generate a tailored exercise plan as examples of IoT.

Why should trade services care?

According to Curtis Thomson, simPRO Director at one of the world’s leading job management software companies, IoT projects have now moved well beyond the initial trials and high-end proof of concepts and are being actively rolled out by leading service companies and manufacturers across the UK.

For these companies, however, it’s not about programming driverless cars or automatic toasters and coffee machines for the break room. Trade service companies are eager to get in on the IoT action because when their systems are all connected and talking to each other, they have the potential to improve their service delivery, considerably cut costs, and deliver an improved customer experience.

“Think about the IoT in terms of field service applications,” Thomson said.

“Say, for example, you have an accelerometer fitted to the cooling tower on top of a building that could take vibration readings, log them to your database, and alert you when the vibrations fall out of a range.

“Or, you have sensors in the fire detection or sprinkler systems all constantly monitoring and reporting back the current state of the equipment they are tasked to keep an eye on.

"When an event occurs that falls outside of a tolerable range for that piece of equipment, a notification is raised, a job is created to investigate, or an alert is sent to your customer..."

Then, when an event occurs that falls outside of a tolerable range for that piece of equipment, a notification is raised, a job is created to investigate, or an alert is sent to your customer.

“How could this impact your SLAs, or your costs, for that matter? What will your customers think about this – your ability to log, report and respond to potential defects before they even can tell something is wrong, and in between maintenance cycles?”

Thomson’s insight into the future of the trade service industry is why companies like simPRO are determined to add IoT to their repertoire. In 2018, simPRO customers across the UK have been able to access the company’s new IoT solution, which rolled out in June to more than 100,000 users across the globe to countries like Australia, New Zealand, the United States.

simPRO IoT takes hardware, software and data from businesses in the trade and field service industries and integrates them into one platform, allowing previously separate programmes and machines to talk to each other and provide automated solutions ordinarily requiring extensive manual effort.

simPRO’s IoT solution also includes machine learning, proactive action triggering and automation of field service activities, which significantly reduces the complexity of administrative tasks like selection, installation, integration and management, and can trigger field service activities for businesses in near real time.

The company has already begun working with airport lounge operator Swissport and facilities (building plant and equipment) management group Thermacell to keep guests at Luton Airport in the UK warm in winter and cool in summer.

IoT represents significant opportunity in the trade services market, with the number of connected IoT devices worldwide expected to jump 12 percent on average annually, from nearly 31 billion in 2018 to 125 billion in 2030, according to analysis from IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO). In the UK, statista reported that in 2018 the share of adults owned at least one connected device was 83 percent.

The ability for machines and data to connect and interact with one another goes far beyond allowing the human race to live like the Jetsons. The trade service industry’s IoT-laden future signals effectiveness, efficiency, profitability and all-around satisfaction for everyone involved.

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In addition to the smooth transition toward an outcome-based business model, the organisation-wide and bottom line benefits of automating asset and service data collection and utilisation are vast. The benefits are perhaps no clearer than when it comes to achieving minimal unplanned downtime, where over nine in ten (94%) respondents report that the automated collection and utilisation of asset service data will be absolutely fundamental or an important factor in actually achieving this asset specific benefit. A similar proportion (91%) report the same for improved first-time fix rates.

Plugging the Holes – Revenue Leakage

Further to this, 82% believe that automating asset and service data processes will be pivotal when it comes to lower leakages, and contract leakage is something that is causing a great deal of damage to organisations currently.

On average, respondents’ organisations are undertaking 187,470 work orders per year, but an estimated 8.34% (17,542 work orders1 ) of these work orders are left unaccounted for by engineers according to those respondents who know how many are carried out on a yearly basis. This can lead to huge financial deficits and wasted resources and is clearly a problem that organisations should be taking notice of if they want to remain financially viable.

The issue of contract leakage is proving particularly problematic for organisations in the oil and gas, and telecoms sectors – on average, respondents from the oil and gas sector report that their organisation carries out 228,261 work orders on a yearly basis, and those in the telecoms sector are undertaking 213,424 work orders. The level of contract leakage in organisations from these two sectors is staggering. The respondents from the telecoms sector who know the number of work orders being carried out per year, report an average leakage of 9.64% (26,321 work orders), and this is only slightly lower at 9.41% (23,093 work orders) according to those from oil and gas. It seems unthinkable that organisations are unaware of such a gaping hole in their business, and it raises the question of what else could they be missing?

The process of automating asset and service data practices will not only benefit those involved in keeping track of work orders but can have wider reaching benefits as well, exemplified by the 84% of respondents who agree that the successful utilisation of asset data can positively impact all areas of the business. The specific departments that are expected to benefit include, but are not limited to, sales (38%) and marketing (37%) who will be able to better leverage customer usage behaviour, finance (33%) who will be able to provide more accurate billing, and even corporate social responsibility (27%) who will be able to monitor the environmental impacts of assets more effectively.

Bottom Line Benefits: Double-Digit Revenue Growth

While these organisation-wide benefits are impossible to ignore, the truly jaw-dropping potential of automating the collection, aggregation and analysis of asset and service data comes from the bottom line benefits. On average, respondents estimate that this process and using it to drive new marketing, sales and financing models can increase their organisation’s revenue by 14.15% over the next 12 months. In addition, it is thought that operational costs could be reduced by as much as 12.03%, on average.

[quote float="left"]An increase in revenue and decrease in operational costs can only lead to one thing – increasing profit margins.[/quote]An increase in revenue and decrease in operational costs can only lead to one thing – increasing profit margins.

The figures around revenue and operational costs show slight variation by region, with those in the US and MENAT particularly confident about the revenue increases that their organisations will witness – average increases of 15.67% and 15.43% are forecast respectively. Furthermore, those from the MENAT region are almost equally as bullish about the prospects of reducing their operational costs, predicting an average reduction of 14.21%. This is likely to be at least in part down to organisations in the MENAT region starting with a clean slate – the region is currently booming with new business and they are less likely than their counterparts in Europe or the US to have existing legacy technologies in place which would slow down any transition towards the automation of processes. This, in turn, means that they can begin to witness the financial benefits almost immediately – exciting times for the MENAT region providing that any transition is rigorously planned and diligently implemented.

Predicted financial benefits over the next 12 months

Another key way of making money is to improve cash flow and automating the collection and utilisation of asset and service data can also assist in this domain – over eight in ten (83%) respondents believe that the automatic collection, aggregation and analysis of asset service data could have a positive impact on their organisation’s cash flow over the next 12 months.

But what about return on investment?

Ultimately organisations are going to have to spend a fairly significant amount of money on the automation of asset and service data processes which might put some businesses off, but if the reward outweighs the risk then this is surely going to be a worthwhile expenditure.

Strong RoI

When taking into account all of the benefits that their organisation could experience, respondents believe that for every $1 they invest in ensuring that they can automatically collect, aggregate and analyse asset service data they would expect a return of $4.44, on average. Respondents from organisations in the US are even more convinced about the possible returns that they could experience, believing that this figure could soar as high as $5.29. The potential returns dwarf the initial outlay and it is hard to imagine a stronger case for investing in this process in order to guarantee a better future for organisations.

These financial benefits all culminate in enhanced competitiveness within the industry, and 87% of respondents agree that the automatic collection and utilisation of asset service data will have a positive impact on their organisation’s ability to remain competitive in their sector.

This is crucial because the more that organisations across the globe begin to realise the value that this process can bring the more that asset and service data will be used, explaining why the vast majority (86%) of respondents agree that the more asset service data is used, the more value it brings to the organisation.

A success loop will inevitably be created, opening the door for those who are brave enough to take those initial steps to get a jump on the competition and put themselves out there as leaders in their industry.

Want to know more?!  There is a white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to date now! 

 

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ClickSoftware, the leading provider of field service management software, has announced a number of new customer wins and updates from the second quarter of 2018.

The company announced several new customers in a range of industries and geographies, including Enbridge Gas New Brunswick, Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Home, IFM Restoration, and Lattelecom, as well other leading service companies. In the most recent quarter, ClickSoftware also signed a new agreement with a longtime partner, Diabsolut FSM, to resell its cloud-based field service management product, Click Field Service Edge in North America.

In May, the company enhanced its flagship offering, Click Field Service Edge, to further improve efficiency and effectiveness on the day of service by uniquely incorporating real-time traffic data into the scheduling process. Field Service Edge now automatically updates the schedule if an unexpected event impacts the planned route to the next task, such as a traffic accident or road closure, and proactively incorporates live traffic conditions whenever schedules are updated to further increase efficiency and operational insight.

“Field service today requires unprecedented agility to achieve service levels that both exceed customer expectations and are cost effective for the business,” said Mark Cattini, CEO of ClickSoftware. “Delivering measurable impact to service businesses is only possible through a combination of real-world experience and state-of-the-art computer science, and we are delighted to see our customers validating our approach.”

In March, ClickSoftware received industry recognition from Gartner, with the highest product score for the “High-Volume and Volatile Schedules” use case in Gartner’s 2017 Critical Capabilities for Field Service Management* report.

“We believe the achievement reflects the company’s commitment to delivering solutions that enable service organizations to predict and plan for exceptional customer experiences,” said Cattini.

*Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Field Service Management, Jim Robinson, Jason Wong, Michael Maoz, March 27, 2018

Note: Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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ServiceMax from GE Digital, a leading provider of field service software, today announced a major new release of Predix ServiceMax Field Service Management (FSM), a next-generation field service offering that brings new ways of working to all professionals in service delivery. Recognized as one of the most comprehensive and visionary FSM solutions, the newest ServiceMax offering gives service technicians greater autonomy, empowers dispatchers with more robust decision-making tools, and helps companies better plan and execute complex service projects.

“By delivering innovative field service solutions, our customers are able to achieve higher service efficiency and a better experience for their customers – while remaining competitive in an increasingly crowded market,” said Scott Berg, CEO, ServiceMax from GE Digital. “Responding to evolving customer needs and executing on our long-standing commitment to service innovation and thought leadership, we are excited to introduce our next-generation field service solution.”

Leading the market in customer response, ServiceMax FSM 18.3 addresses three key pillars in next-generation field service work, including technician autonomy, dispatcher empowerment and complex work execution.

Granting Technicians Greater Autonomy

Traditionally, technicians receive guidance from a central dispatch in a linear and prescriptive manner. As the face to customers, field service engineers need the flexibility to make decisions that best serve customer needs. Giving technicians and contractors the ability to make autonomous decisions on a mobile device without depending on the central dispatch supports more confident and effective execution of work – ultimately helping them be more responsive to customer needs.

ServiceMax FSM 18.3 is the company’s fourth-generation mobile application and the culmination of its history and experience in empowering and enabling service technicians. Today’s service operations rely increasingly on combinations of third-party and on-staff service teams, requiring a higher grade of usability, easy adoption and a variety of mobile devices. This new release represents a consumer-style field service mobile app running on the device of their choice.

Empowering the Dispatcher

Additionally, service organizations have evolved the role of service dispatchers. Most do not plan to replace their dispatchers with automated scheduling algorithms – but they do want to free them from the mundane task of day-to-day scheduling to focus on complex, strategic decision making. To support this, ServiceMax FSM 18.3 gives dispatchers tools to be more effective – with software serving up recommendations at every step.

Where dispatchers previously relied on their experience and intuition about how to deploy technicians, this FSM offering delivers a new user experience for the dispatchers and planners called Service Board. Featuring an intuitive UI and significant added functionality over the existing Dispatch Console, the Service Board adds new features that support more efficient planning, scheduling and dispatching. This solution gives dispatchers the flexibility to deal with escalations or problems, focusing on more sophisticated work where human decision making is required.

Addressing Complex Work

Not all types of service jobs are the same; they range from short duration and low complexity, such as cable TV installations in the consumer world, too much more complex and sophisticated service calls, as in the manufacturing and energy space. Major projects – overhauls, equipment decommissioning, installations and upgrades – can be highly complex. Additionally, industries such as power and utilities, aviation, and oil and gas must follow strict regulatory requirements. As service organizations look to expand their service offerings, they must be able to effectively manage service jobs that span multiple days, require multiple technicians, and even work done in multiple shifts. ServiceMax FSM 18.3 offers a new way of solving these challenges.

The new FSM solution helps service organizations scale this complex work, giving companies the ability to define standard or complex shift plans. This includes jobs with multiple technician skill sets, management of multiple resources, and situations when technicians must work on a job for days rather than hours. Additionally, FSM 18.3 can incorporate data from predictive maintenance software, such as GE Digital’s Predix Asset Performance Management, giving companies greater understanding of an equipment condition for highly complex assets.

“It is no longer working to just focus on ‘what’s wrong’ when delivering service in the field. Smart service organizations are working to focus on what RIGHT looks like for the customer, delivering reliable uptime rather than just fast response and resolution times” says Vele Galovski, VP of Field Services Research for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). “To accomplish that, you need to really empower your employees with the right tools that help them get their jobs done. ServiceMax’s new capabilities capitalize on this trend, and it is great to see ServiceMax, now as part of GE, continue to focus on features that matter for our field service members.”

Availability

The new capabilities introduced in ServiceMax FSM 18.3 are currently available in beta. During this beta period, ServiceMax is working closely with select customers to refine use cases and the product experience, after which the features will become generally available in the first quarter of 2019. For more details about ServiceMax FSM 18.3, click here.

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined by Michael Smythe and Alice Walton from eBecs as they discuss how their clients are using their site assessment survey tool to collect key data from the field when their field service engineers are on site...

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Gilbarco Veeder-Root — the leading petrol forecourt equipment and services provider in the UK — has learned that route planning software really can work. Enter Fast Lean Smart (FLS) and its particular brand of automation.

Major petrol station brands, supermarket chains and independent dealers up and down the country rely on Gilbarco. By extension, so do millions of motorists. Gilbarco Veeder Root is charged with maintaining the equipment it provides by way of an extensive national network of field engineers. With so many forecourts to look after, Gilbarco Veeder Root’s operation has to be efficient and smart.

Until now, the smartest way of doing things has been manual. Gilbarco Veeder Root had tried automation years ago. It implemented a scheduling program that didn’t prove intelligent enough to plan routes that reflected the real-life business environment. Nor was it flexible enough to react to changes in that environment which include 2-hour responses.

It’s understandable, then, that when FLS approached Gilbarco with promises of radically improved scheduling efficiency through automation, David Cope — UK Operations Director for Gilbarco Veeder Root — was sceptical.

The main reason Gilbarco Veeder Root was willing to consider a change was because FLS lets prospective customers trial its software first. “We’d tried scheduling software before and it didn’t work, so I wasn’t sure how VISITOUR was going to benefit us,” says David. “However, FLS were keen for us to see that it worked in practice and come to our own conclusions before committing to a sale. We didn’t have that choice with the old system.”

David continues, “As a first step they offered to run a test using data from planned maintenance and customer callouts we had scheduled manually. We were expecting them to say that their software could schedule our callouts maybe 5-10% more efficiently. When they brought back a figure of 30-40%, it really was too compelling to ignore and we, therefore, agreed to proceed with a trial.”

Gilbarco Veeder Root trialled FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE in live use for a chosen geographic area. FLS VISITOUR schedules callouts and plans optimised appointments and routes in real time, taking into account traffic-based driving times and the changing priorities of the business. FLS MOBILE provides comprehensive on-the-road support for field engineers and streamlines communication between them, the office and the customer.

David explains, “We were impressed with the results. FLS VISITOUR makes intelligent decisions based on what’s important to our business and can adapt quickly to changing circumstances in a way the old system couldn’t. FLS MOBILE is going to improve the service we provide, particularly to our independent dealers, who we’ve had trouble keeping in touch with because of the complexity involved. FLS MOBILE will keep them up to date by sending automated messages with our arrival times.”

Following the successful trial, an interface was required between FLS and Gilbarco Veeder Root’s service management system to prepare for rollout. Their system has limited integration support and FLS worked with the supplier’s developers to create an innovative solution. David adds, “We were determined to solve the interface because we knew the size of the prize. The one thing that stood out through the transition was that FLS were always on hand to assist us, FLS could stand for Fast Lean Smart or Friends Lending Support — both fit well for me. We are delighted with our choice of FLS and to have enabled the benefits of VISITOUR to be realised nationally.”

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Across the last few weeks, we've run a mini-series of excerpts of from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving.

In the first feature in the series, we looked at how when it comes to communications, Customers Want It Their Way . In the second instalment, we explored how Complexity Is a Distraction to Delivering your Target Customer Experience.

Now in the third and final excerpt in this series we discuss "How to Reverse the ‘It’s Getting More Complex and Expensive’ Trap" that so many field service companies can fall into...

Are improving your communication channels a key issue for you?! The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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So far we have explored two points of view: the customer and the advisor. The customer’s adoption of technologies that enables an always connected, real-time responsive lifestyle has set an incredibly high bar for organisations to match. In particular, smartphones simplify the business of getting things done. An obsessive design focus on ‘one-click access has set expectations for simple, immediate engagement.

"Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices..."

However, organisations are yet to match this sophistication. Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices.

A similar fragmentation has also occurred with enterprise CRM deployments. These have an enduring reputation for being hard to deliver. Scaled down ambitions then tend to target a more pragmatic focus on the individual needs of functional teams. This makes personalised service a much more complex task for advisors who are still expected to be knowledgeable about any event across a customer’s lifecycle.

Organising customer data by functional priorities has meant CRM is failing to keep pace with expectations for informed, low effort customer service engagement. Operationally it is just too hard for advisors to locate and assess the context of a customer’s situation on the fly. Both customer and organisation suffer in terms of poor customer experience and ROI.

Instead, this is how customer data should be used.

At the point of initial customer contact, a rich mix of relevant data is used for automated decision making. The aim is to direct customers to their ‘best’ resource. In an omni-channel context, this could be live assistance, self-service or proactive service. The triggers for selecting the ‘best’ resource will depend on the demands of each customer journey and how each customer reacts during that journey.

As a rule of thumb:

• Repeatable customer needs at definable points of a journey can be anticipated and therefore offered as a proactive service.
• Whenever things typically become complex, emotional or require some form of relationship nurture, live assistance is best.
• Anything else is a candidate for 24x7, instant self-service.

As far as live assistance is concerned, the ‘best’ advisor experience is that data and workflow is proactively pushed to them at the right points during each customer journey. The function of an effective unified desktop is to make the complex look simple. As a result, advisors are less distracted and can remain in full rapport with each customer and their needs.

This simplification demands a single screen of information that will adapt as the conversation flows. What previously required toggling across multiple screens is now condensed into a single overview - with duplicated and inconsistent data entry a thing of the past.

Some of this design intent is achieved through visual layout: for instance just one inbox for all voice and text enquiries, one view of interaction and transaction history etc. All of which makes for the kind of intuitive user experience that advisors already expect from their mobile technologies.

However, there is also some clever stuff that happens before any customer information is brought to the advisor’s attention. In the design quest of presenting only the most simple and relevant view, an advanced unified desktop will combine many data sources into a single stream.

As previously mentioned, holistic customer insight is seldom held in one system of record or offered by a functional view. And hard-won experience tells us that the ‘rip and replace’ strategy of turning many legacy systems into a single consolidated version seldom works out as planned.

"Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need..."

Instead, there are less risky ways of achieving the same goal. Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need.

Sometimes an even greater focus is needed around how customer information is organised and displayed. What about those instances when first-time resolution does not happen within a single session? Maybe the process that supports a customer journey inevitably takes time, such as making an application or a claim or trying to recover lost property. Maybe the customer or organisation has to find more information or do something else to reach a decision. All of which takes more time.

This is where case management comes into its own. It draws boundaries around this type of customer situation and attributes the relevant data, interactions, transactions and workflow for easy ongoing reference. This is especially important when there are multiple points of customer contact, which are progressed by different employees, who need to easily reference previous steps in the customer journey without expecting customers to provide the narrative.

This form of grouping is enabled by one of the defining functions of an omni-channel framework. So-called ‘universal queuing’ will organise all voice, text and workflow items into a single management system instead of treating them as separate queues. As a result, integrated views of activities over time are automatically generated and presented to the advisor, saving time and effort for all concerned. This ability is however untypical in a CRM centric approach.

Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Adopting IoT as part of the greater service and business environment involves keeping up with industry changes as they take place. 

We recently looked at some research from Astea and WBR that looked at why companies were adopting IoT based approaches to service delivery. Now in the second excerpt from that same report, we look at the new challenges such new next-generation tools might bring to the table...

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Now, the majority of field service companies are developing methods to make IoT-related services more efficient. Growth patterns suggest that they are being well received by customers as they use connected data to created advanced solutions.

Today, 75% of companies are using connected data and IoT to create advanced services; among them, 83% believe connected data and IoT lead to more profitable business decisions. Business decision makers who responded to the survey have identified several emerging applications of connected data where they are planning changes or are already seeing business results — security, product sustainability, new product technologies, and fleet management, among others.

Advanced Services in Practice

The research surfaced a wide-ranging and varied number of comments from service directors who participated which included:

“We are using connected data and IoT on an extensive level, with client dealings and remote problem solving with our advanced Affiliates Suite service to support client demands more efficiently. Under this service, we monitor data, alert clients about threats, and [provide] critical observation. With real-time data, threats can be diffused with faster diagnostics.”

“Recently, we have integrated IoT in order for vital health information to be passed on directly to those maintaining [the equipment]. With this innovation, the availability of details in timely manner is ensured, thus speeding treatment and dispensing medication. This solution will be subject to technological advancements from time to time with upgraded systems.”

“Once we derive information such as purchase patterns, market trends, [and] competitor stats, [connected data and IoT] is used to develop substantial products that are able to withstand and supply changing mechanisms. Advanced solutions using connected data and the latest upgrades benefit customers and organisation alike.”

Want to know more?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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