As part of an exclusive Field Service News presentation with the team at Space1 Kris Oldland talks to Francesco Benvenuto of OverIT the creators of Space1 and augmented reality tool designed for field service organisations to find out the difference between Augmented, Merged and Mixed Reality technologies as well as discussing the importance of Artificial Intelligence when it comes to the application of such technologies...

Would You Like to Know More? www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can access the full presentation by clicking the button below. If you are yet to subscribe the button below will take you to our subscription page, where you can see the range of subscription options available. 

---

Field Service News is in the middle of an in-depth global research project. As we reach the half way stage we share some of the initial findings including that cover three quarters of service companies see an opportunity to improve service delivery in the next 12 months...

The study is being conducted across three key global regions, EMEA, APAC and North America and is run in partnership with WBR Asia, More Momentum and Field Service News. The aim of the research is to assess the global impact on the field service sector of the Covid-19 pandemic.

We all know that our industry has been hit harder by this crisis than anything we have faced before. However, if we are to plan both a speedy recovery, and mitigation of future challenges should we be hit by a second wave or another similar pandemic, we simply must understand in quantitate terms what that impact has been. 

As Peter Drucker famously stated, we cannot measure that which we do not manage. Now, more than ever before, is the time for strong management, strong leadership. So clear wide reaching data on that outlines the damage we have faced is crucial. 

While the survey is still running, already there are a number of emerging trends from companies as they react to the crisis

• 56% of companies see acquiring digital competencies and a establishing a service culture as the a critical success factor to thrive in the upcoming disruption
• 71% are enhancing their service sales model and capabilities
  • However, only 25% are developing their earnings or pricing model
• 83% of companies see opportunities today to increase efficiency of service delivery, hence improving the margins
• 50% see growth opportunities for services focusing on operational solutions for their clients, beyond product related services

We are seeking to build as accurate a picture as possible which will be distilled into a detailed report for the industry. The report will be available for purchase at a price of $195. However,  all participants within the research will be given a complimentary of this report. 

---

If you would wish to be part of this project and claim a free copy of the report as a participant then you do so by clicking this link

In the final excerpt from season 5 episode 3 of the Field Service Podcast, Lukas Fahnroth of Koenig and Bauer and Michael Kuebel of Salesforce discuss why digital transformation and customer-centricity must form the foundations of the new normal we are all currently in the process of building.

---

 

Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

Digital Transfomation Must Simplify Field Service Management

Koenig and Bauer have been an example of excellence and dynamism in reacting to the Covid-19 challenges that we've all faced. Salesforce, as their technology provider were also instrumental in allowing them to make that shift. But the digital transformation for Koenig and Bauer had happened a long time ago, which is part of the reason why they were so agile and nimble and reactive in the first place.

However, one of the things that really came to the fore when Koenig and Bauer's Lukas Fahnroth and Salesforce's Michael Kuebel joined us on the Field Service Podcast was also the importance of customer centricity.

It was interesting during that conversation to see a number of areas echoed that have become something of a recurring theme emerging from the examples of companies that were able to ride the wave of turmoil we have all faced. 

 

"It's not just making sure that your employees are safe, but also making sure that this partnership between a company and the employees is a steady one and that is a good partnership..."

 - Lukas Fahnroth, Koenig and Bauer. 

 

For example, we have seen a simple dual focus amongst companies towards customer centric thinking and providing a safe operating environment for our employees and our customers as well.

In many ways we have perhaps had to condense our thinking into these more simplified, less complex kind of thought processes. Empowerment is another of these themes that keeps returning to the top of the discussion - especially in the field service role itself. We have seen a lot of autonomy being given towards the engineers. Of course, what is empowering them to do that and to have that degree of autonomy in the field is the flow of data brought about by digital transformation and platforms such as Salesforce's Field Service Lightning.

At the heart of the matter, this is what digitalisation is really all about. Taking away unnecessary complexity and facilitating better decision making by making the processes we undertake simpler and more effective. 

"It is really [providing] the simplification towards those partnerships," comments Lukas Fahnroth of Koenig and Bauer. "It's not just making sure that your employees are safe, but also making sure that this partnership between a company and the employees is a steady one and that is a good partnership. I think what we'll see after the crisis to stay is the fact that those partnerships with internal and external stakeholders will really become the most relevant business goal."

---

Further Reading:

• Learn more about work.com @ www.salesforce.com/work/
• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

One company that stood as something of a beacon for the many of us in the field service sector struggling in the face of the global lockdowns was Koenig and Bauer, whose agile mindset allowed them to adapt quickly to the situation. In this excerpt from the Field Service Podcast, Koenig and Bauer's Lukas Fahnroth and Michael Keubel of Salesforce discuss what recovery might look like for field service companies and how we can get there.

---

 

Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

A NEW NORMAL OF AGILITY FOR THE FIELD SERVICE INDUSTRY

In many ways it is our collective responsibility now to ensure that after all of the challenges we've faced and all of the heartbreaks people have seen across the last few months, we grasp the nettle and hold on tightly to the good that has come from the global lockdowns.

There is a lot of talk about the recovery but what exactly should that look like and how do we get there? How can we use the last few months as a catalyst for embarking on an ongoing continuous improvement journey? What does the conversation look like now in terms of the conversations you're having with customers? Is there a specific strategy or approach we must adopt as we look towards recovery and how you help your customers' customers as well?

"One of the important things that happened during the crisis for us was that we've extended a lot of the digital offerings we've had in place. We've improved on them in many instances" says Lukas Fahnroth, Koenig and Bauer.  "So the conversation for us currently revolves around further extending those actions we've taken and also keeping them in place, even if the crisis disappears. For example, for the hotline services, we've extended the video support calls. A lot of the offerings we've put out there, like the customer community with the analytics functionality, is really something that our customers have got used to, and that we at Koenig and Bauer now see as essential. So we're going to see a lot of those actions stay in place and keep this digital innovation momentum in place in order to further develop our digital strategy, even after the crisis disappears."

As Fahnroth alludes, the digital acceleration of the last few months has been dramatic, not just for Koenig and Bauer, who were already on the path very much anyway, but for many, many other companies. In essence we've already begun the process of building a new normal and that new normal is much more digital centric than what came before. 

 

"Salesforce is offering help here. Using our own platform, we have created a new product suite that we call work.com, which is the probably the first product on the market for organising reopening of businesses and especially addressing these topics..."

-Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

 

"We can split the Covid-19 crisis into three phases that we see," explains Michael Kuebel, Salesforce. 

"One is the fact that most of us have been stabilising and gone through a process to make sure we keep operations running, and I think Koenig and Bauer is a brilliant example of that. We have other clients in many industries that cope very well with stabilising but now they're going to the next phase which is a reopening phase, which also needs a different type of effort, and that is a muscle we haven't yet trained.

"We need to organise a safe return to the workplace by making sure that we don't overfill our offices. We must make sure that we can trace contacts of people in case somebody gets a positive test result, then you can trace back and understand who they met with, allowing you to inform customers to make sure you don't spread the virus any further, keeping transparency.

"Salesforce is offering help here. Using our own platform, we have created a new product suite that we call work.com, which is the probably the first product that is on the market for organising reopening and especially addressing these topics.

"The last phase, once we're all out of the crisis, is going to be continuing the growth path. When we look at the capabilities and the success factors, we feel that leadership in the crisis, out of the crisis and after the crisis is paramount. Lucas was very eloquently elaborating that people, employees, customers and society are watching carefully what leaders are doing and what their priorities are.

"Customer engagement is a super important pillar. Empowerment of people is something that I think is here to stay. And last but not least, business agility. Agility is easily said but difficult to do, especially when you look at Manufacturing. My background is Manufacturing and when it's about products and safety, excellence and perfection is the ultimate goal. Now suddenly, with agility, speed is the ultimate goal.

"I think customers have quickly become used to some new experiences and services. I think that mindsets have changed and if you then have platforms and the right tools, this can enable agility to meet these new mindsets. I think that's here to stay and this will be the muscle that we train today that we will use in the future to establish growth."

---

Further Reading:

• Learn more about work.com @ www.salesforce.com/work/
• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

In this excerpt from the Field Service Podcast, Salesforce's Michael Keubel and Koenig and Bauer's Lukas Fahnroth discuss why the concept of customer-centricity was critical in being able to navigate the tricky waters of 2020.

---

 

Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

Customer Satisfaction Has to be More than a Tick-Box Exercise in Field Service Management

In a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was joined by Michael Kuebel of Salesforce and Lukas Fahnroth of Koenig and Bauer as the two discussed how they worked together to ensure Koenig and Bauer were able to remain resilient not only within their own business but also to be there to offer support when their customers needed them most.

One of the things that really came through in that conversation was the importance of being close to the customer and certainly Koenig and Bauer were able to ride the storm while simultaneously being a rock for their own customers during the Covid-19 lockdowns. However, even this 200 year old company was challenged by these unprecedented times. As Fahnroth explained; "We have seen a lot of innovations being supercharged at Koenig and Bauer because of the crisis and we've always been an innovative company, but Covid-19 really changed the way everything looks and has reset our goals in many, many instances."

However, despite those pressures the German printing manufacturer remained resolute and this is something that Kuebel strongly aligns with Koenig and Bauer's strong sense of importance in customer service and placing the customer at the heart of what they do. 

"I get enthusiastic when I hear what Lucas is saying and when I see what Koenig and Bauer are doing. I really see the potential when I talk to customers and we have initial discussions where they want to talk about customer centricity. But sometimes I feel that service leaders can feel that customer centricity is just a buzzword - but for me, what Lukas has explained with Koenig and Bauer, you can see what customer centricity actually means. What an organisation looks like, that really puts the customer in the centre. 

 

"This is really impressive and this is, for me, a brilliant example where customer centricity is so much more than a buzzword..."

- Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

 

"I was at an event earlier this year called Koenig and Bauer 4.0 and I initially thought this would be an event all about digitalisation. But it was an event where Koenig and Bauer over the course of a couple of days invited hundreds if not thousands of customers from all over the world, to bring them together and explain to them and discuss with them what Koenig and Bauer is doing on the digitalisation forefront. To explain to their customers how such changes would make their life easier and help them to make their printing production run more efficiently. It was all focused on the 'what's in it for you.'

"It was not a show of 'these are the nice features that we have' or 'aren't we an innovative company', but it was really only focused on what's in it for you. I spoke to some of Koenig and Bauer's customers that day and they were really very, very positive seeing that and seeing how much effort a company like Koenig and Bauer puts into a transformation and how they emphasise that customer success is paramount to everything that they do.

"This is really impressive and this is, for me, a brilliant example where customer centricity is so much more than a buzzword," Kuebel adds. 

Kuebel's enthusiasm will surely only be mirrored by Koenig and Bauer's own customer base, who will have benefited greatly from the print manufacturer's continuing focus on customer satisfaction across all of their thinking. Indeed, as Kuebel outlines there is a world of difference between those companies who treat customer centricity as a buzz-word and those who have it etched within their DNA. It is perhaps at times of crisis that we see this the most.

As Warren Buffet would often quip "it is when the tide goes out that you see who is swimming naked.' With a 200 year pedigree based on innovation and rock solid business ethics, you can put a hefty wager that Koenig and Bauer won't be caught out by the changing tides that Covid-19 has brought us.

---

Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

Koenig and Bauer were an organisation who showed excellent agility, innovation and leadership during the pandemic. Here, Lukas Fahnroth explains how the embedded culture within the organisation helped them pivot and adapt so quickly.

---

 

Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

Field Service Management, Driven By Customer service, Empowered by Digital Transformation

The story of Koenig and Bauer and how their early adoption of a digital transformation strategy allowed them to ride the troubling times brought on by the Covid-19 lockdowns, makes an excellent case study for what best practice can look like in field service. In a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast, Lucas Fahnroth discussed exactly what the culture was within the organisation and how they had been able to pivot during the crisis so effectively. Indeed, companies like Koenig and Bauer have led the way by showing how having an agile mindset within an organisation can be an essential component in success both in times of plenty and in times of famine.

But just how did Koenig and Bauer develop such an internal skill-set and what are the key attributes that empower them to be able to adapt so swiftly when presented with a seemingly insurmountable challenge? 

Koenig and Bauer is the oldest manufacturer of printing presses in the world," Fanroth begins.

"That means we've got a 200 plus year history of constant innovation and constant pivoting, which from my standpoint has only been possible because Koenig and Bauer has constantly looked after our customers and put the customer in the centre of everything we do. The Covid-19 crisis really hit us obviously across our worldwide service operation.  So it took a lot of care to work out how to deal with this in order to continue our 200 plus year success story of constant innovation and constant development.

"The way we at Koenig and Bauer see this crisis is actually as a sort of litmus test of our leadership where it really takes a clear vision in terms of not only how we see the crisis but also how we see our own role in these times of adversity and uncertainty. One thing is for certain - and that is that we will be judged by our response for years to come," Fahnroth adds. 

 

"We've produced 100,000 face shields and are donating them as we speak. That's something internally we've done in order to give back to our community..."

- Lucas Fahnroth, Koenig and Bauer

 

"On the one hand we will be judged internally by our employees and also internal stakeholders, but also externally by our customers. Customer centricity means that we as a company need to be a good partner to our customers, and especially during those difficult times it's necessary to be a good partner and what we've done is to communicate this very early on to the stakeholders involved.

One of the things that shines through in the wider discussion with Fahnroth and Salesforce's Michael Kuebel who was also part of the discussion, is the importance of communication. As Fahnroth explains; "We've talked a lot to our customers. We've compiled a package of Covid-19 response actions to help our customers and to really fulfil that role of a good partner in these challenging times.

"We've made special offers to our customers, we've given free access to our analytics tools and our customer community. We have stayed in constant contact with our customers, and we really try to deliver those individual responses and those individual aids that our customers need in such times. We've extended our hotline services and we've brought in more subject matter experts."

While the focus on customer-centricity is important, even crucial, the truth remains however, that such an approach is far more easily facilitated by a modern digitalised approach to field service delivery.

"We have also digitalised the process," Fanhroth explains. "A lot of those actions have been developed or were being developed before the crisis - we actually had a couple of them already in place. But what Covid-19 did for us was really supercharge this development and the market launch for some of those features. For example, our hotline services have been extended and we've been working with video support for our customers for quite some time. However, we've really seen the spike in demand for those actions and we are really seeing adoption grow and further develop with those actions.

"So facing our customers, we've really seen a lot of those products, a lot of those features and services we've sometimes already had in place, be supercharged," he adds.

There is certainly a sense of community leadership that appears to also underpin much of the thinking within Koenig and Bauer.

"Coming back to our general strategy, as I said, we have to also keep in mind all our internal stakeholders," Fahnroth comments. 

"So in order to fill this role of a real leadership, we've also thought a lot about our communities. Koenig and Bauer has used a lot of production and demo facilities and free capacities we've had to produce face shields for example. We've produced 100,000 face shields and are donating them as we speak. That's something internally we've done in order to give back to our community."

The very way in which Koenig and Bauer operate is also underpinned by a 200 year history of innovation, exactly as Fahnroth asserts and it is within that ingenuity that it would appear the secrets of success might lie.

"We've seen the way work looks like now at Koenig and Bauer," Fahnroth states. "We adopted G-Suite at the end of last year and we've seen a huge change in how people at Koenig and Bauer work now. It really is a change towards a more mobile way of working and a lot more collaborative. It's really changed a lot of the way communication and work at Koenig and Bauer looks and we're really glad to see that change of mindset," he adds. 

 

---

Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

In the first of our series of features looking towards building a new normal that was better than what we had before,  with the insights collated from the many panel sessions hosted by Kris Oldland throughout the pandemic, we begin with establishing an understanding of what leadership looks like in a post-pandemic world... 

The challenges of coping with the sudden on rush of a series of global lockdowns as governments across the globe reacted to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic meant that many organisations who were in the midst of planning how they could evolve their service offerings were suddenly faced with a much more pressing concern – how could they stay operational.

One man who was involved in a number of such situations was Harald Wasserman, Co-Managing Director Si2 Partners.

 

---

Field Service News has produced an eBook '10 Thoughts for Service Leaders Planning Recovery' for our subscribers based on the many hours of live streams we hosted to support field service organisations.

 

If you are already on either our Access All Areas or VIP subscription tiers you can access this on the button below now. If you have yet to subscribe or are on our complimentary subscription tier then click the button to upgrade or subscribe now

 

 

 

---

 

The FIeld Service Centre is a Key Asset in Today's new world

“Only a few weeks ago I was working with a number of companies and we were talking about how to transform the company into a pro-active service organisation. Then as the onset of the coronavirus and the global lockdowns arrived, the situation changed rapidly and totally. We were no longer talking about high level strategies, but instead our focus was now centred on immediate challenges. Where do we get the workload for our service technicians tomorrow?” Wasserman explained.

“It soon became clear that the service centre was one of our key assets in this discussion, as they are in contact with the customers and so were fundamental in establishing where the work could be for our service technicians. What we discovered very rapidly was that having this customer contact would be key to our survival and that the service centre would be instrumental in establishing that contact.

Another early discovery that was crucial that Wasserman believes played a pivotal role in companies being able to adapt to the new world that we all suddenly found ourselves in as the pandemic spread was the importance of an orderly approach to initiating customer contact.

“I noticed that it was important that we have a structure which is effective and allowed for fast contact with our customers,” he recounts “it was absolutely this customer communication that has allowed us to continue with a workload that has remained at 80% to 100% of our capacity - which was excellent at such a challenging time.

 

"We have also started an initiative to contact customers who we may not have been in contact with for a number of years, and this proactive approach has been very much welcomed by these customers..."

 - Harald Wasserman, Si2 Partners. 

 

“We have been able to adapt our organisation to a more customer focused organisation now,” he says reflecting on the work that has been put in place since the onset of the lockdowns. “Instead of waiting for the customer to make contact with us we have pivoted to become much, much more proactive in reaching out to them and this has meant that we are still able to generate the work required to keep our business operational.

“We have also started an initiative to contact customers who we may not have been in contact with for a number of years, and this proactive approach has been very much welcomed by these customers. So, we have implemented both new engagements with our lapsed customers and also a more proactive approach to our existing customer base and this has been the positive approach we have taken to guide us through this crisis.

It has meant getting some of our people out of their comfort zones - we have changed the status quo in that whereas before we would have waited for the customer to initiate the conversation, now our team are contacting the customers themselves and kicking off the conversation. It is not easy, in some cases it is like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, however, it has been an endeavour that has been essential.”

Another aspect that has changed radically as a result of the crisis is how the role of management has changed and this is another area that Wasserman feels has been under increasing scrutiny.

“The management role within field service has become increasingly important during this time. Perhaps at the top of their responsibilities is the ongoing communications with their team. This is vital because our field service engineers and technicians, those in the front line are often operating more or less alone at the moment and they of course have many questions at this time.

“For example, what are the guidelines for them if the customer isn’t taking the necessary precautions that can ensure that our engineers are working within a safe environment given the current conditions? Our approach has been to issue clear advice to give our field workers firm support in their decision making. In this situation for example, if the customer is not willing to provide an environment in which our people can work safely then they must respect that the importance of our staff is our most fundamental priority. This had to be a management decision and had to be communicated strongly to give our staff the confidence to act when they are isolated in the field, and to know that they had our full backing.

‘Day by day we have to make a lot of these types of decisions to support our field workers, but also we have to ensure we are able to adapt our working processes to be able to be more flexible to fulfil the workload we have. 

 

"We see that the companies that are probably dealing with the situation the best are those who have a built-in resilience. It is those companies who have a built-in adaptability and flexibility embedded within their DNA already..."

 - Nick Frank, Si2 Partners

 

“The very way we in which we work has changed fundamentally both in the field but also the way we as management are working. For example, I would normally have four or five meetings a day, now I am having ten or more which are all remotely hosted. The meetings we have now are quicker and more intense, which is of course a part of the current situation, but also, they are more direct."

It is clear that much of the areas which Wasserman outlines as crucial elements shared amongst those companies he has seen adapt best to the challenges of Covid-19 have centred around strong and decisive leadership. This he believes is no coincidence. “There has absolutely been a correlation between those organisations that were able to make quick decisions and show strong leadership and those who were able to adapt easiest to the shifting sands of the operational environment of the pandemic,” he comments.

“The people on the working level they need guidance. They need clear rules. If you don’t give them this, they will struggle. There simply isn’t time for them to be thinking about ‘am I doing the right work?’ ‘Should I do X or Y in this situation?’ or even ‘what do I do?’.

Such questions will have a direct impact on the productivity of your field workers. Therefore, strong leadership and providing strong support for your team is absolutely critical in maintaining efficiency in crisis situations.

“We saw this very early and the importance of ensuring that we were communicating important decisions very quickly to our people and continuing this level of clear, consistent communication with our workforce on an ongoing basis is essential, “ he added.

However, one of the that has arisen as we work under the confines of the current lockdowns, is finding the time for communications that are discussions rather than announcements. For many of us now is a time of action as we continue to constantly adapt and fight to hold onto to the business we have and meet the needs of the customers we serve.

“We are all dealing with a critical situation and it is hard to find time for anything else when we are in the midst of the challenge,” comments Nick Frank, Wasserman’s Co-Managing Director at Si2 Partners.

“However, when we are able to bring our key personnel together there are so many lessons to be learnt. This is because it is so extreme, everything has happened so quickly, and we haven’t really had time to think about it. We see that the companies that are probably dealing with the situation the best are those who have a built-in resilience. It is those companies who have a built-in adaptability and flexibility embedded within their DNA already.

“Those are the companies that we are seeing emerge as those who are ‘most comfortable’, certainly as comfortable as it is possible to be at such a time. They are making decisions; they are showing strong leadership and I think if there is one lesson to be learnt it is the value of strong leadership,” Frank concludes.

 

---

Field Service News has produced an eBook '10 Thoughts for Service Leaders Planning Recovery' for our subscribers based on the many hours of live streams we hosted to support field service organisations.

 

If you are already on either our Access All Areas or VIP subscription tiers you can access this on the button below now. If you have yet to subscribe or are on our complimentary subscription tier then click the button to upgrade or subscribe now

 

 

 

---

 

Micheal Kuebel of Salesforce has been working with a number of companies to help them overcome the challenges of the global lockdowns. In this excerpt of the Field Service Podcast Kuebel identifies four key traits that he has seen emerge as common success factors amongst those companies he has seen adapt quickest and most successfully to the Covid-19 challenge.

---

 

Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

Leadership, Customer-Centricity, Empowerment, Agility

There has been a lot of innovation on show of late. Of course, much of it has been born out of necessity as companies have frantically tried to adapt to the realities of a global lockdown as we deal as a planet with the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Yet, undoubtedly some companies have taken the challenges of the pandemic far more comfortably in their stride than others. Have there been some shared fundamental tenets of how those who adapted best were able to do so?

Michael Kuebel, Senior Director of Product Management, Salesforce has been working closely with many companies including Koenig and Bauer who were an excellent example of a company that was able to show agility and ingenuity in equal measure as they pivoted and adapted to the new scenario of a Covid-19 infested world. He certainly believes there are some shared attributes amongst those companies who showed the same levels of resilience that Koenig and Bauer did. 

"We see basically four kinds of success factors when we talk to customers and see how they master this most turbulent of markets," Kuebel explained on the Field Service Podcast.

"Number one is strong leadership. We saw that when we talk to our customers and ask, 'how did you cope with the crisis?' We saw a common thread of companies establishing a clear understanding of customers and safety first. It was a time to come up with a complex strategy, it was a time for these simple clear directives.

"For all of the companies that we worked with, there was a focus on making sure their customers remained operational, and making sure that their employees, customers, their families and the society stayed safe. They execute this latest shift through a much more focused visibility. When in the past, they were looking at reporting cycles of a month, now it's more once a day or even intra-daily visibility. They need those KPIs right now, because it's such a volatile situation.

"Also, we saw that strong leadership must also lift the company through being a role model, creating trust and of course, making fact based decisions," Kuebel added. 

 

"You need to make sure that your people are enabled, that they have the tools and they have the knowledge to make decisions when in the field..."

- Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

 

Indeed, this has been echoed through much of the reporting Field Service News has done on the topic and it does appear that there is a strong correlation between those organisations who were able to act swiftly but from a position of data-driven insight and those organisations that coped best with the lockdown scenario. Another strong link amongst such companies is also the willingness to have open and ongoing customer dialogue. 

"The second aspect I mentioned, customer centricity," concurs Kuebel.

"We see customer engagement very much in focus. For practicality reasons at this time, we all need to enable our customers to help themselves better. That way they were creating a digital journey that the customer actually said, well, that's actually even effortless for me, it works and it's helping me stay productive. That is only possible if you have a 360 degree view on the customer and that you have processes that are centred around the customer.

"Then there is empowerment," Kuebel continues. "You need to make sure that your people are enabled, that they have the tools and they have the knowledge to make decisions when in the field. I think especially this factor of empowerment has been something that I think has received an enormous boost within the last couple of weeks during the crisis, just look at the amount of companies that suddenly have home office as the new normal - that was never a plan and now it works and it will be very difficult to turn this back.

"Once you create that level of trust, and you see that people are effective, even when they are not in the office, this is something that is there to stay. However, you need to have the right tools to enable people to work with them. You need to know if you have an on-premise solution, you have no chance in virtualising a call centre overnight, but with a cloud solution, the right tools, the right knowledge and the right information, it's no big deal to do that. We have a couple of customers that were virtualising their dispatching calls and jobs literally within hours."

The final factor that Kuebel lists is perhaps the secret sauce that separates those companies who are best-in class and the rest of the pack.

"Last but not least, you need this agile mindset and an agile platform that allows you to easily adapt to basically go into these MVP (minimum viable product) situations and roll it out with the view that it's good enough to stay afloat - and then, we see we can develop from there. When I look at Koenig and Bauer for example, when I talk to them, when I talk to their management, there's a very, very clear leadership. The way that they communicate with their customers, the predominant mindset is around customer centricity, agility and empowerment. It was therefore, no surprise to me that Koenig and Bauer were one of the companies that are able to manage through the crisis relatively well."

 

---

Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

Michael Kuebel of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about the massive lens the pandemic has shone on the need for digital transformation in the field service sector and how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation

---

 

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

---

 

Digital Transformation - The Silver Lining of Covid-19? 

One of the major upshots and a significant silver lining to all of the hardship we have been through in the last few months is the major acceleration of digital transformation projects across all industries within the field service sector.

But just how much has digital transformation changed in terms of the magnitude and importance of the programs that we were all undertaking in some form prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?

But how have these projects changed? Just how dramatically have they been accelerated and what does that mean for the field service sector?

One man who has a deep level of experience of digital transformation within the field service sector is Michael Kuebel, Senior Director of Product Management, Salesforce. With an impressive career spanning both sides of the field service sector, with various senior field service management roles as well helping other field service organisations with their own digitalisation journey in his role with Salesforce, Kuebel has an ingrained knowledge of the role modern digital solutions can play in enhancing service delivery. 

"The key word here is how do we understand digital transformation”, Kuebel commented on a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast. 

"Where does the digitalisation journey actually start? You know, when we approach our customers, especially on the field service side, very often the predominant setup from the past involves very siloed organisations in terms of applications but also in terms of processes. So you may have  a service call centre that doesn't have too much information about the customer because it might be disconnected to sales. You may have a customer that has one or maximum two channels so you can either call or send an email but hardly any portals or tracking.

 

"I think if COVID-19 told us something, it is that the most important translation of digital transformation is to have the customer in the middle. Essentially, to have customer success as the paramount target behind all digitalisation efforts..."

-Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

 

"Then on the other side of the equation you have engineers - that in some places until recently even we're still outgoing with pen and paper and with only a very rough understanding what they are supposed to do. By this I mean they would have no information about asset history or even customer background or customer understanding. This is something that has been widely understood and so in many companies [these silos] has been the initiation for saying we need to go into a digital transformation in field service as well.

"Very often we see that field service is one of the last silos to overcome, just because it has been very much seen as a pure technical function. These were the guys that repair something if it's broken. But most companies now understand that field service has a different role. It has the role of creating revenue and profitability and has a super important role on customer experience and the customer journey. In fact, it is developing into one of the main, if not the main USP within an organisation. 

"Service is one of the main reasons customers stay loyal to a brand or a product and that's understood by many organisations. This is why I think the digitalisation journey has started already in most organisations a couple of years ago," Kuebel adds. 

However, while many if not all of us were on the digital transformation journey in one shape or another before the pandemic, the acceleration of such projects has been dramatic as a result of the necessity for new thinking during a period of ongoing uncertainty as global borders came crashing down and the lockdowns ensued. However, Kuebel believes there is another even more important learning we can take away from the last few months. 

"I think if COVID-19 told us something, it is that the most important translation of digital transformation is to have the customer in the middle. Essentially, to have customer success as the paramount target behind all digitalisation efforts," he explained.

"We want to make sure that our customers are in the middle and we have a 360 degree view of them. They can book engineers, track engineers, find the data online through an app or through chat or WhatsApp etc.

“We must have intelligent scheduling optimisation and the customer must have visibility on where the engineer is. Equally, the engineer himself must have visibility on all the customer history, the asset history, and access to information and knowledge. So they also have a 360 degree view around the customer, including being connected via devices and so on.

"This has all been on the long list of strategy before Covid-19 but the virus told us basically to fast forward a couple of years within a couple of weeks, and make all these things happen. I've seen so many examples where customers have been putting something on track that they actually were planning for the long term and just launched it." 

This is an excellent insight as one of the needs for solutions today, has resulted in a shift in mindset so we no longer look for the perfect solution, but the best solution that can help us now and we can refine it as we progress. Perhaps this is the first big learning of the new normal? 

 

---

Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/products/service-cloud/field-service-lightning/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce