AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Field Service News' Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland, offers opinion on what 2020 could bring for the service sector...

Maybe it’s just the bluster of a new year, magnified but a whole shiny new decade, and not just any decade, 2020 an iconic turning point for an ageing Xennial like me old enough to remember the exciting future that Doc Brown showed us back in the 80’s, yet young enough to harbour the distinctly millenial disappointment that actually the early part of the twenty first century was pretty much the same as the end of its predecessor - just with more anxiety a far, far worse movies.

But I can’t help but feel a tinge of anticipation and excitement as we cross into 2020. Sure, I might have been massively let down by ‘hover boards’ but wont stop my enthusiasm for celebrating the future with the vim and vigour of someone raised on a diet of sci-fi movies that are almost all now set in the past.

But stepping away from childhood flights of fancy and back into my grown up job I actually think there is a huge amount of potentially very rapid development that is going to take the FIeld Sector by storm in the next twelve to eighteen months. And this, dear reader is why this issue is entitled “it’s all coming together” comes from.  Let me take a moment to explain further. 

"It feels much less like a crisis now and more of an objective to be undertaken..."

To begin I think it is become increasingly clear that we are moving away from an age where technology existed in silos. The concept of the technology stack is not a particularly new one, but it has finally begun to really take root in our broader consciousness in terms of how we view the tools we need to improve on our field service efficiencies.

As Amit Jain comments in this issues Big Discussion which is on Artificial Intelligence: “Ultimately, I think the days of viewing technologies in isolation are rapidly becoming a relic of the past. In today’s modern systems and solutions, you should expect to see a wide range of technologies all sitting alongside each other working in harmony towards an improved outcome.”

This echoes my own thinking I couldn’t have put it better myself. In another area of pressing concern again I feel we are coming together to overcome challenges - this time namely the ageing workforce crisis.

We are now quite some way into to dealing with this and many of us have gone through the process of replacing the retiring ‘boomers with incoming millennials to the point where the look and feel of the field workforce has begun to change and as the blended workforce gains traction that evolution will continue.

But it feels much less like a crisis now and more of an objective to be undertaken.

It’s an important objective make no mistake, but nothing we can’t handle.

Earlier this summer we introduced you to three companies that we felt were set up to bring some significant value to the field service sector. Now as we look forward to 2020 here are three more companies that could potentially help drive your field service business forwards..

Having previously worked together on a white paper entitled the Radical Age of Uberization, Field Service News and Localz were reunited on the topic when the software firm hosted a morning briefing and invited Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News to chair the day’s discussions...

In this extract from a white paper published by ServiceMax we explore the question of sustainability in field service and how as well as being better for our planet it can also be better for a service organisations bottom line as well...

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News hosts with Gopinathan Krishnaswami, Senior General Manager, Global Head, Infrastructure Alliances at Tata Consultancy Services as his guest as the two dive into the importance of data in field service including how much data is too much data and the importance of Machine Learning in getting actual insight out of the deluge of data you may be drowning in. 

In the first part of this exclusivefieldservicenews.com  research report we explored how many KPIs field service companies are tracking and how often we should be reviewing these metrics. Now in the concluding part of this report we explore how companies are adapting their KPIs in the face of a series of mega-trends that are  reshaping our very sector... 

In keeping with the 2019 modus operandi of ‘Uberize everything,’ tapping into the gig economy to overcome last-mile service  delivery challenges could be a smart move argues Kris Oldland...

Our sector is one that continues to breed innovation and ingenuity; where ideas are stretched, tested and then stretched some more. Coupled with new technology these ideas are disrupting what has gone before and turning traditional service on its head.

To celebrate this, Field Service News is proud to announce 2019’s #FSN20, our annual list of the individuals at the coal face of the sector, the practitioners who are all pushing for the same goal: service excellence. We whittled down over one hundred nominations, submitted from academia, industry influencers and field service practitioners, to a short list of 20. It was tough - given the vast amount of excellent work taking place - but we think the final names represent a fine snapshot of service innovation taking place across the global service arena.

So in no particular order, ladies and gentlemen, we our proud to present to you this year’s #FSN20...

The topic of last mile service delivery can be a complex nut to crack. However, one company who has been at the vanguard of doing so for more than 20 years is ByBox. The company provides overnight delivery of spares to a network of smart lockers, making the last mile both cost-efficient and effective. To find out more Kris Oldland spoke with Richard Agostinelli, their newly appointed CEO...