AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

In a recent episode of The Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News spoke with Simon Fahie, Managing Director of ByBox, and in what was a wide-ranging discussion the two touched on a number of key topics affecting field service organisations today...

Our industry is evolving rapidly. It seems like only yesterday when I first returned to the service sector and began writing about the key trends within field service, at the time for the now sadly departed Service Management magazine. In fact, that was some six or seven years ago now and crikey an awful lot has changed in that time.

Back then the over-riding discussions within the sector were around the practicalities and benefits of moving field service from its traditional position as a cost centre to becoming a profit centre.

Fast forward to today and the concept of field service as a core revenue-generating part of the business has become firnly established. Indeed, as we have covered extensively in Field Service News, more and more companies are becoming increasingly focused on delivering advanced services, a strategic shift in thinking that has become known as servitization.

Yet, whilst servitization promises to hold the key to increased profits, a greater share of customer wallets and deeper, longer term contracts that offer far greater financial stability, it is not a particularly easy nut to crack.

Perhaps the biggest shift in thinking from traditional break fix based centric service agreements and their servitized equivalent is the move away from service level agreements to guarantees of uptime. In an era of IoT and connected assets, the move towards predictive maintenance that such an approach requires could be deemed relatively easy to establish once the right processes and technologies are put in place.

The theory is relatively straight-forward. The asset feeds back real-time data, when it falls out of set acceptable parameters that have been determined to be indicators of probable forthcoming failure an engineer is dispatched to fix the fault ahead of the asset going down - giving the end customer a continuous service whilst allowing the service provider to schedule their field service operations far more efficiently.

 

"Whilst servitization promises to hold the key to increased profits, a greater share of customer wallets and deeper, longer-term contracts that offer far greater financial stability, it is not a particularly easy nut to crack..."

 

An obvious win-win all round - easy as that.

However, one of the obvious spanners that can be thrown into the works is the parts logistics aspect fo the equation. Getting the right engineer to the right place, at the right time has been the field service manager’s mantra for as long as I can remember. However, it all becomes a moot point if the engineer hasn’t got access to the right parts.

And in an age of increasing congestion, which can put a huge strain on service logistics - getting the right parts to an engineer can cause a huge problem for field service delivery, and when it comes to advanced services this issue becomes even more significant.

“I look at servitization and for me, it really exposes some of the weaknesses in a supply chain or the process of getting parts to the engineer,” explains Simon Fahie, Manging Director, ByBox when he joined me for a recent episode of the Field Service Podacst.

“Certainly, we are seeing conversations that are saying yesterday we could do a next day fix, now we are able to do a four hour fix. But it is not just fix-times that are open to discussion. Obviously, in a servitization scenario, you have lost revenues that are at stake,” he continued

“If the asset you are supplying is not working not only do you have a disgrunteled customer, you also have no revenues coming thorugh. In fact, in some instances, not being able to provide a fix stops the use of consumables as well.”

“So what we are seing as a growing trend is the need to position inventory actually on site, or very, very close, to be able to provide the very short fixtime that servitized contracts require.”

And this is exactly where ByBox come into the equation - with a network of lockers across the UK and Europe they offer an effective means of acheiving this - in the UK for example, Fahie states that most of their customers will have a locker within just a few miles of their location.

 

"If the asset you are supplying is not working not only do you have a disgruntled customer, you also have no revenues coming through..."

 

Yet their is more to the solution than just conveniently place lockers.

“The challenge is how do you control the parts?” Fahie asks retorically.

“How do you give secure access to them? How do you know that they are there? How do you know that they’ve gone out of stock? You can’t just hand over a cardboard box of parts and say leave that by the machine for the engineer when he comes. It is a lot more challenging than that.”

ByBox’s solution to these challenges is in many senses relatively simple, yet is hugely effective in overcoming exactly these problems. The lockers themselves are enabled with secure bluetooth functionality for delivering and removing parts which allows for the movement of parts to be logged - providing essentially visibility into the parts management process, which in turn opens up the doors to even greater streamlining possibilities as well.

“What this enables is the better efficiency of the field workforce,” explains Fahie.

“If you think about the scheduling challenge if a field worker has gone and got a part at 9 am they are then committed to that job that requires them and that part. However, if the part is available and can be collected at any time by anyone with the appropriate authorisation, the efficiency of the scheduling could be increased.”

“If we add into that mix the rise of the flexible or contingent workforce, now we are trying to get a part to a place that may be able difficult to deliver to, now we can have a part picked up and delivered by a person that you have never met before and may never meet again - but that is where the felxibility of the app base dcontrol comes into play - and it could lead to some really interesting new ways of improving the service supply chain that simply couldn’t have existed before.”

Indeed, given the increasing burden being felt within service logistics due to things like pedestrianisation of city centres and ever more congested roads, for servitization to thrive as it should, it is exactly such innovative ideas that field service companies will need to embrace.

Our industry is evolving rapidly, but fortunately, it appears we have the tools to hand to adapt with it.

 

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The advent of Cloud computing has had a profound effect on field service management.

Indeed, there is no denying that the emergence of Cloud computing has been a core driver in the ability for smaller and medium-sized field service companies to be able to compete with their larger competitors - and such competition has raised the bar for service delivery in all corners.

Anecdotally, how often have you heard someone comment (or indeed thought to yourself) ‘how is it that say my local florist is able to give me a detailed overview of where the flowers I have sent to my wife are at any given point within their delivery and are able to give me a 30 minute window for when they will arrive, yet the multi-national organisation that provides one of the key widgets that is essential to my businesses productivity can only tell me that an engineer will be with me at some point between 8 and 5?’

Of course, the truth is that the delivery of flowers is far less demanding of expertise than that expected of a highly qualified engineer capable of fixing said widget – which of course means that the scheduling requirements are also equally less complicated for the local florist.

In addition to this, the local florist will, largely by definition, only be serving a local area – whereas the B2B provider of the widget will almost certainly serve a national market, if not an international one.

So it is unfair perhaps to compare one to the other, accusations of seeking the similarities between apples and oranges are in this instance somewhat understandable. Yet, ultimately in today’s connected world, we must remember that we are no longer competing solely with those companies within our direct vertical sphere.

 

"Today, we are competing very simply against the best service experience our customers have ever had, whether that be within their consumer or their corporate lives..."

 

Today, we are competing very simply against the best service experience our customers have ever had, whether that be within their consumer or their corporate lives.

However, what this anecdotal example does highlight with true clarity is how smaller service organisations, be they florists, electricians, HVAC engineers or any of the other array of small entrepreneurial companies that help keep our day to day lives running, have been able to harness the power of modern FSM solutions.

This development is mostly the result of the introduction of SaaS-based subscription-style licensing which makes access to such systems possible. It seems like a long, long time ago that Tesseract, an Asolvi product became the first company in the world to offer their full FSM solution in the Cloud and on a SaaS model. Indeed, today almost all FSM providers now offer their solution in such a manner.

This means that smaller companies can have access to tools like scheduling, stock and parts management and mobile work management applications for their field-based staff to access via a mobile device. Yet, they also have the advantage of being more agile, more streamlined and less weighed down by legacy systems and processes that their larger peers undoubtedly face.

 

"In a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenario keeping on top of MDM can sometimes feel like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – by the time you finish at one end it’s time to head back the other way and start all over!"

 

Many, many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation is.

Optimised scheduling engines need to be ‘taught’ the rules under which they are to operate – the larger the workforce and the more diverse the skill-sets within that workforce, the more ‘lessons’ that need to be fed into the scheduling system for it to operate as intended.

Also, let’s consider the devices that are being utilised by the field workers – mobile device management (MDM) is a challenge that few IT departments will relish.

In a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenario keeping on top of MDM can sometimes feel like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – by the time you finish at one end it’s time to head back the other way and start all over!

Even in an environment where devices are provided by the organisation, there may be a mix of options within one company, with different devices being provided that meet specific roles within the organisation – such as rugged devices for field-based technicians.

This can result in a mix of iOS, Android and Windows operating systems (possibly even more) which all need to be factored into the MDM equation.

Again, this is a challenge that becomes magnified by the scale of the workforce in question.

Of course, another challenge magnified by the scale of the workforce is the simple fact that the introduction of any new business technology, including an FSM solution, is inherently a change management project – and as any change management consultant will inform you – good change management is about people. It is a simple equation to understand that more people mean more effort and complexity when undertaking such a task.

In terms of FSM solutions, the shift to the Cloud has absolutely changed the competitive dynamics within various industries in favour of those smaller companies who are savvy enough to embrace cloud-based FSM and unencumbered by challenges such as the above which larger companies may face.

This has given smaller organisations to flourish and thrive in the modern business eco-system, but this increased competition has resulted in huge organisations like Thyssenkrupp or ABB further driving innovation as we have showcased in these pages previously.

Our sector is going through a huge evolution with non-competing companies pushing each other to achieve more through service delivery and the cloud has played a major role in that allowing us to do so.

 

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Rugged devices are a hugely important tools available to field service organisations to empower their engineers with mobile tools that are designed to survive the rigours of remote working environments. However, for the uninitiated, there can be a bewildering amount of terms used by rugged manufacturers (and increasingly their consumer-focused cousin) so let’s take a quick refresher of some of the key language used in the world of rugged...

 

Fit-for-purpose

With no shortage of devices to choose from, deciding what’s best for your service operation is no easy task. Fit-for-purpose should be the starting point for any deployment, say the experts.

Indeed, the first question any company should ask when looking for new devices for their engineers or technicians is “what tasks will the device be used for?”

Mobile devices in field service are mission-critical – they are not just “nice-to-have”, they are the lynchpin of your operations essential to the efficient running of the operation. Ease-of-use of can have a big effect on productivity and user-acceptance – would an integrated barcode scanner, for example, be better than a more fiddly-to-use camera?

 

"The mobile device is more than your service technician’s new pen and paper; it carries the job schedule, customer details and equipment data..."

 

Remember, once you’ve made the shift away from paper, there’s no going back – the mobile device is more than your service technician’s new pen and paper; it carries the job schedule, customer details and equipment data.

Your customers will become used to the higher service levels.

So, above all, the devices you equip your field workers with need to be reliable.

Can it survive the technician dropping it? Are the processor and memory up to running several apps at once if that’s required? Is the screen readable in strong light? Will the touchscreen work if it gets wet? Can it last a whole shift without recharging the battery?

Is it Fit-for-purpose?

 

MIL-STD810G

Almost every rugged device you see will proudly boast the magical code MIL-STD 810G somewhere in the specs but what exactly does it mean and why is it just so important?

Well as you may well have guessed MIL-STD is actually short for Military Standard. In fact, it is an American military standard that although has it’s origins with the US Air Force is now upheld in a tri-service agreement between the US Army, US Navy and US Air force. However, the standard is widely adopted amongst commercial products that need to be able to hold up to rigorous environmental tests.

The G if you were wondering, relates to the current revision of the certification document and we have been at G since 2008.

General Program Guidelines

The first part of the MIL-STD-810G is a set of general guidelines that describes management, engineering, and technical roles in the environmental design and test the tailoring process. It focuses on the process of tailoring design and test criteria to the specific environmental conditions an equipment item is likely to encounter during its service life.

Laboratory test methods

The second element of MIL-STD-810G is focussed on the environmental laboratory test methods to be applied using the test tailoring guidelines described outlined in the general program guidelines.

With the exception of Test Method 528 (Mechanical Vibrations of Shipboard Equipment), these methods are not mandatory, but rather the appropriate method is selected and tailored to generate the most relevant test data possible.

The tests themselves are varied across a range of different environmental stresses which include:

 

• Temperature ranges
• Shock
• Vibration
• Humidity

 

Tested to. Vs. Engineered to

One problem with MIL-STD 810G testing is that it can be very expensive and it’s important to remember that MIL-STD-810 is not a specification per se but a standard. A specification provides for absolute criteria which must be satisfied to “meet the spec”. MIL-STD-810 as a standard provides methods for testing material for use in various environments but provides no absolute environmental limits.

Therefore, some OEMs will skip the whole second part of MIL STD 810G (the actual testing part) yet still claim their devices are engineered to meet MIL-STD 810G standards.

Whilst such devices may well be more than capable of surviving the rigours of your field engineers toughest day, the simple fact is that they haven’t been actually tested to do so.

That said most of the dedicated rugged players within the space such as Janam, Getac, Panasonic and Xplore et al will all have their own internal testing facilities and will also often engage with a third party to validate their findings.

 

IP Ratings

IP environmental ratings along with MIL standards (MIL-STD) are perhaps the most widely recognised yet also perhaps the least fully understood of the standard definitions of what makes a mobile computer or tablet rugged.

What the IP figures mean

IP ratings are defined by International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards and tell you how well devices are sealed against dirt and moisture ingress and the level of protection components have against whatever is thrown at them.

IP ratings have two numbers: the first indicates the degree of protection against dust, dirt and foreign bodies entering the device while the second is about how resistant the device is to the ingress of fluid from drops, sprays and submersion. Ingress protection ratings can be affected by the number of ports on a device and whether they are sealed or open, by keyboard design and a number of other factors.

 

"If like me, you’ve ever spilt tea or coffee on a computer keyboard, you’ll know that water ingress can be the kiss of death to electronic components.."

 

For field service, the numbers to look out for on a rugged mobile device are “5” and “6” for dust protection and 4,5,6, or 7 for water or fluid ingress. (In comparison, consumer devices typically have a rating of IP42 or lower although high-end consumer mobile devices are frequently now seen to have IP67 ratings)

Both are important when assessing devices: if like me, you’ve ever spilt tea or coffee on a computer keyboard, you’ll know that water ingress can be the kiss of death to electronic components. Less dramatic but in the long term just as damaging are ingress of dust and dirt particles. They can cause keys to stick and generally penetrate causing damage to components.

While “6” is dust-proof, a “5” rating doesn’t mean the device will prove unreliable, just that it isn’t completely sealed against dust ingress. It’s worth noting, too, that complete sealing against water and dust ingress may increase internal temperatures which in turn might impact on processor performance.

There are more numbers for fluid or water ingress: a “4” rating signals protection from splashes, “5” against water from a nozzle, “6” will cope with more powerful water jets or sprays, while “7” means you can submerge the device in water and it will still survive.

Again, which is best for your operations depends on the working environment – for many field-service environments, a “5” rating and even possibly a ”4 “will be perfectly adequate.

 

Touchscreens:

In a world of smartphones and tablets touch-screens have become a universally understood means of interacting with a device.

Whether it is inputting data or simply navigating through an operating system, I would put a hefty wager on the fact that anyone reading this article is both familiar and comfortable with using a touch-screen device, such is the prevalence of the technology today.

Touch-screens are an important, even critical part of the user experience of almost all modern tablets and smartphones. Yet at the same time, the screen is of course the potential Achilles heel and an obvious weak spot in a rugged device. The balance therefore between delivering a screen that is sufficiently capable of withstanding drops and knocks, whilst maintaining high usability, is absolutely critical for a rugged device.

So let's look at some of the various options you may find in differing rugged devices when it comes to the screen and explore exactly what these options actually mean.

Almost certainly the biggest debate when it comes to screen choices in rugged devices is whether capacitive or resistive screens are better suited for the task. But what is the difference between the two?

The older of the two technologies is resistive which relies on pressure to register input. This pressure can be applied by your finger, a stylus or any other object – think of the handheld computers that many delivery companies use, often covered in ink because when the original stylus is lost, the delivery driver often just uses a regular pen to collect a signature instead.

Resistive touch screens consist of two flexible layers with an air gap in between and in order for the touch-screen to register input, you must press on the top layer using a small amount of pressure to make contact with the bottom layer. The touch-screen will then register the precise location of the touch.

Rather than relying on pressure, capacitive touch-screens instead sense conductivity to register input—usually from the skin on your fingertip but also from dedicated styluses.

 

"The biggest debate when it comes to screen choices in rugged devices is whether capacitive or resistive screens are better suited for the task. But what is the difference between the two?"

 

Because you don’t need to apply pressure, capacitive touch-screens are more responsive than resistive touch-screens. However, because they work by sensing conductivity, capacitive touch-screens can only be used with objects that have conductive properties, which includes your fingertip (which is ideal), and special styluses designed with a conductive tip.

Initially one of the big advantages of capacitive touch screens was that they enabled multi-finger gestures – perhaps the most obvious example is pinching or stretching a document to zoom in or out. However, resistive touch screens have also supported multi-finger input for about three or four years now also.

The big advantage resistive screens have over their capacitive counterparts is the fact that the operator can still use the devices whilst wearing gloves – as the input is dependent on pressure rather than the electrical current being completed through a conductive material such as a finger.

An additional benefit is that light touch, such as rain landing on the screen, won’t register so the devices are far better to suited to being used in the wet.

Both of these factors are of course particularly useful in a number of field service environments.

However, another key factor for rugged devices is of course reliability and durability and in this respect, capacitive touch screens have the advantage – especially in heavy use applications.

Resistive screens can have a tendency to eventually begin to wear down in frequently used areas. Such areas may be prone to becoming faded and may ultimately even become unresponsive. Also in terms of reliability, if a capacitive touch-screen does happen to become pierced or cracked it is still likely to function – think how many times you have seen someone using a smartphone with a cracked screen?

However, a break anywhere on a resistive touch-screen will often mean that it no longer works.

In terms of field service, this is a potentially huge advantage for capacitive screens as it allows for a field service technician to continue to utilise their device until they can get the screen repaired.

Ultimately, there are many different rugged devices available these days ranging from rugged smart-phone style handhelds through to fully rugged detachable laptops. As we mentioned at the beginning of this feature ensuring the devices you select are fit for purpose is crucial.

In order to do this, we advise getting a real understanding of how your field service engineers and technicians are doing their job - what environments to they work in and what is there workflow. Get them in to give you some input or get out there on some ride-alongs. Because, if you have an understanding of this you will find a device that fits your needs.

 

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For those on the outside, it may seem that OnPoint Warranty Solutions are a new entrant into our sector.

However, take a peek behind the curtain and you will find a senior exec team with an abundance of experience in the both service and technology. Heading up that team is CEO Chris Smith, a seasoned contract, service and Customer Experience (CX) executive, who has racked up over 32 years industry expertise with the likes of Samsung, AIG, GE and FSM solution provider ServicePower.

In fact, CVs that name check both ServicePower and GE are a common thread amongst 3 of the 4 members of the newly formed exec board driving OnPoint’s business strategy as both CTO Michael Baumer and CMO and COO Jenniffer Breitenstein are ServicePower and GE alumni as well.

What these shared backgrounds indicate is a collection of senior leaders within this young company that have a comprehensive and intimate understanding of what are foundational pillars within the field service sector – namely Customer Experience and how technology can be leveraged to improve service operations.

One final name to add into this impressive group is that of founder and president of OnPoint, Robert Christian.

 

"In fact, they provide solutions for Manufacturers, retailers, original device manufacturers, Service Providers and Consumers alike..."

 

However, Christian brings a different skill set to the team than that of his colleagues. With a background as a Property Casualty Underwriter and database marketing, he has been working in the warranty industry since 1994 and was also instrumental in the creation of Encompass Supply Chain Solutions.

Of course, as founder, it is Christian’s background that is the cornerstone and key influence on where OnPoint positions themselves in the market. However, the service-centric experience of Smith, Breitenstein and Baumer has allowed them to carve out a strong sense of unique identity and solution set.

In fact, they provide solutions for Manufacturers, retailers, original device manufacturers, Service Providers and Consumers alike with their suite of offerings that include customer service solutions ranging from underwriting to extended warranty and service contract programs, service fulfilment and technology, as well as logistics.

In their own words, OnPoint’s solutions have been architected to connect brands to their consumers, relying on “solid underwriting relationships, Omnichannel consumer technology, a robust, AI-driven service administration platform and an expertly managed network of service and part providers”, to deliver great customer service experiences.

“They are designed to mitigate risk and drive revenue for client brands and underwriters while delivering the best customer service experiences on new and existing products.”

Indeed, it is a broad array of solutions that appear to be leveraging the latest consumer-focused technologies and that are designed to take a fresh and dynamic approach to service delivery.

As Christian comments: “As we evaluated what was needed to help brands meet consumers expectations, we recognized that flipping the service paradigm is critical.”

“OnPoint is focused on the end-consumer first. Offering solidly backed warranties and service contracts, variable coverage options that maximize product lifetime values, real-time connectivity on any device, and great service delivered by vetted, technology-enabled service providers drive brand loyalty.”

“When OnPoint cares for the end-consumer, our customers can focus on creating, marketing and selling their brand, which consumers will come back to again and again,” he added.

Indeed, given the rapid emergence of smart home technologies with connected assets within consumer homes now becoming more and more prevalent, there is certainly a lot of potential for those companies who can ‘flip the paradigm’ to flourish as we enter a brave new world of IoT expectations.

 

"Within just a month of announcing their launch back in July 2018, OnPoint was able to announce their first major contract with a major white goods provider to provide field service for their latest line of refrigerator goods..."

 

As a matter of fact, OnPoint considers this a key growth opportunity for the business. Using technology to gather a complete inventory of connected and non-connected devices in consumer homes enables OnPoint to offer game-changing, subscription-based contract and service offers. Consumer not only gain the ability to intelligently cover products which they own with solid service coverage, but they can also change coverage on a month to month basis. In a world where mobile devices are upgraded every 12 months and appliance products no longer can be expected to last 10 years, consumers are empowered to cover what’s important to their household, today and tomorrow with OnPoint.

“The warranty and service business has experienced an evolution in just the last 3 years”, explains Smith.

“Emerging technologies like IoT and 24x7 connectivity through smart devices have transformed the way consumers buy, the way they communicate, and the way they evangelize or demonize a product, a service, or an experience.”

“OnPoint aspires to tap into the vast experience and talent of our team and our selected partners to seamlessly connect manufacturers, retailers and service providers to their consumers, providing great service, transparency and value to both our clients and their customers,” he asserts.

Indeed, within just a month of announcing their launch back in July 2018, OnPoint was able to announce their first major contract with a major white goods provider to provide field service for their latest line of refrigerator goods.

This announcement was then swiftly followed by further announcements of tech partnerships with Mize – another name in field service that has begun to gain impressive traction within the last couple of years in our sector and is a partnership, which can only bode well for the future development and growth of OnPoint.

Whilst it is of course early days for the start-up they have both the wealth of experience, understanding of the industry and an innovative approach that could see them offering services that will be in much demand amongst field service organisations, particularly in consumer industries, as our industry continues to adapt to the widespread impact of IoT in our daily lives.

Find out more @ www.onpointwarranty.com or help@onpointwarranty.com

 

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The potential for Augmented Reality being utilised in field service delivery can be leveraged just as effectively by smaller and medium-sized businesses as it can by their larger enterprise sized peers. Kris Oldland reports...

The potential of Augmented Reality within field service has been discussed for some time now, but as often happens with emerging technologies we tend to see early adopters come from enterprise rather than SMB sized companies.

Indeed, with the need to invest in expensive additional equipment plus the applications to power these devices surely this is one area where larger organisations can gain a competitive advantage?

Ultimately, the answer here comes down to a matter of perspective.

The intrinsic value of AR is that it can allow an organisation to dial in the expertise within their organisation directly to the customers’ location.

In any service contract, the true inherent value is within this expertise. Let’s take an example of a faulty widget which is stopping an organisation from being able to operate at an optimal level of productivity.

 

"In any service contract, the true inherent value is within this expertise..."

 

Do you think that the customer – who is facing this loss of productivity, cares whether that experience, which will enable them to get back up and running, comes in the form of a well presented, corporately branded field service engineer on site or if that experience comes in the form of a remote expert able to guide either an in-house maintenance engineer or a locally sourced third-party service engineer, step by step on how to get the widget back up and running?

Of course, from the field service provider’s perspective, there are numerous benefits of getting their engineer on site. One of the significant benefits being the all-important face to face interaction with the customer, but if we are talking about reducing the time to get that customer back up and running from days to hours, or even hours to minutes – then what value could that add to the service contract in the future?

Another scenario could be that the fault may be a relatively easy fix.

One which for the experienced engineer with a relatively standard technical skill set could be easily performed – yet as the majority of service directors will attest to the cost of getting that engineer on site is the biggest red line on their P&L.

How much would your company save if you could hire a local contractor, on a day or maybe even hourly rate, with the same broad technical skill set to attend the service call and be able to reduce the time he is onsite to an absolute minimum by allowing an experienced engineer, who can see what the onsite engineer sees, guide him through the repair, using digital annotations, to make it explicitly clear what actions to perform in order to provide the fix?

The key question here is, of course, how many such occasions, in which you avoid that expensive truck roll, would it take to pay for the device and application licence? Remember, the key selling point for AR, as with mobile, is on delivering a tangible return on investment (ROI).

In fact, let’s stay focused on ROI and those dreaded red lines on the P&L.

 

"The transitory life of the field service engineer is one that is hugely appealing but as your engineers grow older, they may be less inclined to travel so frequently, with family commitments taking preference..."

 

Retention of experienced field service staff and the training and development of new entrants into the field workforce are of course two other major areas that field service directors need to pay significant attention to.

Again AR can play a major role in both of these critical areas.

The transitory life of the field service engineer is one that is hugely appealing but as your engineers grow older, they may be less inclined to travel so frequently, with family commitments taking preference.

Traditionally, the only real means for such engineers to find a work-life balance within an organisation that was better suited to their changing needs was often management – but not all engineers, make good managers.

AR can allow a company to provide their more experienced engineers with the opportunity to find that better work-life balance, negating the risk of all that valuable experience and knowledge walking out of their door.

Similarly, it can take many months and in some sectors years for a company to be comfortable sending out a new engineer to client sites.

Whilst such training programs are admirable and often essential in terms of maintaining brand reputation, they can be a huge drain on resources.

AR can allow companies to dramatically cut the time needed for development and send their new recruits out into the field sooner – but with the safety net of being able to dial in an experienced engineer into the site remotely to help them when the going gets tough.

AR can even open up exciting opportunities for SMBs to expand into territories that would absolutely have been cost prohibitive for them to do so in the past.

Again, if your true value is the knowledge, expertise and insight within your field service organisation AR is the perfect tool for transmitting that value in real-time to anywhere in the world.

Ultimately, every field service organisation, big and small, will today empower their service engineers with a mobile phone and many AR solutions will run on such devices so even the need for investment in actual hardware is nonessential, making AR an extremely realistic introduction for even the smallest field service operation.

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The potential to enhance field service efficiencies through technologies like IoT, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence are out of this world. But to fully realise the benefits they can bring field service companies need to have a foundational framework of technology already in place.

Here we look at five key systems every field service company should focus on before they look to take another giant leap forwards...

Field Service Management technology has become essential to service delivery excellence and in a world of connectivity and ever-increasing customer expectations, service excellence is no longer a USP but a baseline requirement.

Indeed, the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on field service in recent years has led to an increasing integration between process and technology when it comes to field service management.

However, whilst technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality are grabbing the headlines and can undoubtedly enhance service delivery, their potential is greatly diminished unless you have a fundamental layer of technology in place already. In this article, we will explore five core, fundamental elements that should be at the base of your field service management solution.

 

Contract Management:

Contract management is often viewed as the starting point of almost everything within field service management operations.

Without a view of your service contracts, you cannot have to hand the answers for critical questions such as:

• What is the SLA on any given contract?
• Is a client under warranty or do they have an enhanced level of service contract?
• Does a contract include spare parts and/or consumables?
• Is the service contract due for renewal?

You could be at risk of potentially not meeting your clients' expectations and so putting the potential of renewing or upselling service to that client in danger in the future – or on the other side of the coin, you could be giving valuable service away for free.

Therefore, Contract Management is perhaps the most important of the fundamental building blocks that you should expect to find within a modern field service management solution and perhaps the first area that you should make sure your team is fully versed in utilising.

 

Scheduling:

Scheduling comes in a number of different guises and the various different names given to types of scheduling options can be a somewhat confusing but broadly scheduling will come in three flavours:

• Assisted Scheduling
• Optimised Scheduling
• Dynamic Scheduling

So which is right for your business?

It is often assumed that a dynamic solution is required for a larger mobile workforce, but whilst the size of your workforce is certainly one consideration in which type of scheduling engine would best suit your service operation - this is not the only factor.

The complexity of the service work, as well as the variety of service jobs you undertake, is another significant factor.

For example, an organisation that has a field workforce that services multiple different asset types – perhaps from multiple OEMs, and therefore has a number of different engineer requirements for differing jobs - would likely benefit far more from an optimised scheduling engine than an organisation that just fixes one or two types of assets for which all of their engineers are qualified to undertake repairs and maintenance.

This remains true whether you have 20 or 200 field service engineers.

Similarly, if a large proportion of your field service efforts are focused on planned maintenance calls which have a level of flexibility in terms of getting an engineer on site, then you may not have a need for a dynamic scheduling engine whilst an organisation that is far more reactive, that has a firefighting approach to their service delivery and strict SLAs would benefit hugely from a dynamic scheduling system.

 

Mobile tools and communications:

It is fair to say that the biggest revolution in field service has come from the rapid explosion in mobile computing power.

Today’s smartphones are capable of greater computing tasks than even the laptops of just a few years back.

For the field service organisation, this is fantastic as it puts information at the field service engineers finger tips, empowers them to spend more time on maintenance and repair and less on activities such as paperwork and enables them to deliver a far more effective and impressive service experience for the customer.

 

"Engineer to engineer communications are seamless in today’s world, whether it be using dedicated built-for-purpose business tools or even free to use consumer solutions such as WhatsApp or Skype.."

 

Also, with the advent of smart phones, and then latterly tablets, has come greater communications tools than we could have ever expected ten years ago.

For example, engineer to engineer communications are seamless in today’s world, whether it be using dedicated built-for-purpose business tools or even free to use consumer solutions such as WhatsApp or Skype.

From a FSM solution standpoint again whilst a mobile app was a USP, an add on or even a separate solution entirely just a few short years ago, now almost all FSM solutions will come with some mobile offering included. However, whilst the mobile element in FSM technology is constantly evolving, essentially the most fundamental and core aspect that you want a mobile aspect of a FSM solution to do is to mirror your back-end solution and to do so in real-time.

 

Parts & Inventory Management:

Parts and Inventory management is perhaps an area that in the past has not received the focus and attention that it requires.

It has often been the mantra of field service organisations that they are aiming to get the right engineer to the right job, at the right time.

But that all becomes moot if the right engineer doesn’t have the right parts to hand as well.

Consistently at industry conferences, parts management remains a hot button and a common pain point for a huge amount of organisations.

So whilst it is exciting to talk about emerging technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality - a primary focus should be on ensuring our field service operation is as efficient as possible at a fundamental level, and that means getting a grip on parts management.

And whilst of course there are supply chain and logistics aspects to the conversation which can make things complicated – especially when you are using third-party contractors – one of the most crucial aspects of good parts and inventory management is utilising a system that can keep track of where your inventory, including van inventory, is at any given point.

One area where many companies get themselves caught out is by thinking that they can use a system such as a financial system that is designed at best for companies whose stock resides in static places such as warehouses and stores.

However, field service is far more dynamic than that, with parts moving back and forth and in and out of locations constantly each and every day.

 

Integration:

Finally, just a brief note on integration.

We are living in a world of data lakes, data rivers, data mountains and all other types of data topography it seems!

But all these vast swathes of data are meaningless unless you are able to draw insight from it, and quite often that means being able to let the data flow seamlessly from one set of business applications to another.

This is why integration is absolutely key in any modern business system – including FSM.

[quote float="right"]Integration is absolutely key in any modern business system – including FSM.[/quote]Of course, our vision of the future is that everything will be plug and play and all technologies will play well together nicely, but we aren’t quite there yet.

Integration varies from provider to provider but often it is led by the integrations they have been asked to undertake, so if your current provider or a provider you have identified as being a good fit for your business don’t advertise integration with a specific system you are using – it is worth discussing the possibilities with them - especially if it is a common platform as making their product integrate may be useful for other future clients also.

Whilst there are still some legacy systems that can prove very difficult to integrate with this is becoming less and less so in today’s day and age. Indeed, we are seeing more and more companies offering ‘off the shelf’ or ‘out of the box’ integration with the leading CRM, ERP and even Telematics solutions.

Finally, it is worth discussing with your providers how they are future proofing their products when it comes to integration – there is, for example, a large amount of proprietary technology centred around IoT at the moment and until accepted universal protocols are in place you want to make sure any investment you make is future-proof.

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The field service sector is one that has always bred innovation and ingenuity and in today’s business landscape, where boundaries are being continually pushed forward by radical new approaches to service delivery, empowered by a wave of exciting technologies, there has never been a greater opportunity for companies to drive their businesses forwards through service.

As a celebration of excellence in our sector, Field Service News is pleased to announce the 2018 edition of the #fsn20 - a list of service professionals who are leading lights within our sector...

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Andy Harrison, Engineering Associate Fellow, Life Cycle Engineering, Rolls Royce

Rolls Royce has long been the poster boy for the servitization and advanced service movement we are now seeing begin to really gain momentum within the manufacturing sector and beyond.

As such, it makes sense that they are heavily involved within helping to establish a framework for advanced services as part of a multi-organisational committee dedicated to identifying the some of the fundamental steps towards such an approach.

Harrison is the man that is leading that committee and some of the work he and his colleagues within the group are undertaking will be pivotal to the future of field service.

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Ashley Weller, UK Sales Director, Mars Drinks

Having joined the organisation in 2011 Weller has held roles across a number of disciplines within the business including field service management, marketing and as Customer Service Director.

It is in this role that Weller established the creation and delivery of a highly successful customer service strategy and customer engagement across both direct & indirect business streams.

In 2015 Weller took the visionary decision to challenge his people to elevate their role, transforming themselves into Brand Ambassadors and adding even more value to great customer relationships. As a result of the team’s work over several years, the new processes are now a living, breathing animal and are running smoothly under the control of the regional managers. The new brand ambassadors are a true USP for the company and are loved by their customers. The engineers are proud that they’ve achieved all this – it’s what their customers wanted.

Having recently taken on the role of UK Sales Director, it is anticipated that Weller will be able to build on this success and to further drive revenue through their now well-established 'Brand Ambassadors'.

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Seva Gavrilov, Market Unit Director, Russia, Volvo Penta

Seva Gavrilov joined Volvo Penta 22 years ago and took over leadership of the Russian business in 2007.

He has always had a passion for nautical engineering, having graduated from the Marine Technology University in St Petersberg as a Naval engineer but also as a visionary with a head for business. Now, he is leading Volvo Penta through a programme of initiatives that are giving their dealerships a competitive edge, more momentum and increasing the company’s market share.

The group HQ in Gothenburg, Sweden has been watching Gavrilov’s programme carefully and has already implemented some similar ideas internationally. Since the company is in a transition period from being largely product and dealer focussed to Customer focused, Russia’s key message is to enforce the shift to end-user benefits.

Improvements in change processes, complaint handling and collaboration between groups such as sales and service can make huge improvements.

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Ulrika Lindberg, Executive Vice President, Service, Marel

A member of the Harvard Business School alumni Lindberg holds an impressive CV having held many senior service and management roles in Europe, Africa and the Middle East Lindberg has a deep knowledge of customer satisfaction, aftermarket, spare parts and of course field service - in fact, she is something of a specialist when it comes to establishing and developing service portfolios.

Having built a new unit within Swedish-industrial giant Alfa Laval, with an overall objective to increase sales of services and a focus on developing and maintaining a portfolio of well defined service offerings for the organisation, Lindberg took on the role of Vice President for Global Service where she was responsible for Global Service operations with focus on Growth of Service, Competence Development within Service and Service Operations before recently moving to her current role as Executive VP with Marel.

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Kevin Starr, Program Director, Advanced Digital Services, ABB Oil and Gas Division

Given Starr’s wide-ranging background which encompasses installing industrial automation, working with pneumatics, then electrics, DCS and now digital and across roles that include R&D managers, software developer, data scientist and cloud specialist - he is perhaps the very personification and embodiment of how the field service sector is in constant flux on a journey of continuous evolution.

When it comes to digitalisation of automation of service within the industrial sector, Starr is to be regarded a leading subject matter expert – a fact that is attested to the fact he is a highly sought-after speaker at industry conferences as well being the host of a successful YouTube series and author on the topic and he has played a sustained role in establishing ABB as a pioneer of data-led service delivery.

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Jonas Granath, COO and Deputy CEO, Polygon

Deputy CEO and COO of Polygon a company with over 3,500 field service engineers, Granath has worked in service businesses across the globe, throughout his career.

One key attribute that really marks Granath out as leading figure within the industry has been how he has continuously demonstrated across his career an ability to find different ways to lead and get his message across no matter the background of the people he is interacting with and it is this ability to communicate that has made him such a successful change leader and senior service professional.

Across the last four years, he has helped Polygon evolve their approach to service delivery and is driving their present shift towards a more comprehensive post-folio of advanced services that have come from that evolution.

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Tim Jones, Professional Services Director EMEAI, Waters

Having spent over thirty years with Waters Jones has worked across their Sales, Product and Service divisions and has become an integral part of the organisation who deliver practical and sustainable scientific innovation to enable significant advancement in healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality.

In his role as Professional Services Director for EMEAI he has played a critical role for ensuring Waters continue to meet the high level of service standards that they have become known for and has shown in the way he has structured his teams that he has a firm grasp of the importance of the engineer/customer relationship and of empowering his service engineers to take ownership of their performance.

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Dan Sewell, COO, Espresso Service

Sewell has been a driving force behind not only driving his organisation's field service efficiencies but also in Espresso Service’s wide embrace of the Internet of Things.

It is this willingness to adopt leading-edge technologies that have seen the organisation increase profits through the intelligent use of data that has enabled their customers to get greater guarantees of uptime and improved visibility into how t ey can also build their revenue streams.

In addition to this, the company has been able to rapidly expand into new territories as well as establish key patents and partnerships that will firmly establish them as one of the leading service providers within their space and Sewell’s deep industry knowledge and expertise have been a fundamental element of that success.

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Larry Wash, Executive Vice President, Kone Americas

Wash has a long and distinguished career that has included senior executive positions in service operations for a host of highly respected organisations including Xerox, Trane and Ingersoll Rand before joining Kone where he is at the vanguard of their drive to lead service innovation in a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving sector.

Alongside his role as Executive Vice President, Wash serves as a member of KONE’s Executive Board. and leads a $2 billion business that includes teams across the United States, Canada and Latin America.

Wash also serves as Board President for the National Elevator Industry, Inc., a pre-eminent trade association for the building transportation industry as is highly regarded as a thought leader within the executive service community.

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James Mylett, Vice President, Schneider Electric

Mylett is another member of the #fsn20 that has established his credentials as a highly respected service leader across a number of executive level service centred roles with a host of organisations who each have a reputation for excellence in terms of service delivery with a CV that lists positions with Comfort Systems, Johnson Controls and now Schneider Electric, whom he has been working for since 2017.

Schneider has shown ambitious plans in terms of establishing a highly progressive and forward-looking approach to their service operations on a global scale and as Vice President Mylett will be instrumental in seeing them meet their goals.

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Wilhelm Nehring, CEO, OSRAM

In his role as UK CEO of the elevator division of thyssenkrupp Nehring showed a balanced understanding for the importance of technology in driving a service business forwards alongside the fundamental role that his field service technicians played in ensuring his organisation continued to stay at the forefront of what is both a highly competitive and exceptionally innovative sector.

Speaking at an exclusive fieldservicenews.com Think Tank session last year he commented ‘for us all this digitalisation that we’re talking about is not something to replace engineers, or even to have less engineers – it is for us to enable our engineers to do the job better than they could before.’

Having recently taken on the CEO position of globally leading lighting manufacturer OSRAM it is clear that he intends to carry that belief with him into his new role stating ‘my aim for OSRAM is to become a key player in the digitalization of our buildings and cities. On that journey our employees are our most important assets; they make the impossible possible.”

Nehring is a perfect example of the new breed of business leaders who understand the huge impact service personnel will have on the future of enterprise and we predict OSRAM will flourish under his leadership.

 

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Chris Dexter, Senior Director, Technical Services EMEAR, Cisco Systems

With over 25 years of industry experience, Dexter is currently Senior Director, Technical Services EMEAR.

Based in the UK, leading a team of 200+ diverse and talented engineers across the region, Dexter is responsible for providing support for Cisco’s most complex technologies and emergent service offerings, as well as acquisition integration within the services function.

Innovation lead for EMEAR - funding, incubating and developing disruptive new concepts relating to customer experience and support quality and has given a number of exceptionally well-received talks at leading industry conferences such as TSIA Europe and Field Service Europe highlighting his and Cisco’s experience is achieving service excellence.

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Christian Nolte, Vice President, Global Service, WMF Group

Nolte has been a popular and well-respected speaker within the European Field Service community for many years now and in his previous role with cash management and retail financial firm Diebold Nixdorf was at the vanguard of introducing the concepts of IoT and connected assets into field service as well as offering a number of insightful and innovative strategies to help improve service efficiency to his peers at a number of key field service focused conferences within Europe.

Now in his new role with WMF he is set to translate those ideas himself into the coffee retail sector, where again his extensive experience and insight into utilising the Internet of Things to drive service improvements will prove invaluable.

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David Douglas, Vice President, Scientific Games

Douglas possesses over 25 years of global technology leadership experience.

His focus has been in the Lottery and Gaming sectors and broad experience includes executive leadership of North American organizations responsible for Service Management, customer deployments of large-scale systems and infrastructure, professional services, technical service, field service, operational support and call centres.

His current scope at Scientific Games includes the oversight of Scientific Games’ Service Management functions is currently leading a team comprised of 900+ employees. Douglas has a long history of achieving enormous operating efficiencies through the consolidation and creation of technology centres, process and quality improvements through the implementation of ITIL as well as hands-on experience with mergers, acquisitions and company integration activities.

In addition to having a mindful eye towards creating a strong, effective team and delivery practices, he is widely respected in the field service sector for his focus on creating value for the customer through the implementation of new, innovative service-related technologies.

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Neil Johnson, Vice President & General Manager, Fujifilm North America Technical Services

Johnson is a highly seasoned service leader and is regarded as s one of the top executives in the US Service Industry.

He has demonstrated exceptional management expertise as he took a lead role in the transformation of Fujifilm’s Service Group from a cost centre to profit centre whilst developing strategies within the organisation for staffing, systems and CSA’s as the company established a well-deserved reputation for delivering flawless installations during the peak of the digital prepress evolution and his latest role with the group he looks set to further build upon his past successes and a bright and profitable future for the company’s service operations.

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Rajat Kakar, Vice President, Head of Product Related Services Business, Fujitsu

Kakar is a frequent speaker and well respected at industry events whilst within Fujitsu, he is known for driving growth and sustained profitability, successfully penetrating new markets and building highly functional teams.

In his industry, he is recognized as first to market with new products. As prior leader of Product divisions within Fujitsu, he was first to market with UMTS integrated lightest laptops, Green IT with Zero-Watt PCs and Zero-Watt Monitors. His pragmatic and inclusive management practice for sales as well as operations, coupled with an as needed hands-on leadership style, has earned him a reputation of the desired leader and has enabled him to turn around dated or loss-generating organizations, both indirect and matrix structures.

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Steve Smith, Founder and CTO, Astro Communications

Smith is a shining example of how excellent leadership, out of the box thinking and a genuine dedication to developing talent within the service side of the business can be implemented to establish a service organisation that is able to punch significantly above its weight in terms of establishing an excellent reputation for meeting the highest service standards.

Through innovative schemes such as taking his team sailing across the English Channel Smith has been able to engender an excellent sense of brand pride within his field engineers and is also a major proponent of apprenticeship schemes - through which he is developing a series of excellent, highly professional and well-rounded service engineers who can only enhance Astro’s reputation even further.

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Ton van den Ham, Manager Engineering & Service, Yokogawa Europe Solutions

Yokogawa's industrial automation business provides vital products, services, and solutions to a diverse range of process industries including oil, chemicals, natural gas, power, iron and steel, and pulp and paper additionally with the life innovation business the company aims to radically improve productivity across the pharmaceutical and food industry value chains.

In recent year’s their European operations have established a strong reputation for providing service levels that exceed customer expectations and Van den Ham has shown within the year he has been with the organisation that he is an impressive service leader with innovative ideas who could have a major impact on the service sector.

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Ged Cranny, Head of Direct Services, Konica Minolta

Cranny has played a fundamental role in spearheading Konica Minolta’s efforts to bring transparency to their data which has empowered the print/copy specialists to massively improve efficiencies within their service operations whilst simultaneously being able to dramatically reduce their employee churn, boost customer engagement and increase service related profits.

Having adopted a very hands on approach when implementing key systems that have enabled these achievements, Cranny is also prepared to speak openly about the approaches he and Konica Minolta adopted with his peers and help guide others on a similar path by sharing the insight of his experience.

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John Cullen, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Metso

Whilst Cullen would invariably suggest that this accolade should perhaps be handed to one of his highly capable colleagues focussing specifically on the service operations side of the business at Metso, as former Vice President of Service Portfolio Management & Marketing, Automation Services for the organisation he has been a key role in the mining and aggregates giant’s shift from product centric to customer-oriented solutions on a global sale before building upon that as Vice President of Minerals Services where he was responsible for the development of service value propositions for the €1.4Bn business.

Given his pivotal role in establishing a service-orientated approach within Metso, we anticipate that Cullen will continue to drive the benefits of advanced services that Metso have developed in his latest role also.

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the #fsn20 panel

Many thanks to this year’s advisory panel:

Aly Pinder, IDC, Sara Mueller, WBR, Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM, Kris Oldland, Field Service News, Jan Van Veen, MoreMomentum, Prudence Kolong, Copperberg, Michael Blumberg, Blumberg Advisory Group and Nick Frank, Si2 Partners.

 

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Swedish enterprise mobility and ERP provider IFS recently announced the hiring of former ServicePower CEO, Marne Martin, as President of their Service Management Business Unit, part of a dual role she has taken on alongside being CEO of IFS subsidiary, WorkWave. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News reflects on this appointment and why it is a good thing not just for IFS, but for the wider industry as a whole...

I have known Marne Martin for some time now, speaking to her once or twice a year either for interviews, or just catching up at various industry events we've both been speaking at.

When she was included in a previous edition of the #FSN20, our annual list of key industry leaders, it was me that put her forward to the committee. That was in part because I had always found her to be engaging and intelligent when speaking to her, as well as being passionate for the industry we operate within - but then again, these things for me at least should be a given for any CEO within the sector.

Marne, of course, had all of these traits in abundance, but what always made her stand apart from the many other excellent leaders we have in our sector, what made her seem just that little bit more dynamic and exciting to speak with and why I put her forward for the #FSN20 (something we take very seriously here at fieldservicenews.com) was her ability to see the trends that were just beyond most people's range of vision, those that were over the horizon.

"What Marne has demonstrated time and again is that she is able to go that one step further and identify what will be the challenges and opportunities around how any given technology will ultimately be utilised..."

Sure, we can all get a feel for what technologies are set to emerge - a quick look at Gartner's current year hype cycle will allow us to see what we can expect to come along in the next few years. It might not always work out as we anticipate (think about the early clamour around wearables and in particular Glass as an example of this), but most of us who pay attention to these things are fairly able to put together a reasonably accurate picture of the future.

What Marne has demonstrated time and again is that she is able to go that one step further and identify what will be the challenges and opportunities around how any given technology will ultimately be utilised - and such foresight, is a much rarer attribute.

For example, I remember Marne outlining to me the importance that Quantum Annealing would play within field service management systems - in particularly within dynamic scheduling, long before the topic was even close to being something that was discussed outside of high-tech computing circles.

Indeed, the last time we spoke at any great length we had a long and detailed conversation about how and why field service management systems would need to ultimately evolve from being an additional feature sold alongside an ERP or CRM system and become acknowledged as something of equal status and importance within the world of enterprise computing.

Essentially we agreed, FSM needed to be, and eventually would be recognised as a category within its own right. This is something that we are now absolutely beginning to see happen in certain pockets of the industry, including IFS - who have across the last couple of year's publically stated that FSM is a core priority within their wider portfolio - something that was reiterated at their World Conference in Atlanta earlier this year by new CEO Darren Roos.

"As far as benefitting our industry as a wider whole, there are few places I feel Marne could have such a big impact, as at IFS..."

So as you can imagine, when we heard Marne was stepping down from her role as CEO of ServicePower, I had an inkling that it would be more au revoir than goodbye, I just had a feeling in my gut that we would see her again soon enough somewhere familiar.

However, as far as benefitting our industry as a wider whole, there are few places I feel Marne could have such a big impact, as at IFS. They have shown that they have the ambition, vision and capability to push the industry forwards (indeed the newly launched FSM6 is an excellent solution utilising best of breed technology), but perhaps also they have shown that they have a strong commitment to FSM that will surely raise the bar further for the quality of solutions available to field service organisations.

After all, as John F Kennedy famously quoted a rising tide lifts all boats.

Also, we must consider that Marne is bringing in exceptional leadership experience, industry knowledge and vision into a team that is already full of excellent leaders and thinkers.

For example, the always impressive Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director Service Management who has established an excellent reputation both within the company and the industry since having joined from PTC almost two years ago. Another would be Stephen Jeff-Watts, who is responsible for IFS' product strategy for Enterprise Service Management and is another with a canny knack for understanding where the future lies within the sector. Then, of course, there is Paul White, former CEO of mplsystems who IFS acquired last year who brings a huge level of detail around the latest developments around omni-channel communications to the table, or Tom DeVroy, personally, someone I hold as one of the best author's contributing to publications including ourselves around.

Indeed, the list is long and Marne's appointment at the head of this group, is set to make IFS an even more formidable force within our industry on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.

Finally, it is also interesting to note her dual role.

"Once such a precedent has been set by such a significant industry player as IFS, it is likely that we will see other companies follow suit..."

When IFS acquired WorkWave late last year, I wrote about how the acquisition essentially gave IFS full market penetration.

Traditionally, they have always served the mid-enterprise tier well, in recent year's we have seen them begin to open some more doors in the larger enterprise sector as well. However, the SME market has always been an area that has been somewhat underserved, yet could be potentially lucrative, as WorkWave has proven.

With Marne taking on dual responsibilities for Enterprise Service Management and WorkWave it seems that IFS may potentially be seeking to firmly organise a significant section of their business around their FSM  capabilities - exactly the type of shift in thinking that Marne and I had discussed a year ago and also something Darren Roos alluded to when I spoke to him recently as well.

Once such a precedent has been set by such a significant industry player as IFS, it is likely that we will see other companies follow suit - which will ultimately lead to further emphasis on the importance of field service within industry.

So from where I'm sitting, Marne's arrival at IFS is therefore potentially great news long-term for all in our industry - it certainly promises to be an exciting move and I for one wish her every success

 

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The #FSN20 is our annual list of those shaping and developing our industry. However, before we make the final announcement of those who are on the 2018 list, Kris Oldland, Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief talks us through how the approach to building this year's list has evolved...

Once again we have put together a list of the brightest and best within our industry and once again I have been amazed at just how long it took us to refine the list down to twenty individuals,

Yes, it is that time again, time for us to celebrate the innovation and ingenuity that surrounds us within our industry by publishing the #FSN20 - our list of those we think are truly driving field service forward.

Although, this year you may notice that we have taken a slightly different tack to previous years.

In the past editions of the #FSN20 we had included solution providers, academics, analysts, consultants and industry practitioners and the list was a reflection of those who were the key influencers within the sector.

However, this time around you will see that we have only included the practitioners.

Why?

Well I’m glad you asked!

There are two key reasons behind this shift in approach. Firstly, we found that there were simply so many examples of excellent work being done within our sector by the industry practitioners that even whittling the list down to 20 would have been (and most certainly was in fact) a major challenge.

As it is, some really great service leaders, unfortunately, didn’t quite make the final cut and that would have been an even higher number if we had remained with the broader church we have used in previous iterations of the list.

Secondly, we figured that if we were to single out and focus our attention on one specific group, then it had to absolutely be the industry practitioners - who are often unsung heroes outside of there organisations - and sometimes even within them.

 

"Find them on social media, read articles they may have written and if you see their names on the speaking list at a conference get yourself there to listen to them..."

 

Yes, there are some truly excellent minds amongst the solution providers, academics and consultants but the fact of the matter is that the majority of names of those at the vanguard of driving our sector forward will already be familiar to our regular Field Service News readers as we make it our business to talk to and offer a platform to those who we believe are bringing something of value to the discussion.

However, there now may be some names in this year’s list that are less familiar to you and if that is the case I strongly urge you to look these folks up!

Find them on social media, read articles they may have written and if you see their names on the speaking list at a conference get yourself there to listen to them - because each member of the 2018 edition of the #FSN20 has shown excellent leadership, an intimate knowledge of how to deliver service excellence and a willingness to think outside of the box in terms of how to drive revenue whilst creating ever greater levels of customer satisfaction.

The #FSN20 will be published online next week but fieldservicenews.com subscribers on our mailing list have already had an advanced preview in the July/August issue. If you want to make sure you're always ahead of the pack as well then apply for a complimentary industry professional subscription by clicking the link below...

 

 

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