AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

As the worlds of academia and industry came together once more at the annual Aston Spring Servitization Conference the message was clear. Servitization has moved from concept to reality and now it is time to start moving the conversation beyond the theory and into real world applications...

The concept of servitization, whilst still fresh to many is not actually particularly new.

Indeed, many of the often cited examples of servitization such as Caterpillar, MAN UK and Xerox have been providing advanced services and outcome based solutions business models to their clients for many, many years.

Rolls Royce, the much celebrated poster boys of the servitization movement have been delivering ‘power-by-the-hour’, their own brand of servitization, ever since the late sixties when they were given an ultimatum by American Airlines to offer a new business model or lose their business.

From an academic standpoint, the first reference to Servitization as a concept is widely accredited to a paper published by Vandermerwe & Rada entitled “Servitization of Business: Adding Value by Adding Services” which appeared in the European Management Journal in 1988.

Yet here we are some 28 years later and still the terminology is foreign to many, outside specific circles of industry and academia.

 

But at the same time, we are seeing a growing number of examples of servitization by significant companies.

Last year in Field Service News, we reported how John Cooper at Sony Professional Services had moved their business towards what was essentially a servitized business model in their broadcast services division by equipping Tele-Madrid with an entire new TV suite on a cost per usage basis, an agreement that puts the full onus on Sony to ensure they delivered 100% uptime.

Yet at no point in our conversation did the word servitization come up.

Then there is Air France KNB.

When Field Service News interviewed him at last year’s Aston Spring Servitization Conference, Harman Lanser of AirFrance KNB admitted that he hadn’t come across the concept until he saw Prof. Tim Baines give a presentation at the Aftermarket Conference in Amsterdam, whereby he immediately identified with the concept as exactly the process he was trying to take the MRO unit of the world’s 2nd largest airline through.

So is there this disconnect between the theoretical world of academia and the world of industry, especially when the evidence would seem to point out that they are indeed both heading in a similar direction?

 

What hasn’t helped is that academics in the past have used a number of interchangeable phrases like ‘life-cycle through services’, ‘advanced services’, ‘outcome based solutions’ and ‘servitization’ when discussing the topic - which has weakened the focus somewhat. Add to this that the research community has tended to focus very much around isolated individual companies in many instances, and the type of benchmarking that makes industry sit up and listen more attentively has been somewhat lacking as a result.

This sentiment sat very much at the heart of the opening keynote presentation of this year’s conference given by Prof. Rogelio Oliva, of Mays Business School, Texas A&M University.

“We’ve basically got stuck in a research mode,”began Oliva

“We like to go out and work with companies, do a case study, write it up and then we’re very happy with it.”

“The problem with doing that is that it is very difficult to aggregate and come up with a theory  that is realisable across several industries or even across several companies.”

“What you end up with is a whole bunch of anecdotes. ‘Company A did this and Company B did that and it’s very difficult to make progress under theoretical developments.”

“I think we as academics, have fallen short of delivering a set of theories, a set of concepts and a set of principals that managers could actually use.”

 

“Of course they [the theories and concepts] are going to need to be modified to a particular  situation, but overall there ought to be some overarching principals to navigate this and we have failed to do that.”

A similar sentiment was also offered by Prof. Tim Baines, Aston Centre for Servitization, Aston University when he gave us his reflections at the end of what was a busy two days.

“I think what we have to accept that the lens that we are using to look at the different adoptions of services throughout the world is imperfect,” admitted Baines.

“It’s useful to reflect on services gaining traction, but as yet we haven’t got the techniques to say with certainty economy A is competing more on the basis of servitization whilst economy B is competing more on the basis of productization.”

However, that is not to say that the move to servitization is floundering, in fact the opposite is very much true. It is now in a stage of evolution where it is beginning to move from the fringe slowly towards the mainstream.

That said, there is still a long way to go towards more widespread understanding. Currently there is a very specific type of company that is suited to servitization, especially when it comes to doing so hand in hand with the academics.

“There are three types of companies,” explains Baines.

 

“Firstly there are those companies that are doing incredibly well selling products and they don’t want to talk about servitization at all. Then there are the companies that are struggling financially and they are prepared to look at servitization because they are prepared to look at anything that can help them get out of the mess that they‘re in and then there is the third set, which are companies that are competing but are getting some kind of feeling that the world that they operate in is changing.”

“It is the companies that are seeing new business models emerge, those who’ve still got stability but who know they’ve got to evolve the way in which they capture value, these are the businesses that we want to work with because if we can help those, we can learn an awful lot about this transformation process and we can position these companies to compete better in future years.”

However, Baines believes that there is definitely a synergy growing between academia and industry.

“This is the fifth time we’ve done this conference” he begins.

“The first year we did the conference we created an event where we had practitioners and we had academics and actually there was a huge gulf between them which was really quite hard to reconcile. We didn’t have a language to describe what was actually going on.”

“I think what has happened is that the academics have accelerated in that they now have a better understanding of industrial practice so they can talk more coherently with practitioners and conversely the practitioners are starting to understand the language of servitization.”

“Through conversations around base, intermediate and advanced services they are beginning to be able to converse with the academics. There are still differences and there always will be - we’ve got different sets of priorities when we are both doing our jobs, but there is a definite sense of it coming together.”

 

“We have now established the language of servitization the notion of these base, intermediary and advanced services is becoming well established, most of the presenters are using those terms and those languages now. We really don’t want any other papers coming along offering different frameworks for this topic because we have moved beyond it,” he continues.

So how can the academics move forward to support their counterparts in industry?

“I would say the first thing we need to do to move forward is to leverage what we have done,” Oliva explains.

“We have been out there writing case studies, interacting with firms, learning from them. Let’s step back and spend a bit more time with those cases, do the hard work of thinking about what it means as opposed to just documenting the story.”

“Then we need to look at the phenomena that we are researching. “We are looking at servitization, which is a transformation that is hard for companies and there is a very long tradition in research that says if you as an academic get involved in the change journey, you can learn from this process - this is something that we call ‘actual research’.”

“So the next strategy is engaging in that process, the research will take longer because we are going to walk with that company, but that is what it takes to get the work done.”

“The final strategy I propose is a push for being relevant,” Oliva continues.

“If we put relevance at the front of our research goals: how we design research questions, how we design research hypothesis, how we design and develop research implications, if we do that with a manager at hand and thinking about the manager and about being relevant, I think that will also help us shape our own work.”

One thing is certainly clear after the two days of exhaustive presentations and debate, servitization has begun to move forward both as an industrial movement and as a topic for academic research.

The key questions are moving from what and why to how. As Baines commented in summing up the conference in the final session:

“Really, now the conversation needs to be about how do we get traction within an organisation, how do we advance this concept.”

“That’s where the real challenges are.”

 

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At the inaugural Field Service Summit held in Oxford last month Field Service News and Greenroad co-hosted a series of five 30 minute roundtables on Fleet Management. With Chatham house rules in place to allow the participants to speak freely about both positive and negative experiences of fleet management, these sessions provided fascinating insight for all of those who took part.

Here we share with you three of the key points of discussion from across the day.

Who is responsible for fleet management?

One of the most crucial factors for understanding how field service companies manage their fleet operations is to understand where fleet management fits within the organisational structure of a company.

During the day there were a number of different alternatives brought up as to who is responsible for fleet management.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it was amongst larger organisations that we saw the role of a dedicated fleet manager, however, even when a fleet manager is in place, their role doesn’t necessarily involve the implementation of telematics or routing and tracking solutions. Often these more strategic elements ,that are designed to yield business improvement, sat within the field service division. Whilst the fleet manager role is more logistical, responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the fleet.

Interestingly, for a number of companies fleet management as a discipline sat alongside the health and safety department, which seemed to be a general starting point for many companies when it comes to rolling out an initial telematics solution.

As one participant commented: “For us it’s more about managing the health and safety side, health and safety in the UK is now getting to a point where it is actually tying us up to a certain degree.

We are dedicating a significant amount of time to dealing with health and safety legislation in work.”

Another option that was utilised by some companies was to completely outsource their fleet management requirements as part of the lease arrangement for their vehicles. In fact as telematics becomes more and more embedded by vehicle manufacturers in the not too distant future it may be that such arrangements become more common.

Meanwhile, for those smaller companies with more manageable fleets, the responsibility for fleet management sat firmly with the field service management team.

What was clear however, was if companies are to get the most out of their telematics solution, which currently many companies admit they are not doing, then the field service management team must have some input and control over the decisions made around fleet management and telematics.

It is also clear that the use of telematics is now becoming far more encompassing than simple vehicle tracking.

As another participant commented “We introduced telematics about two/three years ago now and for the same reason – health and safety and that really was the driver, but there are so many other benefits that can be driven from it."

Other comments around the ownership of fleet management and the drivers behind implementing a telematics solution included:

“The ownership of managing the vehicles is all down to our fleet department in terms of health and safety. Telematics and fuel consumption is in our [field service] space.”

“Through risk assessment we make sure our service engineers are doing everything correctly, and we send them on advanced driving training courses, to ensure we comply with health and safety regulations and procedures.”

This last point is something that Ryan Davison, Enterprise Sales Manager, Greenroad, believes is becoming more and more prevalent. He explained:

“We are starting to get approached a lot more now about the health and safety and environmental factors of fleet management.”

“Whereas traditionally telematics has always been logistical and operational, we are starting to see a lot more around a duty of care compliance side of things.”

“Companies are coming to us now and saying effectively we’ve got our telematics system running on the operational side but we are looking for something independent of that, that will take care of our R.O.I. that will look into duty of care that will make sure our drivers are behaving responsibly on the roads.”

“What we are looking at now is finding the synergy between fleet management and performance and health and safety and where you can transfer that data. Data is abundant at the moment and any telematics system can produce an enormous amount of data, but it’s how you interpret and manage that internally that is the key. Handing somebody 20/30 spread sheets in their inbox is not going to create any value for your organisation.”

Data, Data Everywhere:

Indeed, one of the common themes of the day was how to harness the amount of data that a telematics system could produce and how to effectively utilise that data.

The consensus was that it was important to be able to access that data in an easy to manage visual manner, with configurable dashboards being high on the wish list for most companies.

In general most companies now see the value of data available to them.However, there is also a clear fear of drowning in data if it is not possible to access it in a meaningful fashion.

Also as more and more providers are developing APIs for open integration the flow of data is becoming increasingly seamless.

What was also interesting was that there seemed to be a dual use for data, highlighted throughout the day’s conversations.

Firstly, it became apparent telematics data is used as a day-to-day management tool, but it is also used secondly as a strategic tool to help push a business forward.

This concept was neatly summed up by one particular participant who said:

“There are two main elements. There is the data that provides the behavioural stuff and we are a fortunate position where there are sixteen area managers and they are directly responsible for the field engineers and their behaviour and being able to send data around whether their engineers are driving too fast, or braking too hard etc. is something that they can use as a tool to deal with these issues as line management.”

“But from an organisational perspective the big win is the data that outlines the utilisation of our equipment.”

“We have a big fleet and before, whilst this information was there it was in paper format so wasn’t easy to access. But now it is easier to access and it can inform our decisions on whether to buy or rent new assets, whether we can move things around the country and so on.”

Driver behaviour and fleet management

It is however, the first of these uses, feeding data back to the field engineers that was discussed the most across the day’s sessions. And gamification played a significant role in how a number of companies utilised their telematics data to improve their engineers driving standards.

As one participant commented” Nobody wants to be the worst driver in the fleet, whether it is a fleet of 5 or a fleet or 500.”

And gamification tools can actively encourage improvements . Indeed, there was almost universal acceptance that gamification could be used as a tool to improve driver behaviour across  an entire mobile workforce.

However, the first battle, which is quite a common one it seems, is getting the field engineers to accept a telematics solution in the first place.

All too often we heard similar stories from the delegates – namely that of push-back from unions and engineers. “Definitely there is a kind of resentment.” Commented one participant.

“It comes down to trust, they believe that you just don’t trust them and then it becomes an issue. The mind-set is ‘if your putting something in it’s because you don’t trust how I do something.’ And then you get the push-back against it.” another delegate commented.

“It can then become a vicious circle where the company says if your not doing anything wrong there is nothing to be concerned about, whilst the engineers say if I’m not doing anything wrong why do you need to track me.”

However, it does seem to be a problem that often heals itself over time following implementation.

“Eventually they saw it wasn’t being used as they expected it to be and now it is accepted” another delegate replied before adding “some of the guys are even asking for print outs from the system so they can see their own performance.”

Yet getting that initial acceptance can still be a tricky balancing act as Davison explained further.

“The two sides of the scale are encouragement and enforcement.”

“To begin with you can take the approach of explaining this is for your own benefit and what those benefits are, but with those who are persistently driving badly then it is a case of falling back on policy and saying to that engineer ‘we need to take you off the road and explore training before we can get you back on.’”

In terms of driver behaviour, data can also play a crucial role in streamlining training strategies as Davison added “Whereas traditionally people might have used programs such as AA drive tech, Institute of Advanced Motoring or VOSPA for generic training what we are seeing now is people are using the data more cleverly.”

“Applied driving techniques is a good example, what they will do is work with us in partnership and use our data to avoid taking a scatter gun approach, but rather focus the training on areas  that it is needed.”

“So each individual driver will have their own risk profile and therefore we can assess how effective is that training been in improving them and reducing the risk they pose on the road."

 

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Bringing stock management, sales processing and excellent customer service together under one umbrella is often a challenge. Add having to deal with third party logistics and the challenge increases.

Logistics and warehouse software specialists OrderWise have met this challenge head-on with the launch of its latest 3PL (Third Party Logistics) Billing Module.

Jon Roberts, Marketing Manager at OrderWise said: “This latest addition to the OrderWise offering meets the challenges that come with having to handle third party logistics.

Too often, having to organise and maintain customers’ supply chains and payment schedules mean businesses we work with have less time to manage their own stock and orders - adding a further layer of complexity. This module eliminates that time sink and puts you in greater control over billing.”

The latest module to be added to the OrderWise offering delivers a seamless way of managing all aspects of third party logistics. Version 11.5 of OrderWise enables businesses to reap all the benefits of OrderWise Stock Control, Warehouse Management and Mobile WMS Devices, along with new functionality that provides accurate methods of calculating customer charges based on stock handlings.

Jon added: “One of the interesting aspects to this latest module is that it is completely adaptable to meet the needs of the customer. OrderWise Third Party Logistics Billing is the ideal suite of software for any businesses managing stock and fulfilling orders on behalf of their customers.”

Users are able to assign charges for:

• Receiving
• put away
• picking
• packing
• freezing
• delivery
• returns
• storage
• handling of stock 

There is also the facility to add custom charges for bespoke or one-off occasions, offering further flexibility.

Perhaps more importantly, businesses have the flexibility with this latest module to determine whether handling charges are calculated based on a fixed customer rate, per item quantity processed over a custom set billing period or a combination of both.

To calculate billing charges by a fixed customer rate, users simply enter their charges for each handling method against their third party logistics customer records.

Once calculated, billing options have been set, users then simply set customers’ billing frequency and final billing date, with a further option available to merge all handling charges processed between billing periods into one single sum. The rates are then multiplied by the number of stock transactions in order to determine the cost over each billing period.

 

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When software giant Microsoft announced a raft of highly service orientated features in the latest roll out of Microsoft Dynamics it was clear they were aiming to help their customers, help their customers. But how does that translate into Field service, the dedicated FSM solution acquired by Microsoft last year? Kris Oldland spoke to Carsten Groth to find out more...

Often when a major player in the software world acquires a smaller, niche business one of two things happen.

Either the smaller company gets swallowed up never to be heard of again, or they continue with their brand but as priorities and focusses change they slowly lose a grip on what it is that made them a success in the first place.

Either way there are usually a few fairly easily found voices of discontent somewhere.

But when Microsoft acquired FieldOne (now rebranded to Field Service) in the summer of last year the move went particularly smoothly and it seems to have continued in that vein ever since.

Carsten Groth, A Technology Solution Professional within Microsoft explained that much of the seamless transition could be put down to the way in which Microsoft work with partner developers and ISVs, which is driven by a technology platform that fosters collaboration and integration across the network.

“Basically it is because under the hood of Microsoft Dynamics CRM we have something called the XRM framework which allows partners as well as ISVs to build on top of it,” he explains.

“Think of it like a Lego brick system, so Dynamics CRM is that Lego brick system, then you decide if you build a police station or a fire station.”

“The FieldOne solution came from a global ISV standpoint and what they did was build that ISV solution based on the XRM framework so they reused certain functionalities and entities coming from Dynamic’s CRM because they saw that inside field service there was a definite niche for certain types of data,”he adds.

“They [the FieldOne team] already knew about field service, what are the needs, what are the pain points in it and then they built on top of that XRM framework a field service solution.” “So when FieldOne was acquired by Microsoft there were no pain points as it was a hundred per cent solution fitting inside that XRM story.”

“Basically the only adjustment was the transition from having FieldOne as accompany to having Microsoft as a bigger company.”

So how is the product evolving from FieldOne to Field Service with such heavyweight backing?

“We think of field service as a broad area,” begins Groth, “we do have small specialisations like the medical industry or automotive, but I think perhaps 69% to 75% of challenges are maybe equal.”

“But processes are ever changing and what we as a concept are trying to bring out ‘is here is a change management ability inside your organisation’. Should you buy new software every-time you make changes to your processes? Of course not – and it would be even better if you could make adjustments on your own.”

“For example, feedback from one of your field service technicians saying ‘every day I’m starting my business day it is a lot of effort for me to give you a status feedback - can we simplify it? Is there a way to do that?’ This is exactly what we are able to do inside Field Service. We come up with systems with an easy, simple UI experience that allow companies to form a better connection between mobility devices and all those interactions with the back office.”

“We are trying to change the way field service companies engage both internally and with their customers, by introducing what we call Connected Field Service, which you can now do in the Cloud, with a concept that is a horizontal solution which will still totally align to your vertical business. We then have vertical instruments such as healthcare for instance, to provide a nice smooth kick-off within that system.”

Given Microsoft’s position as a top tier Cloud  services provider, and Groth’s reference to Field Service’s own Cloud functionality, this seems like a perfect time to address the ever-present elephant in the room. Namely Cloud security.

“One of the biggest benefits that Microsoft has is that we can do both the Cloud experience as well as the on-premise experience,” replies Groth.

“So if there is any reason that we cannot go with you to those Cloud services, we can still fall back to the on-premise models.”

[quote float="left"]"We do have customers struggling with firewalls, policies, or they might even have more specific laws inside certain countries, so what we are trying to do is find spots where we can introduce Cloud services and then make their lives easier..."[/quote]“We do have customers struggling with firewalls, policies, or they might even have more specific laws inside certain countries, so what we are trying to do is find spots where we can introduce Cloud services and then make their lives easier.”

“Sometimes the worries are simply because they read news stories about the unsafe Cloud and different types of compliance issues inside the Cloud. But that is changing, it’s changing a lot.”

So does Groth see a growing momentum, in terms of companies wanting to move their field service offerings to the Cloud?

“We do have customers struggling with firewalls, policies, or they might even have more specific laws inside certain countries, so what we are trying to do is find spots where we can introduce Cloud services and then make their lives easier.”

“Definitely, people are struggling with making their work easier and the Cloud and Cloud Services can definitely do that.”

“But it’s new technology and new methodology that we have to learn. It’s like if your not well trained in Outlook, you may well end up having an inbox with 2000 or more unread emails – should it be like that? Definitely not!”

“Why is it like that? It’s because you’ve not been trained in the Outlook experience. And it’s pretty much the same with the Cloud – you must be trained to use Cloud Services and what they are.”

This leads us to the question of whether the selection of a field service management software solution should fall under the remit of IT, Operations or both.

“It’s actually even more complicated because we also have the management conversation as well, bringing in processes and organisational structure elements as well” comments Groth.

“So we have the management coming in and saying this is the way we set out our internal processes are you able to actually adjust the software, or are we able to adjust the software, to continue to allow us to do these processes in this way?”

When Microsoft rolled out the latest feature set of Dynamics in the 2016 release their was a lot of focus on knowledge sharing, to empower contact centre agents by putting the right information they need in front of them as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

With knowledge sharing being a critical tool for field service companies facing a potential crisis, with the prospect of an ageing workforce set to leave on mass in the not too distant future, it would be interesting to see if this level of functionality could now be ingrained into the Field Service product suite as well.

Fortunately, it seems this is very much all part of the plan at Microsoft.

As Groth outlines “Imagine you’re a field technician, trained on a specific device, scheduled to perform maintenance on a customer site. You open up the log board and maintenance files and figure out it’s not revision A that you have been trained on but revision B that is required.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have the capabilities of accessing a knowledge base on the fly to see what are the differences between revision A and revision B? Maybe there are not that many changes in the revision so the field service technician could still provide the maintenance to that customer on site once he sees the difference between A and B?”

“We enabled this by offering, inside Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, capabilities for these knowledge banks. We even go a little bit further where we are enabling the field service technicians as well as others to comment whether that specific article was useful or not.”

So it seems again the strength of the wider Microsoft platform, is adding weight to the feature set of Field Service.

Of course, other field service solutions, as Groth (who previously worked for German based scheduling and optimisation solution providers FLS) will attest, are easily able to plug into the XRM framework too, or even add further functionality to Field Service, adding ‘one more Lego block to the tower’ as Groth describes it.

But there is also a tangible shift towards field service solutions being part of a wider ecosystem with the likes of Oracle and Salesforce following in the footsteps of ERP provider IFS who made a concerted effort to embed field service within their platform with the purchase of Metric and 360 Scheduling a few years ago.

There are of course arguments both for and against the case for integrated solutions versus stand-alone, and that is consideration each individual company must take.

However, with the acquisition and integration of Field One into their platform Microsoft are now a very, very solid option once more for field service.

 

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As the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem continues to evolve, Telia Carrier and Ericsson have signed an agreement that highlights the critical role international carriers have to play. Telia Carrier will provide backhaul and interconnect solutions to Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform via a dedicated IoT backbone.

"It’s pretty clear that IoT needs its own backbone", says Brendan Ives, CEO of Telia Carrier. "It’s one thing to connect the Internet of Things today, but if you consider we will soon be connecting smart cities and the cars that drive us, things are about to get real. Ericsson is one of the driving forces in IoT with the Networked Society. We are pleased to have been chosen to provide the connectivity it deserves."

[quote float="left"]"It’s one thing to connect the Internet of Things today, but if you consider we will soon be connecting smart cities and the cars that drive us, things are about to get real"

This agreement enables IoT operators to connect via any of Telia Carrier’s 220 IPX PoPs directly to Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform in a single network hop.

 

Anders Olin, Vice President Product Area Network Functions with Business Unit Cloud & IP, Ericsson, says: "Our operator customers can now connect directly to our Device Connection Platform with a pre-integrated, scalable & secure backbone solution. The combined offering from Telia Carrier and Ericsson is fully aligned to provide the SLAs demanded by business-critical IoT applications".

Backhaul between IoT operators and device management platforms is a critical link that requires extremely high levels of security and reliability.

"When you combine a dedicated IoT service with a global fiber backbone like ours, you get the scalability IoT will soon demand", says Matthew Jones, Head of Mobile Solutions for Telia Carrier. "With this agreement in place, we can connect customers and shorten time to market considerably. That’s going to be particularly important for the operators who haven’t moved on IoT yet, but are starting to see the scale of the opportunity. Effectively, this solution brings IoT operators closer to Ericsson’s Device Connection Platform. It gives them a one-hop-shop."

 

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Argon Office Systems, one of the Isle of Man’s leading suppliers of IT and Print services, has upgraded its service support capability after installing 2serv, the service management software solution from Purpose Software. 

The new system will enable the organisation to streamline internal workflow processes and deliver an even better level of support to customers operating in the telecommunications, media, healthcare, retail, transport, public, financial services and professional services sectors.

Argon wanted to further increase the efficiency of its service operation after recently achieving a Konica Minolta Business Solutions (UK) 5 Star service accreditation by demonstrating compliance with the highest standards in training, handling of field service calls, service call processing, customer satisfaction.  Konica Minolta recommended Purpose Software, the leading developer of service management solutions for document and managed print services providers.

2serv enables Argon to increase the efficiency of the whole service operation which is responsible for supporting a wide range of technologies from complete IT infastructures through to multifunctional devices, copiers, fax machines and printers along with other paper handling systems such as shredders, binders and laminators.

 

“Purpose Software understood the unique challenges faced by organisations such as Argon and worked closely with our IT team to ensure an incident-free installation process,” commented Iain Fairbairn, Managing Director of Argon. “2serv has increased the efficiency of our service operation and enabled us to integrate our service, stock and accounting functions to provide more proactive support to customers, whether supplying a single toner cartridge or a complete IT infrastructure project.”

2serv provides instant access to real-time data relating to maintenance and support contracts, installed equipment and outstanding service calls.  It also improves the control of parts and consumables whether in the warehouse, at customer sites or carried as car stock by engineers.  Purchase orders are automatically generated to maintain optimum stock levels, eliminate the incidence of double ordering and ensure compliance with customer SLAs.

2serv generates a wide range of reports at the press of a button, enabling decision-making to be improved in every area of the business.  It eliminates the need for staff to manually compile spreadsheet-based reports and provides an efficient way to measure performance against KPIs such as service and profitability at customer, model and device level.

 The installation also includes 2roam which allows field service engineers equipped with tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices to access and update 2serv from any location across the island.

 

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With the recent launch of ServiceMax Service Performance Metrics™ the Californian based field service software provider has created a new tool that sits between the worlds of consulting and technology. But what exactly is Service Performance Metrics and will this see a shift towards professional services for ServiceMax? To find out more Kris Oldland spoke exclusively to Rei Kasai...

KO: You’ve mentioned previously that you see ServiceMax very much as a field service company providing technology rather than a technology company providing a field service solution. How big of a differentiator is that amongst those other companies in the space?

RK: I think to be fair, it’s why we have been successful. Going back to comments from customers on why they choose us; they view us as experts, they view us as “You are field service”. It’s interesting seeing it that way because it’s not just the technology, that’s just one aspect of it and there are many great technology companies out there; but the big difference is, how do you apply those things into real-world business problems and solve them at scale?

And I think, if you look at what we’re doing, it’s not just taking these technologies but empowering them into these common practices and I think that’s what the big difference is.

 

We need to democratise this and make this knowledge more widely available, that’s our job as a company to bring this value set to everyone in our ecosystem. So we brought those best practices, from a measurement point of view and then put them into a product so our clients can take advantage of it.

These are common metrics, all interpreted in a different way, but we made it so that it could be available to anyone as a customer.

KO: So what makes this new development so exciting, because let’s face it, every FSM software company out there seems to be talking about analytics tools right now...

RK: They’re talking about the technology aspect.

But there’s two components of what we are doing; one is that if you cannot measure, you can’t improve. So we start with what should I measure? Well, we have an opinion on what you should be measuring and that is based on what the best-in-class companies are measuring and then we codify that as eight standard metrics within the technology.

How do I visualise that in a dashboard, how do I slice that data over time? That’s the technology aspect.

But to even come to an opinion on first time to fix, time to repair with a contract attached etc, you need to understand what you should be measuring.

In the second piece, we have what we call ‘catalyst’ and catalyst is what you can imagine as the packaging of process.

Service has not really changed from a procedure point of view over the last 20 years. How you execute that process has changed over a period of time because as technology evolves more and more and we get into the IoT era and age you keep on pushing that, but these are just extensions of how you use that to utilise the process, the base processes haven’t changed.

 

Some companies may or may not know what those processes should be and so going back to why they come to us, it’s like “Oh, you understand how service business should run. You understand how we run” and so we could even help them run better.

KO: Would you say that this is positioning ServiceMax essentially as a much as a consultancy as you are a technology company?

RK: No, we’re still a software company.

KO: But there’s something more here, isn’t there? 

RK: I ‘d say it’s really about capturing the knowledge of hundreds of years of domain experience by all these industry people that we’ve hired onto our team.

Because it’s one thing to consult a customer, to gauge and understand their problems and eventually come up with solutions to them but how do you enable that into the technology so you can scale this?

You may not be able to afford those expensive services but how do I democratise this for everyone in the ServiceMax family?

KO: Is this something that’s going to embed ServiceMax ever closer with your customer’s processes and the way they work - basically build more long-term relationships?

 

RK: Exactly. I think in the end, from a customer point of view, there’s a whole personal connection - but how do they drive value? How do they become the champion within the organisation? They become the leader and we enable them in that way.

KO: Is it applicable across all different verticals?

RK: I think at minimum it’s having the understanding and part of that is education, some customers may not know any better. So, how do we empower them with the knowledge to do something better for their business and then drive that?

I think that’s part of our major difference why people choose us.

KO: That’s an interesting point because obviously there’s a journey of continuous improvement for most companies so how easily does the solution evolve? Because obviously today’s best practice may not be tomorrow’s...

RK: Exactly. And that’s why I think, how do we make it flexible? Because we know that we want people to change as part of how we believe we can make the biggest advances.

We want people to change, so how does the technology allow that? We have to measure that change so we can improve it, it all circles back to if you can’t measure, you can’t improve.

But at the same time a measurement and also a solution, is a point in time of where that company was in their lifecycle. As it grows and we help companies go through that maturity, how do we enable our customers beyond this?

That is all part of our product strategy and as we add other elements and components into the solutions we will see it evolve further.

KO: Coming back to the Service Performance Metrics specifically as a tool, how much is it about the technology and algorithms and how much is about the insight from your customer transformation team?

RK: This is where we get into some of how we design products, in effect it’s about not coming up with technology and then trying to find use cases but instead everything is brimming out from the use cases.

I think that with some of the team we have on board, especially on the customer transformation team, they know exactly how businesses measure success and failure.

 

And so, with that foresight, it’s very easy to engineer those things because if you have that foresight to know where you want to go with it, it’s much easier to plan and much easier to execute and I think that has really helped us.

I think with the global customer transformation team and the engineering team being in close partnership has enabled us to deliver these analytics but that’s just the first stage. You have 96% contract attachment rate - great, so...what does that mean?

But the reality is it’s comparisons that will add value. 

So we also have a notion of time-based series analytics built in. It’s analytics of how you do in comparisons over a period of time as it relates to revenue, cost and time. Those are some of the metrics that we are able to measure.

KO: There’s a position I firmly believe in, which is that in field services the implementation of any service provider software should be viewed as a business investment rather than a technology investment.

RK: It is.

KO: So do you think products like Service Performance Metrics will help service directors make this distinction to their executive boards?

RK: Absolutely. Because it’s ‘How do I translate the business case into true requirements for a solution.’ But also keep in mind the day to day realities of executing the processes.

It’s not similar for many places and it’s too flippant to say, “make it simple,” and so I think it’s important that you’ve got to balance the two. And I think it’s important that when you get back to your observations, ask can we connect these two worlds in an easier way?

 

Having that point of view and the team understanding that as a goal, and as an outcome focused point of view -it changes the way that you implement.

You really don’t want to re-implement again in the near future so instead of looking at it from the point of view, of ‘I’ve got to get this solution live as fast as possible and just re-do what I have now, but with some automation’, understand that this is a time for change. And if you were to think of it in that way, what should you measure and act on? What are the key things that you need to measure to move the business forward? Then think about how you can implement the solution to achieve that.

I think that approach can really help. We see our most successful implementations driven this way especially compared to those companies who go ‘Here are 300 features, go implement them’.

 

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The introduction of the smartphone, and in particular the iPhone in 2007, caused a seismic shift in terms of mobile computing in field service. However, consumer devices have their limitations when it comes to durability and reliability in the field, especially when compared to devices such as Handheld computers that are designed for such use. But with the emergence of a new breed of rugged smartphones geared specifically for field use is that set to change?

As part of our hands on series we take a look at one of the latest such devices, Gen2Wave’s RP1600 rugged Android Smartphone...

What the manufacturers say...

Launched in the UK in February this year, Gen2Wave’s RP1600, is the first octa-core rugged Android industrial Smartphone.

The RP1600 has stand-out performance thanks to its 1.8GHz octa-core processor (Samsung, Exynos5430), 3GB RAM and 16GB ROM on an Android Kit-Kat 4.0 O/S, allowing high-speed parallel processing across eight apps and sufficient RAM space for multi-tasking without delay.

The RP1600 has a tested and proven IP64 rating withstanding drops up to 1.5m.

Adding this to the compact 4.3 inch sunlight readable display, available in either resistive or capacitive touch, this Smartphone is ideal for durability in harsher conditions.

With extended battery options and simple battery swap-out, this device is particularly suitable for mobile workers who need business-critical information on the move in order to carry out their work in an efficient way.

This device delivers a range of communication options including Bluetooth 4.0+HS, WiFi IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, and embedded A-GPS; assisting the mobile worker with real-time access to important data, increasing productivity and accuracy.

The RP1600 comes with Gen2Wave’s KIOSK feature which enables businesses to restrict the use of applications, limit file access, allows for website blocking and the control of WiFi, Bluetooth or phone usage.

First impressions...

There is undeniably a gap in the market sat right between rugged handheld computers and consumer smartphones.

In fact there are actually two distinct gaps.

Firstly, there is clearly a market for rugged smartphones, a cross-over market that can suit the needs of both industry - including field service, but also a specialist consumer market for those who like the outdoor life, such as hikers or sailors for example, where high water and dust resistance, good outdoor visibility and tested drop resistance are all significant benefits.

 

Then there is a secondary gap, for what are perhaps best defined as industrial rugged smartphones.

Devices that meet the above rugged criteria but also incorporate further additional features such as barcode scanners, which are specifically designed to improve and enhance the workflow of their business users.

The RP series of rugged smartphones firmly sits in this latter category, and the RP1600 is certainly one of the best looking examples of this relatively small market that I have seen to date.

Front on it looks far more like a consumer device than many of it’s competitors with a large 4.3 inch touch-screen display and smooth curved lines, challenging devices such as Zebra’s gorgeous looking TC55.

And whilst selecting a device for your field service engineers is not about a beauty parade, aesthetics shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to gaining engineer approval and thus enhancing adoption rates.

In hand the device whilst of course not as light as a consumer device, is certainly not cumbersome, whilst still feeling nice and sturdy.

In comparison to other similar devices the RP1600 comes in around the expected range of 250g (up to 300g with extended battery) which is just about 10% heavier than the TC55 but significantly lighter than Trimble’s Juno T41s which weighs in at 400g.

All in all, the RP1600 looks the part, but how does it perform?

Processing power

The obvious devices to look towards for comparison are the TC55 from Zebra, the Juno T41S by Trimble and the Dolphin 70E by Honeywell as each of these devices also belong in what Honeywell term the ‘Enterprise Hybrid Device’ form factor - i.e. the cross over product between Handheld and Smartphone.

 

And in terms of processing power the RP1600 is comfortably leading the pack.

In fact its 1.8GHz Octa-core processor alongside 3GB Ram puts it in a similar bracket to a reasonably high-end consumer device such as Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4. Amongst its peers only the TC55 with a 1.5Ghz dual processor comes remotely close.

There is also plenty of storage space with 16GB internal memory, plus support for up to 32GB on an external micro SD, which again compares well to its main rivals with only the optimum configuration of the Juno T41S besting it.

Operating system

The RP1600 comes with Android 4.4 KitKat operating system however it is upgradeable to Android 5.1 Lollipop.

Whilst 4.4 is certainly a capable OS, the option to upgrade to 5.1 is definitely a bonus and one that isn’t available on many similar devices.

Given that one of the key benefits of an Android device is that there is a familiarity to the OS due to the prevalence of the platform in the consumer world, it could be well worth exploring the upgrade as in the consumer realm many Android devices are now running 5.0 and the look and feel of the two different versions is substantial.

There are also some general performance enhancements on the newer OS as well as some additional features including enhanced battery life, notifications and security all of which are of benefit to a device being deployed to field workers.

It's also worth noting that the RP series also comes in a Windows flavour in the RP1300 albeit with a slightly less impressive set of specs.

The Ins & Outs:

The major selling point for the RP1600 and all of the devices within this bracket, is the inclusion of a dedicated barcode scanner.

The RP1600 is capable of processing both 1D and 2D barcodes and features an easily accessible quick button for activating the scanner, which is pretty much the standard for such devices.

 

Other than this, the device comes with an additional 4 short keys for navigation, supports USB2.0 and also accepts stylus input.

It also has a 13 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash, which again is ahead of its peers.

The one omission that would perhaps of been useful for those out in the field would have been a 3.5mm audio input. However, the device does come with Bluetooth v4.0+HS and has dedicated headset support. However this is of course reliant on providing your engineers with a bluetooth headsets, which are far more expensive than their wired equivalents.

Connectivity:

As mentioned above the RP1600 like the TC55 supports the Bluetooth 4.0 compared to the Juno T41S and the Dolphin 70E which come with Bluetooth 2.1.

This is particularly useful for field service companies as we look to the future as 4.0 is geared much more towards IoT than its older counterpart.

When it comes to wifi the RP1600 is capable of working with all standards of WiFi with the exception of 802.11ac which means that the device can potentially operate on the 5Ghz channel although not as effectively as a device boasting 802.11ac. This is however, par for the course within the form factor and none of the RP1600’s competitors offer better.

The RP1600 also edges ahead of its rivals in terms of mobile internet with support for 4G LTE which is not seen amongst other similar devices.

 

Finally, there is a potential to include NFC capabilities within the RP1600, a benefit the device shares with both the Dolphin 70E and the T55.

Ruggedity:

With an IP rating of 64 the RP1600 is fully resistant to dust ingress. However, in terms of its ability to be protected from water, it is splash proof but nothing more.

Compare this to the Juno T41S which is fully submersible in 2m of water for up to an hour and this could be a major negative for the RP1600 as it potentially may mean the device is not suited to certain environments.

 

In terms of its ability to withstand the occasional knock or two?

Well, the RP1600 is allegedly capable of surviving tests of 1.5m drop onto concrete, and the device we had for review certainly coped with such a drop. However, it is unclear if the device was put through the MilStd 810g testing process, which many of its peers have done.

This could just be information lacking from the spec sheet, or it could be that Gen2Wav used a different approach to testing. However, this does raise a potential red flag when it comes to comparing it with similar devices.

Battery Life:

Finally in terms of battery life the RP1600 comes with three options:

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• 1860mA/h Li-Ion
• Extended : 4000mA/h Li-Ion
• Medium : 2860mA/h Li-Ion[/unordered_list] Standard : 

Also as the RP1600 also features a built-in backup battery, hot swapping of batteries should be possible, allowing for potentially infinite battery life as long as you have an additional battery especially as the charging cradle (which is included in the box) for the RP1600 also allows for charging an additional battery.

Conclusion:

There is no denying that the RP1600 is an impressive device.

Its Achilles heel perhaps lies within its rugged specs.

 

If you are looking for a device that is going to take a bit of a pounding and definitely get wet once in a while then it may be worth looking at some of the more robust options of the form factor.

However, that said, the RP1600 is both pretty and powerful, is certainly rugged enough for most field environments and would definitely be a good option.

 

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The shift from Boomers to Millennials represents one of the greatest cultural workforce shifts perhaps ever seen, but for field service companies the rise of the millennial is nothing to fear writes Kris Oldland...

As a card carrying member of Generation X I’ve always felt some empathy with both the Baby Boomer generation that preceded us and the Millennial generation that followed.

However, the two inhabit very, very separate worlds with very, very different ideals, beliefs and outlooks on life.

With the ageing workforce posing a potential crisis for many field service companies, they now face the unenviable task of migrating from Boomer to Millennial and somehow balancing a shift from two generations that contrast perhaps more than any other before.

However, the good news is that despite being famously labelled the ‘me, me, me generation’ actually Millennials could quite possibly be the perfect match for modern field service.

Here are nine reasons why...

Millennials are natural collaborators

One of the biggest challenges of an ageing workforce in the field service sector is that for many Baby Boomers knowledge and experience is a badge of honour and as such they are not natural sharers of that knowledge.

Whilst capturing that knowledge before it walks out your door is vital, distilling it and transmitting it to a new generation of workers is an even greater challenge.

However, that challenge can be lessened by encouraging the emerging Millennial workers to work collaboratively using a dedicated communication platform such as CoTap or even something simpler like Skype or iMessenger.

 

Millennials are digital natives and natural collaborators and as such any knowledge left behind from their Boomer predecessors could be more easily disseminated across the workforce provided they have the tools for collaboration.

Millennials are practical and results-oriented

As Tanya Korobka writes in an excellent article on Millennials on the website Lucky Attitude 'as a generation Millennials have grown up with an expectation for processes and service to work and speed up their interactions.' They are practical, and despite some claims to the contrary they are in fact generally a pretty hard working bunch.

In field service, where often the customer is dependent on the engineer to achieve their fix to get their business back operating at full capability as soon as possible, being practical and results orientated are absolutely critical traits. Fortunately, millennials tend to have this in abundance.

Millennials are confident

For more and more companies, often the only face to face contact they may have with their customers is when a field service engineer arrives on site.

This has led to an ever greater importance in the need for field service engineers to be positive brand ambassadors. Indeed, many field service companies now see strong customer service skills as equally as, if not more important than, technical skills.

 

Millennials, having been raised by their Boomer parents to believe they can accomplish anything are one of the most confident generations to have ever entered the workforce.

Such confidence focussed correctly can be harnessed to deliver a truly positive customer-centric approach to service.

Millennials are well educated

In fact, Millennials are on track to become the most educated generation in history.

Given the previous point about field service companies beginning to recruit based on softer, more customer centric skills the fact that Millennials are comfortable with learning is important as it allows companies to hire based on these soft skills, whilst training recruits in the more technical skills required.

Millennials are people pleasers.

Again a massively important factor when it comes to delivering great customer service.

Millennials tend to have a preference for merit based systems and as such have a common desire to gain approval. At the same time they are a more conscientious group than both Boomers who are often focussed on financial remuneration.

Therefore the often superhero like status of the field engineer who is able to fix the problem and get a clients business right back on track is going to appeal to many Millennials.

Millennials are tech savvy

As the art of field service management becomes more and more entwined with technology the more important it is that your field service workforce is technologically savvy.

Fortunately for the majority of Millennials using technology is as much of a natural skill-set as walking and talking. Whether it be digital collaboration, quick and easy adoption of apps or the ability to utilise emerging tools such as augmented reality and smart glasses, Millennials are far more likely to adapt to the new tools you introduce to the workforce to improve productivity than their Boomer predecessors were.

 

Similarly digital privacy is a much more foreign concept for many Millennials meaning less (if any) objections around the implementation of tracking technologies such as telematics where the ‘big brother is watching’ syndrome has often been a barrier to adoption amongst a Boomer workforce.

Basically Millennials are far more used to leaving a digital footprint and doing so in work via vehicle tracking for example, is just the way the world works for many a Millennial.

Millennials are multi-taskers

Ever get frustrated that, that Millennial in your life doesn’t seem to be listening to you when your talking to them as they are also simultaneously watching TV, updating their Twitter status and having an IM conversation all at the same time?

The truth is that Millennials have a both the ability to multi-task and also a relatively low boredom threshold so are often juggling five or more balls.

 

Yet the fact is that they are also able to keep those five balls in the air quite comfortably.

For field service companies, particularly those with a number of different products within their install base, this trait could be particularly useful as Millennials are far more likely to be engaged if they have multiple different challenges to keep them busy. For these guys variety really is the spice of life and a key to keeping them on site is to give them that variety within the workplace.

One potential danger is that a company could end up with an entire workforce that are ‘jacks of all trades but masters of none.’

However, with Millennial’s natural tendency to work in a more open and collaborative manner than the Boomers they are replacing, there is less need for the Millennial field service engineer to be an expert in all areas - essentially knowledge and experience can be shared across a team rather than trapped in the silos of individual Boomer engineers.

Millennials are natural travellers

Dubbed by some as ‘generation rent’ Millennials are showing a different mindset to that of their Boomer parents. The concept of getting onto the property ladder is far less attractive to the more nomadic and adventurous spirit of the Millennial.

Indeed far more Millennials than Non-Millennials report a desire to visit every continent and travel abroad as much as possible, according to Boston Consulting Group.

So what better working environment for this generation than field service, where they are not trapped by the confines of an office cubicle?

Add to this that Millennials, whilst having a strong work ethic, also highly value a positive work-life balance, then a working role that provides them with the opportunity to travel could be the key to a happy (and therefore loyal) Millennial workforce.

Millennials are everywhere

Finally, Millennials are the largest generation in Western history. It has been estimated that there are 80 million Millennials in the US and 14.6 million UK Millennials.

Korobka reports that according to Pew Research Centre analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, last year Millennials surpassed Generation X to become the largest share of the American workforce so reality fact is they are already dominating the workforce.

The simple fact is that for field service, as with all of business sectors Millennials are the future workforce as well as the future leaders.

 

However, as service continues to take centre stage and as technology continues to become ever more embedded with the improvement of field service delivery, it does indeed appear that the future of field service is safe in Millenial hands.

The challenge however, remains to ensure that the knowledge embedded within the ageing Baby Boomer workforce is captured and retained in order to allow the transition from the past to the future to remain as seamless as possible.

 

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Want to know more about the general traits of the Millennial generation? We recommended visiting Luckyattitude.co.uk/millennial-characteristics for a deep and regularly updated overview of what makes this important generation tick...

 

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