AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Kris Oldland

Almost four in ten business drivers have been given points on their license from work-related driving offences, according to research from telematics provider Masternaut...

In total, 39% of business drivers said that they had received points on their license for work-related driving misdemeanours. Almost two-thirds (62%) of those with points on their license were from speeding offences.

Other offences committed by business drivers include driving without reasonable consideration for other road users (15%), driving without due care or attention (14%), traffic light-related offences (14%) and dangerous driving (10%).

Masternaut surveyed 2,000 UK employees who drive as part of their job, to examine the effect of employee penalty points amassed when driving for work. Business drivers with points on their license, on average, have accrued seven points from work-related offences.

This follows UK accident data released in June 2015 by the Department of Transport, reporting an overall increase of 6% in road casualties in 2014, the first increase since 1997. HGVs, LCVs and vans saw an increase of 10% in casualties.

 

Telematics is shown to improve driver behaviour and safety, providing businesses with the technology and tool kits for keeping staff safe on the road. Both instant and ongoing coaching, driven by telematics data, alert drivers to poor driving reducing the risk for drivers and other road user

 

Despite more than a third of business drivers getting penalty points on their license from work offences, almost three quarters say that they are confident they would pass their driving test again. Meanwhile, seven in ten business drivers are confident that they know all the laws of the road.

However, this confidence might be misplaced as more than half (50%) of business drivers said that driving training would make them better and safer drivers. Previous research from Masternaut revealed that 70% of business drivers aren’t offered driver training by their employers.

Telematics is shown to improve driver behaviour and safety, providing businesses with the technology and tool kits for keeping staff safe on the road. Both instant and ongoing coaching, driven by telematics data, alert drivers to poor driving reducing the risk for drivers and other road users. Arriva Transport Solutions reduced negative driving events by 92% using telematics data provided by Masternaut Connect.

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, commented: “There’s a worrying number of business drivers on our roads who are driving in a manner that is serious enough for them to have points put on their license. Telematics provides broader social benefits beyond simple vehicle tracking and can help towards reducing the number of points accrued by drivers on the job. Not only can it provide fleets with the information to pinpoint offenders, the technology can provide ongoing driver feedback to improve drivers’ behaviour when they’re at work. By providing coaching and instant in-cab feedback, telematics can go a long way to reducing the number of points accumulated by drivers on the road, making them safer drivers in the process.”

Telematics technology from Masternaut has evolved so that driver-centric training programmes using data and insight from an intelligent telematics system can be delivered without the traditional map-based services protecting driver privacy.

Systems such as Masternaut Connect have been shown to improve driver behaviour, reducing instances of speeding as well as harsh braking, acceleration and cornering. UK businesses and fleet managers can easily implement a driver training programme using data and insight gained from Masternaut Connect. By collating information on driver behaviour, Connect can give an in-depth look at how businesses can improve driving standards within the workforce, helping to reduce the amount of penalty points and fines given to drivers.

---

Be social and share this story

In the first part of this feature we looked at the ever growing importance of technology in field service and asked if Big Data or Enterprise Mobility will prove to be the key technology that drives field service forward. Now in part two Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief puts forward the case for Cloud computing and the Internet of Things... 

There is no doubt that Big Data will have a huge impact on field service like it will on almost every vertical. However, then there is the Cloud, a technology almost that a whilst again gradually becoming pervasive within the world of industry, is almost perfectly suited for the often unique demands faced by field service organisations.

Certainly the rapid rise of field service software provider ServiceMax is clear evidence of the industry’s need for and appetite for cloud based field service management systems. The ServiceMax story is one of dramatic and rapid success.

In an industry where the combination of huge amounts of coding to develop a product robust enough to be deemed suitable for ‘mission critical’ operational control sits against relatively low costs per user (in comparison to other IT led products) it is almost impossible for new vendors to penetrate the space. Yet ServiceMax have not only done so but have rapidly established themselves as a leading player within the market within a space of even years.

Indeed ServiceMax’s phenomenal growth is in part tied to their strong relationship with Cloud pioneer Salesforce.

In an interview with Field Service News, ServiceMax COO, Scot Berg commented “If you think of what it would have taken for us to launch a data centre and secure it, to build all the platform capabilities and redundancy, also that some of our first 12 customers were in the Middle East and Europe and there we were with two founders selling everything themselves out of northern California… how could that be right?”

“All because of the global reach and the global acceptance level of the Salesforce.com platform. So yes it was very important early on.”

However, whilst their relationship with Salesforce.Com undoubtedly opened doors for the California company, the truth is the appetite for Cloud as a platform for field service management systems was clearly there and not being fully exploited.

[quote float="left"]As with mobile computing there is a strong argument to be made for the Cloud being the technology to have had the biggest impact on field service in recent times.

 Our own recent research into the Cloud highlights this also with 86% of field service companies either being on, or considering a move to the Cloud for their next iteration of their field service management software.

 

So again as with mobile computing there is a strong argument to be made for the Cloud being the technology to have had the biggest impact on field service in recent times.

However, perhaps the most sensible viewpoint would be that it is the emergence of all three of these technologies at the same time that is the true driving factor behind the development of new field service management solutions that are driving ever greater efficiencies and productivity levels amongst field service companies. Indeed the most sophisticated current field service management systems all boast inclusion and utilisation of Big Data, Enterprise Mobility and Cloud computing.

Yet there is one other technology that has the potential to surpass the impact of all three of the above combined.

For while Big Data, Cloud and Enterprise Mobility have allowed field service companies to optimise their work-flows, it is the Internet of Things, that has the potential to completely realign those workflows, changing the dynamics of field service forever.

The often cited holy grail for field service companies is ‘the first time fix’ and as more and more devices in industry become connected (Gartner predicts 25BN connected devices by 2020) the impact of IoT on Field Service will be truly massive.

Why? Well, connected devices allow field service companies to move away from the costly traditional break-fix model of the past and into a far more efficient preventative maintenance model.

 

Yet unlike, preventative maintenance plans of ‘dumb’ or non-connected devices, which require often unnecessary scheduled checks by a field service engineer, preventative maintenance of connected devices will mean that not only will engineers only be sent out to provide maintenance when a fault is detected but they will, in the main be sent out to that particular job with an understanding of what the fault is, and with the tools or parts they need to complete the job.

With data being provided by the device itself to indicate that a fault is developing, the engineer can not only arrive armed in advance with the knowledge of what that fault is, but also will in many cases be able to rectify the fault before it escalates to a point where the device reaches critical malfunction that stops it from carrying out it’s function.

So not only will field service companies be able to direct their engineers to the most critical jobs, not only will the engineers spend less time resolving each job (with first time fix rates soaring) but also crucially companies will be able to deliver far greater up time to their customers.

This in turn can lead companies to adopting an outcome based solutions approach, whereby they are no longer selling a product and then the maintenance of that product, but selling a solution. There are of course numerous examples of companies adopting this business model, perhaps the most famous of all being Rolls Royce’s Power by The Hour contact whereby they no longer charge a flat fee for a jumbo jet engine, but instead charge for every hour one of their customers’ planes is in flight.

This is of course a seismic shift in business thinking and one that puts field service at the very heart of businesses operations if it is to be successfully deployed. Yet through the advent of IoT it is becoming a more and more plausible and attractive route - one of the key arguments for moving to what is referred to as a Servitization business model is greater profits.

 

So whilst the big three of Cloud, Enterprise Mobility and Big Data have helped field service reach new heights of efficiency in the form of modern field service management solutions, IoT truly has the potential to redefine the way our businesses operate on a fundamental level, and it’s impact will not only improve field service operations, but also place that at the centre of this new industry paradigm.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

The world of manufacturing is going through a seismic change with parallels being drawn to the industrial revolution. And as the trend of servitization takes seed the role of the field service engineer takes centre stage and is more important than ever before. Nick Frank, Principal Consultant of Frank Partners explains...

‘I am still making order out of the chaos of reinvention’ said novelist John Le Carre as he penned another cold war spy thriller.

Many would say the same is true of manufacturing today. Gone are the days when a manufacturer simply made the product, delivered it to the customer, sometimes supplied some parts & services, and then moved onto the next sale. In today’s unpredictable world, this model is fast becoming unsustainable.

Accelerated by the chaos of the financial crisis and propelled by the industrial internet, many businesses are moving beyond this traditional notion of manufacturing. No longer do they just ‘make stuff’, they provide services such as financing, maintenance programmes, lifecycle consulting or even outcome orientated service contracts. Complex equipment manufacturers are leading the way in evolving ever more strategic relationships with their clients, as they deliver their technology as a service outcome rather than stand-alone product.

 

Why is this important? It’s not just that product transaction orientated business models are being replaced by those centered on relationships, outcomes and service. But that to achieve this re-invention, manufacturing must overcome a severe skills shortage! Without people and skills, all the advances in technology and thinking will stagnate. Companies need to attract a completely new talent pool into their industry. One that is technically and socially more diverse and which has many of the marketing, customer experience and media skills found in the FMCG and financial sectors.

If manufacturing is re-inventing itself, so must the services back-office. Much has been written around how IoT and analytics will change the nature of field service in terms of efficiency, transparency and customer relationship management. All this is true, but more profoundly as the product/service boundary blurs towards solutions, so the idea of field service as an entity must fundamentally change. Rather than being perceived as a ‘bolt on’ entity fixing customer problems, field service must be integrated into the business. As this happens it too must broaden its skills set, outlook and relationships, especially in the areas engineering, sales and other service back-office operations.

As connectivity and data become more available in real time, so increasingly problems can be solved centrally. As service thinking becomes more embedded in manufacturing businesses, so even self-healing technologies may be introduced into product design. One can see that this will require a completely different approach as to how service organisations are perceived and managed. It is logical that in order to provide seamless outcomes and experiences to the customer, organisations will become much more integrated, between, centralised technical support, the machine itself, local support, 3^rd parties and parts and sales/relationship management. Exactly how this happens will depend on the business models being supported.

For example in the Asia-Pacific market a leading supplier of industrial robots see their mix of Field /Central services swinging from 60/40% to 40/60% as they increasingly integrate remote services into their solutions. There are companies in the defence industry who have their service team located in situ on warships where they are contracted to provide availability. These are perhaps the more extreme examples of the moment, but one can clearly see that there is a link between the technologies, the contractual relationship with the customer, and the organisation of the service organisation.

 

We we will also see field service and centralised support organisation being closer to the sales teams. Just look at the emphasis we have seen in recent years on the Trusted Advisor roles and the discussions of how field service as one of the major customer touch-points, has a significant impact on customer experience. Trying to balance relationship skills with technical problem solving is a real challenge for the industry.

The bottom line is that as manufacturing re-invents itself, so field service as an integral part of most service offerings will become a significant part of the companies growth strategy. How this will happen is difficult to tell, because we are still in the early stages of a manufacturing revolution. However, this re-invention of manufacturing is exciting from two perspectives. It means that a more diverse and broader skills set must be attracted into industry. And secondly that field service itself will need to adapt to evolving product technologies and business models bringing new challenges and opportunities for its people.

To be part of this re-invention process, Service Leaders can follow a simple 3 point plan:

1. Undertake a strategic re-evaluation of the customer /industry supply chain to identify how services can contribute to sustainable business growth.
2. Experiment with and adopt connectivity technologies to discover the cost and business model benefits
3. Constantly look at how other businesses are adapting. This Outside-In perspective will speed up your adoption of innovation and can be gained in many ways. You can achieve this through not only reading publications such as Field Service News, but by joining networks such as that offered by ‘The Manufacturer’ to explore the role of Manufacturing Services in industry (MSTLN.com), the Service Community (www.service-community.uk) or the servitization courses for industry by the Aston Business School, UK.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

In the first part of this exclusive interview with Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower we looked at the development of their product suite with the recent launch of NEXUS FS^TM giving them a great platform to drive forward with Martin admitting that there will be a big focus on sales execution in the coming year as they see to capitalise on the considerable investment and resources they have put into developing and refining their product.

So in this the concluding part of this interview we ask just what what sector are they looking to conquer?

Well one of the advantages Martin sees ServicePower having over their competitors is that they are ideally placed to work across a broad spectrum of field service organisations.

“If you think of where we are now I like to describe us as in the middle of the triangle.” Martin begins.

“So you have ClickSoftware at the top and then ServiceMax and Service Bench in the two bottom corners. We sit in the inside of the triangle competing in all those areas. Each corner has slightly different focus but we are able to start looking at the markets and verticals of all three of those.”

 

“It gives us a very broad spectrum if we can compete directly where Click compete, where ServiceMax competes, where Service Bench competes that gives us a lot of business to go after and that is why sales execution is going to be very interesting as we go after that business.” Explains Martin.

It’s a bold strategy, that will see the UK based company, whose US offices are in Virginia taking on all comers, even ServiceMax who they also work with as a partner on occasion and whilst Martin clearly has respect for her Californian

based rivals, she also believes ServicePower are well placed to compete with them for business.

“I think ServiceMax validated that in the field service sector you really can go after the SMBs and the enterprise” she comments before adding “but the issue a little bit with ServiceMax of course is the cost, as a SaaS only solution it is quite an expensive solution and does has both the pros and the cons of being built right on the Salesforce ecosystem.”

“So we worked with NEXUS FS^TM to have a technology that is actually very scalable at a lower cost point. That will enable us to go in at a good and attractive price point and demonstrate real ROI to a lot of the SMB segment as well be able to scale that with functionality to the enterprise market as it’s very versatile and modular.”

However, as mentioned above, whilst the ServicePower team are gearing up for an eventful few years in the short term, Martin has an eye on the long term as well.

 

ServicePower now have a number of patents currently being filed having worked with KPP and Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK – an area Martin believes is a hotbed for emerging technology focussed talent.

“I’m a little bit of a technology nerd in the sense that I have always been involved with companies that have a lot of technology patents and interest in patents” confesses Martin “I firmly believe there is a ton of excellent technology developed there (in the UK) because there are still a lot of people studying maths and sciences in the UK and the quality of the technology is great there.”

And the area of this investment in technology is all focussed on developing the next-generation of algorithms to drive field service management scheduling forwards.

As Martin explained “Our simulated annealing algorithms is excellent, its very versatile and it works across a broad variety of verticals. But when you think about the future you want to get algorithms that use less meta-data and work faster and more efficiently.”

“You need to start thinking about not just optimising the work-flow and technicians but how do we start bringing in predictive analytics, more integration touch points and all these Big Data elements. To do that you really need to go to the next level.” She adds.

 

“That’s where we started doing the investment with some people in Manchester Metropolitan University looking at Quantum Annealing.”

“What’s interesting with the ServiceScheduling product, and this is one of the reasons it has always performed so well, is it never allows a bad schedule. When it optimises in the process it runs through various optimisation scenarios and then only writes that change if it is definitely better.”

“What quantum will do is do this in a more efficient way and faster. If simulated annealing takes an one-minute of optimisation to get to a result, we want something that will take 15 seconds to get to a result.”

“It also will enable us to migrate the product into the next generation.” Martin comments before explaining further

“Rather than a boring discussion on how do you keep re-writing the existing product, when we look forward five years we want to have a new back-end engine based on quantum annealing, so ideally we would have that in two to three years and that will fit in with a lot of the predictive capabilities that are in demand especially by the larger enterprises to day.”

Such vision and desire to innovate whilst also building the business in the current is impressive, however for Martin it really is a simple case of wanting to build a product that will become a significant player within the field service industries for many years to come.

It is also the biggest differentiator she can build between her companies and her competitors who she feels are not pushing the boundaries as much as they perhaps should be.

“Even if you look at SAP and Oracle and other big players, there really is very limited true technology innovation.” Martin states.

“ServiceMax doesn’t use any algorithms, the TOA algorithm is older, ClickSoftware uses so many algorithms that it makes its very complicated when training, or at least it makes it very labour intensive.”

 

“We want to keep driving superior results for the field service organisations but do it with technology that makes their life easy not complicated.”

Indeed whilst Martin is eloquent and laid back during our interview, she also clearly has plenty of belief in her product line which shines through our conversation.

“I’m very passionate about our product suite; I’ll put our products up against everybody, especially as we continue finishing off the road map of where we are going.” She states boldly.

“It’s coming together slowly but surely and steadily and us being able to do this across the next 12, 24, 36 months it’s going to be phenomenal.”

“We want to make sure that we are setting up a company that can continue growing in the immediate future but we also want to set up one that can keep growing for twenty years as an exciting field service player.”

Although they may not be ploughing that path alone, as Martin alluded to a soon to be announced partnership with Thingworx to add to their IoT partners, with the potential for other partnerships along the way.

“I am very much a partner person and one of the things that I have always cared about is not thinking business is an environment where I win by someone else losing. Instead we have to find ways with our partners and with our customers where we all win.” She states

“I think there is enough opportunities that even through a partner ecosystem, both should be generating profit whilst still delivering ROI to our customers.”

 

And this is at the core of Martin’s thinking when it comes to partnerships, delivering customer ROI must remain at the very hear of any conversation.

“My approach is I will partner with whomever is going to be a good partner as long as we can deliver real return on investment for our customers.” Adds Martin.

“Those partnerships that are all about window dressing and marketing, that the customers don’t get value from, well they may be nice but in the end its all about customer value.”

With a steady growth trajectory, a desire to innovate continuously and a firm grasp of the most important factor of all - delivering customer value, ServicePower under Martin’s guidance are certainly on the right track.

With an active sales approach being the adopted in 2016 there is a fair chance you’ll be speaking to someone in the ServicePower sales team at some point next year. Given the vision and direction of ServicePower , I’d say that when the call does come, you may well want to listen.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

In our serialisation of The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we have covered a wide ranging number of topics key to the modern field service manager's role. Now we take a look to the future with three key technologies the handbook highlights that could be critical in your field service operations before not too long...

---

 

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

---

 

You can expect your field service software provider to keep a watching brief on the technology landscape and to identify practicable developments that have genuine potential to improve efficiency and lower costs. Those bright ideas must translate into a business reality that brings added value.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication

Among the innovations currently attracting attention in the field service space is M2M communication, which forms the basis of the ‘Internet of Things’ in allowing networked devices to exchange information and perform actions without manual assistance.

M2M technology provides valuable insight into the performance of equipment, vehicles and field engineers. With this crucial business intelligence, organisations can shift from reactive to predictive service, ensuring issues can be identified and resolved more quickly to meet rising customer expectations.

 

Typical solutions enable the remote tracking of a business’s field-based assets, smart metering to monitor and control energy and utilities and telematics systems to enhance service delivery performance through automated processes.

Despite forecasters predicting that the worldwide M2M technology market is set to continue growing, many businesses remain cautious about adoption due to limited time and resources and cost pressures. Furthermore, most service organisations will need to wait for manufacturers to introduce the capabilities of M2M before they can take full advantage of it.

Wearables

The idea of wearables, whereby information, such as schematics, is piped through to field service engineers through their smartglasses, is very attractive. It has to be admitted though that this is more of a long-term prospect.

The Field Service News research sponsored by Advanced Field Service found that while around a third of respondents saw the advancement of wearables happening within the next 12 months, citing reasons such as the advantage of hands-free working and health and safety, 66% did not think wearables would become part of their field engineers’ toolkit.

 

It is, however, definitely a field worth watching, with innovations becoming mainstream, such as the new SmartCap that monitors brain activity and sends an alert if an employee starts to nod off when driving.

3D printing

3D printing also has potential to revolutionise the field service industry. In the foreseeable future, an engineer might well be able to identify which parts of a product need replacing, upload the specifications and print the required part. Imagine the impact on first-time fix rates and the reduction in inventory!

A recent Advanced Field Service survey found that while 43% of businesses are currently using M2M and just over a quarter (26%) of respondents are considering M2M. In contrast, 31% said they had no plans to do so.

---

 

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

---

 

be social and share this feature

Resource Type: eBook
Published by:  Telogis
Title Gaming the System to improve driver behaviour
Download: Click here to Download the full ebook here

By downloading you agree to the T&Cs listed available here

Synopsis

As a field service manager you might be wondering how gamification can help your business, or perhaps you’re ready to start but you’re looking for ideas on the best way to implement.

This eBook published by Telogis can help you find the answers to these questions and understand how different employees might respond to gamification based on their personalities.

Overview

Gamification is a word that you will be hearing more often, with industry experts picking it as a growing trend in business applications.

The term arose back in 2002 but it wasn’t until 2010 that it started to gain traction. Software developers began using the engaging traits of electronic games to increase participation in business programs. Before long, business applications that allowed users to socialise, collect achievements and be rewarded started to pop up.

Over the years gamification has matured. More real-world testing has helped “gamified” business applications to evolve beyond a simplistic points system. This ebook explores the three fundamental elements of integrating Gamification into your business:

1. Mission
2. Alignment
3. Deployment

Phase 1: Establishing your mission

A business without a mission is like a ship without a rudder. Even if you already have a mission, it’s worth reviewing or updating it to match the current business environment. While your mobile workforce may be a subset of a larger business, there’s no reason it shouldn’t have its own mission, one that aligns and supports the overall corporate mission.

Once the mission is established, it’s time to break it down to individual goals or objectives that support the mission. Keep your objectives as specific as possible. No sport would ever get popular if the goal was vague, moved regularly or unclear to the players.

 

No matter what your objectives are – increasing productivity, decreasing fuel costs, improving driver safety or increasing asset utilisation – the secret to achieving them is keeping them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART).

Phase 2: Align your mission objectives

To make sure you stay on track to achieve your objectives you need to check your alignment.

This means reviewing your objectives, to check they align with how you operate as a business. For example, if your company puts more emphasis on working as fast as possible without respect for safety, then setting an objective to reduce speeding won’t align.

Get your company influencers (normally managers or supervisors) involved and review your objectives with them. They’ll let you know quickly where they think alignment is lacking. It’s important that your managers are onboard with the new objectives – they will play an important role in influencing others and ultimately help achieve a successful outcome.

After reviewing and refining your objectives, aligning them with your organisation, you’re ready for implementation. It’s time to deploy.

Phase 3:  Deployment

The size of your organisation will determine the scale of your deployment planning. In the case of using Telogis Coach mobile app, small companies may only need brief training that includes a quick-start guide to explain how it works and instructions on how to download, install and log in to the app on their mobile device.

Large enterprises would benefit from the tailored implementation provided by Telogis Professional Services. Their expertise and deployment experience can help avoid common pitfalls and roll it out right the first time.

 

Monitoring results

First of all, you want to make sure everyone in your organization knows what your objectives are. If one of your KPIs is to reduce speeding by 50% then let the whole team know, not just management. A team wins when it knows what it’s playing for.

You’ll also need a scoreboard. Telogis Coach includes an enterprise dashboard that shows real-time results for specific KPIs - you can log in from anywhere and get an up-to-date score, either across the entire fleet or individual crews.

Celebrating wins

You don’t need to do cartwheels in the office every time a driver gets a perfect score but there should be recognition and reward. In most cases the size of the reward is not important; it’s about making sure they know you know, and it means something to you.

Recording the game time

Decide on how long each “game” lasts. Employees will soon tire of a game with no end in sight. You can choose any reasonable period but in general, for achieving fleet KPIs, a period of 90 days is most common. At the end of each period, results are tallied, players rewarded and recognised and the game starts over.

Gamer types

Not only will you have some of each gamer type personalities in your organisation, there’s also a little of each type in all of us. You should remember this with your gamification program and make sure you’re keeping each type happy.

Killers need sufficient competition. Achievers need plenty of recognition and rewards. Socialisers need lots of interaction with other players and Explorers need the opportunity to be creative with the game. Check from time to time that you have the balance right.

Give your team time to adjust to the new gamification approach, be generous with recognition and rewards and stay focused on your mission.

---

 

Want to know more? Click here to download the full ebook

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Welcome to this fourth and final instalment in our series that has explored a research project run in partnership with ClickSoftware that was focussed on the usage and appetite for Cloud based computing as a platform for field service management systems. 

In this final section we take a look at opinions towards Cloud and Mobility and draw some conclusion to the research on the whole...

 

---

 

Missed the other features in this series?  Find Part One here and Part Two here and Part Three

---

Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

---

MOBILITY AND THE CLOUD

Of course when it comes to field service whilst the Cloud is in many ways an enabler, another modern technology development has had an even bigger impact – namely the emergence of modern mobile computing systems be it laptop, tablet or smartphone.

So how important is it for mobile apps for field service to be on the Cloud?

We asked our respondents “Do you think it is important that the mobility applications used by your field engineers are Cloud based?”

Again the move towards the Cloud was apparent with 56% stating that it is preferred for their mobile apps to be Cloud based, with 40% stating that it doesn’t really matter and just 4% stating that they don’t want their mobile apps on the Cloud.

 

When we consider that 43% of companies were now on at least their second iteration of a field service app and that 47% of companies state that they will update their mobile apps at least once every three years (14% state they will update every 18 months) this would seem to add further incentive for field service companies to eventually move at least part of their field service solution to the Cloud.

With this in mind it could certainly be argued that there is further incentive for the continuing shift from on premise to the Cloud, as in this age of Big Data where integration is key, it is important to have a smooth flow of data from office to the field and back - which would be easier to achieve if both sides of the solution are feeding into one database simultaneously.

CONCLUSIONS?

It seems that the Cloud is definitely gaining momentum.

Nearly two thirds (63%) of field service organisations are more open to the idea of the cloud today than in 2014. Add this to the almost one quarter (24%) who always thought the Cloud was a good thing, and we can see that nearly 90% of organisations feel open or positive about Cloud-based Field Service Management solutions. In addition, over half (56%) cite Cloud as their preferred option.

As suggested earlier it is perhaps expected for the largest companies to be, as a group, slower in moving from one system to another due to the larger size of such a project.

 

However it is amongst the smaller companies that there is perhaps the biggest surprise of this research.

It is here we see greater reluctance for the Cloud which appears to sit in direct contrast to the fact that for many smaller companies the Cloud could offer a much more manageable cost via a SaaS model alongside other benefits such as less reliance on IT, and built in disaster recovery – again something that would presumably be appealing to smaller companies.

Yet despite the fact that smaller companies are not taking to the Cloud as much as would have perhaps have been expected, the research also reveals that whilst the biggest concern around moving to the Cloud remains security (closely followed by connectivity issues) other concerns such as integration with legacy systems and a lack of Cloud offerings do seem to be lessening.

And with the admission by 63% of respondents that they have become more open to the idea of the Cloud being used in business, plus the increase in both mid-size and enterprise sized companies that are now using a Cloud based field service management solution, there remain strong indications that the Cloud will continue to grow in stature as a platform for field service management solutions in the next few years as more companies move from their existing legacy systems to newer solutions.

Whilst the headline statistics of Cloud vs. On-Premise may be taking time to reflect the trend, the Cloud is definitely gaining momentum and this is sure to continue as more and more as more and more companies upgrade their field service management systems.

---

 

Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

---

Be social and share this feature

The selection of a field service management system that meets the needs of your company is one of incredible importance. In this installation of our serialisation of The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we look at some of the key considerations field service managers should be aware of when selecting their own field service management systems... 

---

 

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

---

 

Whatever your goals – growth, increased efficiency, cost savings or improved customer satisfaction – you differentiate your business by demonstrating flexibility and responsiveness to customers’ needs.

The latest advances in service management technology provide businesses with increased opportunities to automate processes, uncover new revenue streams and add value for customers.

The power to transform your business

Questions to ask your management team:

• When was the last time we thoroughly investigated and evaluated our business processes?
• Can we accurately pinpoint where time is being spent or which are the most/least profitable areas of the business?
• Can we say with confidence that all of our teams are consistently working at optimum efficiency?[/unordered_list] 

Successful service managers maximise their use of available technologies to eliminate unnecessary manual processes, such as making multiple entries of the same information. Freed from laborious, manual administration, such as timesheets, your staff can spend time on higher value tasks.

Moving to a modern, secure and reliable service management solution will enable your organisation to significantly improve its productivity through streamlining processes and cutting costs.

A note on cloud: Cloud-based solutions, where IT resources and services are accessed via the web, remove the need for the software to be physically located on your premises or in a data centre. Increasingly, service businesses are using cloud-based applications and enabling their engineers to access and enter data via the cloud field.

Finding the right software for you

With what might seem an overabundance of software providers promising the earth, how can you go about finding the solution that’s right for your business, both now and in the future?

Here are some pointers...

Prioritise: Internally agree which processes you are looking to automate and improve, and make these requirements your priority. Think, too, about where you want to be and what you want to be able to do tomorrow, so you don’t get ‘boxed in’ by your purchase within a few short years.

Get buy in: Establish a product steering group that includes people from across the business who will either use or be affected by the implementation of a new system.

Requirements: Look at your requirements against the supplier’s feature lists.

Integration:Modern software solutions can no longer afford to work in isolation. Explore the areas where information needs to be shared across multiple systems.

Culture: Do not underestimate how the culture of your company will be affected. Explain to your staff the rationale for the change and how it will benefit them.

Expertise: Pick a supplier who has relevant experience in your industry and can provide references.

Create a shortlist: Once you’ve compared potential software packages against your key requirements, draw up a shortlist of your preferred vendors, who you will invite to demonstrate how their solution could work for your business. Ideally, this should be three maximum.

Planning: Be realistic about the time it will take for your system to be fully up and running and how much involvement will be required internally.

Support: Ensure your supplier provides you with timely ongoing support once you have implemented the solution.

Supplier stability: Pick a supplier with the resources to support all of their clients with day-to-day technical assistance, while still having a dedicated development team for producing new versions to continuously improve the software and keep it aligned to changing industry requirements.

---

 

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

---

 

be social and share this feature

Our recent research run in partnership with ClickSoftware was focussed on understanding the appetite and prevalence of use of Cloud computing as a platform for field service management solutions. Here, in part three we turn our attention to those who have to date stayed away from the Cloud to understand their reasons for doing so....

 

---

 

Missed the other features in this series?  Find Part One here and Part Two here

---

Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

---

REMAINING ON PREMISE…

So let’s look in more detail at why some companies are remaining with an on premise field service management system?

To begin let’s return to our hypothesis that whilst on premise solutions are currently more in favour, the Cloud is growing in popularity and will continue to do so as companies slowly move from their current systems to more modern next-gen equivalents.

Again a strong indicator in support of this would be how long those companies which are still using on premise solutions have been with their existing system.

In fact when we look at the responses to this question we do indeed see a mirror of the same question put to those using a Cloud solution, with just 11% of companies having implemented their current system within the last year whilst 62% are using a system that is at least three years old.

 

Further to this we asked those using an on premise solution whether they were likely to consider a Cloud platform for the next iteration of their field service management solution.

Again the response re-affirmed a growing acceptance towards the Cloud with 69% of respondents indicating that they would in fact consider the the Cloud next time round.

Also if we compare this to our 2014 survey, where we asked the same question to those who weren’t using a Cloud based field service solution, we see that this figure has in fact increased by 15%. This adds further weight to the argument that acceptance of the Cloud for field service management is growing.

But whilst there may be evidence of the Cloud becoming more trusted for those who remain unconvinced it is the same issues that represent their biggest fears.

As per our 2014 survey, our research shows that once again Security is the biggest reason that some field service companies do not feel confident in turning to the Cloud with 38% of companies stating this is their greatest concern.

Connectivity issues are also a significant concern cited by 24% as being their number one fear.

 

However some worries around the Cloud do seem to be abating. Worries around integration with legacy systems have fallen from being cited by 37% of respondents in 2014 to just 15% in this year’s survey.

Another commonly cited reason for not moving to the Cloud last year was a desire to stay with an existing supplier.

However, in this year’s findings just 3% of respondents cited that as a reason they would not consider the Cloud. However, as referenced in the introduction almost all field service management software providers are now offering a Cloud based version of their existing software so perhaps this comes as little surprise.

The research also shows that for those companies that aren’t currently using a Cloud based field service management solution the reluctance to move to the Cloud isn’t restricted to the field service division.

In fact over half (52%) of those companies using an on-premise solution for their field service management system have no Cloud based systems at all.

So whilst it appears that the Cloud is indeed gaining momentum as a platform for field service management software, the biggest barrier to adoption for many remains concerns around security.

Of course well documented, high profile consumer breaches such as that of Apple’s iCloud add fuel to the flames and 58% of respondents admitted that incidents such as these influence their opinion of Cloud being used in the enterprise.

Yet in spite of this our research shows that as the Cloud matures perceptions are definitely changing.

Two thirds (66%) of our respondents admitted that they have become more open to the idea of Cloud being used in business in recent years whilst just 8% state that they have always felt the Cloud is too risky and that opinion hasn’t changed.

 

---

 

Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

---

Be social and share this feature