AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Mark Glover

In the first of a four-part series, we bring together three industry experts and put four key questions for them to answer to give us a balanced view of the major trends impacting the field service sector. With responses from Bill Pollock, Strategies for Growth, Marc Tatarsky at FieldAware, and Richard Pratley from SimPRO, we look forward to what we can expect across the next twelve months.

2018 was a year in which we saw a number of significant changes move from the fringes of discussion within our industry to becoming an established part of mainstream discussion and in some cases fundamental parts of common place strategy within the field service sector.

The Internet of Things (IoT) for example, has become a staple part of field service delivery with many organisation having already adopted some layer of IoT technology which they are utilising within service delivery and the majority of those who have yet to take their first steps into connected field service are actively planning to do so in the not too distant future.

And as is often the case with technology in field service, the emergence of IoT in our sector, much as mobile did before it, has resulted in seismic changes into the processes and work-flows that underpin how we define service excellence. For example, we have seen servitization become an increasingly popular over-arching strategy for many manufacturers as they shift towards more customer-centric, service-focussed revenue strategies.

Even amongst those organisations who have yet to commit to a fully servitized business model, there are many who are shifting towards adopting a pro-active approach to service delivery, with increasing operational efficiencies and greater customer satisfaction two of the major benefits being heralded by such developments - which are again enabled and empowered by IoT.

Yet, at the same time other technologies that should be having positive impacts on field service delivery, in particular Augmented Reality (AR), have yet to evolve as rapidly, seemingly stagnating in the early adopter phase. Perhaps, 2019 may be the year we see AR finally emerge from its embryonic potential to also becoming a fully established part of the field service sector?

Or maybe, there will be other key breakthroughs, whether they be technologies, or strategies, that will shape the future of field serviceTo get a flavour of what we may expect across the next twelve months we’ve brought together a panel of experts to get their opinions on what to expect in 2019. We begin this series, however, by taking stock from last year.

Across the last twelve months what do you think has been the biggest shift in how we approach field service delivery?

BILL POLLOCK, PRESIDENT, STRATEGIES FOR GROWTH
The last 12 months have been quite a bit more active among global Field Services Organisations (FSOs) with respect to their acquisition and implementation of new technologies. For example, after having spent a number of years more as a perennial line item on an organisation’s “wish list”, Augmented Reality (AR) has gained a much wider acceptance, and is presently in use by more than twice as many FSOs as just a year earlier. In fact, the trend lines for AR adoption are have begun to increase at an accelerating rate.

We are now also seeing the further incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning into existing FSM systems.
As a result, many FSOs have already begun the transformation from the traditional break/fix model to the use of predictive diagnostics and AI-powered chatbots to facilitate and expedite.

MARC TATARSKY, SVP MARKETING, FIELD AWARE
We are seeing a convergence of technology capabilities changing how field service operations are being enabled. One of the key drivers of this convergence is analytics and a data platform that is empowering organisations to take insights from various new technologies (IoT, AR eg) and existing data within other Systems of Record to provide context and the ability to make “new” business decisions.

Field service organisations, due to the complexity of the operations, have always embraced technology and were early adopters of analytics. We are seeing an evolution of analytics in field service, moving from a need to turn data into information, to meaningful business insight and then to decision-making capabilities.
Over the past twelve months we are now experiencing a shift to a more strategic approach to business intelligence. Field service leaders are applying analytics to drive value-adding initiatives into the wider business, with customising service and product innovation, for example.

RICHARD PRATLEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR UK, SIMPRO
There are a number of external pressures that are aggregating together forcing business to make a shift and change about how they are approaching field service delivery.

All businesses are looking to do more for less thanks to a skilled labour shortage, pricing pressures on services, travel and resource and compliance cost increases and customer demand for value.

During the last twelve months, we’ve seen more field service businesses looking to streamline and automate their operations to enable them to scale up their workforce without adding in more resources.

The second part of the big discussion will be published next week, when the panel answer questions on IoT.

Engineering and scientific technology firm Renishaw will host The Service Community's next gathering in April, which offers "real insight from real people on service-led growth."

Taking place at Renishaw's HQ in Glocesteshire, South West England on April 2, The Service Community's one-day event features a tour of the company's innovation centre as well as talks from industry professionals and experts.

Highlights include Chris Raddats, from Liverpool University will lead a discussion based research he undertook for four leading UK companies on how relationships are increasingly important in service business growth, following 11 years in the industry with Marconi and David Schmedding, Head of Customer Segment Management and Subscription at digital printers Heidelberg will share insight into the firm's next phase of outcome services at the event. 

Nick Frank from The Service Community said: "We are again lucky to be hosted by Renishaw, one of the UK’s most highly rated technology companies who will share how they have overcome the challenges of growing service businesses.

"I am also excited to have Heidelberg, one of  the world’s leading Digital printing equipment manufacturers and Service leaders to share their experiences. This will be a unique chance to discuss with the company responsible person, how digital technologies and organisation change have led to the possibilities of a new subscription based business model.  

"And then we have some real pragmatic thought leadership shared by Chris Raddats from Liverpool University. This event really lives up to our goal of offering real Insights from real people on Service led growth." he said.

You can register for the event here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE FIELD SERVICE PODCAST: Florian Kriz, Vandelande.
The digitalisation of a spare parts inventory has huge potential but comes with many challenges.

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In this episode of the Field Service Podcast, fieldservicenews.com Deputy Editor talks to Florian Kriz, Manager E-Commerce and Product Management at Vanderlande's Global Spare Parts Division, about the potential of spare parts in the service sector and shares some of the challenges involved with the digitalisation of a spare parts portfolio.

Synovia publishes new version of mobile app which includes tracking inoperable and lost/stolen vehicles and enhanced mapping functionality.

The fleet tracking technology company has launched the latest upgrade to its free mobile application designed for fleet managers to manage their fleet from anywhere with a smart device.

The latest version released to the Apple app store and Google Play will allow users to see multiple vehicles on simultaneously as well as filter vehicles shown on the map by groups. It will also allow for quick and easy navigation to broken-down vehicles to help personnel in the field get up and running more quickly.

Users will also be able to toggle between satellite views to provide greater understanding when vehicles may be off road or situated in a large parking facility.

“We continue to listen to our customers and invest significantly in our technology to better deliver the features and functionality they need to operate smarter and safer fleets, save money and provide improved customer service,” said Jon King, CEO, Synovia. “We recognise fleet managers require more information in a mobile application and will continue to innovate to enhance the mobile experience and deliver a more sophisticated user experience.”

Research analyst firm, Strategies For Growth℠, has launched its 2019 field service management tracking survey and is looking for participants.

The 2019 survey is the fifth in a series of now annual benchmark tracking update surveys that provide an analysis of the key existing and emerging trends that characterise the global service market. 

Like past surveys, the 2019 version is a targeted, multiple choice questionnaire that should take less than 15 minutes to complete. All responses will remain strictly confidential, and will only be tabulated and reported in the aggregate. 

However, if respondents provide their name, title, company and e-mail address, then Strategies For Growth℠  will be happy to forward a copy of the top line survey results in a complementary executive-level analysts take report to be published following the data collection and analysis.

Field Service News will be publishing the executive level results from the survey once the data has been collected and analysed later this year.

You can take part in the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019_FSM 

 

BigChange, the mobile workforce technology company, has appointed Frederic Dupeyron to oversee its expansion in mainland Europe. 

Having served as a non-executive director at BigChange since it was founded, Dupeyron joined the company on a full-time basis at the beginning of February as Executive Vice President for Europe.

He is tasked with establishing BigChange subsidiaries in mainland Europe and its expansion across the region. Frederic Dupeyron, who will report directly to BigChange's CEO, Martin Port, has held several senior leadership positions for European transportation and technology organisations over the last 20 years.

He was CEO at Masternaut prior to its acquisition by Francisco Partners in 2012 and previously served as CEO of Hub One and ADP Management, subsidiaries of French airport operator Groupe ADP. Frederic Dupeyron began his career working in finance, serving in the Transport Finance Team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and then as Director of Corporate Finance at Aéroports de Paris. 

Martin Port, founder and CEO of BigChange, said: “2019 is going to be a huge year for BigChange as we ramp up our activities around the world. I’ve worked with Frederic for many years and am delighted that he is joining BigChange on a full-time basis to lead our charge into mainland Europe.” 

Frederic Dupeyron added: “I’ve seen BigChange go from strength-to-strength since it was launched and I am excited the opportunity now exists for me to focus my efforts on boosting its business in mainland Europe. BigChange’s multilingual technology is already transforming mobile workforce operations on the continent, and there are huge growth opportunities for the company there.”

As a mantra, fixing the customer first and the problem second, has served Martin Summerhayes well in his 30-plus years in service profession. Mark Glover, caught up with Fujitsu’s Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement to discuss what it really takes to deliver client satisfaction. 

Let’s go back to the mid-80s, 1985 to be precise. The first of excellent Back to the Future films was released, Nintendo launched its first games console and music was being sold on small, shiny discs called CDs.  

At the same time, Martin Summerhayes was taking his first step on the first rung of the service ladder. And what a tall ladder it turned out to be, for when we speak some 33 years later, Martin is still in the sector and just as wide-eyed and enthusiastic as he was when he stepped out of college with a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Technology. 

His course was sponsored by IT companies including IBM and Hewlett Packard who provided a route into employment for students following their graduation. Martin’s first role was to install and support a dealing room system for Morgan Stanley in the heart of London’s financial district; a fascinating first placement, however Martin fears those opportunities for young engineers just don’t exist anymore, making the industry’s skill-set gap widen further. “When I first started you went to college – not university – and you got a qualification that was equally respected, equally of value,” he says. “Then you got out there and then you went into the workplace. “Then about 10 or 15 years ago, the mindset changed. What we have now is a maturing population of engineers. Most of them are in their 40s or 50s, certainly some of the more experienced ones are in their 50s but then they retire and they leave. “But there isn’t an educational ground that backs this through. Most young people wouldn’t be interested in technology, around computer science or electronics, for example. At the end of the day, most people just don’t get into that,” he says. 

It’s a damning verdict but one that carries weight. The work-place disparity between new technicians coming into the industry and those retiring is vast and has been well commented. But what, if anything, can be done? Martin suggests a re-positioning of what service is could help. “It goes back to when I first started out,” he says. “I think field engineering or field service is as much around customer service as it is technology. “You can bring people into the organisation, who might not have a technology background but have a customer service background but we give them those skills and we cross-train them into the different environment. “Effectively what we want to do is to give this training to the more senior and experienced engineers and you might get three or four juniors working with senior and the whole process can start to work. You start to build up a little network and can start to see results.” 

Martin comes from a place where the customer sits at the heart of all service theory. “You should fix the customer first and the problem second,” he tells me; it’s a mantra he cultivated very early on in his career. Does it still carry weight today? “It is prevalent now as it was then,” he says confidently, “and in fact in some respects more so.  “When you’re visiting the customer, how do you present yourself? You’re the face of the company you’re presenting, how do you talk to the customer? How do you actually let the customer know you’ll deal with the problem they have? Even if you don’t manage to fix the problem you have to give reassurance to the customer that they’re important. At the end of the day the problem will get resolved at some point, even if you don’t fix in on the first visit. “But if you send out someone who doesn’t talk to the customer, or doesn’t acknowledge the issue but goes out to fix the part, even if they fix it first time, the customer will end up with a negative experience of that service interaction,” he warns. 

We now live in an age of ‘keyboard’ warriors, of negative social media reviews that can spread like wildfire across a company’s reputation. “When I first started, we talked about how it takes ten positive interactions to change one negative interaction,” Martin says. “These days, the amount of connections people have on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram could be up to 2,000 people. The fact that we’re more connected today, it means we’re more likely to share those negative experiences. “Customer service is even more critical today than it was 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.”   

 

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"If you send someone out who doesn't talk to the customer, or doesn't acknowledge the issue , even if they fix it first time, the customer will end up with a negative experience..." 

 

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Martin is currently Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement at Fujitsu, a firm he joined in 2008, prior to which he spent nearly 20 years at Hewlett Packard, his first role following his apprenticeship with Data Logic. At HP he sampled an array of various service and operational roles, working his way up to become its EMEA Customer Services Performance Director. Given his years in the industry Martin has witnessed enablers such as connectivity, mobility and the internet come to assist in the engineer’s role, almost as much as a screwdriver and notebook, but does the end-user, the customer care about new technologies such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence? “Not, really, no,” he says quickly. “When a function doesn’t occur the issue then becomes, how do you as my service provider resolve it as quickly as possible? Whether you use Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Reality or whatever technology platform people are talking about these days, they are enablers.” 
He suggests a future when customers will pick up their i-pads, connect to a portal and are guided through the fixing-process interactively, perhaps live-streaming a remote-service technician for extra support, is on the horizon. As advanced as this sounds, Martin strips back it back to customer empowerment. “All you’re doing is enabling the customer to self-solve that event quicker and more effectively than what you would have done 20 years ago,” he says. “You’re moving the technology closer to the customer.”    

And what about customer satisfaction? What can service professionals do to ensure this most important of factors? Martin outlines five things that every service professional needs to be asking themselves “How do you get the right engineer, with the right skills, with the right parts, to the right call? If you can guarantee those five things,” he says confidently, you’ll end up with really good customer satisfaction.” 

A lot has changed in movies, music and computer since 1985, but Martin’s approach to achieving excellent customer service has not. It’s a career we should all take note of. 

You can listen to the Field Service Podcast with guest Martin Summerhayes here. 

Ericsson has unveiled the next steps in the evolution of cellular IoT and launched new solutions that will enable service providers to address a larger part of the IoT market with diverse use cases across verticals including automotive, manufacturing and utilities
In line with its cellular IoT vision, Ericsson is launching enhanced functionalities for Massive IoT and new solutions for Broadband IoT. One example of Massive IoT enhancement is the NB-IoT Extended Cell Range 100km, which stretches the standards-based limit from around 40km to 100km through software updates without changes to existing NB-IoT devices.

This opens huge opportunities in IoT connectivity in rural and remote areas, particularly for logistics, agriculture and environment monitoring. Ericsson has deployed NB-IoT data connections up to 100km with Telstra and DISH.The Broadband IoT solutions being launched include drone detection and link control, radio access network (RAN) slicing, Advanced Subscriber Group Handling, and Multi-Gigabit LTE for 2Gbps data throughput and around 10 millisecond latency.

The new solutions will enable a wide range of use cases in automotive, drones, AR/VR, advanced wearables, smart manufacturing, and smart utilities. Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks, Ericsson, says: “Cellular IoT is moving from early adoption with Massive IoT to global rollout. We are now describing ‘what’s next?’ for our customers and how they can make the most out of their 4G and 5G investments on the same network and address more advanced IoT use cases across industries.”

Ericsson’s evolution concept describes how cellular IoT can move from the more basic use cases of Massive IoT such as asset tracking and smart metering to increasingly sophisticated use cases enabled by Broadband IoT (for example infotainment in cars, AR/VR, drones and advanced wearables), and then by Critical IoT (for example, autonomous vehicles), and Industrial Automation IoT (for example, collaborative robotics in manufacturing).

This stepwise approach will make it easier for service providers to match cellular IoT capabilities with current and future use cases by continuing to enhance LTE networks while preparing for 5G. With effective use of techniques such as network slicing, service providers can support all four segments in a single network, allowing them to optimize their assets and tap into revenue opportunities within industries.

According to the Ericsson Mobility Report, the number of cellular IoT connections is expected to reach 4.1 billion in 2024 – increasing with an annual growth rate of 27 percent.

Patrick Filkins, Senior Research Analyst, IoT and Mobile Network Infrastructure at IDC, says: “Ericsson has come up with a uniquely clear vision for cellular IoT with well-defined segments for service providers to address new business growth opportunities from industry digitalization. Ericsson’s cellular IoT evolution concept will support service providers to incrementally allow add-on use cases even within a single vertical.”

Firm's first software release of 2019 tailored to engineers on large project work.

Job and Project Management Software outfit simPRO's has, as part of its Mobile package, released an app that records working hours as well as allocating time for engineers in both service and project environments.

The TimeSheet app will allow businesses to understand how much time is being spent on each project, and cut back on administrative labour, such as paper-work, on-site.

Jonathan Eastgate, simPRO's Chief Technology Officer said: "The extended app gives all engineers who use it a new level of autonomy. Time can be recorded retrospectively  - or as the job is being completed. And the ability to use the app offline gives users access to review and record activities no matter where they are."