Marne Martin, CEO of award winning software provider ServicePower takes a look at what the Field Service should look like in the not so distant future...

Today, field service organisations face increasing competition, changing customer dynamics, reduced margins and are increasingly challenged to achieve corporate metrics. Each must look toward technology that will improve its competitive edge and increase productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Intelligent, integrated scheduling, mobile and business intelligence technologies must be deployed to:

• Intelligently schedule the best labour resource, whether that’s an employee in a company truck or a 3rd party contractor, to meet customer requirements
• Optimise employee schedules to achieve the greatest levels of productivity, efficiency and SLA compliance
• Fully mobilise onsite processes, ensuring the job is completed, to the customer’s satisfaction, in a single truck roll, driving down schedule costs and repeat trips
• Continuously analyse and fine tune the overall operation through real time, data driven decision making

All in a fully mobile way. Consumers, used to instant access to the web, expect field services to be provided now. They expect technicians to be provisioned with the necessary tools and technology to show up on time, access the parts and other resources needed.

Intelligent Scheduling

Only software solutions provide field service organization with the technology required to schedule field based resources to meet not only customer commitments but do so in such a way as to reduce its overcall costs through optimisation and intelligent deployment of both employed and third party labour.

Demand fluctuation caused by seasonality,for instance, creates unnecessary cost and dissatisfied customers if response time are extended. Additionally, parts, extra labor or helpers, and jobs which require compliance to strict SLAs can’t be efficiently scheduled without an intelligent scheduling application.

This is where intelligent software solutions are invaluable as they consider data and existing schedules to make the best scheduling decisions for the company.

Optimisation

Real time, or intra-day, optimisation is crucial to the achievement of the highest productivity and efficiency.

Rules based scheduling automatically builds a schedule based on simple computer logic, filling an open schedule slot. However it does not continuously move previously scheduled jobs to ensure the least costly total schedule looking also at technician skills, parts availability or travel. Intelligent Scheduling, based on artificial intelligence, delivers true optimisation. In this scenario, schedules are created and continuously and automatically changed to achieve cost, margin, cycle time and customer satisfaction metrics. Priorities can also be dynamically adjusted to changing business needs or KPI goals using also real time mobile status reporting, GPS and other parts and job information.

Only solutions that offer true optimised scheduling including intelligent routing provide field service organisations with the technology to achieve its goals while improving satisfaction, building brand loyalty and positive social networks.

Real time, Data Driving Decision Making

Field service does not exist in a box where the environment never changes. Each operation must continuously collect data, from all parts of its service ecosystem, analyse that data, and use the data to fine tune operations. Field service is a continuously evolving entity that must adapt in order to compete and exceed customer expectations.

The Future is here. Right now. New technological innovations, such as connected machines, are driving further innovation within the within the field service industry.

However, that same M2M data, as well as other information, such as manufacturing data, can be used to model and predict  equipment failure, enabling the field service organisation to predict the failure of an elevator or power generator, and send a technician to maintain it, before it breaks, minimising customer down time. New technologies are enabling an evolution from the

traditional break/fix repair model, to a proactive, preventative maintenance model, which reduces costs for the field service organisation through higher first time fix rates, and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty due to decreased down time.

ServicePower, named Visionary in the Gartner 2014 Magic Quadrant for Field Service and recipient of the 2014 M2M Evolution IoT Excellence Award provide connected mobile field services solutions that bring together all aspects of the field service value chain, including the customer and the dispatch center, technician, claims and warranty processes, parts, the contracted workforce, assets, mobility, business intelligence, and social collaboration.

Through continuous innovative, like M2M Connected Service, industry acknowledged optimisation technology and cutting edge mobility, our software accelerates business efficiency gains and customer satisfaction while reducing costs, on one underlying and consistent platform. We offer field service experts that have managed businesses and field teams understanding customer’s needs and pain points.

Don’t let your field service organisation be stuck in yesterday. Implement technology to meet your cost, margin, cycle time and customer satisfaction metrics today, and future proof your operation through deployment of the latest, continuously improved field service management technologies.

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