How Digitalisation Has Accelerated Since Covid-19 (Podcast Highlights)

Jun 16, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Salesforce • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • michael kuebel

Michael Kuebel of Salesforce talks to the Kris Oldland, Field Service News about the massive lens the pandemic has shone on the need for digital transformation in the field service sector and how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation

FieldServiceNews · How Digital Transformation Has Accelerated Since Covid-19

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

Digital Transformation - The Silver Lining of Covid-19?

One of the major upshots and a significant silver lining to all of the hardship we have been through in the last few months is the major acceleration of digital transformation projects across all industries within the field service sector.

But just how much has digital transformation changed in terms of the magnitude and importance of the programs that we were all undertaking in some form prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?

But how have these projects changed? Just how dramatically have they been accelerated and what does that mean for the field service sector?

One man who has a deep level of experience of digital transformation within the field service sector is Michael Kuebel, Senior Director of Product Management, Salesforce. With an impressive career spanning both sides of the field service sector, with various senior field service management roles as well helping other field service organisations with their own digitalisation journey in his role with Salesforce, Kuebel has an ingrained knowledge of the role modern digital solutions can play in enhancing service delivery.

"The key word here is how do we understand digital transformation”, Kuebel commented on a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast.

"Where does the digitalisation journey actually start? You know, when we approach our customers, especially on the field service side, very often the predominant setup from the past involves very siloed organisations in terms of applications but also in terms of processes. So you may have a service call centre that doesn't have too much information about the customer because it might be disconnected to sales. You may have a customer that has one or maximum two channels so you can either call or send an email but hardly any portals or tracking.

"I think if COVID-19 told us something, it is that the most important translation of digital transformation is to have the customer in the middle. Essentially, to have customer success as the paramount target behind all digitalisation efforts..."

-Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

"Then on the other side of the equation you have engineers - that in some places until recently even we're still outgoing with pen and paper and with only a very rough understanding what they are supposed to do. By this I mean they would have no information about asset history or even customer background or customer understanding. This is something that has been widely understood and so in many companies [these silos] has been the initiation for saying we need to go into a digital transformation in field service as well.

"Very often we see that field service is one of the last silos to overcome, just because it has been very much seen as a pure technical function. These were the guys that repair something if it's broken. But most companies now understand that field service has a different role. It has the role of creating revenue and profitability and has a super important role on customer experience and the customer journey. In fact, it is developing into one of the main, if not the main USP within an organisation.

"Service is one of the main reasons customers stay loyal to a brand or a product and that's understood by many organisations. This is why I think the digitalisation journey has started already in most organisations a couple of years ago," Kuebel adds.

However, while many if not all of us were on the digital transformation journey in one shape or another before the pandemic, the acceleration of such projects has been dramatic as a result of the necessity for new thinking during a period of ongoing uncertainty as global borders came crashing down and the lockdowns ensued. However, Kuebel believes there is another even more important learning we can take away from the last few months.

"I think if COVID-19 told us something, it is that the most important translation of digital transformation is to have the customer in the middle. Essentially, to have customer success as the paramount target behind all digitalisation efforts," he explained.

"We want to make sure that our customers are in the middle and we have a 360 degree view of them. They can book engineers, track engineers, find the data online through an app or through chat or WhatsApp etc.

“We must have intelligent scheduling optimisation and the customer must have visibility on where the engineer is. Equally, the engineer himself must have visibility on all the customer history, the asset history, and access to information and knowledge. So they also have a 360 degree view around the customer, including being connected via devices and so on.

"This has all been on the long list of strategy before Covid-19 but the virus told us basically to fast forward a couple of years within a couple of weeks, and make all these things happen. I've seen so many examples where customers have been putting something on track that they actually were planning for the long term and just launched it."

This is an excellent insight as one of the needs for solutions today, has resulted in a shift in mindset so we no longer look for the perfect solution, but the best solution that can help us now and we can refine it as we progress. Perhaps this is the first big learning of the new normal?