What are the key metrics that we should be tracking? How many KPIs is too many? How little are not enough and how often should we be considering such questions before we run the risk of paralysis by analysis? Field Service News spoke to over 150 field service executives to find out the answers to these questions and more...

The world of field service is changing, and it is changing rapidly and in many separate dimensions. Technology, which has always been integral to driving service delivery standards forwards, has seen an explosion of innovation within the last decade. Core developments such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality have leapt from futuristic concepts to fundamentals of field service management in a short space of time - with the potential to eclipse the impact of earlier technological leaps forward brought on by the introduction of tools such as Mobile and Cloud computing.

At the same time, we see massive movements both in a business sense, but also in a societal shift as well towards a much more service orientated economy. 

At the heart of this paradigm shift in thinking is the rise of the millennials, both as consumers and of course, as an increasingly prevalent sector of the labour force.

In short, how our industry operates, at its most fundamental level is being questioned at its very core. The old processes embedded in the way we work in a traditional break-fix service model are being re-evaluated as we turn to servitization, outcome-based solutions and Everything-as-a-Service.

As Peter Drucker famously once stated ‘We cannot manage what we don’t measure’. So in these changing times are field service organisations adjusting the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that they track in reflection of the changing processes and technologies they now employ?

In order to establish if this is indeed the case, Field Service News has recently undertaken an extensive survey to speak representatives of over 150 field service organisations from all corners of the globe, from companies large and small and from a wide range of industry verticals to establish what are the core trends today amongst field service organisations when it comes to the KPIs they are tracking. Here we aim to unpack how these trends are changing in today’s turbulent market of disruption, innovation and opportunity?

How many KPIs are measured on average?

The starting point for the survey was to establish the average number of KPIs related to field service operations each organisation actively measured. In this regard, the most common figure was between 4 and 7 KPIs, which 40% of respondent companies stated they tracked.

However, for over a quarter of organisations, it seems that a ‘less is more’ approach to measuring their field service productivity was preferred with 27% of respondent organisations stating they measured less than 4 KPIs related to their field service operations. At the other end of this spectrum, 17% of organisations measured more than 10 KPIs while 16% measured between 8 and 10 KPIs.

However, while those measuring more KPIs than the average are in the minority, the research data would suggest they are perhaps slightly ahead of the curve. Indeed, a significant number of respondent companies (44%) stated that they had increased the number of field service related KPIs that they were tracking within the last 12 months. In the same period, less than a tenth at only 7% of companies stated they had decreased the number of KPIs they track.

Meanwhile, for the majority of companies, the status quo remained intact as just under a half of companies, 49% stated that the number of KPIs they tracked had remained the same across the last year.

Of course, in today’s world of real-time information, the frequency at which data can be extrapolated and interpreted has become lightning fast. This can have a significant benefit in terms of monitoring performance on the day of service, especially when it comes to ensuring service dispatch remains on track.

However, there is a danger of drowning in data, or paralysis by analysis if we measure the minutiae of our service operation from the executive level. 

How often should we review the KPIs we measure?

Given our audience is primarily comprised of senior-level directors and thus the KPIs being discussed were more at the strategic rather than execution level, what were the standard frequencies in which our respondent companies reviewed their KPIs?

The most common response to this question was monthly which nearly two fifths (38%) of respondent companies cited as the frequency in which they reviewed KPI performance. However almost half (45%) of companies that we spoke with reviewed their performance against KPIs more frequently with a quarter of total respondents (25%) doing so weekly while a fifth (20%) of companies did so daily.

At the other end of the spectrum, only 17% of respondent companies reviewed there performance on a quarterly basis.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this report, our world is changing rapidly, and as such, it is prudent to consider what KPIs your organisation monitors actively. So how often are companies reviewing which KPIs they track?

The vast majority of respondents (87%) indicate that doing so less than once a year is no longer appropriate compared to only 13% of companies that currently still do so. The traditional approach to evaluating KPIs is generally considered to be an annual review, and this appears to be the case for many companies still with 42% of organisations still reviewing the KPIs they measure on a yearly basis.

However, almost half of the total respondents (45%) now take a more dynamic approach to understanding what they are measuring and adapting accordingly, and these organisations review the KPIs they track at least twice per year if not more often.

Look out for the second part of this report where we explore hw field service companies are adapting the KPIs they measure to  reflect industry mega-trends, and what are the most crucial KPIs to measure...