The Service Community’s Manchester Event attracted over thirty delegates from a broad spectrum of small, medium and large organisations with guests travelling from as far afield as Brazil and the USA. The growth of The Community by more than 75% since the Special Event in June underscores that this clearly taps into the real desire to share best practice, debate relevant issues and network with like-minded professionals...

The generous host on this occasion was Siemens Industry GB&I coordinated by Graeme Coyne, who personally welcomed all guests in the impressive ‘Sir William Siemens House’ facilities in the outskirts of South-West Manchester.

Aston Business School’s Professor Tim Baines opened with a truly engaging and interactive key note presentation focused on “the challenges faced by UK Manufacturers as they adopt Servitisation as a Growth Strategy”. This insight into some of the pitfalls that face an organisation as they adopt advanced service offerings, supported by pertinent academic research and analysis, was both a warning and highly educational. This fabulous opening set the standard for an informative and entertaining afternoon.

[quote]In the spirit of topical content, the audience was treated to an innovative view of the potential of remote servicing equipment and the Internet of Things

Both these opening presentations generated great interest from the audience, and led to a lively networking break that enabled guests to further explore their questions more personally with the speakers.

The networking break seemed to pass as a fleeting blur; however, the promise of further insights lured back the eager delegates. Martin Hottass rose to the challenge as he laid down the gauntlet that the Field Service Industry is facing the retirement of a quarter of engineers in the next 10 years! Martin, responsible for Skills & Professional Education at Siemens Energy didn’t just leave us worried about this startling demographic certainty but went on to explain techniques and government funding options available to organisations to help build apprenticeships and graduate recruitment programmes within the industry.

The final keynote offered a case study delivered by Daniel Kingham from Elekta (manufacturers of medical equipment). The fascinating study illustrated how migrating from a solely field based operation to a jointly managed remote and field based service operation transformed the customer experience. Daniel’s empirical expertise was evident and he smoothly handled an abundance of questions which truly demonstrated his knowledge and left the audience satiated.

Once again, The Service Community delivered on its objectives. The content of the meetings remains the life-blood of The Community, followed closely by the generosity of community members to host events and volunteer time to keep The Service Community alive. To this point, the next event is proposed for March 2015 – date and location to be confirmed.

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