Field Service News | Aly Pinder

The Impact of COVID-19 on Servitization

Aug 05, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Covid-19 • Servitization and Advanced Services • GLOBAL

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News is joined on the Field Service News Digital Symposium by Aly Pinder Jr, Program Director of Service Innovation and Connected Products at IDC. Aly is a seasoned expert in the field service industry,...

Are Organisations at Risk of Taking Shortcuts to Adapt to the Rapid Changes Brought by the Pandemic?

Aug 03, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Covid-19 • Servitization and Advanced Services • GLOBAL

Assessing the Right Software and Hardware for Remote Service Delivery

Jul 29, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Digital Transformation • Hardware • Software • Digital Symposium • Remote Services

Technology Adoption Is Key for the Effectiveness of Service Delivery

Jul 27, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Covid-19 • Servitization and Advanced Services • GLOBAL

How the Role of the Service Engineer Can Evolve and Adapt to the Rapid Changes in Service Delivery

Jul 23, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Covid-19 • Servitization and Advanced Services • GLOBAL

The Evolution of Quality Service

Jul 21, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • Covid-19 • Servitization and Advanced Services • GLOBAL

The Future Field Service Enterprise Depends on Getting Change Management Right

Mar 03, 2021 • Features • Aly Pinder • IDC • Digital Transformation • Technology • Covid-19

In this new article for Field Service News, IDC's Aly Pinder discusses why the future of field service enterprises depends on getting the change in management right.

With a new year comes new beginnings and new changes. Often our business lives resemble our personal lives, especially in this current moment where the lines between the two are quite blurred. But for the field service organization, where work from home options are not an easy pivot, change isn't always a welcomed concept. Decades of expertise from front-line technicians can often breed a tried-and-true mindset around best practices and ways of getting the job done.

However, even the field team is finding that they have had to become more nimble, agile, and open to a next normal. In IDC's COVID-19 IMPACT ON IT SPENDING survey, 36.8% of manufacturers stated product and service installation would be converted to a contact-less experience. The ability to service assets, equipment, and products remotely or at least with limited time physically on site is a major shift for many service organizations and field service teams where getting hands on the machine for as long as it takes to fix the issue has been the norm.

As customer expectations evolve to expect contact-less experiences while also receiving quality service, the field service organization will need to transform. However, in an IDC research survey of manufacturers, only 34.0% of sampled organizations stated a strategic approach to change management with senior leadership having invested resources to ensure transformation was successful. The rest of manufacturers had some resources in place for change management but nothing strategic or at an enterprise-wide level. This comes at a time of accelerated digital transformation for many organizations while disruption is impacting the way service is delivered, how customers interact with organizations, and where employees work. These divergent factors, of rapid change with limited strategic communication, can lead to field service teams feeling left out of the future of the business. The field service team, front-line technicians, dispatchers, schedulers, third-party contractors, and partners must be a part of any change from the beginning to ensure expedient success and minimal negative impact to customers. To achieve accelerated digital transformation in field service without the discord, manufacturers and service organizations should consider the following:

Solicit insight directly from your technicians with regard to gaps in the technology solutions currently used and relation to their productivity. Digital investments for many organizations are implemented from the top down or from the IT team. Not many organizations have the front-line team spearhead technological initiatives. It shouldn’t be a surprise, field technicians by in large are remote and must be primarily focused on completing work orders. Time to test or pilot new technologies isn’t in their job description. However, this fact mustn't lead to the field team being bypassed all together. Field technicians know what tools they need, what knowledge would help them be more productive, and what types of capabilities would enhance their interactions with customers. If field service technicians believe changes in technology or processes area being made with them in mind and with their input, the transformation will result in less friction.
Educate the field team on the value of digital transformation. Too often, technicians are the last to know about technology hardware and software changes. They are expected to just blindly go along with the latest tools and its inherent value to increased productivity. But this approach can lead to resentment as these technicians have gotten the job done prior to any changes in technology. Also, some enhancements can seem like digital automation just to track technicians more closely to be punitive or restrict creativity in work. Communicating the value of technology changes to productivity, the customer experience, and business goals will provide the field team with buy-in to support initiatives.
Understand field service team member's desired working environment and interest in digital technology. Not all technicians are the same. Some enjoy going out and dealing directly with customers, and others just want to fix an equipment failure but not have to interact with others. Both profiles are valuable to the field support team. In a constrained talent market, manufacturers and service organizations can’t afford to turn anyone away. By identifying which technicians are willing to work in direct contact with customers and which don’t, service leadership can create dedicated teams that build on individual strengths. Furthermore, with the emergence of a profit- or customer-centric view of field service, many service organizations look to transform the field service job to be less about completing as many jobs in a given day to instead empower technicians to become advisors. This change also is not for all technicians. Assessing which technicians want to work directly with customers to drive value-add experiences and which just want to just solve problems, service leaders can segment the workforce for specific jobs.

Change management is not easy even in the best environments where teams are in constant contact with direct communication with leadership and each other. Field service organizations have an even tougher time as technicians are removed from direct lines of communication with those making decisions, and inherent to their job is a feeling of isolation. As a result, service leadership must approach new digital initiatives and change differently for the field team taking a strategic approach to education, communication, and deployment. Failure to take change management as a serious challenge can result in delayed rollouts, attrition, or degraded service quality.

The Importance of Ensuring Our Engineers Feel Safe as We build the Recovery

Sep 20, 2020 • Features • Aly Pinder • IDC • Managing the Mobile Workforce • Field Service News Digital Symposium

In this first excerpt from an in-depth interview on the Field Service News Digital Symposium IDC's Aly Pinder Jr, talks to Kris Oldland about the importance of ensuring our engineers feel protected and valued as we face ongoing concerns over a...

2020 has been the most testing of years. We have had to rethink our approach to almost everything as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that have been ensuing for over six months now. While some parts of the world have reopened such as Germany, others such as Sweden never really closing down, others such as the UK and Australia remain on a precipice, waiting with various regional lockdowns and the threat of the return of nationwide lockdowns hanging in the air like a dark, ominous cloud.

We never expected to it to take quite so long to 'flatten the curve', back in April we were already planning on what the recovery might look like yet, as we approach the final quarter of 2020 we are still holding meaningful discussions about how we operate within such uncertain parameters.

Back in April this year, IDC's Aly Pinder Jr joined Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, for a discussion that rings as pertinent today as then, perhaps even more so. The discussion centred around the understanding the human equation to our engineers. As Pinder commented, "these are not just resources we are sending out, these are people."

At the time of the interview, it was a conversation against a backdrop of frantic scrambling as companies all across our industry adapted to the unprecedented lockdowns, and a radical rethinking of how field service operations could be delivered was created on the fly. With much of that thinking now complete, with more robust processes in place, innovative technologies that allow for remote service delivery in embraced, we are for sure much better placed to cope with further lockdowns as international governments react to the potential threat of a 'second wave.'

"I think having a daily check in the same way that we do in our white collar jobs, is important..."

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

Yet Pinder's thoughts from back in April still resonate powerfully. While those of us in office-based roles are now well transitioned into the routine of home working. Our engineers in many cases will still need to be out in the world, working, keeping essential services moving. How do we ensure that they feel protected and valued at such a time?

"I think the first thing is communication," Pinder explained.

"We don't all have the most appreciation for real time collaboration as we do in a more white collar scenario. For our technicians, oftentimes the environment they're working in is they have an application or a laptop that they open up and they walk through a checklist of items to close out a work order. I think we're getting to the point where we understand the technology that's out there to provide us with real time collaborative tools," he continues.

"The opportunity is to go in whatever way in which your technicians are willing to interact with you, whether it be the phone or a newsletter that provides them with a daily update or an email that you check-in and understand, this is what we hope for us to be able to deliver today and asl is there anything that's going to keep you from attaining those goals? And do that on somewhat of a daily perspective.

"I think having a daily check in the same way that we do in our white collar jobs, is important. obviously, for technician base is ten thousand then it is going to be a little more difficult. But, I think putting forth the expectation and figuring out what is stopping you from getting there, I think is a good first step. If you don't have a full, video collaborative real time tools that we're starting to see more and more service organizations have, it's still just a phone call or still just an email, it's still just a way to communicate, to get a better understanding.

"This also allows companies to work with their engineers to put them on a schedule that actually opens up more productivity for the organization"

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

This is good practical advice that many field service organizations will adhere to. However, Pinder is also a strong advocate of ensuring that the engineer understands that they are valued in their role as more than just a pair of hands as well. This means understanding how the current situation is impacting them beyond just their ability to do the job at hand.

As Pinder added "… and then opening up a channel that says every other day, 'I want you guys to let me know how are your home lives being impacted? Is there something where your work schedule may not be what it's always been can we readjust from a scheduling perspective what hours you're able to work based off of your own concerns.' Here in the US, it could be that they're struggling for daycare or, other support systems for their family. Maybe their working hours should be XYZ as opposed to what the regular nine to five?

"This also allows companies to work with their engineers to put them on a schedule that actually opens up more productivity for the organization because they can move things around from a scheduling perspective that also allows us to meet our customer's requirements to not have so many people on site at any given time."

A busy twelve months for field service management

Dec 17, 2019 • Features • Aly Pinder • future of field service

Field Service News' Deputy Editor Mark Glover caught up with regular Field Service News' contributor, IDC's Aly Pinder to look back on what's been an eventful 12 months in service. The pair were speaking at at Sycron's innovate2019 conference held...

Mark Glover: I was wondering if we could perhaps take a bit of a step back, a bit of a reflection of this year and also, perhaps like we are doing at the conference, look forward as well. This year has been quite a big year for acquisitions in the sector. Do you expect that trend to continue as we go into 2020 and beyond?

Aly Pinder: I definitely see that the next couple of years will accelerate the ecosystem play that is either looking at acquisitions or partnerships that are strategic to help build upon a view of how technology providers can either fill gaps or support verticals that they’ve yet to build a domain expertise that drives the value and growth that they’re trying to attain.

A number of the key players in the industry have reached a point of growth where they may not be able to find the same numbers coming from the same industries that they’ve sold to in the past, so how can they accelerate their overall growth goals, which is obviously there and there’s a market which digitally transform around field service or overall service life cycle management, but those buyers are now coming from either newer companies or newer industries that haven’t been [supportive/supported] in the past. So I think building ecosystems of partners or acquiring that domain expertise will help them accelerate at the pace that they’re trying to get to, which means there will be more excitement and exciting news in the industry in the coming year to two ye

"At conferences like this I continue to hear more and more excitement from manufacturers who are understanding that now is the time to invest in digital technologies to support that next shift of their organisation..."

At conferences like this I continue to hear more and more excitement from manufacturers who are understanding that now is the time to invest in digital technologies to support that next shift of their organisation. So if you look back five, ten years ago, how do we get ipads in the hands of all of our technicians? How do we think about AR and VR technologies and tools? I see those pilots changing and evolving into deployments and that’s going to allow the market to say we need to move on this excitement faster than we even perceived eighteen months ago.

MG: On that adoption, one of the presentations yesterday, was about how to communicate that to the board or people at the top level, which can be a challenge in itself. A service director has many hats but one has to almost be a salesman to do that.

AP: I think it’s definitely a sales job and role to sell the value to the end customer and the need to support this new way in which we’re doing business, and how technology will enable that new way of doing business. Because just cobbling together something isn’t going to work at the speed at which things are changing and evolving.

So I think selling that future vision of what the interactions will be with customers and the need to have personalised insights at the level of the front line technician in the palm of a hand at any given moment in time and the connectiveness of that data flow demands that we view technology differently and view the investments we’re making differently, and need to accelerate the types of tools and technologies we’re leveraging because an application by itself isn’t going to connect the way we need to connect at the speed in which we need to do it. So I think going to the board and communicating the fact that we can’t continue to be the after team.

"We need to be the forward looking team that allows us to look at how technology will enable us to be the forward team that’s customer facing and delivering those experiences that we all know that we need to deliver..."

We need to be the forward looking team that allows us to look at how technology will enable us to be the forward team that’s customer facing and delivering those experiences that we all know that we need to deliver. You know, this front line field service organisation is the one that is going to solve the problems of today and tomorrow when you give them the tools of tomorrow to solve those problems.

MG: We were talking yesterday over coffee about re-framing service, and the terminology used around it, and perhaps the negative connotations it can have; It’s an afterthought; it’s something that gets thrown in at the end when it should be designed in at the beginning. On that, do you think the sector has a bit of a PR problem?

AP: I think the industry as a whole has a challenge with not being perceived to be innovative. I talked a lot in my presentation around the value and I jotted some notes down, a few takeaways from day one that bled into today. I don’t think the value that’s being created from the service organisation is communicated clearly internally to the organisation. Like obviously the service people that are here, or at any of the events that we attend, understand and are passionate and understand the value they’re creating, but they don’t really have a sounding board to go back to the rest of the organisation and say, “this is what we do every day”.

This is our impact we have on our customers, and can we cultivate an image in the other style or functions of the business that know what we do for a living, that is really transformative and will help us get to that next level. But I think as we get to the point where we have better tools and data that show what service is doing ahead of failure, providing visibility back to the rest of the organisation and to suppliers and dealers and customers, I think that mind-set might change a little bit because now we have visibility of what were enabling and avoiding as opposed to the fact that we’re coming in after the fact to put out the fire, we’re actually enabling the fact that the fire never occurs, and we have visibility to how that is being solved.

MG: Do you think there’s a time frame for that? Or is it just going to be an on-going, slow transition?

AP: I think as the board and the C-suite begins to see the impact to margin that service is providing, that message will not only come from the service people that don’t have the megaphone or the amplifier, it will come from the c suite that says we recognise this. This is the path for our organisation to move forward. That is where it comes from. And for, you know, a decade now, at least, everyone knew that service made money but you made money on parts and labour. Not on value creation. And I think as that changes a little bit to understanding about it’s being created and driven by additional services, [value add] services being delivered, I think that message then resonates a little bit more, because then you realise, okay, we need to build things differently. We need to market things differently. We need to sell service differently. And that changes the organisation.

MG: One of the issues in the sector now is a knowledge gap of engineers, particularly in the UK, of engineers retiring and then there’s a bit of a lag in new engineers coming through. So there’s a bit of a burning platform going on and it’s been recognised in the industry. Everybody that I talk to is aware of it. But what do you think can be done?

AP: I think it goes back to the marketing service differently and thinking about service differently. If manufacturers and service organisations are going to identify, hire and retain the next crop of workers that think differently, want to work differently, and assume they’ll have technology to support that different view, we need to market service as being an innovative channel to use technology in everything you do and you can work with technology on a day to day basis. And this is how technology is going to enable your ability to solve problems.

I’ve grown up with technology and I assume things should work. When I open an application it should work. It should connect. I have a certain smart phone that is integrated with my email and my calendar and all those things work. When I go to an office and work with enterprise applications, oftentimes they don’t communicate. So as service is looking at bringing that next swathe of workers, service applications need to work and you need to go to companies like Syncron and all the players that we talk to and help them understand that if we’re going to identify, hire and retain the next crop of workers all of our tools and applications need to talk to each other.

"Why can’t manufacturing and service who is used to building really cool stuff, support the technicians of the future with really cool tools and technologies to support and solve complex problems?"

Going back to my first comment about acquisitions and partnerships. Can we truly build an ecosystem that can support from a technology perspective the desires and demands of that next crop of workers so they don’t necessarily think they have to go to Google or Facebook or Amazon to have an innovative opportunity to work with technology and to solve customer problems? Because that’s why they’re going there, because they want to work in a creative environment that’s going to solve problems with innovative technologies and tools. Why can’t manufacturing and service who is used to building really cool stuff, support the technicians of the future with really cool tools and technologies to support and solve complex problems?

MG: You’ve been writing for us for a while now, and I always try to ask our contributors or people that I speak to what inspires them about what they do? It would be interesting to hear what inspired you to do what you’ve done for so long?

AP: The impact that field service specifically has on an end consumer and an end customer. I think we were talking a lot about the service hero that shows up and wears a cape and is a super hero, and that person not being replicated in the next crop of workers coming through the pipeline of talent.

So I think what drives my passion around the industry is how do we highlight the value that’s being delivered by these super human people in an environment where that’s becoming a finite resource that is decreasing. So how can we amplify the value that’s being created and the impact and importance of this role in all of our daily lives. But we see service every day in our daily lives and if something doesn’t work it has a really tangible impact on all of our lives and our productivity. So I’m passionate about this because I think we don’t think about it as much as we should and the impact that we can have on everyone’s daily life and productivity.

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ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘aly-pinder’ CATEGORY

The Impact of COVID-19 on Servitization

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Further Reading:

Are Organisations at Risk of Taking Shortcuts to Adapt to the Rapid Changes Brought by the Pandemic?

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Further Reading:

Assessing the Right Software and Hardware for Remote Service Delivery

Want to know more?

Further Reading:

Technology Adoption Is Key for the Effectiveness of Service Delivery

Want to know more?

Further Reading:

How the Role of the Service Engineer Can Evolve and Adapt to the Rapid Changes in Service Delivery

Want to know more?

Further Reading:

The Evolution of Quality Service

Want to know more?

Further Reading:

The Future Field Service Enterprise Depends on Getting Change Management Right

Further Reading:

The Importance of Ensuring Our Engineers Feel Safe as We build the Recovery

"I think having a daily check in the same way that we do in our white collar jobs, is important..."

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

"This also allows companies to work with their engineers to put them on a schedule that actually opens up more productivity for the organization"

- Aly Pinder Jr, IDC

Further Reading:

A busy twelve months for field service management

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