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GE Digital's acquisition of leading field service management solution provider Servicemax just over a year ago sent shockwaves across the industry for multiple reasons.

Firstly, in an industry that has been going through a spate of acquisitions over the last two years, the amount was quite simply eye-watering and just blew everything out of the water. Secondly, this was an acquisition that came right out of left field. Many analysts may have predicted that ServiceMax would eventually be acquired having been the industries biggest success story, but few would have suggested that an industrial force such as GE may have been the suitor that would become their new home. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, spoke exclusively to the senior players at both ServiceMax and GE Digital to find out how things are bedding in...

When the ServiceMax from GE Digital train rolled into Berlin towards the end of last year for the European leg of their series of Maximize conferences, there was an exciting mix of vivacious confidence between the ServiceMax team and keen curiosity and anticipation between the delegates - who were in the main ServiceMax customers.

Of course, this was to be expected - as it is at such events that ServiceMax have traditionally announced their latest developments and outlined how they had refined their roadmap. In past iterations of the conference, we've seen ServiceMax announce a number of industry firsts including the announcement in 2016 of Field Service Connect - which essentially established a blueprint for the role field service management systems will play in our sector adopting IoT that is being mirrored by a number of their peers.

And that's not to mention the little matter of GE Digital's acquisition of ServiceMax for an incredible $900Bn which was announced just days after 2016's Maximize Europe event in Amsterdam.

With just over a year having passed it was a perfect time to see how well embedded ServiceMax had become within the GE Digital machine, and just how much such significant investment had changed their vision for the future of both their organisation and of field service delivery itself.Indeed, with just over a year having passed it was a perfect time to see how well embedded ServiceMax had become within the GE Digital machine, and just how much such significant investment had changed their vision for the future of both their organisation and of field service delivery itself.

Having spent a lot of time with Yarnold and his senior team over the last few years, one thing that has always come to the fore was that there was an inherent understanding of what excellent service looked like, and the ServiceMax vision was always about trying to develop the tools to make meeting standards of service excellence that much easier.

I recall speaking to Yarnold in 2016 about the ethos of the company, and he explained then how they felt that most of the technology in the Field Service Management sector was  geared towards taking cost out. What they realised very early on into their journey to becoming a leader within the industry was that there was a critical emerging trend - companies who were building products were experiencing much faster growth in the services side of the business than the product side.

We focussed on helping companies to grow their service business as opposed to squeezing their technicians for more productivity - which is still where most of the technology in our space is focussed"So we focussed on helping companies to grow their service business as opposed to squeezing their technicians for more productivity - which is still where most of the technology in our space is focussed" Yarnold had stated back then.

Of course, this approach has become widely embraced by most of ServiceMax's peers as solution providers realise that most companies now have at least one foot planted firmly in a service-centric world and as concepts such as servitization and outcome-based services go mainstream.

However, while there is no denying the prescience of Yarnold and his team's approach, until last year they were always just an observer of trends within the field service sector, only experiencing them indirectly via how they impacted their client base. But now as part of GE, an organisation that has something upward of 40,000 service engineers in various different divisions and across multiple sectors globally, they now have a direct line into a wealth of field service directors that are all on the same team.

I was curious as to what if any impact this would have on ServiceMax regarding how they position their worldview on what great field service looks like. In his opening address early that day Yarnold had touched upon shared learnings - so was it a case of their previous assertions being validated? Or was there an element of identifying essential details that could only be seen when one is embedded that little bit closer to the actual coalface?

"It is a bit of both" responds Yarnold. "We are part of GE Digital which has the Predix platform and then these application areas APM and ServiceMax, and we are separate from the rest of the GE business which are the industrial business units such as Oil and Gas, Power Generation and Healthcare and so on. Each of those business has their own field service operation, and each of those businesses is rolling out ServiceMax. So we're not part of the organisation, but we have the home team there to draw on."

To bring this message to life Yarnold recounts how before the acquisition Sharma, who at the time was the CIO of GE's Oil and Gas business had been a somewhat challenging customer, but once they were on the same side of the table the value that ServiceMax brought to the table was revealed to actually be hugely valued. "I do wish he'd maybe told me a bit sooner'' Yarnold said playfully which brought a warm laugh from Sharma - and in this brief exchange, the camaraderie and trust between the two were immediately brought to the fore, something usually found within relationships built on a mutual respect.

It's been a good balance so far, and we're just starting to tap into that knowledge of those industries and the vertical specific complexities of those industries. It keeps things fresh and challenging, but that's what we want. We want that challenge"So yes there was a lot of affirmation" Yarnold commented returning to the initial question. "Then where I think the learnings are coming in. As we start to work with these folks and we start to understand what their customers, the service, and maintenance organisations are all about - we need to ask how do we continue to evolve and build our product so that they fit those organisations. Utilities, Airlines, Railroads, Oil Companies - these have not necessarily been our direct customers to date and we're learning a lot about that. We're also learning a lot about metrics and measuring business. It's been a good balance so far, and we're just starting to tap into that knowledge of those industries and the vertical specific complexities of those industries. It keeps things fresh and challenging, but that's what we want. We want that challenge."

So would it be fair to assume that given this additional stream of insight there maybe a change to the roadmap that ServiceMax has outlined for themselves? Kasai picks up this point. "I think you outlined it well when you positioned it as an expansion" he replied when we tackle this topic.

"Both being part of the wider family of GE but also the massive investment is a much needed, as we really need to expand our portfolio into new markets and new capabilities. We'd always made a conscious effort not to go into many of these industries for a variety of reasons, but largely from a focus point of view. But now we have I believe, a solid competitive edge from a channel point of view with great customer relationships. We have an understanding of the domain within those industries, and it would have been tough just to walk in and grow that knowledge. Thirdly, we have the capital to go ahead and invest in the development of the products to actually develop those capabilities for these industries. It is a combination of these three things which essentially makes a brand new company - there is so much potential and that what we're all really excited about, where do we go next?"

It is interesting the Kasai mentions how the new environment in which they find themselves in is in many ways akin to being an entirely new company. It brings back recollections of another previous conversation with Yarnold the day the acquisition was announced. "It is not the start of a new chapter; it is the start of a whole new book" he had commented, which is a strong analogy, as this latest incarnation of ServiceMax is indeed a distinct creature than that which has come before. However, likely any great novel within a series, the fundamental aspects of what made it a best-seller in the first place must remain in place. To extend the metaphor to its very limits, there must be a familiarity and continuity in place if it is going to build on the successes of previous in the broader in the ongoing saga.

In other words, ServiceMax as part of GE Digital must build upon the strong foundations that are already in place. Yet, for such a substantial investment, they simply have to evolve as both Kasai and Yarnold suggested. However, it seems that this is something that is very much already starting to happen as the ServiceMax team becomes plugged into the broader world of GE.

Such cohesion and deep level insight will not only drive the functionality of ServiceMax forward hugely but by doing so will also raise the bar for the industry as a whole. As Sharma explains" Something we have done recently is to have seven business swarm ServiceMax from which we've then built a core centre of excellence capability - it is a very focused team, they have both deep domain expertise and have also been ServiceMax users for a very long time. From this, we have developed accelerators to help improve deliverability, but it has also become a great feedback loop to Rei and the product team."

It is this type of integration that many of the analysts within the industry (including myself), hoped to see emerge when the acquisition was announced. As such cohesion and deep level insight will not only drive the functionality of ServiceMax forward hugely but by doing so will also raise the bar for the industry as a whole.

It was undoubtedly one of the most interesting aspects of the acquisition that I discussed at the time in that there is vast potential for the further development of important solutions when a major player such as ServiceMax is embedded within an organisation that has such a fine-grained level of knowledge of delivering service, rather than being swallowed up by just another major software house that many would have expected.

Yet for the full value of this to be played out there has to be a true ebb and flow of dialogue between ServiceMax and the wider organisation - something which Sharma indicates clearly exists. "We attack things together, working with the platform team, ServiceMax and ourselves, on an integrated asset model of the future. We are talking about working within large-scale operations and exploring how do you augment and drive participation? It is a great way to valid test or experiment with a capability, and we give instant feedback."

We have the fortunate situation where we have a very large-scale service organisation as a captive audience, and we have an organisation that's capable of delivering these great capabilities to these organisations. "When you develop new products you have to be very iterative, you have to have a small set of customers to be constantly testing against so you that you eventually build a scalable product for the masses. If you look at these new capabilities, we are looking at it very much through that lens, and we have the fortunate situation where we have a very large-scale service organisation as a captive audience, and we have an organisation that's capable of delivering these great capabilities to these organisations."

Of course, the most visible return on GE's investment so far, certainly from a product perspective, would for most people in the industry be the close integration between ServiceMax's Connected Field Service suite and another of GE Digital's offerings, Asset Performance Management (APM). As we've covered previously in Field Service News, the combination of these two tools pushes us with far more certainty than ever before into the world of IoT based field service. So is this a clear indication of the direction that both GE and ServiceMax see as the future of field service delivery?

"I think what the move to predictive really does is that it puts everything on your terms," comments Yarnold. "You're planning ahead of time; you can predict who is going to go where with a high probability of success. This will, of course, increase efficiency but it is also a huge value add to the customer - you're in a position to now delight them, because the right people are showing up, they know the history, they know what is required and so on. I just think it changes the model entirely."

"Outages are needed, machinery gets worn out" adds Sharma, "the question is how can you replace these in a planned way because when it's unplanned, that's where really bad stuff happens. The notion that is important to me is about focusing on getting to almost zero-unplanned downtime. That is where I think the industry is going to head."

As Yarnold had expressed to me previously, it seems clear that there are kindred spirits and a shared DNA somewhere between the two organisations, and most certainly a shared vision for the future of field service. In terms of their influence on the wider market both ServiceMax and GE have played a role in getting us to where we are today. How far they can continue to push the field service sector forwards as one cohesive unit remains to be seen, but the early indications would suggest that they will remain at the vanguard of innovation within service delivery for the foreseeable future. As each of Kasai, Yarnold, and Sharma commented at various points across our discussion - it's all hugely exciting.

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It has now been ten months since GE Digital acquired field service management solution provider for a cool $915 Million. Even against a backdrop of constant M&A activity within our industry, it was a deal that made the wider world sit up and pay attention to the field service sector. But how have ServiceMax slotted in two the GE Digital fold and how big a part will they play in GE’s vision of how best to serve the industrial markets of the future?

Kris Oldland, spoke exclusively to Scott Berg, COO, ServiceMax just before he participated in their first major outing as a GE Digital company at the Minds and Machines conference...

With the Minds and Machines 2017 event just days away it was an opportune time to reconnect with Scott Berg, COO of ServiceMax.

The last time I spoke with a member of the senior executive team at the Californian based Field Service Management Solution provider was when I spoke with their CEO Dave Yarnold, literally a few hours ahead of the announcement that ServiceMax was being acquired for a figure just shy of a Billion dollars by General Electric (GE) and would become part of their expanding GE Digital portfolio.

And whilst field service management is undoubtedly a hot ticket for investment at the moment, with the list of acquisitions within the market being a veritable who’s who of FSM vendors including ClickSoftware, ServicePower and IFS amongst others, nothing has come even close to matching the size of deal between GE and ServiceMax.

But then no one in the field service sector has really come close to matching ServiceMax in terms of their success story across the last decade either - growing from a three man start-up in a rented office in San Francisco to an industry leader worth close to a Billion Dollars within ten years takes some doing, yet when I spoke with Yarnold back in November last year, it wasn’t achievement I heard in his tone, but yet further ambition.

 

He talked excitedly about the reasons why he had decided GE could be a suitable home for ServiceMax, outlining hugely ambitious plans to work with GE to build out a working IT platform for entirety of the industrial sector, something that connected people, assets and workflows together to drive business forwards in the twenty first century.

Indeed, it is often hard to not get caught up in Yarnold’s enthusiasm, and sometimes the trick is to separate the passion from the plans, the hyperbole from the reality - although in fairness he and the ServiceMax team do tend to have a habit of meeting the ambitious plans he puts forward.

But has that ability to rise to the challenge been hampered or enhanced whilst being taken under the wing at GE?

Just ahead of the Minds and Machines conference is a great time to sit back and assess that question, whilst Scott Berg, is perhaps the perfect barometer.

Like Yarnold, Berg has been on the ServiceMax journey from Day 1, and whilst he undoubtedly shares much of Yarnold’s passion not just for their product but for the service industry at large as well, with Berg one also gets the feeling that, that passion is tempered just a tad by a keen analytical mind, that is acutely aware of not only the size of the opportunity but also the size of the challenge, and as Chief Operating Officer, it is his job to overcome that challenge.

 

As such he is a perfect foil for Yarnold, the two compliment each other well, (in fact that is trait that seems to be apparent throughout the whole ServiceMax family, there is a shared ‘something’ in the DNA and it seem that at all levels the team members feed well off each other) so who better to discuss how the integration with GE has progressed and whether the roadmap for Servicemax as part of GE remains on a similar course, to that which Yarnold described?

“This is really the first opportunity for us to be a GE Digital company and showcase some announcements of what we are planning,” explains Berg when we catch up to discuss what we can expect to come out of the event.

“I think this is the first time that we’ve made a public announcement where people can start to see some of the synergies across the GE Digital portfolio and the big news for us is the integration between the ServiceMax Field Service Management (FSM) Solution and Asset Performance Management (APM) within the GE portfolio. It’s big news and I think it’s a first proof point around GE’s thinking around the Industrial Internet and what role services and assets will play within that world.”

Indeed, when ServiceMax launched their Connected Field Service offering in the beginning of last year the vision was very much to bring the install base to the forefront of an FSM system, rather than just being focussed on the mobile workforce - which had traditionally been the primary focus of industry tools to date. Connected Field Service of course leveraged IoT, and from my limited understanding of AMP this was a solution that could build on that?

“Yes, it is a really interesting evolution on the concept,” Berg says helping fill in the gaps of my own understanding.

 

“If you think about our field service strategy it was about getting data from the machine and the asset. Basically, letting the machine become the sensor rather than the customer being the sensor when something goes wrong.”

“That is still very much part of the on-going strategy, what APM adds to the process is a significant amount of additional intelligence around preventative maintenance.”

“The concept has always been about avoiding unplanned downtime and in terms of providing preventative maintenance there is a rapid evolution going on where we are moving quickly from interval based maintenance i.e. perform this maintenance every 6 months or a year, to condition based maintenance - which is perform maintenance every 1,000 cycles of a machine. But now with APM combined with IoT we basically have data from the machine itself, embedded into a sophisticated analytics engine in APM, combined with the finance and the strategy to optimally operate an asset and to do so in the most profitable manner.”

“So what APM adds, fed by this IoT data, is basically recommendations and intelligence of when maintenance should most optimally be performed. For example right now, or next week or next month. It can even do things like suggest the maintenance shouldn’t even happen at all. It may be that the best strategy and profit outcome on a particular asset would be to let it burn out its useful life - it might be more profitable to replace it than it is to make the repair. And if so that is what APM will suggest.”:

“It is an evolution in the concepts around maintenance. From interval, to conditioned and now to predictive analytic schedules. And when combined with the power we already had in ServiceMax, which was taking this IoT feed from the machine and suggesting when service can happen, it becomes a very powerful tool indeed.”

One thing that is of particular interest with APM is how the solution can work from fleet level through to sub-component level.

“We are definitely down at the component level now if we look at the areas such as the Power industry or Oil and Gas - vibration sensing, the speed things are rotating at, the temperature of bearings and how do those factors impact performance behaviours or how do they impact output or throughput of a machine. It could be the volume of fluid passing through something, It could be on a grander scale, the level of power production from a thermo-nuclear plant that is converting fossil fuels to electrical output,“ Berg explains as we discuss the importance of being able to see the health of various levels of both components and assets.

“But, the important factor with APM is that it can also can apply it to systems of assets as well. You could have a situation where you have multiple assets, each with sub-components and you want them all performing hopefully in unison - or at least in tandem, to produce an overall outcome so you can ‘zero’ in on where maintenance should occur to optimise the output. It could be on one asset , it could be on one sub-component of an asset.”

 

Essentially this is perhaps where APM can deliver the most value, in helping make the vast streams of data from assets connected to the IoT, truly useful.

As Berg alludes to when he comments: “I think one of the big struggles people always have with IoT is that they basically drown in the data. You’re being sent all these readings but how do you make sense of it?”

“What APM does is make sense of that data in light of maximising the uptime and the output of an asset and its components. It’s that added layer of intelligence that IoT on it’s own doesn’t have. It’s making that data useful essentially,” he adds.

Of course, one of the big benefits of FSM tools such as ServiceMax is allowing the service organisation to empower their field service technicians by putting such rich layers of customer information, ultimately being able to put the core intelligence of the organisation itself, into the hands of the field service technician.

Given that the integration between ServiceMax and APM is geared towards increasing the efficiency of preventative maintenance strategies, I was intrigued to see how much of this intelligence would be filtered down to the engineer. For example if he was on site fixing asset A would he be able to see that in fact Asset B was due to for maintenance in the next few weeks and therefore potentially undertake the second maintenance job whilst on site to save an unnecessary future truck role?

“I think that layer of insight is there on two different levels,” Berg responds when I put this point across to him.

“From a back office standpoint certainly, APM will suggest maintenance should occur on machine number one based on a threshold that’s been reached, but more importantly than that, it will also look at the fleet of the assets and see anything else that is approaching that same level of wear and tear (or that same maintenance condition) and alongside what we’ve already created within Connected Field Service - where we are pushing that machine data down to the technician, we can use our install base management capabilities to identify the fleet of assets that are at his location and highlight those near the warning condition or those that would approach it soon.”

“This data can then be fed to the technician who can make recommendations whilst on-site with the customer to say ‘well I’m here for pump number six but whilst I’m here I can see that also pumps number three and four are in a similar condition so I’ll go ahead and fix those in advance, or perhaps even explain to the customer “well, this one I’m going to leave run as it is for a bit longer because the recommendation is to push this a little bit further before we do the maintenance activity, to allow you to get maximum output.”

 

One interesting if indirect result of giving the technician this level of insight is that by being able to relay such information to the customer, he can also reestablishes the importance of the maintenance visit in the first place.

In today’s markets as we see companies moving to outcome-based services and preventative maintenance strategies in ever greater numbers, there is the new challenge of the workload of the technician perhaps going unseen by the client. In the old traditional break-fix model there was the theatre of the service engineer being the superhero, coming in to rescue the poor Ops Manager who has had to put an exasperated call in to say - “Hey! I can’t produce anything!’ Then the engineer comes in, meets his SLA and makes everything work again. Going above and beyond and generally being a hero.

In today’s world of outcome-based contracts there is a challenge to make sure you are effectively communicating the work your technicians have done for the client, to demonstrate the value your service provides them.

With the tools Berg is discussing, it seems there is the potential to almost move the engineer into something more of a consultative role. Someone who can say I’ve come to undertake the maintenance on ‘a,b,c’ but I can also advise you that ‘x,y,z’ could be also be done today and this will improve your output by ‘n’.

“I think there is a great opportunity here to improve the lifestyle of the technician themselves,” Berg comments as we bring the conversation onto this point. “Sure, there is the heroic experience of saving the day but that is also a high anxiety moment as well. When we consider the psychology of the technician, the challenging bit is to go out there by yourself, with no one to help you, then when encounter a really bad situation hopefully you’re the one that can resolve it. It can be a life with a lot of tension, which is sometimes overlooked.”

“Alongside that I also think that customer expectations are shifting as well,” he continues.

“There is the classic metaphor that people don’t want to go out and buy a drill they want to buy a hole and the concept is largely about outcomes. I think more and more customers of the machinery don’t really care so much about the details of the machine. They don’t want it to break down, they want it to produce what they bought it for, and they want to extend and maximise its life so that it produces more of what they bought it for.”

 

“So now you put a technician in the position to not only be the hero by just fixing something retrospectively, but to be the hero that proactively maximises the customers output and production from an asset they acquired? I think that is not only going above and beyond but it is catering to more of the outcome-based mentality that companies now want to consume output rather than buy a set amount of machines.”

So it seems at least on the technology side of things there is already progress being made between the two organisations coming together, although it could be argued that this is the result of the two separate existing technologies just being plugged into each other.

The real fruits of the union are likely some way off, although how far could largely depend on how quickly and easily the ServiceMax team are integrating into the wider GE group. I mentioned Yarnold’s views at the time of the acquisition about the two organisations having a shared understanding and a similar DNA in terms of the view they both held of what ‘good service looks like’ - as well as the importance of service within industry as we move further into the twenty first century.

And of course, I was keen to see if that was holding out now the ServiceMax is fully embedded within GE.

“I think it is and I think it was very prescient of Dave to be highlighting that right at the start of us coming together,” Berg replies.

“There are several things here. Firstly, we’ve always served markets that I would largely classify as OEM manufacturers or industrial companies and certainly these are the companies and sectors that GE is already working amongst. As a direct result of that we are already seeing great energy and sales momentum by our alignment with GE business units around Oil and Gas, Energy, Power - as these were the industries we would have sold to anyway.”

[quote]I think with GE being largely a company and culture built around engineers, we have both shared an asset centric perspective on service.

“Secondly, I think with GE being largely a company and culture built around engineers, we have both shared an asset centric perspective on service. For us, it was always about a system of assets in the field that customers wanted outputs and outcomes from - we were never about being your typical field service, scheduling only solution. For us it was an awareness of the people, the schedule and the asset. And certainly GE‘s culture is grounded in engineering, machinery and assets - so we are on the same page.”

 

“The third thing that I think is interesting is that GE was one of our largest customers and if you look at GE as a company, I like to call it the largest field service company in the world. There are tens of thousands of technicians, and the vast majority of revenue at GE is derived from service contracts - so there is definitely a kindred spirit and a kind of alignment with GE because of these vertical focussed, asset centric mentalities. Plus then there is a shared passion for service which is such a big contributor to the GE business.”

Of course one would think that as one of their biggest clients, having the GE team on hand to add weight to their cause could also add some heavy kudos and gravitas at times that they need to call in the big guns.

In particular GE have been early adopters in the move towards outcome based models in a number of verticals. Is that helping the ServiceMax team when they go into conversations with prospective customers?

Of course, the move to outcome-based services is heavily tied to the use of the cutting-edge technology that ServiceMax provide, so it is in their vested interest to be avid promoters of such shifts in thinking.

But the reality is a move to outcome-based contracts can be a hard sell for service businesses to their own clients, whilst many still may need some convincing that a shift away from recurring spare parts revenue within the break-fix model is indeed the future of the Aftermarket sector.

However, having the back story of now being part of GE, who have already taken that path and who are able to say we believe this is the future because we’ve already gone out and done it in our own business, that must surely be a powerful tool when it comes to talking to those companies who are more reticent to make such a switch?

“This is actually one of the core themes at Minds and Machines,” Berg replies.

“The concept our chairman will be talking about is how our digital transformation at GE from an industrial company to a digital industrial company is really focussed on three different markets.”

“Firstly there is GE for GE, which is how we help ourselves go through this digital transformation towards outcome-centric models. Secondly, we have GE for Customers and this is looking at the business units which GE serves and the companies they sell to, and we want to help and advise them - sharing what we’ve learnt from our own experiences with them.”

“The final one is called GE for the World. What has been interesting with this and what has truly surprised me is the amount of times we’ve been speaking to companies who are traditionally staunch GE competitors, but they are curious about what we are doing.”

“The whole idea behind this is to share the experience GE has had broadly around digital transformation of industrial businesses.”

 

Given this experience and the broad touch-points Berg has access to I was curious to find out what his take on the shift to servitization was. Is it becoming as prevalent as it seems from behind my admittedly sometimes magnified field service lens? Indeed, are there many companies still in need of persuading that outcome-centric models are the best way forward, or has acceptance of the need to move towards servitized business models become widespread?

“It is interesting because I’ve yet to see much real push back on the concept,” Berg comments. “It is a as if everyone has come to accept that an outcome based model, i.e. a Service as a Product model - is the essential thing to do.

I think that value GE plays in those conversations is more geared towards telling these companies what is the first step to take on a journey like that. Sharing what our experiences have been, how we’ve done it and what our accomplishments have been.”

“It’s really interesting that in practical selling situations to potential customers one of the most impactful people we can bring into a scenario like that is someone like a CIO form one of the GE business who has made these investments, made it happen and can show you the results. I think the door is open but I think people are perhaps a bit confused as to how and where to start and that’s what GE can help them. We can outline how to start their journey and how best to stay on the right path.”

As we come to the end of our time together, a few things have become apparent throughout our conversation.

The first is that the technology seems to be a natural fit and combining ServiceMax with APM is a natural evolution, that is set to yield impressive results for those that are in place to put the two together.

The second is that Yarnold’s earlier prediction about their being a shared vision across the two organisations seems to be bang on target. As Berg explains their future plans to me there is a real sense not just of unity between the two organisations but also of continuity in terms of the original ServiceMax core beliefs that were so fundamental to their success.

However, one other thing that was apparent was the number of times Berg used the word industrial. This of course makes sense when we factor GE into the conversational mix - but one of the things that ServiceMax developed a strong reputation for pre GE, was for that every Sony, GE or Scheider they worked with - there were also the companies like Service2 - i.e. small local companies with less than twenty engineers.

Will these SMEs still be of relevance to ServiceMax or will they be forgotten as ServiceMax under GE goes hunting for a place amongst the industries enterprise elite?

 

“I think the conversation has changed a little bit for smaller companies but in a positive way,” Berg responds. “The GE brand credibility is really helping us send a positive message to smaller companies. We continue to serve all those markets and in fact one thing you will see from us is an expansion in the market at this level.”

“We see three separate groups of customers, one is the OEM manufacturers which has been a sweet spot for our business, people that make complex machines, such as medical devices or heavy machinery.”

“One expansion will be in what we call asset operators so you could think of in that realm are the power producers. Electric and Oil and Renewables who basically don’t make anything, they buy a whole bunch of assets and then produce something. Then the third group would be one that we’ve always focussed on, namely the service providers and that’s where you get a lot of these smaller companies.”

“The really interesting thing is if you take any one of the seven or eight business units in GE and think of it as an ecosystem of something like Oil and Gas then certainly you could be talking to someone like Shell or BP doing oil exploration and production but as soon as you take a step back from the centre of that industry, that’s where those relatively smaller providers are really important. What’s really interesting is that they are also really important to the GE verticals as well because there is an ecosystem of those service providers working with a GE - or maybe competing with a GE but supplementing the value in that market. So we will continue to focus on those types of companies and actually a lot of the companies we’ve historically sold to in those spaces are aligned to the GE ecosystems anyway.”

“We really think that effective field service execution is a combination of people, assets and outcomes,” Berg offers in closing.

“I think that our integration into the digital portfolio combined with the GE business experience puts us in an incredibly unique position to not only help our clients manage their people but also to help manage their install base of assets and make this shift to this outcome-based mentality around preventative maintenance a less painful and more fruitful path to follow.”

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