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Tesseract’s Sales Director Kevin McNally, with over 15 year’s experience in the industry, explores the key elements with Kris Oldland Editor of Field Service News...

 

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Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available for Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you the white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

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[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ield Service Management technology has become essential to service delivery excellence. Service excellence is no longer a USP but a baseline requirement. However, whilst technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality are grabbing the headlines their potential is greatly diminished unless you have a fundamental layer of technology in place already.

This two part article explores what to expect from a FSM system and offers best-practice tips to help you get the most from your investment...

Contract Management:

[quote]“The starting piece for everything is the contract and the control of the contract. Without that in place it is very difficult to bring everything else on top of that.”  Kevin McNally, Tesseract.

 

Contract management is often viewed as the starting point of almost everything within field service management operations. Without a view of your service contracts you cannot have to hand the answers for critical questions such as:

• What is the SLA on any given contract?
• Is a client under warranty or do they have an enhanced level of service contract
• Does a contract include spare parts and/or consumables?
• Is the service contract due for renewal?[/unordered_list]

You could be at risk of potentially not meeting your client’s expectations and so putting the potential of renewing or upselling service to that client in danger in the future – or on the other side of the coin, you could be giving valuable service away for free.

From the point of view of understanding the assets and also the entitlement that the customer is due as we go through a process of raising a service call or indeed, raising a sales order, we need to fundamentally understand what we should be doing with the entitlement for each specific client.

Scheduling:  

[quote]Optimised Scheduling in our world tends to be more geared to the planned maintenance aspects of service calls – i.e. for those companies who are looking to do things in advance and are looking for the best possible route to achieve this – Kevin McNally, Tesseract

 

Scheduling comes in a number of different guises and the various different names given to types of scheduling options can be a somewhat confusing but broadly scheduling will come in three flavours:

• Assisted Scheduling: Assisted Schedulers are essentially a manual tool, that as the name denotes offer a layer of assistance to the dispatcher making their job that little bit easier and thus increasing efficiency.
• Optimised Scheduling: With an optimised scheduling tool most of the work is done by the system. It will search through the scheduled service jobs and the available engineers and pull together an optimised work schedule for the day taking into account things like travel times and distances, priority jobs and field engineer skillsets etc. However, when things fall outside of established parameters, it is down to the dispatcher to make necessary adjustments to the schedule to make sure SLAs are met etc.
• Dynamic Scheduling: Dynamic scheduling is a further evolution of optimised scheduling that draws in data from mobile applications and telematics data etc to continuously revise the schedule throughout the day, reacting to situations such as a delayed engineer and reallocating jobs to ensure that the days schedule is continuously optimised.[/unordered_list]

Ultimately, when it comes to scheduling, it really is a case of horses for courses and establishing what is the best fit for your organisation.

Whilst not all companies will see a need for a dynamic scheduler, all but the smallest of organisations can benefit from at least some form of optimisation within their scheduling solution and the efficiencies that can be delivered are significant so it is an area of your FSM solution that you should get to understand and know fully.

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Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available for Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you the white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

 

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Field Service News speak exclusively to Evatic, CEO Pål Rødseth, about their ambitious plans to conquer the European SME market...

The field service industry has of course seen a lot of merger and acquisitions activity in the last couple of years, much of which has seen major global enterprises such as GE and Microsoft entering the market, through acquisitions of ServiceMax and FieldOne respectively, plus there has also much been private equity investment in established leading brands within the industry such as ClickSoftware, ServicePower and IFS.

However, there is another organisation on the acquisition trail which has gone beneath the radar of many of the more mainstream IT and Business focussed trade journals, yet they are perhaps set to have an equally big impact on the field service management landscape - that is Norwegian company Evatic who currently have offices in Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland, UK, America and Singapore.

UK readers may well recognise the name as they acquired the highly respected British FSM pioneers Tesseract towards the end of last year - however that was just the first piece of the puzzle as the Nordic firm aim to build up a pan European organisation. Indeed, they’ve spent little time resting on their laurels and have recently added a second FSM provider to their growing family having recently acquired Swedish company WinServ.

However, whilst the acquisition of Tesseract was very much about securing the excellent IP that the UK team had developed as well as giving them a foothold into the UK market, with WinServ it seems Evatic are making a move that firmly establishes them as the number one player in their home sector.

 

“WinServ has been the toughest competitor to Evatic over many years in the Nordics,” explains Pål Rødseth, CEO, Evatic.

In fact, around 50% of the 330+ clients that currently use WinServ are in the copy/print sector - which is also Evatic’s main area of focus. Additionally WinServ’s clients are also predominantly spread across the Nordics with a large market share in Sweden. So for Evatic this move is more about building a dominant base in their primary sector to build upon rather than spreading their wings into different sectors or geographies.

Taken the two acquisitions separately, one may be mistaken in thinking that they were both merely opportunistic acquisitions for an ambitious company hungry for growth. Indeed, both Tesseract and WinServ were headed up by their original founders who were reaching retirement age - so there certainly is a certain grain of truth in that assertion. However, as Rødseth explains there is a much more focussed strategic approach to Evatic’s approach to acquisition pattern than merely picking up companies who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

“There are too many of these small companies that have all been around for twenty odd years that are not able to take the next leap forward in product development,” he explains.

“We see customers demanding more and more functionality. They are demanding new solutions be Cloud based, they are expecting business intelligence capabilities, they are demanding easy integrations. All of these things are only possible if you have a large enough customer base to spread the development cost across.”

“We believe that here is a need to consolidate these ten to twenty employee companies across Europe to be able to keep on developing solutions because if you don’t do that you will eventually lose your customers over time."

"You need to face up to what the bigger companies are doing in the service management space and be able to deliver the majority of that functionality down to the SMEs - which is our core customer base.”

It is an admirable approach and one that makes sense. The SME market remains largely under served and with so much money flowing into FSM providers at the moment the main battleground has become the enterprise sector - leaving plenty of space for someone like Evatic to come in and dominate amongst smaller organisations.

But of course, this can also be a very tricky path to negotiate. Will there come a point when by unifying the many smaller companies together essentially Evatic risk transforming into a big business themselves and lose the flexibility and adaptability that often makes smaller providers the right fit for their client base in the first place?

“We don’t want to become a Microsoft. We want to be able to retain flexibility and be able to take decisions quickly and work efficiently but we also want to scale the business more than we’ve done so far. We are moving into a new premise in Wycombe with Tesseract and that facility will have additional space for a good number of employees so we are planning to ramp up the Tesseract business and also expand into Europe.”

 

So how quickly can we expect Evatic to build their empire? With two quick-fire acquisitions back-to-back Rødseth perhaps wisely is planning a fallow year.

“We need to be realistic in what we are doing,” he explains.

“There are challenges in integrating businesses and there are challenges in getting people to work together when there are cultural differences and so forth - so I don’t think we will be making another acquisition in the next 6 to 12 months. We are more focussed currently on getting operational excellence in place. Doing M&A is challenging and the majority of such projects fail - we want to make sure ours doesn’t.”

“But we do have a list of 8 to 12 companies that we follow and we are in dialogue with them and we have investors that back our strategy and we do have the ability to move quickly if we need to.”

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  Field Service News (sponsored by Tesseract)
Title: Five fundamental elements to expect in a FSM system

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Want to know more? Access to this resource is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you this white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

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Synopsis:

Field Service Management technology has become essential to service delivery excellence. Service excellence is no longer a USP but a baseline requirement.

However, whilst technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality are grabbing the headlines their potential is greatly diminished unless you have a fundamental layer of technology in place already.

This white paper explores what to expect from a FSM system and offers best-practice tips to help you get the most from your investment..

Overview

The white paper explores the following five key elements of a Field Service Management (FSM) System explaining the importance and offering best practice advice of how to get the most from your own system...

1. Contract Manager:

Contract management is often viewed as the starting point of almost everything within field service management operations. Without a view of your service contracts you cannot have to hand the answers for critical questions such as:

• What is the SLA on any given contract?
• Is a client under warranty or do they have an enhanced level of service contract?
• Does a contract include spare parts and/or consumables?
• Is the service contract due for renewal?[/unordered_list]

You could be at risk of potentially not meeting your clients expectations and so putting the potential of renewing or upselling service to that client in danger in the future – or on the other side of the coin, you could be giving valuable service away for free.

Therefore, Contract Management is perhaps the most important of the fundamental building blocks that you should expect to find within a modern field service management solution and perhaps the first area that you should make sure your team is fully versed in utilising.

2. Scheduling:

Scheduling comes in a number of different guises and the various different names given to types of scheduling options can be a somewhat confusing but broadly scheduling will come in three flavours:

• Assisted
• Optimised
• Dynamic

It is often assumed that a dynamic solution is required for a larger mobile workforce, but whilst the size of your workforce is certainly one consideration in which type of scheduling engine would best suit your service operation - this is not the only factor.

The complexity of the service work, as well as the variety of service jobs you undertake is another significant factor. For example an organisation that has a field workforce that services multiple different asset types – perhaps from multiple OEMs, and therefore has a number of different engineer requirements for differing jobs - would likely benefit far more from an optimised scheduling engine than an organisation that just fixes one or two types of assets for which all of their engineers are qualified to undertake repairs and maintenance.

3. Mobile tools and communications::

It is fair to say that the biggest revolution in field service has come from the rapid explosion in mobile computing power. Today’s smartphones are capable of greater computing tasks than even the laptops of just a few years back. For the field service organisation this is fantastic as it puts information at the field service engineers finger tips, empowers them to spend more time on maintenance and repair and less on activities such as paper work and enables them to deliver a far more effective and impressive service experience for the customer. Also, with the advent of smart phones, and then latterly tablets, has come greater communications tools than we could have ever expected ten years ago.

For example, engineer to engineer communications are seamless in today’s world, whether it be using dedicated built-for-purpose business tools or even free to use consumer solutions such as WhatsApp or Skype. From a FSM solution standpoint again whilst a mobile app was a USP, an add on or even a separate solution entirely just a few short years ago, now almost all FSM solutions will come with some mobile offering included.

 

However, whilst the mobile element in FSM technology is constantly evolving, essentially the most fundamental and core aspect that you want a mobile aspect of a FSM solution to do is to mirror your back-end solution and to do so in real-time.

4. Parts & Inventory Management::

Parts and Inventory management is perhaps an area that in the past has not received the focus and attention that it requires. It has often been the mantra of field service organisations that they are aiming to the get the right engineer to the right job, at the right time.

But that all becomes moot if the right engineer doesn’t have the right parts to hand as well. Consistently at industry conferences parts management remains a hot button and a common pain point for a huge amount of organisations. So whilst it is exciting to talk about emerging technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality - a primary focus should be on ensuring our field service operation is as efficient as possible at a fundamental level, and that means getting a grip on parts management.

And whilst of course there are supply chain and logistics aspects to the conversation which can make things complicated – especially when you are using third party contractors – one of the most crucial aspects of good parts and inventory management is utilising a system that can keep track of where your inventory, including van inventory, is at any given point.

5. Integration:

We are living in a world of data lakes, data rivers, data mountains and all other types of data topography it seems! But all these vast swathes of data are meaningless unless you are able to draw insight from it, and quite often that means being able to let the data flow seamlessly from one set of business applications to another.

 

Of course, our vision of the future is that everything will be plug and play and all technologies will play well together nicely, but we aren’t quite there yet.

 

This is why integration is absolutely key in any modern business system – including FSM. Of course, our vision of the future is that everything will be plug and play and all technologies will play well together nicely, but we aren’t quite there yet.

 

Integration varies from provider to provider but often it is led by the integrations they have been asked to undertake, so if your current provider or a provider you have identified as being a good fit for your business don’t advertise integration with a specific system you are using – it is worth discussing the possibilities with them - especially if it is a common platform as making their product integrate may be useful for other future clients also.

 

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This White Paper offers further details on each of the above elements and how to get the most from them.

Want to know more? Access to this resource is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you this white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

 

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Evatic, a leading software vendor within Service Management, has acquired WinServ Software in Sweden.

Together Evatic and WinServ will have more than 800 customers in 30+ countries and be the leading European service management software supplier. WinServ Software has its main office in Stockholm.

“We are extremely happy to add WinServ to our product family” says Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Evatic. “We have known Ronny, founder and CEO of WinServ, for years and we believe that the two organisations will be much stronger together when it comes to developing the service management software solutions for the future.

This is our second acquisition in less than a year, following our acquisition of Tesseract in the UK in September of 2016, and it is in line with our strategy to become the leading player within this space”.

 

“I believe that WS Software are in the best hands going forward”, says Ronny Fransson, founder and CEO of WS Software. “We have known Evatic for many years, and we are confident that the WinServ solution will be in the best hands going forward. Being part of a larger software group will add strength to the product development that is needed to be a service management solution provider in the future”.

Evatic is a leading European service management software company with the head office in Trondheim, Norway and offices in the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland and Singapore. With a global reach and more than 800 customers in 30+ countries providing customers with service management solutions under the Evatic, Tesseract and WinServ umbrella, Evatic offers a broad product suit for companies that need to make their services profitable. Evatic is a private company owned by the founders and Viking Venture

 

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In this sample from the Field Service News webinar "5 fundamental FSM technologies" Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News puts questions to Tesseract's Kevin McNally on the topic of what we should expect as standard from a field service management system and how to ensure we get the best out the solutions we have...

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Kris Oldland deliver's his editorial leader in issue 17 of Field Service News where our theme was the ever changing nature of field service...

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Field Service News subscribers are entitled to our bi-monthly magazine in both print and digital versions. Subscription is free for field service professionals click here to apply for a complimentary industry professional subscription now and get a digital copy of issue 17 sent straight to your inbox instantly

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Now any regular readers of this column will know that I’m a big fan of change.

Not that I think change needs to be wholesale and sweeping. No I subscribe much more to the journey of continuous improvement method of change. I like the concept of constant refinement, of being in constant Beta.

As a result of such an outlook I do tend to focus on innovation quite closely, which is a happy coincidence that there seems to be constant innovation within the field service sector too.

So I often talk about changes in our industry. Changes in business processes such as the shift towards servitization or the concept of crowd service

Changes in technology such as the emergence of Augmented Reality and IOT as two highly credible emerging technologies that the field service industry must embrace.

Even, the changing skill-profile of the field engineer as an incoming generation replaces an ageing outgoing one.

But the change referred to in this edition of Field Service News is actually a completely different type of change and for once I found myself wondering if such seismic change within our industry is good for us.

That change is amongst the solution providers, the pioneers and innovators that helped usher in so much of the revolution we are currently experiencing.

 

In the last 18 months we have seen most of the big names in field service  management solutions being acquired. Tesseract, IFS, ServiceMax, ClickSoftware, Telogis, and most recently ServicePower have all been bought up and that’s just a few from the top of my head.

There are many, many more.

The thing is that all of these companies had a common thread that allowed them to thrive in our industry. They were all independent companies who truly understood and cared about field service.

If I recall correctly the redesign of Solarvista a few years back took 3 MILLION lines of code, more than it takes to send a shuttle up to the space station, there are far easier sectors to enter, far easier places to make money as a software provider.

But it was the passion to help drive service forwards that was at the heart of many of these companies’ success.

Colin Brown former MD and founder at Tesseract for example came from an engineer background himself, so he got the challenges that companies were facing and was able to tailor that into a series of industry first solutions (i.e. first windows based solution, first browser based solution, first SaaS solution).

Similarly, Dave Yarnold, CEO at ServiceMax has spoken at great length about the importance of service - even going as far as to described ServiceMax once as a Field Service Enablement company who happen to use technology to do so.

And while Yarnold, remains on board in ServiceMax’s new guise as part of the GE Brand one just hopes that is infectious enthusiasm for great service delivery isn’t diluted by being in a bigger pond.

Indeed, the message from almost all camps is that it is business as usual just with bigger expectations, and quicker developments. On the surface it all sounds great and I must admit that it is fantastic to see the field service sector become such hot property globally - it’s just when so many great independent companies are bought within quick succession of each other it does make me a little nervous.

All Change maybe fine, just not at once, is all I’m asking.

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In this Field Service News webinar brought to you in partnership with Tesseract, we will be exploring five fundamental field service management technologies that every field service organisation should have in place – discussing why each is vital to making sure your service delivery hits your core KPIs as well as taking a look at how to use the technologies in a live environment.

This webinar will provide a strong hands-on overview of the types of technology that your team should be using with demonstrations and user tips from Tesseract’s Kevin McNally to help you get the most value from field service management technology.

The technology we will be showcasing will be Tesseract’s own Service Centre 5.1 the latest offering from a company with over a thirty year heritage in delivering field service management software, so there will be a great opportunity to see the latest generation of FSM solution in action – although there will be plenty of best-practice advice that will be suitable for users of any FSM solution.

The five key areas we will be focussing on are as follows:

• Contract Management
• Scheduling
• Mobile tools and communications
• Parts & Inventory Management
• Integration=

Who is this suited for: Whilst this session should be of interest to any field service management professionals, the session is particularly aimed at organisations who are either currently still using manual processes or legacy FSM systems/, FSM systems with limited functionality and looking to see the tools and applications that should be expected as standard in a modern FSM solution. 

The technology being showcased in particular is ideally suited to those companies with over 10 field service engineers and the information presented will be aimed towards an audience of field service managers/directors, operations directors or owners/MDs of Service Companies. 

 

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The webinar will be held at 13:00 BST and you can register your place for the session by clicking here

 

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Competition in the Field Service Management Solution sector is fiercer than ever and new technology is constantly emerging. So we asked a series of industry experts what we should expect of our FSM solution today and what should we look for in a provider?

Features as Standard?

With the amount of functionality in standard FSM applications constantly improving, new innovations quickly become standard features. With this in mind what is the baseline level of functionality we should expect from an FSM solution? I.e. Should a solution include a mobile piece, scheduling, parts management?

Rue Dilhe – Managing Director, Exel Computer Systems explains their solution as being predominantly aimed at “established SME’s within the service industry, these companies are, generally speaking, well aware of the benefits available from a full breadth system.”

“The baseline functionality the majority of our prospective clients look for encompass pretty much all of the technologies and functionality offered. If we are able to show them functionality they weren’t aware of, such as configurable user dashboards displaying pertinent KPIs and reports, then these soon make it onto their requirements list, ” he adds.

“We expect the following to make it onto the majority’s ‘must have’ list: fully integrated solution, a dynamic/assisted scheduler, real-time information, remote engineer application, management reporting, user pertinent reporting, document management, call/case centre management, service oriented CRM, job information and technical documents pushed to engineer device, customisation tools, workflow tools, financial management and the ability to invoice on-site. Not to mention, the preference to partner with a well-established solution provider.”

For Kony, the focus is perhaps more understandably on mobile, as Steve Luong, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, explains.

“Although there are many FSM solutions in the market that address different needs, back-office capabilities such as scheduling, parts & inventory management and team allocation are commoditised features now.”

“Mobile is now a critical functionality in modern solutions, with native apps providing a better user experience and performance over others, allowing leading service organisations to differentiate themselves. Customer-centric solutions that even include the end user into the business process will soon be the new must-have functionality.”

 

Tesseract’s Kevin McNally, comments “In our experience, customers are looking for a best of breed service solution.”

“This includes service contract and asset management, service call taking and scheduling, planned maintenance control, stock & logistics management, quoting, job costing/invoicing and Engineer mobile communication. We are also seeing the requirement to control internal workshop / repair centres as a growth area requiring a different solution to that of field processes.”

“One of the often-forgotten areas of a solution is reporting,” he continues.

“The ability to report on any piece of data is crucial and a reason many companies are looking for change. Our customer’s clients have also become more demanding, and the ability to communicate externally also needs thought, whether that is a web portal, client reporting or direct data integration.”

Deb Geiger, VP Global Marketing, Astea International points out that there is not a 1 size fits all requirement for field service.

“I think that it all depends on the individual needs of the organisation in regards to baseline level of functionality. For example, if a company manages a mix of internal and external subcontractors then the base of functionality also needs to include third party vendor management capabilities,” she comments.

“But at a general level, the most basic elements of FSM solution should have the ability to manage service contract and entitlement information; asset/equipment information; scheduling, parts management, mobile (online & offline), customer self-service, and performance management/reporting as well as ability to configure solution without coding.”

For Mark Homer, Vice President Global Customer Transformation at ServiceMax, a GE Digital company “Any field service management solution worth its weight should handle work planning and scheduling; give technicians all they need to complete a job and close out a work order from a mobile device (on or offline); manage entitlements while technicians are onsite and handle service supply chain logistics”

 

However, he goes on to add that “as field service management evolves to become more integrated in other aspects of the industrial economy and proves a necessary lynch pin of optimising the performance of industrial equipment, these basic functionalities will progress to include more advanced features.”

Again scheduling and mobility are tow key components that are expected by ClickSoftware’s Paul Whitelam, Group VP of Product Marketing “Baseline capabilities for FSM consist of scheduling and mobility (specifically communication with the field and task execution support). Beyond that there are certainly additional aspects such as planning, forecasting, customer engagement, analytics and so forth, but as Field Service Management software becomes increasingly sophisticated, thinking in terms of feature sets can be something of a red herring,” he explains.

“In particular, there are non-functional aspects such as open APIs and extensibility, as well as the deployment model that can have a huge impact.

For example, software delivered via multi-tenant SaaS can offer a significant advantage in terms of agility and speed of deployment. More so than a feature list, it’s the way in which technology is combined with processes and people that delivers business advantage.”

Buying for the future...

So, whilst there is of course a variety of different elements that different experts think of as standard requirements, there are indeed some universal core functionalities that should now be embedded within any FSM solution, with these primarily being some scheduling automation, a mobile tool for engineers in the field and dashboard or similar reporting tools for monitoring what is of course a mission critical part of the business.

But one thing that is certain in our industry is that technological innovation is never far away. Whether it be connected devices, quantum annealing, or augmented reality every where we look there are technologies being intrinsically linked with field service that could change the way we approach service delivery entirely.

So given the constant development of technologies within field service management solutions, what steps should field service companies take to ensure that the solution they opt for is future proof?

Exel’s Dilhe explains that from their experience “from the outset, prospective clients are usually pretty confident they want a common, ‘out-of-the-box’ solution, and this is true for maybe 90% of the implemented solution, the remaining 10% however, the client can usually see a benefit in configuring the solution to the way they work now, whilst having the ability to adapt to how they may work in the future. It is for this reason that within the Eagle Field Service solution Exel provide a customisation tool-kit.”

“Customisations can range from the introduction of simple validation on fields to new panels and scrolling data sets for data entry and data display. Clients are able to extend any table by adding any number of columns for storing additional information, these can be managed from within the software without the need to make any manual database changes.”

Of course customisation sits at the very heart of the Kony offering also however, it is the pedigree of the platform and the provider themselves that offer the best glimpse of how future proof a solution is in the eyes of Luong.

He comments: “To ensure solutions they opt for are future proof, field service companies should look at solutions that have a strong technology stack supported by an underlying platform and cloud. These characteristics will allow for rapid implementation but more importantly, enable simple and fast updates to adapt to a quickly changing marketplace.”

“Additionally, understanding the solution provider’s roadmap and view of the market will ensure alignment between the field service company and provider into the future."

For McNally the responsibility should be shared by the providers and their customers.

“It is difficult to foresee future technologies in the fast-moving modern world, but customers should try to understand the impact of these within their own markets,” he begins.

 

“As an example, the “Internet of Things” may be viewed by some verticals as a distant reality but equipment such as coffee machines, compressors and many other products viewed as “unconnected” are today providing useful data. This information is allowing providers to be both reactive and proactive in their service delivery. It is vital that companies understand the data and use this as a competitive edge.”

“It can seem unfathomable for small and medium size service providers to understand the complexities of new technologies but suppliers should be assisting their customers on their future requirements and helping them understand the benefits, as these may already be “out of the box” based on previous implementations within that vertical market.”

This sentiment is echoed somewhat by Geiger who explains that when selecting technology we can’t just think of today.

“What is right for companies at the moment, might not suit as their business grows and evolves. It’s important for businesses to not only to understand their immediate need but to get the full picture of their objectives so that companies can find a solution that will support them today but also in the future. Even if an organisation may have very limited requirements today, it is much easier to start with a platform solution that has rich capabilities and a high level of configurability instead of a solution that just meets the requirements for today.”

“By leveraging a solution that offers a high-level of configurability, it is very easy for companies to remove fields or turn features “off” with a feature-rich solution, to get the base feature set to support their needs today. But as their business model changes, they have the tools to quickly adapt the solution without having to pay for customisations or having to wait until the software vendor adds specific features to a roadmap if they even decide to add those features at all.”

“You never know what is around the corner, so you need a solution that gives you the flexibility to add functionality as and when you need it.”

For ServiceMax’s Homer however, the answer is simple - the future belongs to the Cloud.

“Because field service organisations rely on remote workers for the majority of the information needed to run their business, flexible and constantly updated cloud-based software is a must – and a pre-requisite for mobile synchronisation and offline capabilities,” he asserts.

“And when it comes to enabling field personnel, companies need to seek out vendors with proven mobile capabilities. They need to find providers who continually invest in the latest mobile architectures for deployment ease and full functionality across all mobile platforms.”

“Lastly, and most importantly, customers need a platform that grows with them. They need a system that easily supports configuration with workflow management that organises standard operating procedures not only in the office, but also in the field. And it should all work together to keep service delivery consistent from the office to the field.”

Cloud-first is again echoed by ClickSoftware’s Whitelam, who also sees the need for field service companies to keep their finger on the pulse n terms of how emerging technology could impact their vertical markets.

“It is often much easier to predict new technology than it is to predict which of these innovations will be widely adopted, and in what manner. Field service companies have to be attentive to what their customers value the most and remain flexible in the face of new technology,” he comments.

 

Indeed Whitelam lists the following as the key to ensuring a future proof approach are:

• Move to cloud-first solutions which enable fast, seamless, and frequent updates to the latest feature sets and enhancements—something all but impossible with on-premises installations.
• Adopt systems with open APIs and extensibility so that new capabilities—be they IoT enabled devices or Augmented Reality goggles—can be easily adopted in a modular way.
• Ensure your FSM solution is highly configurable, and not limited to a particular data model. For example, IoT devices represent a new set of inputs or variables to be incorporated into your operations. Having a generalised approach to data management, coupled with the processing power of a cloud platform enables companies to translate this data into actionable—and automated—improvements.

Solution provider support?

It is interesting to note that many of the experts that we spoke to identified a shared responsibility between vendor and customer to understand the technology trends and establish a sensible roadmap of FSM technology to implement.

Of course in any industry where the product is as absolutely vital to business  operations one would expect a consultative approach from solution providers, but this willingness from many such providers to engage with and in many ways educate the market.

This leads us to question what other factors, aside from feature set and cost, should field service companies take into consideration when selecting a solution provider?

At Exel would prefer to see the selection process as the client choosing a business partner, instead of supplies,” replies Dilhe.

“The chosen solution will become an integral part of the business and a business tool used by most, if not all, employees. As such, it makes sense to ensure you choose a solution provider that can meet your company’s needs, both now and into the future.”

 

“With a 32 year history of implementing our solutions and supporting our clients, we feel our services far exceed those provided by a reseller,” he concludes.

McNally is certainly on the same page here also .

"The implementation of a system should be viewed as a partnership,” he opens, before adding “and partnering with an experienced provider who has a track record of delivering both technology and functionality is of key importance.”

“A strong vision and roadmap is also vital, because implementing a system  should be viewed as a long-term relationship. Speaking with reference customers can be a useful exercise. The software is only one part of the picture, implementation and support are also just as important as is the relationship between the two teams.”

Choosing a provider whose vision aligns with the field service company is key states Luong.

“Field service companies should understand how a provider plans to leverage new technologies and smart services such as IoT, sensors, beacons, image recognition capabilities, integration with cloud services or other public services such as maps, storage, identification,” he says.

“These technologies and services can totally transform existing business processes to make them more efficient, driving costs down while improving customer loyalty by providing a better overall experience.”

“As service continues to become a key differentiator, companies need a partner who understands service – a specialist who can help them get the very best from the software platform, and give them the tools to take service to the next level.” Geiger adds.

“Transitioning to a new solution is often seen as a risk by most organisations - posing potential challenges for business continuity, adoption and usage, and data security”

 

“Many solution providers therefore pride themselves on the speed on their on-boarding process – to get companies up and running on their solution in a matter of weeks. However, aiming for speed often comes at the expense of quality – things overlooked, staff not fully trained, and opportunities missed”

“A quick on-boarding process may potentially cause more problems than it solves. With something as mission critical as a company’s service business, it is worth the time and effort to ensure successful deployment and adoption.”

“Additionally it is important to look at service solutions holistically. There are many cool technologies and new capabilities are entering the market constantly. It is critical to look at all of these solutions in a holistic manner and the value that they will provide to the service business.”

“It is imperative that the solutions share data intelligently between applications, allowing operatives to make decisions and take action with full insight into the situation,” she concludes.

For Homer, another consideration is that “field service organisations need to consider time to market, as with any other investment in enterprise software.”

“Implementation time, employee adoption, and training all need to be looked at critically as they all impact the return on investment. Software vendors should have good options for buyers to evaluate these aspects of their products, as well as a very good understanding of the nuances of the service domain. Without service expertise, product development capabilities can stall and implementation projects can run over budget.”

Finally, Whitelam believes that besides features and costs, field services companies should strongly consider a number of other factors when selecting their FSM solutions including:

• Company viability and focus: Look for external proof points and proven implementations. To what extent is the company focused on FSM?
• Vision: What does the roadmap look like? Does this align to the way you think about your field service business going forward?
• Experience: Has the company worked with companies like you before?
• The Team: This is a long-term partnership, where a strong relationship can lead to great things. Is this the team you want to partner with?
• Support: What kind of ongoing support is available? 24/7? Global? Will this vendor be responsive and strive for your success?

Indeed it seems that whilst the features of field service management solutions are ever evolving, the selection of the right tool for your business should look far beyond a summary list of features on your wish list and ask what can the provider do to make this a partnership that works both as soon as possible after implementation and also in the future.

The right solution is there for you, just look with open eyes.

 

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TIS are an East Midlands based Fire, Security & Communications Specialist providing system integration, repair and maintenance services to a broad range of clients across the UK.

Following several months of planning and development, in a project led by Andy Kearns of Phoenix Corporate Solutions, TIS successfully launched their new Service system (Service Centre by Tesseract) on the 3rd January.

Phoenix support businesses through a range of commercial projects and have specific expertise in implementing Service Management systems in businesses employing large Field Engineering fleets.

This major implementation, impacting upon the daily working lives of 80+ staff at Total Integrated Solutions, went very smoothly, having no negative impact whatsoever on the company's service delivery throughout the launch period….. 2 months later and the system is fully bedded in, having quickly become the new “normal”.

Their new system undoubtedly elevates the efficiency and professionalism of what was already a highly professional outfit.

• Service and Repair Jobs are now allocated and updated electronically and in real time creating a seamless flow of information between Engineer, Office and Client.
• Working on a combination of iPads and Android phones, TIS engineers capture detailed job information from site, creating full visibility of job progress for office and client staff (… the latter via the Remote Customer Access functionality within Service Centre).
• “On-System” Job pricing is straight forward and accurate, speeding up the financial back end processes once jobs have been completed.
• Tailored client reporting is now easy to produce and Management Information coming out of the system is both highly relevant and readily available. Good data vital to any growing business, allowing the management team to make considered decisions based on real information.

Further developments to the system are planned, however the TIS management team (led by Managing Director James Twigg) have taken a sensible and pragmatic approach to implementation in phases, thereby not overburdening (with change) their front-Line team responsible for delivering property and life critical services to their UK-wide client base.

Rolling out systems so effortlessly can only be achieved in an environment of commitment, cooperation and proactivity, all qualities which TIS possess in spades. These same qualities underpin the whole TIS operation and help to explain why they are fast becoming one of the best Security and Fire System integrators in the country.

 

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For further information about this successful project or any of the other services undertaken by TIS or Phoenix Corporate Solutions, please contact Andy Kearns at Phoenix directly (andy@phoenixcs.biz).”

 

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