ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘big-data’ CATEGORY

Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder asks are we smarter than we were in the past, or do we just have better access to data?

When was the last time you asked someone for directions, or used a phone book, or waited for the day’s forecast on the morning news?

Well, that last one is probably something you still do out of habit, but the others are things which have left our consciousness as we can just “Google it” from our smart phones. The emergence of technology and the IoT has flooded the service leader with more data than ever before. Machines talk to machines, technicians collaborate with each other via mobile devices while in the field, and customers interact with the service team in real-time owning their experience.

But with all this access to information and data comes a few challenges. How much is too much data? How can we turn this data into actionable insights? Who needs to know what and when?

These are all questions that the Best-in-Class service leader is tackling right now. As seen in Aberdeen Group’s recent State of Service Management in 2016: Empower the Data-Driven CSO (March 2016) research, one of the top goals for service leadership was improving the quality and relevance of data for the service team. This is a top 3 goal, only trailing the need to improve customer retention and drive service profitability.

Happy customers, profits, and then data quality in that order shows how the impact of data is rising on the agenda of the senior service leader today. But how do we get to a place where data is useful?

Is the answer to our data problem more technology?

Top performers recognise that ensuring the service team has actionable data is a journey and not something that can be solved with one-off investments. It takes a strategy, leadership, and resolve. Connecting the field team to insights helped these organisations resolve issues faster, deliver more value to the customer conversation, and make the field team better at their jobs!

 

All these are great, and the Best-in-Class have some lessons for the rest of us:

Empower the service team with the data they need to make decisions, more isn’t always better.

Top performers ensure the field team has customized data views which provide only the pertinent information for technician for the specific task they are working on. Having the data necessary to solve complex issues at the time of service is integral to ensuring resolution can occur on a first visit, technicians are efficient, and the customer can be back up and running with minimal downtime.

Give the field team the mobile tools to have access to insights.

The field workforce is rapidly changing. We have been fearing the aging workforce for some time now, and it is finally here. But the Best-in-Class ensure that as technicians leave the business, their knowledge does not. They are able to capture best practices and expertise, and store these insights in an accessible location which can be tapped into via mobility in the field.

Leverage machine, customer, and technician data to identify the future of service excellence.

The IoT means different things to different people and industries. But the value isn’t just in the fact that we more devices are connected. The value of the IoT is in connecting the service chain to resolution, value creation, and collaboration. Smart machines and products open up a whole new world of possibilities as savvy organisations can take this data and better understand how to optimise assets performance, build better machines, deliver more targeted services to customers, and ensure technicians know the answer to the problem before they even get on site in front of the machine.

The proliferation of data in this era of the empowered customer can be a challenge for many organisations. Too much data leads to delayed action or inaction altogether. Top performing organisations have invested in technology and their internal processes to ensure they can turn all of the valuable data being captured every minute into actionable insights which drive value.

Top performers were able to take improved data capabilities and turn that into outperformance in key metrics such as customer retention, SLA compliance, and worker productivity.

Don’t be left behind looking at a phone book or reading a map. Tap into real-time data to make the decisions which will lead you into the future of service excellence.

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Bill Pollock, President and Principal Consulting Analyst with Strategies for GrowthSM explains why Big Data isn’t the holy grail, instead focus on the quality, accuracy, accessibility and application of the data you routinely collect...

While much of the ongoing discourse in the global Information Technology (IT) community nowadays seems to center around hot topics, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) or “Big Data”, research has shown that it is not necessarily the size of the database that matters; but, rather, the quality, accuracy, accessibility and application of the relevant data that is being routinely collected, analysed and shared throughout the organisation.

In other words, data does not necessarily need to be “big”; it simply needs to be relevant, accessible and actionable, in order to be useful.

However, this is an important distinction that is missed by many!

First, let’s talk about what the “big” in “big data” really is. According to IBM, every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data – in fact, so much that 90% of the data resident in the world today has been created in just the last two years alone.

As a result, field service organisations now have access to an unprecedented amount of data about the performance of their technicians, their vehicles, the equipment they service and their business performance in general.

However, what differentiates the best practices organisations from all others is best expressed in terms of not only “how accessible is all this data?”, but, rather, “how can it be transformed into valuable information that contributes to increased revenue, reduced costs and improved customer satisfaction?”

 

Other questions are also bandied about, such as “how big is too big data?”, and “what constitutes “big enough” data?”

It is, typically, in their responses to these types of questions, where many field service organisations initially go wrong – that is, they incorrectly believe that since they have already collected mountains of data from multiple sources (i.e., service call activity records, closed call reports, technician generated utilisation and/or productivity reports, machine-to-machine communications; etc.) that they must use all of these data in as many scenarios as possible.

But, the rule of thumb is more a matter of focusing primarily on the data that you “need-to-know”,rather than collecting data that is only “nice-to-know”.

The difference between these two types of data may appear to be subtle at first glance, but it is an important distinction since data collection, in and of itself, requires a massive expenditure of time, resources and investment, both human and pound-wise; it must be gathered, analysed and disseminated through a highly organised and controlled process, with direct senior management oversight and accountability; and it must bridge virtually all areas within the organisation – both from the top-down, bottom-up, and all throughout.

This is what we call “business analytics” – not “big data”; but, rather, just “enough data”.

 

In fact, it is those services organisations that are most successful in managing their business analytics that can easily tell the difference between “big data” and “enough data”.

They are also the ones that can most easily recognise when the bar for data collection, analysis and sharing needs to be raised in order to accommodate anything from the normal evolution of the organisation’s evolving database needs, to more event-driven needs, such as to account for a new product/service launch; increases in the numbers of customers, installed base and/or field technicians; business mergers, acquisitions or consolidation; new strategic alliance partnerships; etc.).

So … how big does your data really need to be?

The answer is simple: Big enough to support the organisation’s ongoing business analytics needs and requirements in terms of the ability to collect, analyse and share all of the data that is deemed important (e.g., business-critical, or mission-critical, etc.); required as input into the organisation’s ongoing metrics, or Key Performance Indicator (KPI), program; as input to annual or other periodic planning and forecasting activities; and the like.

Whether your organisation finds itself “swimming” in a data lake of epic proportions, or simply maintaining a modest database that fully supports its front and back offices; its field technicians, customers, and partners; its management decision makers; strategic partners; or any other stakeholders within the organisation, it will still require a sound “data analytics” program in order to make it all work.

Once again, it does not need to be “big” – just “big enough”, relevant and actionable.

 

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Welcome to the final part of this series on the key trends to have an impact on field service organisations in 2016

 In previous features in this series we’ve touched on servitization in part one, IoT and AR in part two Smart Glasses and Rugged Computing in part three…, and optimised scheduling and connected vehicles in part four

Now as we bring this series to a close we look at to key tools field service managers should be implementing this year. Knowledge sharing platforms and easy reporting solutions…

Knowledge sharing projects will become high priority...

Another year gone and another year closer to an impending ageing workforce crisis for an awful lot of field service companies.

With the number of field service engineers in their mid forties and fifties there is a distinct danger that companies are facing a huge problem not just in the sheer numbers of field service engineers that will need replacing but also in the very real possibility that when these engineers leave, not only will their experience leave with them but also so will their knowledge.

And the incoming Generation Y or Millennials and the outgoing Baby Boomers have many distinct , contrasting characteristics that add further challenges to this.

 

The Baby Boomers for example are hoarders of knowledge, having worked long and hard to gain their experience they were it like a badge of honour and may not necessarily feel comfortable giving that experience away for free.

Millennials on the other hand are ‘Google Natives’, born into a world of social sharing and online collaboration, for them the first thing to do when faced with a challenge to which they don’t know the answer is not to research the topic in a book but to ask their social circle.

The challenge that many field service companies is getting their existing workforce to participate in knowledge sharing platforms, and ensuring that the platform they are building has a familiarity and strong UI that will engage the next generation of field service engineers as they come through.

Fortunately tools like AR can help overcome both challenges by recording remote engineers calls and strong them digitally.

However, regardless of how companies approach the implementation of developing a knowledge bank, it will be a high priority for the majority of field service organisations and those that don’t do so soon could be in a lot of hot water the longer they wait.

Easy reporting will become a key priority for field service companies

Finally we can’t have a top ten about business trends, without mentioning Big Data somewhere can we?

I often say that problem with Big Data for so many people is that it is very often a completely intangible concept.

However, the emergence of dashboards as a business tool in field service is essentially what Big Data is all about.

We can talk about the four V’s (veracity, volume, velocity and variety) or about things like Hadoop or MapR for ever but only a handful of folks really get it and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter.

 

All most of us want to know about Big Data is can it help me see ‘insert relevant business challenge of the day here’. And that’s exactly what many FSM software providers are now promising.

And in today’s world where service is a key differentiator, and where service excellence sits alongside productivity as the two leading KPIs for many field service companies, then the old adage of ‘you can’t manage what you can measure’ holds as much weight as ever.

So as with scheduling, those companies looking at a new FSM solution in 2016 should ensure that the tool they opt for has all the reporting capabilities they could possibly need as instant reporting and easy access to data becomes standard.

 

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What are the trends that will have the most impact on field service in 2016? John Cameron, general manager, Trimble Field Service Management,  reveals his top six.

Field service organisations have reached an unprecedented transformative stage, as an array of advanced tools continue to storm the market helping businesses to transform the way that their field service organisation operates.

Last year saw the expansion of the Internet of Things and the widespread introduction of advanced analytics tools to tackle Big Data. These trends will continue into 2016 along with the need for greater integration. Furthermore, with technology development moving so quickly and companies continually having to modernise their solutions to keep up with the competition, 2016 will see an increase in businesses entrusting one provider to deliver all the functionality and modularity they require to manage their work, workers and assets out in the field.

1. The Internet of Everything - The IoT has been on service businesses’ radar for a while, so the trend isn’t exactly new heading into 2016, but as more businesses invest in connected technology, we’ll see it become an established industry best practice. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 26-billion devices other than smartphones, tablets and computers to be connected via the Internet of Things. For field service organisations, connecting equipment with technicians’ mobile devices and the back office in real time is a necessity. Information captured in the field provides diagnostics and performance metrics that mitigate certain issues as well as tracks patterns and trends for long-range planning. The goal is to ensure an intelligent and preventive—not reactive—approach.
2. Predictive Maintenance Will Fuel Field Service Automation - With the predictive power of connected devices, the field service industry will not only take a more predictive/ proactive approach to service, they’ll begin to automate the field service process. For example, sensors in a piece of equipment could automatically trigger a service call when it needs something repaired or it’s due for regular maintenance. Connected devices take the idea of proactive service work — the service business has enough insight to let the customer know when a machine needs a repair before it fails — and automates the process.
3. Making sense of data for improved intelligence - With the majority of field service organisations deploying a vast range of different technologies out in the field, from GPS and vehicle tracking systems to fleet and work management solutions, many are challenged by the vast amount of data they’re collecting back. The ability to analyse and act on this data will continue to trend in the evolution of field services technology. [quote float="left"]Advanced analytics capabilities will allow organisations to execute on information generated from the field to become more efficient and productive.

    

   Advanced analytics capabilities will allow organisations to execute on information generated from the field to become more efficient and productive. Deploying workforce management solutions with sophisticated analytics tools will enable managers to improve operations with real-time visibility into their operations. Data gathered from smarter mobile apps and equipment sensors will provide insights on performance, tasks, service quality, and new products that will enable field service managers to not only keep up with the competition but to step ahead. Analytics will be embedded and pervasive. After all, the value of analytics is in the answers, not the data.
4. Greater Integration - As back office, telematics and workforce management solutions become more integrated with mobile devices, the opportunities to increase efficiency and productivity are growing exponentially. Field service managers can make real-time decisions remotely by accessing vehicle tracking, scheduling and routing on their mobile devices. This allows organisations to mitigate reckless driving incidents, control wear and tear on their fleet and decrease maintenance costs, all from a handheld. Mobile apps will continue to provide critical information such as daily tasks, customer histories, billing, and the locations of nearby teammates on demand for field service technicians. This access to real-time information empowers the technician to make strategic decisions, recruit help from teammates, and complete jobs on-time the first time, resulting in lower operational costs and higher customer satisfaction.
5. The Power of Mobility - The right mobile architecture can solve many of the tactical challenges field service organisations face today: latent customer needs, increased competition, unmitigated churn and worker productivity. To be successful with any mobility deployment, organisations must choose the best field service solution and adopt the implementation best suited for their operation. Gartner has made the following predictions for the state of mobile in field service by 2016:
   • 2/3rds  of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone
   • 40 per cent of the workforce will be mobile
   • Field service organisations will purchase 53 million tablets in 2016
   • Approximately 56 per cent of smartphones purchased by businesses in North America and Europe will be Android devices
   • As more and more organisations use mobile to automate the service process and eliminate duplicate data entry, those who stick with paper methods will get further and further behind
6. One solution, one provider - With technology development moving so quickly and companies continually having to modernise their solutions to keep up with the competition, 2016 will see an increase in businesses entrusting one provider to deliver all the functionality and modularity they require to manage their work, workers and assets. To achieve that, they need robust and flexible end-to-end platforms backed by a reliable provider.

 

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The Internet of Things is enabling ABB Robotics to transforms its customer service offering, explains Magnus Sävenäs, VP Customer Service, Head of Global Field Service & Training at ABB Robotics.

The ABB Robotics division comprises of robot applications and automation systems across numerous industry sectors, including automotive, foundry, packing, metal and plastics manufacturing.

Over 250,000 robots have been sold worldwide. The majority (35%) are used in machine tending and materials handling, 35% in welding, 8% in painting and 22% in other processes.

The Robotics division has sales and service operations in 53 countries in more than 100 locations and employs 5,500 people.

The company’s motto is “easy to buy, easy to service”, but with such a diverse spread of industries and with customers ranging from large organisations with large “fleets” of robots to small SMEs, providing excellent customer service is challenging to say the least - each customer requires a specific service model, explains Sävenäs.

The robots are often employed in mission-critical operations such as manufacturing, so uptime is critical. No production plants are identical and neither are their service requirements. So service agreements are fully flexible, where customers can make their own choices from a variety of available services.

The company recognised it needed to change from being a cost-based reactive division into a value-based proactive one and that the Internet of Things would be a key enabler.

 

The service operation is now a data-driven business, with five key components: installed products database, service organisation, remote service, customer access to information, and knowledge management.

Product database

Each robot has a “birth certificate” and “medical journal” of all equipment during the entire lifecycle up to “disposal / replacement”. it includes a physical map of all equipment by product group, customer account and location, keeping track of warranty status repairs and changes, updated on-line at every service visit.

Service Management

Maintenance services from ABB Robotics includes preventive maintenance, remote condition monitoring, life cycle assessment, inspection and diagnostics.

In operations where equipment failure impacts severely on operations, Total Time To Fix performance is a critical KPI. For the Robotics service with its global customer base, this was particularly challenging and depended on several elements: initial diagnosis, parts identification, travel time and repair time.

The new service strategy has transformed that Total Time To Fix performance, and there are several key elements:

 

Remote Service

1. Troubleshooting
   Wireless connectivity tools allow ABB to provide a virtual dedicated troubleshooting expert within 5 minutes – an expert on-demand, remote support assistance in the event of a specific problem or failure. The service technician is transformed from a repair guy in the van to a process consultant/technician who can guide the customer remotely through any fault issues.That increases productivity for ABB Robotics and deliveries enhanced support to the customer because uptime is increased.
2. Condition monitoring
   Remote Service is also used to monitor the health of robots 24/7 to increase robot uptime and productivity while reducing the cost of ownership. The robot system is continuously monitored and an automatic alert is generated when the robot condition changes or a problem arises.Regular system health checks and reports are provided utilising secure emote connections. During scheduled sessions, data is downloaded and measured against established performance benchmarks. Based on the findings, maintenance recommendations can be provided.Conditioned-based, predictive and remote monitoring has improved Mean Time Before Failure and reduced Mean Time to Repair statistics.
3. Maintenance scheduling
   Remote Service can generate a maintenance schedule on the basis of actual usage to help reduce maintenance costs.Up to 50% of unplanned stops can be prevented, while robot systems can be brought back into production remotely, avoiding valuable production losses.

Knowledge management

ABB Robotics was previously heavily reliant on the experience, knowledge and skills of its technicians. The company’s Smart Service Information (SSI) platform means no individual is now expected to carry all the information.

Technicians can quickly search all documentation, and there are 3D animated maintenance procedures called ABB Siminstructions. The Smart Device for Service (S4S) is a “Two Pair Of Eyes” solution for problem resolution

Self-serving customers

Customers have a single point of access for all service information and contacts via the “my ABB” self-service portal. It’s an easy-to-use, service deliver eBusiness channel.

Customers can view a physical map of their equipment, their equipment status, service needs, parts and so on. They can view status and health of myRobot fleet; interrogate the system with queries such as “Show me equipment close to running out of warranty”,  “Show me equipment in the later part of the life cycle (due for upgrade) and ”Show me event log of robots”.

Internet of Things, Services and People – IoTSP

There’s lots of discussion in service management about the Internet of Things and Big Data. ABB has been developing a broader strategy which it calls the Internet of Things, Services and People – IoTSP.

Interconnecting things, services and people via the Internet improves data analysis, boosts productivity, enhances reliability, saves energy and costs, generates new revenue opportunities through innovative business models

 

For over a decade ABB has been working to develop and enhance process control systems, communications solutions, sensors and software for the IoTSP. These technologies enable our customers in industries, utilities and infrastructure to analyse their data more intelligently, optimize their operations, boost their productivity, and their flexibility.

ABB is advancing the IoTSP by helping customers develop their existing technologies, while keeping sight of our enduring commitment to safety, reliability, cyber security and data privacy.

The Internet is enabling a revolution in industry is connecting intelligent machines and the collective data generated from a growing number of electronic sensors. We are ‘seeing, hearing, and feeling’ our industrial processes like never before and this empowers the decisions we make to optimise performance.

This revolution allows us to operate machines more safely, with greater efficiency, and with lower environmental impact, not just individually, but as complete systems, working in harmony to enhance power and productivity for a better world.

 

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The UK not-for-profit group The Service Community, run by service professionals with the simple aim of sharing knowledge within the community,  continues to go from strength to strength. Their latest conference held at Aston Business School, discussed Big Data.  Community member Chris Farnarth of Allocate Software reports on the day's presentations.

The Service Community’s Aston University Special Event focused on “Big Data” attracted over thirty guests to participate in a lively forum of discussion with a range of academic and practitioner based perspectives. The host for this Big Data themed event was Aston University, enerously made available to us by Community favourite Professor Tim Baines and Jill Forrest.

The Community continues to thrive with over 140 registered members and each event drives more involvement and new participation. Four key note presentations were delivered offering insight into the ubiquitous subject matter of Big Data.

Aston Business School’s Dr Andreas Schroeder opened with a truly engaging and interactive keynote presentation that reviewed the role that data plays in developing basic, intermediate and advanced services, in particular the technical, organisational and strategic considerations a company should consider.

In the second keynote presentation, Andrew Harrison explained that big data is a cost to Rolls Royce and is only turned to value through knowledge by contributing to three areas of their business:[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Creating value potential in the design of a product
2. Maximising value in the use of product
3. Refreshing value a product’s life and recovering value its end of life

The audience by this stage were truly engaged, challenging perspectives and generating a liely interaction.

 

Andy Reid energised us further with another perspective of Big Data and how Pitney Bowes has used it with great effect.

Andy set the scene explaining the “4 V’s” of Big Data; Volume, Velocity, Variety and Veracity and went on to demonstrate how Pitney Bowes is developing infrastructure to make its own operations more efficient through its use of data, as well as offering location services that can help the company monetize their big data.

Our final key note was presented by Mark Noble of Inca Digital who told his story of how using the data already generated by their high tech digital printers, they were able to dramatically improve the productivity of their Service organisation.

The key lesson being it’s not the quantity of data that is important, but knowing what to do with it!

For example he showed how by combining 3 key indicators of machine performance, his team were able to prioritise service actions on the worst performing machines.

Thus saving money and improving customer satisfaction.

Once again, The Service Community delivered on its objectives. The content of the meetings is the life-blood of The Community, followed closely by the generosity of participants to offer facilities and key skills such as PR, marketing promotion or other services that will keep The Service Community alive.

To this point, the next event is proposed for March 2016 – date and location to be confirmed.

 

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Sumair Dutta of The Service Council explores the findings of their latest IoT research...

Of the near 70% of organisations in The Service Council’s (TSC) community with connected service (or M2M or IoT) projects in place in a 2015 research survey, 53% indicated that they have had remote access to machine data for over 5 years. In return, they have built improved responsive and predictive service delivery processes.

As organisations get more mature around the use of IoT-enabled data in service, they are beginning to identify the opportunity present in leveraging data across other areas of the organisation. This sharing strategy follows a maturity path, wherein engineering and product design are the initial beneficiaries before sales, marketing and other groups can access this data for revenue programs.

Inside the Enterprise
Organisations continue to be extremely silo’d and the use of IoT-generated data is no exception. Largely, service data is typically used by service and operations in an organised manner. Use outside of service tends to be mostly sporadic or ad hoc with a few exceptions. This will change, and the bullets below highlight areas of opportunity currently untapped by most service organisations.

Engineering[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Improve quality of products tied to failure and performance information (currently done by 68% of respondents)
• Work with service teams to improve serviceability of products (currently done by 58% of respondents[/unordered_list]

Product Design and Systems Support[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Track software versions and make necessary updates (currently done by 40% of respondents)
• Add/remove product features tied to usage (currently done by 19% of respondents)[/unordered_list]

Operations and Business Planning[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Predict future business trends and plan resource needs (currently done by 36% respondents)
• Work with service teams to manage performance-based contracts (currently done by 40% of respondents)
•  Manage and administer pay-per-use[/unordered_list]

HR and Training[unordered_list style="bullet"]

•   Improve and modify training based on service event occurrence (currently done by 36% of respondents)
• Deliver real-time training during a service event (currently done by 23% of respondents)[/unordered_list]

Sales and Marketing[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Improve account management with better access into customer usage of product and features (currently done minimally)
• Personalise messaging and content tied to customer preferences (done minimally)
• Recognise need for and build new services (currently done by 28% of respondents)[/unordered_list]

Supply Chain
[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Manage inventory replenishment levels (currently done minimally)
•  Evaluate partner performance and isolate quality issues to supply chain link (currently done minimally)[/unordered_list]

Other teams such as compliance and finance cam also tap into these data streams for better results, but as with most maturity models, this takes time. Progress requires interest on behalf of non-service groups to tap into this data; the ability to easily acquire and analyse data; and a set of processes to use this data to enact business change. These changes aren’t usually part of the short-term goals provided to these teams. However, as organisations begin to take an integrated look at customer journeys and customer success, there will be better alignment of functional activities with broader organisation and customer objectives.[quote float="left"]Delivering value is extremely important, but so is selling the sizzle...[/quote]Outside the Enterprise
In increasing the reach of IoT investments, organisations still run into a large group of customers who are unwilling to connect. Security and regulatory concerns lend to this lack of commitment from customers but it also comes down to a fear of connectivity and the lack of understanding in the true value.

Most of the financial value discussed with remote monitoring accrues to the servicing organisation. While there are uptime and efficiency benefits for the end customer, these customers either have to pay more for it, or are unaware of the benefit provided. In some instances, customers believe they are receiving less value, as the service teams are less visible. Therefore, delivering value is extremely important, but so is selling the sizzle.

To this end, it is important to consistently provide customers with visibility into:[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• IoT infrastructure investments made to support their businesses
• Reporting tied to issue, failure and cost avoidance
• Data on asset usage and performance
• Strategies to maximize customer outcomes[/unordered_list]

More than 60% of those in TSC’s research with IoT deployments in place already provide operating and performance information to customers. Traditionally this data has been in the form of emailed reports featuring historical performance. Now, there is a greater emphasis on providing diagnostic information and transaction logs in a more real-time manner. In addition, organisations are also providing their customers with access to benchmarking data tied to the performance of other like assets or other like customers.

With the aid of this information, customers see additional value in connecting via IoT, on top of the improved service delivered by their servicing partner. It also opens up the door for co-innovation opportunities where the customer and the servicing organisation can create new relationship and value opportunities that benefit both. It is also worth noting that these data reports generate additional revenue. Fifty-five percent (55%) of TSC’s community with IoT deployments in place indicate that their customers currently pay for reporting and additional data that is provided by the servicing organisation.

As service organisations look to transition to become solution partners, they can greatly improve their positioning with customers with the aid of IoT-enabled performance data. However, there has to be a greater emphasis on collaboration and innovation around the use of IoT data to truly drive sustained enterprise and customer value.

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 By 2018, half of business ethics violations will occur through improper use of Big Data Analytics, says Gartner.

Analytics projects that utilize big data or advanced analytics are increasingly popular but present a heightened risk of failure, according to Gartner, Inc. which says analytics leaders can improve the likelihood of success by following five best practices.

"Although big data and advanced analytics projects risk many of the same pitfalls as traditional projects, in most cases, these risks are accentuated due to the volume and variety of data, or the sophistication of advanced analytics capabilities," said Alexander Linden, research director at Gartner who is  presenting on advanced analytics at Gartner's  Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit 2015, this week in Munich, Germany. "Most pitfalls will not result in an obvious technical or analytic failure. Rather they will result in a failure to deliver business value."

Failure to properly understand and mitigate the risks can have a number of unintended and highly impactful consequences. Those can include loss of reputation, limitations in business operations, losing out to competitors, inefficient or wasted use of resources, and even legal sanctions.

Gartner also predicts that, by 2018, 50% of business ethics violations will occur through improper use of big data analytics. Following key best practices will help analytics leaders to improve the likelihood of success, and they include:

1. Linking Analytics to Business Outcomes through Benefits Mapping
   Analytics must enable a business decision maker to take action, and that action should have a measurable effect — whether the effect is directly or indirectly achieved. Linking analytic outputs to traceable outcomes using a formal benefits-management and mapping process can help the analytics team navigate the complexities of the business environment, and keep analytic efforts both relevant and justifiable
2. Investing in advanced analytics with caution
   Many organizations believe that Big Data automatically requires advanced analytics. However, the data-crunching power required to manage the big data characteristics of volume, velocity and variety does not inherently require any more sophisticated algorithmic processing. It is the complexity of the analytical question to be addressed that drives the need for advanced analytic tools, and in many cases desired outcomes can be achieved without resorting to more sophisticated analysis.
3. Balancing analytic insight with the ability of the organisation to make use of the analysis
   Because analytics can only be beneficial in organizations that are willing to embrace change, it makes sense to limit investment in analytics to a level that matches the organization's ability to use the resulting insights. Analytics may not be the most suitable approach if  pertinent data is absent, when there are high levels of ambiguity, or where there are entrenched opposing points of view.In these cases, scenario planning, options-based strategies, and critical thinking should also be incorporated into analytical approaches to better support the organization's ability to take action.
4. Prioritizing incremental improvements over business transformation
   Using big data and advanced analytics to improve existing analyses, or to incrementally update and extend an existing business process, is easier than using them to deliver business transformation, because there are fewer dependencies to overcome to ensure success. Care should be taken to validate the level of overall change required. In some cases, deep reform of the business strategy may still be necessary — for instance, when a new disruptive vendor enters a market, when technology innovation changes the business model, or when an organization has become dysfunctional.
5. Considering alternative approaches to reaching the same goal
   Few objectives can only be achieved in one way. Statistical modelling, data mining and machine learning algorithms all provide means of testing ideas and refining solution propositions. Big data and advanced analytics help validate proposed hypotheses and open an even wider range of potential approaches to addressing corporate priorities. Not all problems even require a fully engineered analytical solution. Investment may be better targeted on human factors, re-education or reframing the problem.

 

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Field Service has long been an industry open to embracing the latest innovations, but what technology will have the greatest impact in the long term on field service operations? In Part One of this two-part review, FSN's Editor-in-Chief Kris Oldland gives his opinion on what technology will be the most important driving field service technology forward.

As technology becomes ever increasingly intertwined with the evolution of business in these early decades of the twentieth century, the importance of identifying the right technologies that can drive a business forward.

As opposed to those that may be either just passing fads (such as the clamour for Google Glass perhaps?) or technologies that become so over-hyped, that we see unrealistic expectations laid at their door, so when initial Beta versions are launched they ultimately seemed doomed to failure making it harder to win over sceptics once the technology finally does mature enough to be significantly deployed (once again… Glass anyone?)

We have seen huge examples of companies backing the right technology, embracing it, building it into their DNA and becoming massive successes.

Salesforce saw the potential of the Cloud and reinvented the global CRM marketplace; MAN Truck and Bus UK embraced telematics to create the Trucknology generation and saw revenue grow by 1000% within a decade.

Then there is Amazon who through a studied focus on developing Big Data based technologies and algorithms, have evolved from being an online shopping portal with ‘a smile on the box’ to being not only the online shopping portal, but also the name in enterprise Cloud solutions, and perhaps the only real competitor to the Apple and Google duopoly of digital music and film distribution via their impressive Prime service.

But it is not only the household names that can take advantage of technology.

 

Take Service2 for example, a local HVAC and Gas Appliance maintenance firm based in the North of England who were a Field Service News case study earlier this year. Through the implementation of field service management software they are now in a position to have far greater grasp on their P&L, deliver a superior level of service to their customers, and are perfectly primed for rapid expansion. For them, field service management technology is a massive enabler and key driver for their business.

Another fantastic example was shared with us by Nick Frank, Frank Consulting on a recent Field Service News webinar. Nick described how Northern Irish business LISTO who have been able to combine an understanding of customers’ needs, some out of the box thinking and using existing technologies have been able to help SME’s help shape not only their own futures but seriously disrupt their relative markets whilst doing so, causing new benchmarks and customer expectations and again being empowered by technology.

So in such an environment where technology can be a genuine key differentiator for companies both big and small, the technology analysts such as Aberdeen and Gartner play a huge role in helping us assess what technologies we should be exploring, researching and investing in to help us become leaders in our field.

Indeed the annual Gartner hype cycle has become one of the most hotly anticipated publications within industry, as a barometer initially of which technologies were gaining the most attention across global media and businesses alike and now also incorporates an indication of maturity for each technology listed as well to help us further understand where such technologies sit in the road map for future business operations that Gartner predicts we should potentially be adopting.

However, the rapid evolution of technology in what many are referring to as a golden age of information, is progressing at such a rapid speed that even Gartner are unable to keep up sometimes it seems. Having dominated business technology conversations for the last two years, Big Data disappeared from the company's 2015 Hype Cycle entirely. The reason, according to Gartner Analyst Betsy Burton is that “Big Data has quickly moved over the Peak of Inflated Expectations and has become prevalent in our lives”.

And whilst this is almost certainly true, the fact is that Big Data remains a mystery to many outside of the Data Scientist illuminati who are redefining the way business operates today.

 

As Dave Hart, ServiceMax Vice President of Global Customer Transformation commented in a previous Field Service News podcast, “Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but nobody really knows how to do it.”

Yet the fact is the ability to build easily configurable dashboards, that give field service directors and their managers access to the vast swathes of data generated by a field service team is high on the list of any company currently exploring a new field service management system.

John Cooper, Head of IT and Workflow Solutions in Sony’s Professional Solutions explained in a recent exclusive Field Service News interview: “We have this dream of the account managers turning up at customer sites and being completely clued in with all the stuff that’s happened in a nice simple to understand graphical way. So they don’t need to get into technical complexity but they know what we’ve done for the customers, they know of any live issues and they’re not going to get ambushed with you’ve got this problem or that problem.”

Such open flow of data and more importantly is of course powered by Big Data so whilst the technical whirrings of this monumental technology may not be fully understood by those outside of those niche Data Scientist circles, the reality is that it’s impact is very much being felt, even if it is through its output and application rather than a more tangible, physical everyday sense.

 

However, is Big Data the most important technology changing the way business operates today?

Well in the sphere of field service there are justified claims for a number of other recent technologies. Without doubt one of the most important developments that has truly revolutionised our industries and the way field service operates is the leap forward mobile computing pushed dramatically forward by the rise in prominence of the smartphone and iPhone in particular.

Look out for Part 2 of this review where Kris examines the case for the Cloud and the Internet of Things as the most important technology for the future of field service.

 

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