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As we continue to bring you a selection of features from The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we now turn our attention to one of the core tools for building future success, namely the implementation of Analytics and intelligence

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In today’s challenging business environment, there is little margin for error. Service managers need an even greater and fully in-depth understanding of their business to improve business planning, helping them make better-informed decisions, to ultimately keep ahead of the competition whilst attracting new customers and retaining their existing customers.

Instant access to management information

The benefits of replacing hand-crafted reports and spreadsheets with more interactive, integrated and intuitive tools are well documented.

As well as removing the unnecessary heavy wastage of man hours, and delaying what is often critical business decisions that can impact your opportunities to not only grow but also identify areas of weakness within your business that could potentially lead to loss of clients, easier access to your data improves control of your business with the following key insights:

• Intelligence to recognise emerging trends: Today’s business environment is faster paces nad more dynamic than ever before, whilst in the past reputations could be built on doing what you do and doing it well, today standing still can lead to dangerously dramatic decline in business, particularly from a service point. Since the economic crash in 2008 service has risen to become the key differentiator between businesses and with modern consumers (both B2B and B2C) well equipped to air any grievances in public via social media the pitfalls of failing service can be catastrophic for a business. As technology continues to push the boundaries of what is possible, it is imperative that service orientated companies embrace this to stay ahead of the competition and deliver service excellence at all times.
• The ability to identify and seize new opportunities or ward off threats: Of course embracing technology doesn’t just mean delivering better standards of service to customers. New emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things can help businesses move from a traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more efficient and cost effective preventative maintenance approach. Through remote monitoring optimum performances can delivered across the install base ultimately leading to less service calls in the long term.
• Power to understand key areas delivering profit (and loss): As the old adage goes you can only manage what you measure. Field service companies are perhaps uniquely positioned to be able to gather more information about their customers than any other industry as they have the benefit of ‘eyes and ears’ on site with your customers. The flow of this information from business unit to business unit allows for far greater insight of where new potential revenue streams may lie, as well as profit leakage may be occurring.
• Fast, informed decision-making based on accurate and live information: The rise in prevalence of dashboard analytics now make it possible for field service managers and their colleagues in other business areas such as procurement and sales to see trends based on the data collected easily and instantly, empowering them to make critical business decisions, and to get them right.
• Unprecedented insight into the most/least profitable areas of your business: In terms of data collection, processing and analysis we are truly living in a golden age. Businesses that harness the power of the data they have access to not only have superior understanding of their own businesses but also of their customers and most crucially of their customers pain points.

Your back-end service management solution should be able to do all the work of collating real-time information automatically across your jobs.

It should also make easy work of presenting it in the formats that are most useful to your management team, providing full visibility of contract profitability and equipping decision-makers with instant access to vital information on the business, including your profit forecasts.

Easy-to-understand analytics

As a matter of course, your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity, from viewing a daily high-level graphical KPI dashboard, down to examining detailed monthly reports.

Not surprisingly, analytical dashboards are fast becoming the service manager’s reporting tool of choice. They offer true anytime/anywhere reporting, via a browser or mobile device, in a way that makes it easy to instantly grasp the significance of the information.

If you have this dashboard facility in your service management solution, you’ll be able to drill down to the original data source to analyse all your core data including: customer status; financials; performance and productivity of engineers, with hours worked and number of visits; stock and supplier KPIs; calls by equipment, site and efficiency; costing of jobs and engineers; call response times.

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Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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September is a busy time for conferences, and if you are in the UK there's an opportunity to attend two very down to earth events.  Here’s a preview by Nick Frank,  who also reports on the latest developments in a campaign to re-invent manufacturing and service in the UK.

30th September: The Service Community

Hosted by the Aston University in Birmingham. A very different event for service industry professionals. We are expecting over 40 participants to discuss and debate how Big Data is being used to affect customer outcomes. Practitioners from Rolls Royce, Pitney Bowes and Inca will be discussing their personal experiences.  In addition we will have a view of the future from Andreas Schroeder of the Aston Business School. This event is unique: there are no sponsors, no hidden agendas, just professionals talking to professionals…a true community. To sign up see the Service Community website

6th October: Creating Value through Service.

A one-day conference hosed by the Cambridge Service Alliance . Although a paid conference, I always find the CSA events well worth going to as they present ideas that are on the leading edge of services development in industry.

Something up in UK manufacturing

There is something up in the UK which will have tremendous implication on field service in the future. I was at the House Commons with Professor Raj Roy and his team from Cranfield as well as senior leaders from some of the UK’s leading manufacturing and engineering companies when they presented a case for a National Policy for Through Life Engineering Services to MPs.

Through Life Engineering Services can be described as ‘Engineering for Life’ – making things work better for longer; delivering lifetime value from products, assets and infrastructure

Cranfield’s EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing has been working on the engineering expertise that underpins the ability for companies to provide their customers with AVAILABILITY and/or OUTCOME based contracts. These contracts reflect a world where customers no longer want to purchase the asset, but are redefining their needs in terms of outcomes - Rolls Royce’s Power by the Hour is one of the best known examples.

Research has shown that the TES market in the UK generated £23bn revenues for the UK. The exciting thing for the UK is that politicians, technology and industry are starting to realise that manufacturing must re-invent itself, if it is to be sustainable and competitive. They see that manufacturing is no longer just about the product. With the IoT, data and analytics it has become much much more fuzzy. This has tremendous implications for field service. A National Policy will speed up this change and hence the new skills sets required to effectively operate in these re-defined business environment. We will return to this subject at a later date.

Welcome back from summer!!

 

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Utilities firms are looking to Big Data and smart technology to move away from costly reactive maintenance. Marina Stedman, ClickSoftware, explains why...

Utility companies that typically manage vast networks of locations, staff, and supplies have the unenviable task of keeping the lights on regardless of what Mother Nature chooses to throw at them. It is an industry sector that is constantly investing and innovating but the impact often goes unnoticed, with customers and regulators only really paying attention when something goes wrong, a service is not delivered or when their bills increase.

The unpredictable nature of many countries’ climates and weather means that utility companies face many challenges to keep everything on an even keel. Add to that the fact that many organisations in the sector utilise subcontractors to support their engineering and maintenance activities, it leaves these companies largely operating in a vacuum, reacting to events when they occur.

This is corroborated by a recent OFWAT report that stated that 90 per cent of maintenance work is reactive and 33 per cent of down time losses are a result of unplanned maintenance, which costs utilities organisations 50 per cent more to deliver than planned maintenance.

These are huge figures in a sector that is traditionally run on very tight margins. It is a situation that is not sustainable, especially in the face of mounting consumer and political opposition to increasing bills and the well-known risks and issues of maintaining supply. Instead, we are seeing more and more companies pursuing a proactive system for both planned and unplanned maintenance.

The ability to manage and schedule field service staff while on the move is one of the key technologies driving the transition. The proliferation of connected devices integrated with sophisticated scheduling software is transforming the way that utility companies work in the field. With instant access to staff availability, asset data and interpretive scheduling software, the decision and communications process can be managed on a real-time basis.

While much has been made of big data for several years now, we are finally seeing companies beginning to confront the opportunities it presents. The key for this new proactive approach is in the immediacy of data collection and the availability and interpretation of that data.

 

Previously companies would require field workers to manually complete job data on sheets on site and only be able to update central databases from a central location. That equated to a lot of downtime and wasted effort. There was also a reliance on data being accurately completed on-site and then transcribed into the central office system, something which is not always easy to do in remote off-site locations.

Engineers using smart, mobile devices can now log data as they go along, provide progress reports, take photographic evidence, collect signatures after jobs have been completed and order in supplies all while still on site. This helps utility companies to have more visibility over the way both direct and subcontracted work is completed, to help them schedule resources with maximum accuracy and plan for next jobs and actions. Using real-time big data to analyse and then schedule people with the right skills to the right tasks in a way that minimises downtime and no longer requires them to return to a central point will help utility companies move from being reactive to proactive.

As staff are able to instantly update job status and see new jobs being scheduled while out on the road, a more finely tuned operation will create value for both the company and the customer.

In addition to the smart devices engineers now carry with them, we are starting to see the introduction of smart objects. Connected pylons, life buoys, sensors in the road and automatic weather sensors will all become available. These devices will be used to track a multitude of environmental factors that are key to the smooth operation of a utility company. As well as external smart devices tracking environmental factors, we are already seeing these kinds of devices in our own homes with smart meters that show both the consumer and the utility provider what’s being used.

Taking a proactive approach to scheduling based on a combination of environmental, logistical and organisational big data, delivered directly to field staff via mobile smart devices is a developing science but one which many forward-thinking utilities firms are introducing today.

However, given the speed at which smart technology and big data interpretation is developing, we expect to see the number of reactive responses start to drop and be replaced with pro-active, forecasted and tailored scheduling. It will be a virtuous circle as more preventative work will reduce the number of reactive situations companies need to manage. The cumulative effect will be less pressure on operating margins, more effective use of skilled field resources and ultimately a better customer experience.

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Big Data remains a big topic of conversation in field service but is it really all that different to business intelligence? Dan Barber of service management software providers Zafire gave us his thoughts as we caught up with him on his stand at this years Service Management Expo.

 

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Implementing mobile apps alongside developing a good understanding of your customers can pave the way to harnessing the power of IoT, writes consultant Nick Frank.

The key to monetising the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data is not to focus on the technology itself, but the impact on customers’ business processes and business model. However, many companies do not find it easy to imagine how their business model might change. Many are lost in the technical jargon and the abstract nature of data and analytics.

Mobile apps present a pragmatic way forward for industrial companies to understand how connectivity technologies and data can make a difference to their business. By their very nature, mobile apps affect how people “do stuff” and so the business rationale is often easier to define and quantify. As managers and leaders become savvier about apps, their imagination starts to kick in and they see the possibilities new technologies can have on their customers’ business success.

But what exactly is a mobile app? A mobile app is a software programme designed to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. They can be relatively simple such as the weather app on your phone, or they can be tremendously complex such as running a VMI business with its own databases, analytics, integrating a number of legacy systems. Gartner a leading technology research and advisory company, expects that by 2017 mobile apps will be downloaded more than 268 billion times and mobile apps users will provide personalised data streams to more than 100 apps and services every day. Mobile apps have already become truly integrated into most people’s lives. Although the same is not yet true of business, perceptions are rapidly changing. Undoubtedly driven by their everyday life experiences, managers are starting to imagine the value apps can bring to their own business by linking people with processes and systems more effectively.

Talk to leading providers of mobile apps and they will tell you it is not a case of building an app that replaces an existing process. Yes, the app is something new, but if it does not make that process more efficient, then it has minimal value. Often the mistake many companies make is that they see mobile apps as a separate marketing tool or feature. Companies who successfully implement mobile applications take a more strategic perspective and see the app as being embedded within the business processes. These companies first examine their existing workflows in detail to uncover improvement opportunities. Then, they identify the business benefits they expect to receive from the solution and create the metrics that demonstrate value after the rollout. And finally, these organisations pay attention to the deployment in terms of end-user acceptance, testing, implementation and change management.

 

One such app developer, Lextech, even coined ROA, or “Return on App,” as a tool for measuring the value of the mobile app versus the investment in it. To make sure app projects are worthwhile, Lextech helps their clients find apps that provide a 100% ROA within 12 months or less. It is this emphasis on understanding what the mobile app can do for the business that is critical to success. This success can be measured in terms of cost saving, new revenues, customer satisfaction or even employee satisfaction.

The great thing about mobile apps is that they provide solutions to make life easier for employees on the move. Whether that be to automate a process or have access to relevant data, these solutions use the internet/telecoms infrastructure to increase the flexibility and effectiveness of people while they are outside the normal company IT infrastructure. These efficiencies can be easily quantified within the operation and when multiplied across many people, can have a significant financial impact. This makes building the investment plan and decision making much easier to push through than more intangible IoT/strategy/business model projects.

 

Often companies start with automating the workflow because clear time savings can be demonstrated and measured. For example, SKF, the leading worldwide manufacturer and supplier of precision bearings, spindles and seals, knew that their factory inspectors recorded huge quantities of information on paper forms and clipboards. They replaced their paper based inspection processes with an intuitive app that enabled data to be collected and automatically downloaded into the factories reporting systems, thus reducing the reporting time by 70%. But often there are many other benefits that are not anticipated. In this case, nearly real-time inspection enabled faster decision-making on quality issues, which in the end translated to better margins. Highly skilled employees were able to focus on adding value rather than administration. (Source: Lextech)

For example an industrial services company with over 100,000 employees in 150 countries had field workers who often needed to order materials for their clients that could range from cleaning supplies to HVAC systems. When they reviewed their workflow, it was apparent that the process was complex and inconsistent as it involved a mix of email, PDF attachments and phone calls. They defined a very clear metric, which was to reduce the turnaround time for a PO. Their solution was to replace the existing legacy system by developing a dedicated app that enabled the field worker to directly enter the relevant details, submit the request, and the manager to be alerted to approve the PO. By dramatically speeding up the PO process, not only has customer frustration declined, but cash flow has improved through faster invoicing.

 

But if we step back from these examples, what do we see? Companies are learning how to effectively use data and technology to improve their internal business processes. This journey is more cultural than technological. It is about companies and people not getting overly excited by technology for technology’s sake, but keeping their focus on the users and the business outcomes. Switch this same emphasis to their customers’ business, and they will be much better positioned to monetize the new technologies entering our everyday work environment at an exponential rate.

This change in mind-set is very real, even for companies that have already integrated data and intelligence into their own business model. For example in a recent FSN interview, Dave Gordon from Rolls Royce’s Defence business described how, even in a very sophisticated data driven business, the design of a fuel management app had a deeper impact on the business than he first imagined. The app itself came from a desire to better utilise the vast quantities of information being generated from their service contracts, which told them how efficiently their aircraft were being flown. Fuel consumption is a huge part of the total operating costs for all their defence customers, so designing a mobile app which ‘brought to life’ this data could help their customers significantly reduce their fuel bills. By using mobile app technology, they were able to work outside the existing IT architecture, which allowed greater creativity without losing out on security. Finally, the practical nature of the app caught the imagination of the Board of Directors, who appreciated the opportunities that data analytics and connectivity could bring to their customers.

 

The mobile app is just the tip of the iceberg. The amount of information and know-how successful industrial companies possess cannot be underestimated. One reason industrial brands are so robust is because they have delivered value, knowledge and outcomes over many years. For many businesses, the growth of digital services around mobile apps and IoT is a strategic imperative. Especially in industries that have complex supply chains requiring large quantities of technical information, the opportunity to gain competitive advantage through a knowledge platform that supports the supply chain ecosystem is significant.

 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Filippo Zingariello, Director of Global Strategic Development at SKF described how their SKF Insight programme is critical to delivering value to customers in mission critical applications. This programme has a specific goal, “Bearing Health Management will make it simpler and more convenient for customers to conduct condition monitoring and increase reliability, simplify maintenance, extend bearing life and cut total life cycle costs.” SKF has developed 45 different iPad apps that enable customers to access the data and intelligence of their assets. With over a half million machines connected to the SKF cloud, mobile apps are one of the enabling technologies for a new SKF business models based on outcomes and intelligence.

Through these examples, we have seen how mobile apps are initially used by businesses to connect their employees to their business systems so they can deliver value more effectively. As that insight into the customer’s business model grows, so mobile apps become an important enabler for customers to connect with its products and services. In this way mobile apps are not just an interesting little icon on a screen. Rather, they are an important enabler for mind-set changes that will enable companies to harness the power of the IoT and analytics technologies.

 

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Technology analysts Juniper Research are forecasting that in revenue terms the telematics sector will continue to outperform all other M2M markets over the next five years, with one in five passenger vehicles connected globally by 2019. Connected cars will represent 20% of the global car market
by 2019, the company predicts.

Smartphone-based models have become the key disruptor for M2M, as sectors such as healthcare, consumer electronics and retail continue to evolve. Juniper Research forecasts that the M2M sector will generate service revenues of over $40 billion globally by 2019 - doubling the size of today’s market.

Smart metering to see global growth

The new research, M2M & Embedded Devices: Strategic Analysis & Vertical Market Forecasts 2015-2019, observed that the roll-out of smart metering initiatives will see rapid up-take over the next six years, driven in part by governments’ ambitions to increase efficiency.

According to research author Anthony Cox: “Both India and China are expected to see rapid adoption of smart metering as new metering infrastructure is installed and smart cities are created.”

 

The utility sector however is not expected to generate similar revenues to that of the connected automotive sector.

Mergers, acquisitions, new applications

Agriculture and environmental applications are starting to emerge as important new sectors in the M2M market, with applications as diverse as wild-life and farm animal monitoring, and increasing productivity through precise field mapping. Some of the industry’s most powerful players are coming together, such as the merger of KORE Telematics and Raco Wireless, and the acquisition by Huawei of the M2M technology start-up Neul.

Other key findings include:

• The US remains the leading geographical region for M2M, ahead of Western Europe. China is becoming increasingly important as initiatives by the country’s major carriers begin to take shape.
• Implementation of Big Data analytics will play an increasingly important role, particularly in areas such as telematics, smart metering and healthcare.

Key questions, says Juniper are:

1. Which market verticals hold the greatest promise in terms of service and connectivity enablement revenues?
2. What are the prospects for cellular-based M2M modules?
3. How are smartphones and Big Data playing a role in the M2M universe, and how will these devices and technologies affect the M2M market moving forward?
4. How is the API landscape developing and what role does it play?
5. How will the IoT and the M2M universe interrelate with one another?

 

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As the Internet of Things, Big Data, and Cloud computing all become commonly heard phrases within Field Service we must start to consider the very real question of cyber-security with ever greater attention. But what does Cyber security look like in 2015?

One of the significant themes that came through from the victims of high profile cyber attacks in the last year was that they all had heavy investment in IT security, regular testing programmes and almost certainly long lists of accreditations. However, event his was not enough to keep them safe from groups of attackers and the resultant losses and associated fines for such detected breaches.

This year the cyber security landscape will once again continue to develop swiftly as attacks likely become even more frequent and sophisticated and from more corners of the world than ever before. The one thing that will remain the same however is that investing in the wrong defences will again result in an openness to cyber attack and the potential of real damage.

Cyber threat actors are commonly split into three groups: nation states, cyber criminals and cyber activists or hacktivists. As 2015 evolves these threat factors look set to continue to advance their capabilities.

Often nation states – who see cyber attacks as being a cheap, effective and most importantly plausibly deniable espionage tool – can be the dark hand behind theft of proprietary or sensitive data for the benefit of one of their home-grown enterprises.

Cyber criminals, motivated by financial gain, have traditionally targeted a company’s customer base, stealing personal details or credit card information to use in fraud or to sell.

Cyber activists, motivated by a range of factors – including most simply personal amusement, but also factors such as, anti-capitalist sentiment, environmental concerns, religion and nationalism – base their activities on disrupting operations or generating embarrassment.

An ever-changing landscape

It is also predicted that many global political developments will also have their impact on shaping the cyber threat environment across 2015 and beyond.

Countries that not too long ago would have been clumsy and naive when it comes to their cyber capabilities have now established sophisticated capabilities by nurturing their local home-grown hacktivist groups.

Meanwhile new hubs of cyber criminal activity will emerge and will set their focus on new targets. Driven by the disparity between the rich nations and the poor on an international level, plus the growing access of IT and as such rapidly developing IT skills of members of the latter.

All of this is also becoming easier and being better facilitated by new ways of communicating, such as cyber criminals' and activists' use of the Dark Web to buy and sell hacking tools and techniques, using anonymous currency such as Bitcoin.

 

Another trend that we will likely see continue on from 2014 is the gradual blurring of the lines of the roles and loyalties of these threat actors. Last year we shad the emergence of criminals acting with a degree of impunity contingent on targeting politically expedient victims, or hacktivist groups becoming involved in attacks in support of government agenda.

As sophisticated tools and techniques become more widespread, and the distinctions between the threat actors become more blurred, the long-term outlook for cyber threats is concerning. The constraining factor previously was that the people with the intent to conduct widespread and high-impact cyber attacks – the activists and the criminals – did not have the capability. This may not remain the case for much longer.

How best to defend your organisation

Very simply throwing more money at the problem is no longer a viable solution.

With finite resources, it is just simply impossible to protect every asset against every possible threat.

The key is to understand which threat actors are likely to be targeting your organisation, what are your key assets and how do you protect those.

Modern Cyber defence needs to be intelligence-led, risk-based and prioritised – it is no longer just a compliance exercise.

There are five mistakes that organisations cannot afford to make during 2015:

1. Taking a broad sweep approach: You cannot fail to build your cyber defences around a granular understanding of threat. In 2015 all cyber-defence programs should be intelligence led. This includes collecting operational and strategic information that helps you understand the specific nature of the threat. It may also be necessary across your supply chain, as vulnerabilities in subcontractors or suppliers often affect a larger organisation (or vice-versa) – attackers will always focus on the weakest link.
2. Spending too much time, effort and money on prevention and not enough on detection. Companies need to just accept that breaches will be inevitable in todays world and spend time developing and testing response plans, moving form different types of attacks to highlight which plans are most important.
3. Treating cyber security as an IT issue rather than a business risk. Many organisations accept that cyber security is a business risk, rather than an IT-specific issue – but not many act on this by integrating cyber security risk management with wider business risk management processes.
4. Not identifying and protecting your most important assets. Companies need to focus their budgets on prioritising protection. Many tend to be excessively targeted on delivering company-wide compliance, yet don’t effectively protect their key assets.
5. Final many companies simply do not have the technical defences to deal with sophisticated and persistent threats. Across 2015, an increasingly broad group of highly capable actors will target critical assets across a wide range of organisations.

 

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Technology and field service are now almost inherently intertwined such is the rapid evolution of field service industry. As we enter the New Year Field Service News continues to take a look at some of the key technologies that we believe will have a significant impact on the way field service will continue to evolve.

In the first part of this series we looked at wearables, NFC and the Cloud. Now we turn our attention to the Internet of Things, Big Data and Cyber Security…

The Internet of Things will start becoming an integral part of field service…

Ahh Gartner’s Hype-Cycle. The “peak of inflated expectations”, the “trough of despair” and the brilliant “plateau of productivity” – every-time I look at it I conjure up images of a Jules Verne –esque mysterious lost island where herds of wild analysts and ferrel consultants roam wild, free and happy. I may well be alone in this, but I’m certainly not alone in keeping an eye on where emerging tech is on the cycle.

They may not always get it right, but to be fair to the good folk at Gartner, their usually pretty close.

 

So it was with interest last August that I looked at the latest hype cycle and saw that Internet of Things had just superseded Big Data at the top of the tree where the “hyperbole has hit hyperdrive” (If anyone at Gartner’s paying attention you can have that one for free!). I found this particularly interesting for two reasons.

Firstly whilst it may like some kind of earth shattering tragedy for all those data scientists who were being treated like geek-royalty what seems like ten minutes ago, the reality is that Big Data slipping into the trough of despair just means that we are starting to think about it in grown up terms (see below) rather than the Chuck Norris of technology.

The second and perhaps most important part is that whilst according to Gartner IoT may now have officially the most over inflated expectations, the reality is that in field service at least it is already being actively used far more openly than Big Data was when it was on the same point of the Hype Cycle. In fact I would go as far as to say that this time Gartner have got it wrong and the Internet of Things is perhaps just past the top of the peak and starting to stare down into the trough.

 

Maybe it’s a distorted view in the field service industry, but I genuinely feel that whilst it may be a minority, there is a decent amount of companies that have implemented some form of IoT control or monitoring into their Field Service operations. In some corners it’s not even that new, heck, medical device manufacturer Elekta have been building connection into their devices for twenty odd years – they even used to ship their devices with 56K modems of their own back in the day.

As we roll into 2015, connected devices are booming, from thermostats to thermonuclear power generators, and the ability to remotely monitor, diagnose and even repair device faults is such a no brainer for field service companies that they cannot afford to miss the IoT revolution.

BigData in field service will get past those awkward teen years and get to work…

So back to Big Data then.

One of my favourite phrases I’ve heard about Big Data was from Dave Hart at ServiceMax when he said Big Data is like teenage sex, everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it but no one actually knows how to actually do it.

This I think is why Gartner may have their timings a bit backwards when it comes to Big Data and IoT.

 

For whilst I can see Big Data languishing within the ‘Trough’ as we mere mortals spend time still trying to define exactly what Big Data is (how many V’s are we up to now?) and reluctantly turning to those mystic shaman we call Data Scientists to try and get some sense out it all, I see IoT racing by to it’s own little place in the ‘plateau’.

Why? because IoT is pretty much results in tangible outcomes and combines two factors we are already comfortable with, that is ‘Internet’ and ‘Things’. And I’m not trying to be flippant when I say that either, it’s just IoT is that much easier to get.

So back to Big Data then (again?) where does this leave us in field service?

Well hopefully with a much more mature, sensible mindset because there is no denying the sheer power of Big Data to revolutionise a business and there is also no denying that as field service companies have access to huge, vast swathes of data – they perhaps more than any other industry segment could benefit from the true application of Big Data.

However, what Big Data is not is adding a new module to a field service management software with a few convertible dashboards and hey presto the board can tick off that pesky little box empty box on their to do list.

 

Let’s think about this for a moment, when in our lives has anything that is billed to be powerful enough to reshape the way we do business been as easy as buying a new module. This is where Big Data got lost to the hyperbole. In some quarters it was the magic bullet that would cure all evils. As we all know magic bullets don’t really work. However, hard-work combined with a clear strategy and intelligent implementation does.

Big Data is reliant on investment.

Investment in technology, investment in personel with new skill sets unique to the task and investment in time to devise and implement a Big Data strategy. However, once it is succesfully implemented that investment could yield a phenomenal return on investment both financially and also in our understanding of both our business and our customers.

I believe 2015 could be the year that field service companies will start to see through the hyperbole that just scratches the surface of Big Data and see it’s true game changing potential. However, for that to happen we need to treat it with the respect it deserves.

We need to re-adjust our thinking around risk management and cyber security…

Given the two points above this third point of the article is a bit of a given. So we won’t dwell to long here.

There are two simple facts here; Firstly Data is essentially becoming a new form of currency, and I’m not referring to crypto-currencies here but to the fact that the information available to be mined from data is inherently valuable.

Secondly,as we turn more and more of our functions across to the cloud including data storage, the more it will become a place of interest for twenty first century criminals.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the Cloud is any less secure than on premise data centres. It just means that we must realign our thinking to ensure we are protected.

According to Cloud Security experts Trend Micro the three key best security practices for 2015 are to:

• Develop and implement an overall risk management strategy
• Secure and regularly maintain web infrastructure
• Enforce stricter mobile device and data management policies

Lets take a quick look at each of these in turn…

Firstly, whilst it is of course recommended to turn to a cyber security specialist in devising your security strategies, a [quote float="left"]When it comes to risk management, much like insurance it can be disastrous if you cut corners and opt for the cheapest package. And often we only realise this when it’s too late.

quick, easy off the shelf solution is simply not going to cut the mustard. A robust cyber defence should be custom built to meet the requirements of your company. When it comes to risk management, much like insurance it can be disastrous if you cut corners and opt for the cheapest package. And often we only realise this when it’s too late.

 

With regards to point two, last years exposure to Shellshock and Heartbleed identified significant vulnerabilities and this should serve as a warning to companies that they need to keep software regularly updated and patched. Heuristic scanning and sandbox technologies are two of the key technologies that Trend Micro recommend here.

And as we look at the final point we also enter the world of HR as well as technology.

In field service in particular, where our workforce is becoming ever more reliant on mobile devices, we really need to consider the introduction of mobile safety policies to safeguard your data – even more so if you are operating a BYOD policy, whilst of course IT administrators must address mobile device management concerns to protect work related apps and data.

As mentioned above, today’s world of the internet, cloud and mobile is not necessarily any less secure than days gone by. It is just with new methods come new security concerns, so we must remain vigilant and I think 2015 will see us to further improve in this area once more.

Look out for the final part of this series where we complete our look at technology trends we believe we will see in field service across 2015.

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As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year’s Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre.

Here we hear from Caroline Pennington, Trimble Field Service, discussing some of the findings of  the Trimble FSMs latest Market Insight report. To download a copy of this report click here