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Like any other industry, the world of the casino has had to adapt to the many trends and changes in which new technologies offer a range of options for maintaining, supporting and implementing operational activities. ClickSoftware explores how the role of field services will change.

With global gambling revenues rising to over $450 billion in 2014 the industry is clearly still massively profitable. And with changes in legislation that have helped deregulate a lot of red tape that previously inhibited the casinos' activities, it looks like global gambling will soar in the future.

However, such expansion provides new challenges and new opportunities for the industry. And from the simple field service operations of maintaining existing casino operations, to adapting to the new digital challenges offered by cloud-based gaming platforms, there are many questions as to how the role of field services will play in this new and exciting future.

A highly knowledgeable and ever-ready team of field service operatives must be on hand to provide support for the vast array of potential problems that could occur. Traditional casinos are massive operations that require a great deal of skill and forethought in how to maintain and operate the wide range of functions that the businesses provide. In terms of the actual gaming activities that are conducted, a highly knowledgeable and ever-ready team of field service operatives must be on hand to provide support for the vast array of potential problems that could occur.

Not only do many casino establishments operate on a 24 hour, seven days per week basis, but the sheer quantity of gaming options can often present a headache to the field service engineer. With even the simple slot machine requiring a great degree of specialisation, it's incredibly important for teams of field service engineers to be able to share technical information via mobile devices that can aid maintenance under tight deadlines.

 

Similarly, with a range of other activities being conducted under a casino roof ranging from entertainment, catering and hospitality, the field service operations will also be under a great deal of pressure to implement productivity software with dynamic scheduling so that knowledge is shared and activities can be aligned in these huge business operations.

As casinos operate with a highly visible 'front-of-house' operation, it's therefore highly important that any field service activity is conducted in a discreet and professional manner with the minimum of disruption to the business' activities. As such, mobile apps run on compact devices are the most effective way for field engineers to stay connected in this demanding situation.

And conversely, the mobile environment has also infiltrated the traditional casino format massively in recent years. The advent of online casino sites hosted by Chipzup have revolutionised the way in which customers can play a massive variety of games remotely through websites that offer lucrative prize winnings from the convenience of a smartphone or tablet.

 

As such, the field service aspect of this changing relationship between customer and industry will be adapted to become specialised in the digital and technological side of gaming operations.

This is especially the case with the rise of cloud-based gaming that promises to allow people to enjoy streamed high-end games direct to their device. Such a method of playing games threatens to revolutionise the traditional console-based activities as the actual game will be stored, executed and rendered on a remote computer that streams live-video action of the game to the player's device.

This method of conducting gameplay could revolutionise the online casino experience as players will be able to enjoy a much wider variety of games from different systems regardless of what device they actually own.

And with the recent news that Sony had purchased the defunct cloud-gaming site OnLive, it looks like big business will be stepping into this exciting new area of gaming potential. Whether this will result in a centralising of operations remains to be seen, but it will undoubtedly result in a much higher technological adaptation on behalf of field engineers to keep servers running and ensure that connectivity between the customer and business doesn't suffer.

Despite all of the changes that are taking place in this rapidly growing and hugely popular industry, the key concepts of field service operations must stay the same however. So clear communications between operatives through the use of rugged hardware and mobile devices that take advantage of cloud-based support will all have to be implemented and sustained in order to ensure the smooth running of the modern casino environment.

 

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