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The world of field service and the world of technology have been intertwined for a long time now. In today's world of IoT, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning it could be put forwards that Data is not the fundamental building block of field service excellence. Field Service News and Cognito iQ have explored this concept in a new series and here in this first instalment David Bochenski, CTO Cognito iQ outlines how field service companies can the data within the organisation and why they should be doing so.

 

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Want to know more? There is a video with Konica Minolta's Head of Direct Service, Ged Crannny outlining how they have revolutionised their business through data analytics available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscribers on the link below...

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"Being told these days by a provider that someone may arrive between 8 am and 6 pm and "by the way can you make sure someone will be around to let them in" is not even close to an acceptable level of service..."

"Field service companies were putting mobile devices into the hands of their engineers and receiving real-time data live from the field long before Steve Jobs, and Apple had put the Internet in everyone's hands.."

Want to know more? There is a video with Konica Minolta's Head of Direct Service, Ged Crannny outlining how they have revolutionised their business through data analytics available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscribers on the link below...

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sponsored by:

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content...

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The advent of Cloud computing has had a profound effect on field service management.

Indeed, there is no denying that the emergence of Cloud computing has been a core driver in the ability for smaller and medium-sized field service companies to be able to compete with their larger competitors - and such competition has raised the bar for service delivery in all corners.

Anecdotally, how often have you heard someone comment (or indeed thought to yourself) ‘how is it that say my local florist is able to give me a detailed overview of where the flowers I have sent to my wife are at any given point within their delivery and are able to give me a 30 minute window for when they will arrive, yet the multi-national organisation that provides one of the key widgets that is essential to my businesses productivity can only tell me that an engineer will be with me at some point between 8 and 5?’

Of course, the truth is that the delivery of flowers is far less demanding of expertise than that expected of a highly qualified engineer capable of fixing said widget – which of course means that the scheduling requirements are also equally less complicated for the local florist.

In addition to this, the local florist will, largely by definition, only be serving a local area – whereas the B2B provider of the widget will almost certainly serve a national market, if not an international one.

So it is unfair perhaps to compare one to the other, accusations of seeking the similarities between apples and oranges are in this instance somewhat understandable. Yet, ultimately in today’s connected world, we must remember that we are no longer competing solely with those companies within our direct vertical sphere.

 

"Today, we are competing very simply against the best service experience our customers have ever had, whether that be within their consumer or their corporate lives..."

 

Today, we are competing very simply against the best service experience our customers have ever had, whether that be within their consumer or their corporate lives.

However, what this anecdotal example does highlight with true clarity is how smaller service organisations, be they florists, electricians, HVAC engineers or any of the other array of small entrepreneurial companies that help keep our day to day lives running, have been able to harness the power of modern FSM solutions.

This development is mostly the result of the introduction of SaaS-based subscription-style licensing which makes access to such systems possible. It seems like a long, long time ago that Tesseract, an Asolvi product became the first company in the world to offer their full FSM solution in the Cloud and on a SaaS model. Indeed, today almost all FSM providers now offer their solution in such a manner.

This means that smaller companies can have access to tools like scheduling, stock and parts management and mobile work management applications for their field-based staff to access via a mobile device. Yet, they also have the advantage of being more agile, more streamlined and less weighed down by legacy systems and processes that their larger peers undoubtedly face.

 

"In a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenario keeping on top of MDM can sometimes feel like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – by the time you finish at one end it’s time to head back the other way and start all over!"

 

Many, many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation is.

Optimised scheduling engines need to be ‘taught’ the rules under which they are to operate – the larger the workforce and the more diverse the skill-sets within that workforce, the more ‘lessons’ that need to be fed into the scheduling system for it to operate as intended.

Also, let’s consider the devices that are being utilised by the field workers – mobile device management (MDM) is a challenge that few IT departments will relish.

In a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenario keeping on top of MDM can sometimes feel like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – by the time you finish at one end it’s time to head back the other way and start all over!

Even in an environment where devices are provided by the organisation, there may be a mix of options within one company, with different devices being provided that meet specific roles within the organisation – such as rugged devices for field-based technicians.

This can result in a mix of iOS, Android and Windows operating systems (possibly even more) which all need to be factored into the MDM equation.

Again, this is a challenge that becomes magnified by the scale of the workforce in question.

Of course, another challenge magnified by the scale of the workforce is the simple fact that the introduction of any new business technology, including an FSM solution, is inherently a change management project – and as any change management consultant will inform you – good change management is about people. It is a simple equation to understand that more people mean more effort and complexity when undertaking such a task.

In terms of FSM solutions, the shift to the Cloud has absolutely changed the competitive dynamics within various industries in favour of those smaller companies who are savvy enough to embrace cloud-based FSM and unencumbered by challenges such as the above which larger companies may face.

This has given smaller organisations to flourish and thrive in the modern business eco-system, but this increased competition has resulted in huge organisations like Thyssenkrupp or ABB further driving innovation as we have showcased in these pages previously.

Our sector is going through a huge evolution with non-competing companies pushing each other to achieve more through service delivery and the cloud has played a major role in that allowing us to do so.

 

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Paul Whitelam, VP Product Marketing, ClickSoftware answers questions put to him by the audience of a Field Service News webinar on Cloud computing and it's role in field service management.

Questions include:

• How do you feel about transferring data between third party specialists and how moving to the Cloud may facilitate that?
• You mentioned briefly in the webinar the additional computation powers of the Cloud - would you be able to explain exactly how that works in details (but please use layman's terms)
• Is there any particular type of organisation moving to the Cloud?
• Security aside - is there any other reason why a company would not want to move to the Cloud? [/unordered_list]

The full webinar itself explored data from over three years worth of research into the topic of Cloud computing as a platform for field service management systems, with Whitelam and Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News discussing the key findings of the data and exploring the trends it reveals.

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To download a copy of the full webinar please click here

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Powerful, flexible and scalable cloud computing technology is opening up multiple new opportunities for businesses to improve customer service, develop better ways for customers to -serve themselves and introduce new technologies more quickly and easily.  However, the ready availability of business applications via the cloud has also raised the issue of data security and how to keep information about people and the businesses they work in, secure and private at every level.

In Part One  we looked at how cloud is an enabler for field service organisations and in Part Two how technology is facilitating enhanced centralised control and better people management and communications.

In this third and final instalment of our coverage of the recent debate on “Cloud and Mobility: The next frontier for Field Service Management”  which was organised by ClickSoftware, we’ll consider in more detail the most important ways in which technology can improve overall customer service and how organisations should deal with the issues of security and privacy.

The debate was chaired by Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller, with a panel including: Tim Faulkner, Senior Vice President at ClickSoftware; Dr Carsten Sorensen, Associate Professor in Digital Innovation at the London School of Economics; Katelyn Burrill, Product Marketing Manager at ClickSoftware; and Phil Wainewright, Chair at Euro Cloud UK.

Self-serving customers

One popular trend for improving overall levels of customer service, is to offer new technologies to customers that allow them to “self-serve”, the idea being that customers have a faster and more tailored experience which costs the business less to deliver.  But where is the competitive advantage and business vale of providing customer service in this way, if everything is being done by the customer themselves and the suppliers have no opportunities to engage directly with their customers?

One particularly interesting example to consider here is the case of energy smart meters.  Smart meters monitor energy consumption in real-time and automatically send electronic meter readings to providers. While the devices improve operations for utilities companies, providing real-time usage data that helps them to forecast demand and also help their customers to minimise energy usage and save money, once smart meters are installed, the suppliers never need to visit houses and offices to take meter readings.

“In the smart meter world, the biggest challenge that utilities suppliers worry about is how to roll out the smart meters,” says Tim Faulkner. “But finding new ways to maintain customer loyalty and revenue should also be looked at as a high priority activity because technicians are going to be in the customers’ homes far less frequently. The energy vendors will install the smart meter and not be back for maybe five years. Their opportunity to impress the brand upon the customer and sell more services or products is much less reduced.”

 

“You have to find things people want and talk to them about it when you’re there,” explains the LSE's Dr Carsten Sorensen. “We go to fix or install stuff. If you look at utilities companies, they’re not silly. Once they do arrive, it’s all about upselling.”

However, Phil Wainwright, of Euro Cloud UK, argues that physical presence is only a very small aspect of the opportunities available to business to interact with customers.

“A huge part of a good brand experience and competitive advantage in the modern world is minimising the amount of frustrating interaction the customer has with individuals not equipped to deal with their problems. It’s all about delivering competitive advantage by delivering good quality customer service through any medium.”

Human interaction

So what happens when we reach that stage where, in many or most cases, the customer is in charge of managing the services themselves, through mobile apps, smart meters and similar associated technologies?  In a situation where devices pass information directly back to a central location, there is less interaction. If most of the information that vendors have comes from customers, where does the competitive advantage come from and where do suppliers offer value if everything is done by the users or their devices?

“Why do you need people?” asks Sorensen. “You need them to build the services and interact. We are social animals. We need to find clever ways to interact with each other. Plus, once we have smart things embedded in our walls, in our shower heads and everywhere, we’ll need more help to understand and maintain them!”

 

The other clear opportunity for field services organisations rolling out smart devices and mobile apps is from utilisation of the considerable amounts of highly valuable data being generated. So how might they start do to clever things with this data? One obviously practical and impactful use of data is in getting a better understanding of each individual customer’s behaviour – what they are using, how they use it, when they use it for example.

“The other is being able to predict what kind of approach you’ll need to take to address any issue based on job type and history of that job with that customer,” Faulkner explains. “Building in this kind of predictive analysis for parts is a direction that ClickSoftware is taking now in our R&D team. There’s a mix there. You can automate it and/or provide decision-making capability. And you also need to use human beings who have personal experience and can understand the context and add value. Because an automated decision can sometimes be a wrong one.”

Data privacy

Finally, when dealing with apps or smart devices in homes that are collecting a lot of data, there is the issue of privacy and data security to be addressed. What happens, for example, with the data being collected by companies that can effectively tell where you are and where you’ve been, when you are in or out, what you are doing and what you might like to do?

As Paul Miller, Senior Analyst at Forrester, points out, even while the likelihood of that data being abused is very low, “the customer has a nagging doubt that bad people or Big Brother will do something with the data. How will a field service organisation respond to that?”

Gauging the best response is largely down to having a good understanding of the trade-off customers are willing to make between privacy and convenience. “Companies need to work out their push-pull line,” says Sorensen, “as it becomes increasingly complex and risky to manage all that data.”

The bottom line is that data privacy is a huge focus, for governments, legislators and brands alike. Plus, in addition to looking at privacy from a consumer perspective, it’s also insightful to consider the ways in which field service software providers deal with issues of data privacy from the point of view of their business customers.

“Until the advent of the cloud, vendors always provided systems in a company’s premises and the data is therefore only accessible within that company” says Faulkner. When the project is in live operation, we’ll get insight into how it’s being used. The cloud gives us the opportunity to see and share best practice across many customers, and look at what value there is in providing an additional service or function as well as to advise customers on what they should do to become best in class.”

 

Many of ClickSoftware’s customers are household brand names and they take issues of data security and customer privacy very seriously and work through it diligently as Faulkner explains. “They have specialist teams that work on security topics, and they have big legal teams. It’s about education, about trust that the brand has transparency.”

It really matters to consumers and to businesses what data people have on them and what they use it for.  Companies need to work out their push-pull approach.  No-one wants to be called at four in the morning with an upsell proposition when they are on holiday on the other side of the world!

What's often discussed in the media is that everyone should have a social contract with their suppliers.  It's not just 'we give you X and you pay us Y', it's a back and forth negotiation which should be based on situation and context.  As individuals we can be hypocritical in terms of data privacy, when it works for us and we get a reward, we're all for it but when something goes wrong, we claim that we didn’t agree to the terms.

The field service professionals can be a key part of the evolution.  They are there, speaking to the customer and can provide real feedback on what the customer does and doesn’t need, what went well and what topics of discussion, goods and services the customer liked and engaged with.  Empowering the people on the ground to decide how they interact and feedback will go a long way towards assuaging any concerns about how personal and business data is being used.

Training engineers to use personal interactions as an opportunity to be brand ambassadors, looking for upsell and feedback opportunities is what all field service companies should be aiming for.

Through discussions with both academic and industry experts, this debate looked at how cloud and mobility will impact the field service industry and help businesses achieve their goals both now and in the future. The three-part series covered why cloud is an enabler for field service businesses, how technology is allowing central control and improving employee management and, with this final part of the series, looking at how technology can improve customer service and the issue of privacy.

 

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Field service management is a key part of the customer experience. Meeting the engineers or technicians despatched to their house is often the end-user’s first and only human engagement with the company. Cloud and mobility technology is helping to improve the flexibility and collaboration between central control systems and individual fieldworkers, ensuring customers experience the best possible service and field service professionals become brand ambassadors, as well as technical problem solvers.

In Part One of this three part series on  the next Frontier for Field Service Management, our panel considered the fundamental importance of the power and scalability of cloud computing and the ways in which it is revolutionising field service management. In Part Two they  discuss the importance of striking a balance between central control and individual initiative.

The debate was hosted by ClickSoftware and chaired by Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller. Joining him were Tim Faulkner, Senior Vice President at ClickSoftware; Dr Carsten Sorensen, Associate Professor in Digital Innovation at London School of Economics; Katelyn Burrill, Product Marketing Manager at ClickSoftware; and Phil Wainewright, Chair at Euro Cloud UK.

Central control and individual collaboration

In order to provide the quality and consistent levels of service that today’s customers demand, businesses still need to retain a degree of control centrally.

“You need to deliver on promises and provide a consistent level of service and quality that the customer wants,” explained Tim Faulkner.  “You also need to allow for improvisation and tools that allow the technician to make decisions on whether or not to replace a part there and then or call a buddy to help.”

The cloud is both an enabler and a leveller, according to Faulkner. “It’s bringing down barriers to adopting field service solutions that were there before, enabling large corporations to deploy different methods and enabling smaller companies to adopt the same applications.”

 

Faulkner explains how ingenious adoptions of new cloud and mobile technologies allows FSM companies to better utilise their existing workforce, putting both technology and a greater decision-making autonomy in the hands of individuals.

It is exactly this enabling ability of cloud technology that helps networks or companies co-ordinate more widely distributed, flexible and fast-response supply chains, according to the LSE's Dr. Carsten Sorensen.

“The 21^st century is about helping individuals and companies alike to adapt to emerging needs, to react immediately when something goes wrong or identify where there is room for improvement,” says Sorensen. He thinks that the cloud is fundamentally transforming the way organisations do business.

The reality for FSM businesses is that workers out in the field are becoming increasingly digitally enabled with mobile devices of their own (and supplied by their employers) of various kinds. And those organisations that are able to capitalise on this new way of communicating, swiftly and wisely, are set to benefit.

The UK police -  how the operate like Uber

Perhaps one of the best examples of advanced users of field service technology in the UK to date is the police service.[quote float="right"]One of the best examples of advanced users of field service technology in the UK to date is the police service.

 

“The police don’t talk about mobile technology,” Sorensen explains. “For decades they’ve talked about mobile data. The whole point is instead of having a very localised arrangement – where somebody calls a police station and they dispatch on a two-way radio system that somebody should go somewhere -  now they operate, in principle, like Uber. They did ten years ago and they still do now.

“Ordinary police officers have a queue of incidents and they choose one like a customer in a taxi rank. Whenever you try to solve one problem, you may have other problems and you need to balance what everyone is aware of. Fundamentally, you can transfer the way work is done.”

So are there lessons to be drawn from this police model for businesses to learn from?

“With most large companies, you have to spend hours on the phone to get in touch with a human being,” adds Sorensen. “For a lot of companies, their competitive advantage will come from having a civilised human being to talk to you.”

The police case study is particularly interesting to ClickSoftware's Katelyn Burrill, because issues around automating, picking and choosing jobs are things that she deals with a lot with her customers.

“Automating that process is one of the huge benefits that companies achieve,” says Burrill. “It’s managing the change that these field workers go through when a new technology is implemented. If they don’t understand the benefits and just see it as Big Brother managing their day all of a sudden, they won’t manage the technology to the best of its ability.”

The lesson here is that field workers often have their own ways of operating that have worked well enough for them for many years, so it's vital that they don’t think that their own discretion and autonomy is somehow being removed from them.

“That’s how projects fail,” says Burrill. “When organisations don’t sell it into them in a strategic manner. They [the field workers] need to be part of the process to organise how you’ll go about changing and what’s acceptable to change.”

After all, the people out there in the field are often a lot smarter about what’s really happening and what needs to happen than the people in head office, who might not understand the bigger picture and certainly can’t see it in real-time.

“Let’s not forget that the field service workforce is already using smart technologies, already sending photos and videos on their smartphones to ask: how do we get this done?” notes Phil Wainewright, Chair of Euro Cloud UK.

“You need to build a more collaborative infrastructure that takes advantage of how things really work on the ground.”

In part three of the debate we move on to consider ways in which technology can improve customer service and we address issues like privacy and security.

 

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The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a review of compliance with consumer law in the cloud storage  services sector. While the review is focused solely on establishing compliance with consumer law, it is being driven partly by the European Commissions's strategy to build a "Digital Single Market" so may ultimately have wider implications for business cloud services. 

In the UK, the review has been prompted by consumer concerns about price and service changes for cloud storage. Cloud storage is used by a growing number of UK consumers to store photographs, music and documents: an estimated 40% of UK adults use cloud storage services.

The CMA review of consumer law compliance in this important sector follows some reports of practices and terms being used that may breach consumer law. For example, the CMA reports it has heard about consumers being surprised by significant price increases and by reductions to unlimited storage capacity deals after contracts have been agreed. The CMA is also aware of concerns about the loss or deletion of some consumers’ data.

The CMA’s review will assess how widespread these practices are, whether they breach consumer law and how they are affecting consumers. The review is open for responses until 15 January 2016. The CMA wants to hear from businesses about their practices and from consumers and industry experts about their experiences.

Nisha Arora, CMA Senior Director, Consumer, said: “Cloud storage is a dynamic and growing sector which is already highly valued by consumers. “We want to hear from business, interested organisations and consumers about their experiences, to assess whether companies understand and comply with consumer law and whether cloud storage services are working well for consumers as a result.

“If our review finds breaches of consumer protection laws we will take further action to address these which could include enforcement action using our consumer law powers, seeking voluntary change from the sector or providing guidance to business or consumers.”

The CMA review may ultimately have implications for business because it is being driven in part by the European Commission's strategy to build a 'Digital Single Market. This builds on the previous European Cloud Computing Strategy, which was designed to speed up and increase the use of cloud computing across all economic sectors and included work on developing ‘safe and fair’ terms and conditions.  The Digital Single Market strategy aims to develop legislative proposals for simple and effective cross-border contract rules for consumers and businesses.

The CMA report is expected to be published in May 2016.

 

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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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The emergence of TomTom Telematics as a true platform-as-a-service provider is big news for field service companies.  In Part Two of our report from the company's Developers Conference, we ask whether it means evolution or revolution for the telematics sector in general.

In Part One of this report from TomTom Telematics' Developers Conference, we heard how the combination of open-architecture hardware and the launch of the its App Store is transforming the telematics giant into a true Platform-as-a-Service provider and one-stop shop for mobile workforce management

Here, we take a deeper look at the potential impact the development could have on the telematics market. Indeed, in the excitement of the day there was talk of revolution as well as evolution. Would TomTom becoming an all encompassing platform for telematics, change the way we build our telematics solutions in the not too distant future? What will be its role in the emergence of the connected vehicle?

“We want to make it as easy as iTunes or the Salesforce app exchange” claimed George De Boer, International Alliance Manager at TomTom Telematics. “You just go to your appstore, you download your software and you install it”

“As easy as consumers are finding it to install an app we want to make telematics as easy for them as well” he added.

Indeed, it is an interesting and attractive proposition: one that could mean each company could essentially cherry pick the right apps that are best suited to their organisation and then build a bespoke telematics solution that meets their exact requirements.

App partners

One of the developers that has opted to build an app for the TomTom platform is Magenta Technologies, whose Maxoptra tool provides companies with a dynamic scheduling engine, a key tool for many large field service companies. Alexei Badjanov, Head of Development for Magenta believes this new approach to building a telematics solution is absolutley the future.

“The platform is the key” Badjanov comments “There is a wide number of telematics providers in the world but the one that has the most applications will be the leader”

Indeed this is very true; in one sense TomTom have not broken new ground. Other telematics providers such as Telogis and Trimble have both developed something akin to a telematics based platform some time ago,. However, unlike TomTom, they opted to focus more on developing their own apps within an ecosystem as opposed to the open architecture approach taken by the Dutch firm.

Of course whilst TomTom’s move to position themselves as a central hub upon which to build a telematics solution is both a clever and forward looking one, there is a strong argument that it was forced upon them, as with the onset of the connected vehicle they faced a choice of evolve or die.

However, where as the imminent arrival of connected vehicles would once have possibly meant ringing the death bells for TomTom, now the connected vehicle brings with it opportunity for both the telematics provider and their field service customers alike.

The connected vehicle

At a telematics conference the connected vehicle was bound to be a key topic that dominated conversations throughout the day, with the consensus being that the connected vehicle has finally made the transition from exciting potential to tangible reality.

“It’s already happening, It’s already here” commented Taco van der Leij, Global VP of Marketing for TomTom Telematics.

But just what does the connected vehicle actually mean to field service companies? Is it not just a case of the same telematics, just now being fitted as standard by the vehicle OEMs? In fact Van der Leij thinks the impact of the connected fleet will be far wider. “What you will see is the number of applications in this industry will multiply, so you will get much bigger scope and different possibilities for field service companies to actually enhance their business.”

“Basically what you see with a normal business environment in the office, Cloud solutions are already there, driving more and more applications. With all commercial vehicles being connected we will see the same happening for mobile workers also”

De Boer also echoed his colleagues sentiments when the conversation turned to the connected car.

“I’m seeing even more possibilities” he says as we discuss some of the obvious benefits to workflows when having seamless connectivity between the vehicle and the office.

“The service engineer that goes to his customer and uses some of the spare parts in his van for example. If he uses the connection of a barcode scanner and our link.connect API, he can scan the spare parts and the warehouse can start preparing the box that he needs to have for the next day.” He explains before concluding “The connected vehicle is really all about further optimising the business process”

In fact this final summation acts well as headline for what the TomTom Developers Conference was all about: further optimising the business process.

But beyond that, it was a day when we saw TomTom evolve from a pure play telematics provider to fully fledged telematics platform and if the connected vehicle is going to change everything in the telematics industry, TomTom Telematics look set to be right there at the heart of the community continuing to drive change and innovation.

 

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