This final excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ outlines a seven-step process to take you from strategy to execution, so you can achieve exceptional field service...

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

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 Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.

Step 1 - Analyse Current Situation

The first step in improving anything is to understand the current situation. To do this you need accurate, timely data about what is actually happening on the frontlines of field service.

The principle of value stream mapping, which comes from the discipline of lean manufacturing, is a useful concept to help guide this step. Your goal in analysing the current situation is to identify value - as defined by your customers’ needs - and then to map the value stream, which is all of the steps and processes that you undertake to deliver that value. Then you can look for bottlenecks, so you can eliminate any wasteful steps. In addition, if there is data missing, you can identify ways to fill the gaps.

The analysis requires data. In recent years, many field service operations have undergone some degree of digital transformation, which for many has meant that they have gone from having limited data about field service - knowing just whether the job was done, and the customer had paid - to having too much data that they can’t analyse or make sense of. Not only is there mobile data that tracks field service technicians’ whereabouts, and progress on any task, and gathers feedback from customers, but there is also a wealth of internal data such as from ERP or CRM systems, financial data, call centre information, repair data and customer emails. Combined with data about parts and assets, some of which comes directly from IoT enabled equipment, you end up with a complex mix of structured and unstructured data, which is often hard to makes sense of.

The most effective way to identify patterns in the data is to use data science techniques such as machine learning.

For example, using machine learning in the analysis of asset and parts data enables you to take a structured approach to asset lifecycle management. If you can spot patterns in repairs and revisits, you can start to predict and prevent failures. Again, generic tools can make some headway here, but field service specific tools have algorithms that have been programmed with field service knowledge which are better at surfacing genuine opportunities.

Step 2 - Set Aligned Goals

There was a time when in many businesses, the service operation was viewed as a cost centre, a necessary, but expensive, functional department.

This view is outdated; today, companies understand that field service is integral to the business. Field service technicians are not only the face of the brand, they are able to build relationships with customers and have opportunities to generate revenues through cross selling and upselling.

In the same way, there is a growing recognition that field operations goals need to be integrated with wider organisational goals. The opportunities identified in step one need to be prioritised based on a number of factors: which can easily be actioned, which have the greatest improvement potential, which offer the greatest return on investment, which are the low hanging fruit. But overarching all of this is the need for opportunities to align with overall company goals.

Furthermore, at this stage, there is a need to understand what the ROI of change will be, and to quantify the risk of not changing. If you can put a financial value on your goals, it will help you to make the business case for the investments you will need to make, both directly in terms of expenditure on the technology to drive change, and indirectly in terms of the time you will need to commit.

Step 3 - Define Metrics for Success

 

Once the current situation is analysed, opportunities to improve are surfaced, and goals set, aligned to the company strategy, you then need to decide how to act to meet those goals.

You are moving into the tactical stage of the seven-step process, and are focusing on practical actions that you and your team can take. The questions you need to answer at this stage are:

• What are the processes, practices, controls and levers that you can alter to influence performance?
• Which metrics that support these levers, need to move to indicate improvement?
• What are the thresholds for improvement - how much do the metrics have to move?

Once you have defined the metrics and set thresholds, you can use them to define employee KPIs, and you will be ready for the next challenge which is to change the behaviour of your employees in accordance with the new goals.

Step 4 - Engage and Motivate Employees

Change is hard, and it goes better when everyone is on board. In order to ensure that employees change their behaviour and work towards the goals you have defined, you will need to have the data to monitor performance.

You probably have an instinct for which of your field workers are the best performers, but your analysis of performance metrics will give you hard evidence, and also help evaluate why they are the best. You probably also know which workers consistently fail to hit their targets. Analysis will show you what to do to help them improve –and to monitor their progress. Once you know the drivers of excellence, you can replicate them throughout the organisation, working with employees to improve skills and capabilities where needed.

It also helps if employees understand the wider company strategy and how their own performance indicators and goals align. We recommend adopting OKRs, a method used by Google to align organisational strategy with individual goals and improve performance.

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results — the process by which leaders and their teams set ambitious, measurable goals each quarter — are a critical component of how Google’s leaders managed Google’s growth from day one. By focusing on a few priorities, identifying the metrics that measure progress towards those goals, and quantifying the impact of that progress, OKRs equipped teams at Google with what they needed to think big, get alignment across the organisation, and execute on their ambitious plans.

Step 5 - Make Changes to Processes

Once you have decided on the metrics to focus on, you can begin to make changes. These changes can be at any level. They can be to processes or procedures, in which case they will require everyone to know about and follow them.

They can be to documentation, giving people new information, or to the website, to change customer behaviour. They can impact the field service technicians directly, or indirectly - the example below involved a small change to the call centre script, not to engineering processes - but it had a big impact on a key performance metric for engineers.

There are many barriers to implementing change. Even if you have employees on board and the whole company aligned around the strategy, it can be hard to know which changes to prioritise, how they will affect other metrics, how much it will cost to implement the changes, and what will be the return on investment. At this stage, modelling the likely impact is invaluable, as it will help you prioritise.

Step 6 - Observe and Analyse Outcomes

Once improvements have been implemented, the next step is to observe the impact on performance and analyse the outcomes.

As a service leader you need to have full visibility of what is happening in the field in real time, so you and your team can make adjustments and prevent incidents before they arise. Ideally you should be able to see, at a glance, the status of all your key metrics, and be alerted if any are in jeopardy as well as any variations from the plan for the shift. Short interval control is another technique used in lean manufacturing to drive improvements, during each shift; with access to field service data and analytics tools to gain insight in real time, service managers can adopt this approach. This approach is also adapted from agile software development environments which advocate testing and learning with real customers, in real time, using data to assess the impact of each change.

Also, as you make the changes, capture those that are driving improvements, as well as those that are having little direct impact, but may impact further down the line. You might want to pilot in one region, capturing what has worked and what has not. You can then use the region staff as ambassadors of change across the broader organisation.

As well as acting in real time to change outcomes during the shift, you need to be able to analyse the impact of changes over time, so you can see whether improvements have been effective and if you need to dial up changes, dial down, or try something else. You can even conduct controlled experiments by using AB testing - trying two different approaches with different, randomly chosen sets of technicians, or in different regions, to see which improvements work the best.

Step 7 - Feedback and Adjust

This is the step where the value of the data driven approach comes into its own.

Taking the outcomes of improvements, and feeding back into the data for analysis at step one creates a feedback loop, enabling you to test and learn, freeing you from having to make gut decisions, and harnessing the power of continuous improvement to get to exceptional field service.

With a continual improvement approach, the £500K or more you could save in productivity isn’t a one-off. You can use that saving to do more, or to reduce headcount in year one, and also expect to see a similar improvement and saving in years two, three and onward. The goalposts are always moving in field service, as technology advances, competitors improve and customer expectations increase, so there will always be improvements you can make, regardless of the quality of your service at this moment.

TAKING THE FIRST STEP

So now you know the seven steps, what are you waiting for? It’s easy to describe, but not so easy to do.

In reality, getting to exceptional will require you to have the following:

• high quality, accurate, real-time data
• the ability to analyse the data to gain insight, both in real time, and in retrospect
• the experience to decide how to apply the insight
• the foresight to model the impact of changes and the ROI of planned actions
• the insight to know what exceptional looks like, and to set appropriate benchmarks
• the agility to test changes and learn from the outcomes
• the leadership to drive through improvements and manage change throughout the organisation

We know that field service leaders are a talented bunch, but that is still a tall order. Fortunately, there is no pressure to take all seven steps at once. Getting to exceptional is a long-term process and just taking the first step will deliver business benefits. So how do you take that first step? Advances in technology mean that there is support available. Digital transformation means so much more than just digitising paper-based processes, or automating manual processes. We believe that all of the hundreds of decisions that are made every day in field service operations can and should be driven by data and analysis, not by gut instinct, or expediency.

For many companies, the digital transformation challenge has moved on from being able to collect the data, to knowing how to analyse it, and what actions to take. Advances in AI such as machine learning mean that we can start to automate the process of continuous improvement. The goal should be that the system can spot a problem and recommend a fix without human intervention, and then track that change through the organisation and drive adoption in the field. The future of field service belongs to those companies that can adopt advanced analytics, together with smart business approaches, to use data to drive exceptional field service.

 

---

 

Field Service News subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!

 

 

 

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
• Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
• Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ

Field service leaders are not always aware of the potential for improvement, or the scale of the opportunities offered. This third excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ offers an in-depth analysis of the three pillars of exceptional field service...

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

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 Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.

whAT EXCEPTIONAL FIELD SERVICE LOOKS LIKE

In our experience, even field service operations that are working well can find 5% improvements when they set out to become exceptional, and improvements of more than 20% are not uncommon.
If you want to make tomorrow’s field service more productive, you will need to study how efficiently and effectively you have been working to date, identify opportunities to improve and act to make changes. One way to start is to compare your plan for each shift with the reality.

For example, were task durations as you expected?

• If tasks took longer than planned, you may have unhappy customers and a big overtime bill.
• If they took less time, are you paying workers who have gone home early?

If you have detailed data on how tasks were performed, you can analyse whether task durations were as expected.

• Does this vary by type of task or by type of customer?
• Does it vary by region or is the difference down to specific technicians?
• And what are the trends over time?

 

Once you have answers, you can act. If you find that you have been allowing too much time for tasks, reducing task durations in the plan will enable you to get more done in the day. But by what percentage can you reduce durations before they become too short? Also, taking action isn’t limited to altering the plan. For example, if there are some technicians who are slower than others, is there an issue you could resolve with training, knowledge sharing or technical development? Conversely if one region is performing better, does one regional manager have a best practice that you can roll out to the company as a whole?

It is the combination of many small changes of this type, and the continual feedback loop of measurement, analysis and execution that will gradually and incrementally improve operational productivity. The theory is simple - continuous improvement is a principle of lean manufacturing now widely used in other disciplines - but the reality is more complex. It is vital to know how to measure success:

• Which metrics are useful and which aren’t?
• Which can be accurately determined and which can’t?
• How metrics interact.
• How setting goals and targets will affect how employees go about their jobs.

 

For example, you wouldn’t want to drive up the number of visits per day your field workers attend, if that meant fewer first-time fixes, or reduced customer satisfaction scores. You also wouldn’t want to implement changes that increase the cost of service by more than you are gaining in productivity terms. The goal is to find a combination of improvements that act to raise standards in all areas.

Some service companies are starting to implement 'shift left', a practice adapted from software development, which moves as many tasks as possible to the left, that is, earlier in the process. The approach is becoming more widespread in IT service in particular, but can also be used by field service companies to empower call centre staff and customers to access repair and maintenance information and proactively solve simple problems without needing a technician to visit. Shift left not only improves field service productivity, but by empowering customers it can also improve customer experience and, by empowering first tier support to do more, it leaves skilled technicians with the more interesting, complicated tasks to resolve, which can improve employee engagement too.

 

Customer Experience

Field service organisations know that customer experience is important. In a recent survey, 76% said that improving customer experience was their top strategic initiative. However, it can be a long way from setting a strategic initiative to actually delivering a great experience to customers. How can you turn your strategy into tactical actions, and then ensure that your employees are acting according to your plan?

Delivering a great customer experience means paying attention to every interaction the customer has with your company, whether that is through using your products and services or via your website, call centre, billing or social media. For many customers, a visit from a field service technician is the only time they will see a representative of your company face to face, so it’s clear that a visit is loaded with opportunities to delight - or disappoint - your customer.

Your field service technicians will need more than just engineering ability and knowledge: soft skills such as communications, interpersonal skills, decision making and problem solving are all important too. Training will be key, as will empowering your field-based workers to make decisions that help the customer, even if they sometimes have to bypass official processes. If the process isn’t working for the customer, it should be viewed as a bottleneck and, therefore, an opportunity to improve. Getting feedback from your technicians will help you understand the customer experience, as they often know where the problems are with the processes.

Another approach is for senior field service managers to spend time out in the field, to experience a day in the life of a field technician, and understand the impact that complex processes, organisational bureaucracy, or a lack of end-to-end service planning can have on the customer experience.

Of course, it is even more important to get feedback directly from customers. Many field service companies add a customer survey to the visit process, whether carried out by the technician on site, or as a follow up. Typically, companies use a simple metric such as the ‘Net Promoter Score’ (NPS), a widely used technique for assessing customer advocacy. However, it’s not sufficient to just track the score - you need to conduct analysis and take action.

Analysis will help you to understand questions such as how do you turn Passive customers into Promoters? How do you leverage Promoters’ willingness to recommend you? And how do you prevent Detractors from leaving and from telling others about their poor experience? You also need to define what counts as a good NPS score. Benchmarking against others in your industry, as well your own best efforts will get you a clearer picture. And the analysis doesn’t end there. You also need to consider what to do about the customers who won’t even engage with the question and give you a score. How do you drive up participation? Additionally, you need to have a method in place for analysing the free-form comments that customers add, as this is where you will gain some of the greatest insight

A high NPS is linked with business growth. A study by Bain and Company, who developed the NPS, shows that the organisations with the highest NPS in an industry sector had more than twice the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of those with average scores. Achieving a high NPS shouldn’t be a goal in itself, but profitable organic growth cannot long be sustained without doing so.

 

Employee Engagement

Field service is all about people. If your employees are unhappy and disengaged, it’s unlikely they will support your operational productivity initiatives, or be able to deliver the exceptional customer experiences you are hoping for.

Our customers tell us that some of their biggest challenges in improving operational productivity comes not only from needing to measure, analyse and implement change, but also from knowing how to influence and guide workers to behave in the most productive way. There’s plenty of empirical evidence to back this up; study after study has linked employee engagement to improved productivity, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, as well as a whole raft of other business metrics, including employee retention; innovation; safety incidents; product quality and defects; shrinkage and theft; and sickness and absenteeism.

Strategy expert Erica Olsen talks about how businesses often fail to implement their strategy because they don’t manage their employees to deliver on the plan. She says “High-performance organizations accomplish extraordinary results, and they do it with ordinary people. The key to achieving is to structure an organisation so ordinary people can regularly accomplish outstanding things.” The performance of the service organisation can be seen as the sum of the performance of individual field-service focused workers - from the call centre and field service technicians, through to those involved in logistics.

 

"Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new service methods, which means that workers will need to develop new analytical skills..."

 

Working to improve employee engagement is particularly important in field service for a number of reasons. Firstly, remote workers can feel isolated, and engagement strategies can help them feel connected to the back office and part of a team, whether that is at a local or regional level, or by job specialisation.

Secondly, there is a skills gap in field service, and an aging workforce. Research shows that 50% of large businesses in the UK report difficulties in hiring, with skilled trades, drivers, technicians and engineers being among the most difficult jobs to fill. Additionally, technology is changing the skills needed on the job. Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new service methods, which means that workers will need to develop new analytical skills. Technologies such as virtual or augmented reality are also changing the ways that workers carry out their tasks. Workers may see these new skill requirements as a threat, however companies that are good at engaging their employees see these developments as opportunities to upskill.

Filling the skills gap requires retaining older engineers by retraining and reskilling, as well as attracting new younger engineers. Field service needs to be positioned as an enticing career option, with opportunities to learn, grow and develop. Many organisations are also filling the gaps with freelance workers, so it’s important to have well defined processes so you can on-board quickly and ensure that contractors are operating to your high standards.

Given that, in the UK, we’re lagging in terms of operational productivity, it’s not surprising that we are also lagging in terms of employee engagement too: a recent survey shows that employees in the UK recorded average engagement scores of just 45% compared to 54% in France, 56% in Australia and 60% in the USA. Another shows that more than a quarter of UK employees admit they aren’t performing to their best ability at work, compared to just one in five employees in Europe. Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, on average. No field service organisation can afford to ignore this opportunity.

 

Look out for the final feature in this series coming next week where we outline a seven-step plan to achieve exceptional field service.

However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
• Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
• Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ

This second excerpt from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ provides an analysis of the challenges and difficulties service leaders face and why field service operations are complex......

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

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 Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.

why FIELD SERVICE IS HARD

---

Look out for the next feature in this series coming next week where we discuss what exceptional field service looks like.

However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
• Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
• Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ

This new series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Cognito iQ analyses why exceptional field service is important and outlines how to transform your field service operation from strategy to execution...

Want to know more? Field Service News Subscribers can access a White Paper on this topic on the link below.

If you have yet to subscribe click the button below to join 30K of your field service management professional peers and subscribe now to access this content and our entire premium content library now!

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 Cognito iQ who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this white paper, as per the terms and conditions of your subscription agreement which you opted into in line with GDPR regulations and is an ongoing condition of subscription.

why exceptional field service matters...

The Impact of Digital

This is all easier said than done. Field service is tough at the best of times. What is perhaps different about this looming recession from those in the past, such as the financial crisis in 2008, is the digitisation of our lives and businesses. Digital transformation offers field service organisations the ability to make decisions that are driven by data, rather than by gut feel. We believe that this is the only way for service leaders to achieve exceptional service, and fulfil the potential of the service organisation to deliver business growth. Some service organisations are at the beginning of the digital journey, just beginning to automate paper-based or manual processes, or just starting to collect mobile data from their field-based technicians. Others are further along, using advanced analytics and data science to make sense of their data, and implementing the latest developments in technology, such as virtual reality to assist with repairs in the field, robotic process automation to expedite customer communications in the call centre, and Internet of Things (IoT) to enable predictive service. The most innovative service leaders are enhancing their digital transformation by adopting business approaches that have been successful in other disciplines. Techniques from lean manufacturing, such as continuous improvement, short interval control and value flow mapping, can be applied to field service to find opportunities to improve, test, adjust and apply to enhance the business. Management approaches such as Google’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can be used to turn strategies into actionable individual goals and to get the buy-in of employees across the organisation. Despite all the challenges, we believe the future is bright for field service organisations. This combination of digital technology, data science and advanced business approaches is what will win through for the best service organisations.

The Digital Journey of an Organization...

 

---

Look out for the next feature in this series coming next week where we analyse why field service is hard.

However, www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can read the full white paper now by hitting the button below. If you are yet to subscribe you can do so for free by hitting the button and you can access the white paper instantly upon completing the registration form!

---

Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
• Find out more about Cognito iQ @ www.cognitoiq.com
• Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ

In Cognito iQ’s annual customer satisfaction survey for 2019, 100% of their customers that responded to our survey rated Cognito iQ from Good to Excellent in every category.

Cognito iQ’s customers depend on their software to keep their field service and last mile delivery networks operational and efficient on a daily basis, meaning their satisfaction is a critical benchmark.

Customers were asked to rate Cognito IQ's performance from Poor to Excellent in several categories; Reliability of solution, how the solution supports your business needs, customer service professionalism and knowledge, business understanding and the quality of the professional services team.

100% rating good and above is an excellent indicator of cognito iq's business performace

‘Scoring 100% rating good and above is an excellent indicator of our business performance’ commented Laurent Othacehe, CEO. ‘Our customer support teams enable our customers to quickly react to new working practices and remain flexible in order to meet their growing customer satisfaction demands’.

“Not only have we achieved these great results, in addition 100% of our customers said they would recommend us. Moving forward our aim is to not just maintain but improve these scores, in exactly the same way we enable our customers to achieve continuous improvement.’

Further Reading:

• Learn more about Cognito iQ  @ www.cognitoiq.com
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Cognito iQ on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/cognito-iq
• Follow Cognito iQ on Twitter @ twitter.com/Cognito_iQ

Contact information: 

• Key Contact: Angela Crittenden, Commercial Operations Coordinator
• Phone: +44 (0)1635 508200  
• Web: www.cognitoiq.com
• Email:  Angela.Crittenden@cognitoiq.com
  

It is often said that data will be the true currency of future businesses across all sectors, but have we already reached a point where the seamless flow of data within an organisation is now essential for effective service delivery?

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

sponsored by:

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...

In modern field service, it is impossible to ignore the power of data and its potential to drive businesses forward.

One company that has been able to harness that power effectively to push their own service delivery levels to new levels of efficiency, has been print and copy giant Konica Minolta and in a forthcoming exclusive Field Service News webcast we were joined by Ged Cranny, Head of Direct Service for Konica Minolta as well as Dave Bochenski and David Webb of Cognito iQ - the organisation providing Konica Minolta with the tools that have allowed them to fully embrace data-driven service.

Cranny often speaks about the importance of transparency that adopting such a data-centric approach has yielded and how such visibility has empowered important conversations around their service delivery in multiple layers across the organisation - and it is the seamless flow of data across an organisation that is crucial to being able to reach such levels of transparency across the various business units within an organisation. 

So is this smooth movement of data across different divisions within an organisation the fundamental building block of modern service excellence? 

Have we now reached a point where it is imperative for field service businesses to break down the data silos that often exist within their systems in order to remain competitive?

“I think transparency of data is important in the service world because service can often be viewed by the rest of the business as something of a dark art,” explains Cranny.

"Transparency of data is important in the service world because service can often be viewed by the rest of the business as something of a dark art.."

This is indeed true for a vast majority of organisations. Whilst for those of us engaged within the sector, we can absolutely see the key strategic importance of having an effective and efficient field service operation, which increasingly can become a significant contributor to overall revenues, the fact remains that within many organisations field service is all too often still viewed merely as a necessary evil and something that is a huge red line on the P&L sheets.

However, by being able to clearly outline the various complexities and benefits of a field service operation, supported by robust, accurate data that can be viewed in real-time, it is far easier to make the case as to why field service should be a key area of strategic focus within any customer-centric organisation.

“One of the most important things for me when we got the data from Cognito iQ during the trial phase, was that we were able to show it to our Financial Director and Managing Director and straight away they were able to see the value of that data across the business. Essentially it took away the ‘dark art’ element of what we do,” Cranny continues.

However, it is not just at the exec level that such visibility into the data can have an impact. Right across an organisation, there are wins to be had from being able to share data-led insights with various different stakeholders.

“We’ve actually opened up the data to anybody who wants to look into the top level figures within the business. For example, our CX manager can see the information relevant to customer satisfaction levels. In fact, anybody can see how we are performing on any given day, in terms of how well we are meeting our SLAs. That openness has led to much more informed questions to us in the service department, which in turn raises the level of both our service engineers and our service managers,” Cranny explains.

“It is absolutely key that service organisations are able to harness field service teams as a whole and that they really encourage collaboration around the data,” concurs Webb.

“I think that is the nature of the world that we are operating in now. It is no longer the preserve of the management teams to manage the customer experience, to manage the performance of the business and to worry about all the dimensions of success for an organisation - it is now down to all contributors.”

"Openness and transparency are key, but also the way in which you engage teams in the discussion around that performance is critical..."

Field Service engineers are the people that interact the most closely with the customers and the old adage of the customer advisor is absolutely true today. Therefore being able to share with the engineers the impact that their contribution is having on the overall performance of the operation, to ensure that you have that openness of communication is hugely important.”

“What I’ve seen Ged and his team at Konica Minolta do so effectively is to make that performance discussion about the process in the operation. It is far less about people and far more about their contribution to the process and identifying those aspects of a process that are failing or that could be improved.”

“So openness and transparency are key, but also the way in which you engage teams in the discussion around that performance is critical.” 

“If you use good data badly, then you’ll only get to use it once, if you use it well then the reality is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, you get to see a continuous performance improvement mindset emerging within your teams - which makes a huge difference to the overall business.” 

This of course also frees up management teams who can then offer a huge amount of value in other areas of the business as well such as new business development, key account management and other more strategic aspects of the role.

Essentially by freeing these key personnel up from the day to day service delivery, they are able to focus purely on management by exception around the operation and then really focus on where the next business development role is coming from and how they can contribute - essentially making the service operation come alive for their business development colleagues when they are dealing with prospects and customers.

Of course, this is the optimal end goal. However, it is not necessarily a simple path for an organisation to follow. It is clear that the relationship between Konica Minolta and Cognito IQ is one which is well grounded in a level of trust and openness and there is a clear willingness from both sides to work in tandem to help Konica Minolta unlock the insights held within their data.

But how much weight falls on the shoulders of a solution provider to be able to guide their clients on that path, and how much responsibility does the field service organisation have for plotting their own path themselves?

“I think the answer ultimately here is that it really depends on the dynamics within the relationship in any given scenario and either can have contributions on that level,” comments Bochenski when the topic comes up.

"If you can harness the data then the rewards are absolutely there..."

”It is certainly true that data is the new arms race within business and being able to marshal and gain insights into that data is really what can drive benefits and opportunities for you to beat your competition. If you can harness the data then the rewards are absolutely there,” he adds. 

“That then comes into the two sides. You can have some insights yourself, but it also helps to have someone from the outside also looking at things that perhaps you might not have seen within your own data - sometimes companies can become a bit tunnel visioned about their data without that external viewpoint.”

“I see the role of service providers being to help with platforms to bring that data into a place where meaningful insight can be drawn from it - to establish one place where companies can access all of their data through APIs etc.”

“Then, when we have that the flow of data from different parts of the business available, a solution provider can not only help you access it, but also glean additional insights that you might not have necessarily got yourself.”

“Another benefit is that the data is also available to other parts of the business and often I find that when you have established this kind of structure within your data, you have emergent things happen that you may not have initially anticipated.”

“Essentially, if you have two different people looking at the same piece of data, very often you can find something that neither of them would have seen were they only looking at the data on their own.”

This is a hugely salient point as often companies are able to unearth unexpected value within their data - sometimes that can help them improve their own processes, but equally it can be insight that is intrinsically valuable for their clients as well - leading to ways to further increase an organisations stickiness with their customers, or even opening up completely new revenue streams entirely.

Indeed, the benefit of breaking down information silos within a business does appear to be perhaps one of the most crucial tasks field service organisations must undertake in today’s world of data-led field service.

By working alongside CognitoiQ Konica Minolta certainly seem to be an excellent example of a company that has achieved that and they are now positioned to reap the rewards of that forward. 

---

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

---

sponsored by:

---

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...

---

Dave Webb, COO, Cognito reflects on what he thinks are the key challenges that field service companies are facing in today's business landscape and outlines how and where he believes technology can play a role in overcoming them

.

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

sponsored by:

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...

In my experience, most field service organisations are striving to deliver exceptional service, a complex, dynamic endeavour where few things remain constant for long, and decision making needs to adjust constantly to changing conditions. 

"In spite of the effort that organisations place on data capture, few of the management teams that I deal with feel the data is delivered to them in a form which adequately supports the complex operational decision making they have to perform daily..." 

1. Provide holistic, real-time insight into those dimensions of performance that influence the overall service delivery and
2. Help to guide proportionate operational response in ways that collectively engage the entire operational team.

"Technologies such as machine learning and data analytics are proving capable of identifying underlying patterns of performance in the field service operation that was too complex for traditional applications to identify..."

---

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

---

sponsored by:

---

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...

---

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.

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...

sponsored by:

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...

"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...

sponsored by:

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...