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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  Coresystems
Title: Transforming Field Service into a Profit Centre

 

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Synopsis:

Manufacturers in various industries are increasingly under pressure to make their customer service units profitable. In order to deliver great service, businesses need to focus on understanding what customers want. This can be achieved by investing in new tools that improve efficiency and quality. To keep customers coming back and deter competition, manufacturers need to develop business models and  customised services that are aligned to individual customer’s business goals.

For the customer, faster service delivery and less unplanned downtime mean a higher yield from capital investments, which then justifies high-value services.

Field service has traditionally been a drain on cash. However, with field service automation software, there is an opportunity for the first time to save money and increase profits. It’s not uncommon for  manufacturers to achieve efficiency savings of up to 30% while still increasing customer loyalty and growing brand value.

Field service not only transforms finances, but also the whole customer relationship. This white paper offers guidance as to how to make that transformation in your business effectively.

Overview:

The key topics discussed in this white paper include:

Why Does Field Service Need to Become a Profit Centre?

The world is changing fast: economically, socially, and politically. Businesses have to adapt to new competitive landscapes, including challenges caused by cheap suppliers from abroad or disruptions by startups that turn whole industries upside down. Customers are becoming accustomed to higher levels of personalised service, often assisted by technology that facilitates their lives.

These global trends present challenges, but also great opportunities for businesses to tap into.

By focusing on their customers and disrupting their own business models, businesses can create new revenue streams and distinguish themselves from the competition. If it is run as a profit centre, field service management can play an important part in this transformation.

How Field Service Can Become a Profit Centre

In this section we present five practical steps for turning field service into a profit centre. These steps are all about putting the customer first and empowering staff. You will learn how to move from minimal efforts and reactive repairs to focus on proactive, productised services, and relationship building.

The following points are covered in this section:

 

• Operational efficiencies
• Field service ambassadors sell more products and services
• New innovative business models
• Customisation and individualisation

Customer Focus:

Today, manufacturers have new means to impact their customer’s success. New processes and tools are available for the first time allowing manufacturers to interact with customers in new ways. These tools organise resources and processes and feed field service staff vital information and instructions. Engineers completing a service job will now be able to offer meaningful advice based on real-time data combined with their experience and collaboration. Customers will see the benefits of field service management software straight away.

They will not only appreciate the improved efficiency and quality of the service, but also the difference the service has made to their productivity. This can go as far as the equipment manufacturer becoming a business partner invited to advise on capital investment to meet production targets.

Operational Efficiencies:

By definition, less costs means more profit. By achieving more with the resources available, field service teams can reduce costs and improve cash flow by increasing efficiencies in information management, service delivery, and planning.

This can start by optimising some resources, such as:

 

• Planning service calls with a routing system, allowing more visits per day.
• Enabling fast access to historical data from digital archives, which reduces planning time.
• Reducing the cost of sale by planning pre-defined templates, software automation, and online resources to significantly reduce the time it takes to provide a quote to the customer.

Employees are more focused on efficiency when provided with the tools to empower them to increase this efficiency. Mobile data solutions mean engineers onsite can complete services faster because they have all the information they need at their fingertips.

Field Ambassadors Sell More Products and Services:

Field service engineers are in a perfect position to establish a valuable relationship with customers that facilitates up selling of services and equipment, at a very low cost of sale. They have access to the customer’s organisation where they can offer insight, advice, and guidance based on technical knowledge and years of experience. As ambassadors of your company field service technicians can have significant influence, but they must be supported in this role with the right tools and training.

New Innovative Business Models:

Services can be developed, marketed and sold like products. Adding in new processes and technology can also make them modular and easy to purchase, for instance from an online catalog. Innovative ideas can then help create services that adapt to customers’ own businesses. In fact, customers might find that they can create new products as an addition to your services – the ultimate form of brand loyalty.

Customisation and Individualisation of Services:

The world is becoming more customer-focused and individualised. Older manufacturing companies are traditional, but a new generation of staff is experiencing a fresh, digitally driven customer service world at home, and increasingly expects a similar experience at work.

Forward-looking brands now put much more emphasis on the customer’s individual requirements, and seek ways to offer more customised services that support business targets and staff KPIs. Brand loyalty and keeping ahead of competitors are key goals.

 

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Want to know more? Access to this resource is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the resource "Your Guide to Flawless Field Service - Perfecting Productivity" sent directly to your inbox now

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems,  takes a look at two separate ways in which Augmented Reality is set to radically change the way we approach field service delivery...

In my last article I examined the technologies that will likely play a major role in driving exponential growth of the field service market over the next few years, with one of those technologies being augmented reality (AR).

In this piece, I’ll go more in-depth into the most impactful ways in which AR can revolutionise the field service industry over the next few years and beyond.

I mentioned this in my last article, but it bears repeating: enterprise use cases for augmented reality are on such a fast track to implementation that ABI Research predicts that 21 million AR units will be shipped by 2020, with sales reaching $100 billion.

Clearly there is a huge market opportunity for organisations looking to enhance their field service businesses with AR technologies.

 

There is a wide range of ways in which AR can support field service organisations, but I’d like to focus on the two that I predict will have the most immediate impact. The first one is probably in your pocket, or somewhere within arm’s reach, as we speak: the camera in your smartphone.

Here’s how it would work: when an issue occurs with a customer’s machine or device, a field service technician would connect remotely to that end user’s/customer’s smartphone via an app.

Once the technician and the end user are connected, that user can point the phone directly to the problem at hand, so the technician can gain a clear view of the issue and walk the user through fixing the problem, step-by-step.

This remote troubleshooting capability has the potential to greatly reduce the number of onsite visits between field service technicians and their customers, which would save a huge amount of time and resources on both parties’ ends.

But what if a technician is indeed needed onsite?

The AR app would be able to notify the end user of the status of their request in real-time.

This status update would include the exact location of the technician (via GPS), as well as notifications that can be pushed to the end-user’s device, so the customer can know that technician’s estimated time of arrival, down to the minute.

Again, time and resources saved.

The second way in which AR can transform the field service industry is through the use of AR glasses. The devices and machines being used at the customer’s facility could have a pair of glasses assigned to each device or machine, or a service technician could have the glasses on their person in their toolkit.

 

Through the glasses, the technician – who undoubtedly is more skilled than the user at fixing technical issues – can walk a user (or a less skilled technician) through the fix.

While the AR glasses and the AR app for the smartphone both deliver significant benefits to the customer and technician, the AR glasses have the potential to be a tremendous asset for the field service organisation in another way: by streamlining training.

In a scenario in which a customer needs onsite support, it behooves the field service organisation to send its less skilled – and therefore less costly – technicians to actually carry out the fix.

And this could be possible through the use of the AR glasses, as the more skilled technician could remain at HQ and remotely direct the less skilled technician through the fix by using the glasses.

This way, the customer still receives the top-notch service thanks to the senior technician (literally) overseeing the process, while the field service organisation is able to execute the service call while training its less skilled technician in a real-world scenario.

This is, as the saying goes, killing two birds with one stone.

So there’s an overview of the two ways that AR can most immediately have a positive impact on the field service industry.

However, the potential is perhaps even greater than we can imagine.

 

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Having introduced the concept of crowd-sourcing in previous articles for Field Service News, Manuel Grenacher, Coresystems, now takes a look at how and why the two new technologies dominating conversation in field service circles are perfect bed fellows for the gig economy...

As I discussed in my last article on why crowdsourcing could be transformational for the field service industry, the outlook for the growth of the field service market is hugely positive – MarketsandMarkets predicts that it will nearly triple in size to $5.11 billion between now and 2020. In this article, I’ll examine the technologies that will likely play a major role in driving that exponential growth of the field service market over the next few years.

The IoT Effect

The technology that has played a huge role so far in precipitating the growth of the field service industry is the Internet of Things (IoT).

This isn’t surprising, as the IoT is having a profound impact on not just every technology driven industry, but also the daily lives of people across the globe. And the IoT and the real-time connectivity it enables has led to a massive spike in consumer expectations for instantaneous customer service.

These new elevated customer demands created by the IoT are impacting the field service industry greatly, as organisations running any kind of a field service operation have been forced to rethink their strategies and tactics for customer service delivery, including their workforce resources and supporting field service technologies.

 

The bottom line is the IoT is very much here and is impacting your industry whether you realise it or not; so to put it simply, either you respond to the new realities of an IoT-driven world or you risk obsolescence.

The Era of Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) isn’t just a social media fad anymore, as enterprise use cases for augmented reality are on the rise and on a fast track to implementation. Indeed, ABI Research predicts that 21 million AR units will be shipped by 2020 with sales reaching $100 billion.

The field service industry, in particular, stands to benefit greatly from AR.

Imagine service technicians with specialised AR headsets, who will then have all the information they need for an installation and/or repair on a heads-up display. No more fumbling around for a laptop or tablet in the middle of a project.

 

AR would also connect on-site technicians with more experienced engineers back at an organisation’s headquarters who can visually supervise and troubleshoot more difficult technical issues.

With that, the use of AR boosts the key field service metrics of first-time fix rates and average repair time. It also benefits staff training and skills shortages, especially as devices trend toward IoT and more advanced technology.

Clearly, AR will benefit service engineers and technicians worldwide, many of whom are in the field service industry.

Enter the Gig Economy

Obviously, the gig economy isn’t a technology, but it’s a movement that could reshape field service management as we know it.

The digital technology underpinning the gig economy (such as the IoT) can help workers become entrepreneurs who have the freedom to dictate their work on their own terms, which has long been the allure of the independent contractor.

Skilled workers who have expertise in certain industry sectors – such as field service management – can either make extra money in their free time while pursuing their passions, or they can use the gig economy as their sole source of income.

Pioneering companies in the gig economy, such as Uber for the transportation sector and Airbnb for hospitality, have laid a blueprint for other industries to follow. In field service, we see a future in which for-hire field service technicians can connect – through technology tuned for the gig economy – to organisations who need extra manpower for their field service teams.

 

At Coresystems, we know first-hand the challenges that organisations face when the field service requests greatly outnumber that company’s field service technicians. By leveraging independent workers in the gig economy, organisations can help deliver the real-time service that customers now demand.

So there you go – the three factors that we envision having the biggest impact on the evolution of the field service industry over the next few years.

What are some other factors that you’re seeing through your own work in the field service industry?

We invite you to share your thoughts in the comments section.

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  Coresystems
Title: 3 Traps to Avoid if You Want to Meet Your Customer Satisfaction KPI

 

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Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Preparing for the Connected Customer" sent directly to your inbox now

 

 

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Synopsis:

For field service management (FSM), one of the most crucial KPIs is customer satisfaction.

Customers who are pleased with products and services are not tempted to seek out better solutions. In effect, guaranteeing customer satisfaction is a way of building up a loyal clientele and ensuring retention...

This white paper published by Coresystems explores three traps that every field service organisation must avoid if they want to ensure that they are meeting perhaps the most important KPI in todays competitive service landscape - customer satisfaction...

There are three things to pay close attention to when measuring this KPI: speed, quality and customer engagement.

The three traps many field service companies fall into according to this white paper are:

• Trap #1 - Long wait times
• Trap #2 - Diminished quality
• Trap #3 - Feeling left out

Overview:

There are three things to pay close attention to when measuring this KPI: speed, quality and customer engagement. This white paper offers an important list of ways to steer clear of bad service traps.

1st Trap: Long Wait Times:

Time is of the essence. Time wasted – on hold, repeating information to call center representatives who have no background knowledge of the issue, waiting for available service appointments or busy technicians – feels like time stolen to customers. A survey conducted by Aberdeen group showed that 51% of those surveyed were most dissatisfied with the waiting times for appointments.

Field service management software can play an integral role in increasing service response time by:

• By integrating quick response codes (QR code)  into devices, companies give customers the technology to quickly transmit all the necessary product details to service providers with one quick scan.
• By taking advantage of the latest developments in IoT, like sensors, companies can rely on predictive technology  to respond to breakdowns or glitches before they occur.
• By relying on a crowd service , companies can be sure they have a sufficient workforce with the expertise needed to handle customers’ technical service issues.

2nd Trap: Diminished Quality:

According the Aberdeen group survey, when asked to list their top four (out of twelve options) reasons for being dissatisfied with customer service, 58% of those surveyed stated that it was technicians who could not solve their issues due to a lack of expertise or equipment.

Should your customer survey indicate that clients are dissatisfied with the level of quality your service technicians are providing, the most immediate response you can take is to ensure that your technicians are properly trained to perform the tasks at hand. However, it can sometimes be difficult to find experienced and highly-qualified specialists. This is where the targeted use of FSM software can have measurable positive implications.

3rd Trap: Feeling left out:

Some companies make the mistake of assuming that a customer is content to report a problem and sit back and wait for the solution to appear.

This is a dangerous assumption to make. 38% of customers surveyed reported that they were unhappy about technicians not arriving on time. They were not content with knowing that technicians were on their way, they wanted to be able to track the progress of their repairs from start to finish. They wanted access to 24-hour status updates.

They wanted to be able to report problems when they occur, and not have to wait for the limited window of opportunity during which customer representatives were available.

 

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Filmed at FieldServiceUSA in Palm Springs 2017 Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks exclusively to Lukas Peter of Swiss Telco giants SwissCom about their pioneering new service SwissCom friends which harnesses the power of CrowdSourcing working with technology from Coresystems and applies it to a field service application....

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO at coresystems looks at why the predicted boom of the field service management market is set to bring workforce challenges of its own and proposes that the crowd-sourcing of field service could be the solution to these issues...

According to a recent report from Markets and Markets, by 2020 the field service management (FSM) market will be worth $5.11 billion – nearly triple its size in 2015. Major drivers behind that projection include skyrocketing customer expectations, the ever-increasing demand for enhanced productivity, and the steady escalation of field service operation costs.

Furthermore, Gartner forecasted that by 2020, two out of three large field service organisations will equip field technicians with a mobile application that drives profitability by creating revenue streams, efficiency and customer satisfaction. This is a positive outlook for the FSM market, but there’s a problem with the traditional field service delivery model that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

The exponential growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the real-time connectivity it enables has led to a massive spike in consumer expectations for instantaneous customer service. As a result, organisation of all sizes and across all industries have been forced to rethink their strategies for customer service delivery, including their workforce resources and supporting technologies. In doing so, many organisations are finding that they lack the technician specialists required to deliver real-time field service to their customers, and until now there has been no technology-based solution to help organisations find and deploy those specialists.

 

Compounding this resource availability problem is the fact that every day the number of IoT connected devices in circulation is increasing, which further adds to organisations’ backlogs of field service requests. But what if the field service industry were to adopt a new delivery model – one that could shift the balance of technology versus technicians back to a sustainable equilibrium for organisations?

This would be the tipping point that could help organisations leverage FSM to realise the true promise of the IoT. And the field service industry need look no further than some of the forward thinking companies that lead the way in the sharing economy, such as Uber and Airbnb.

By introducing technology that enables the crowdsourcing of field service to independent, for hire field service technicians (just like Uber does for drivers), FSM software providers would be able to help their customers find those field service technicians anywhere and anytime. This would check organisations’ critical box of providing real-time customer service.

[quote float="right"]The bottom line is that businesses today need to focus as much – if not more – on stellar customer service as they do on building innovative products

Furthermore, by utilising crowdsourced field service (or “crowd service”) for IoT-connected technologies, organisations will not only be able to deliver real-time customer support, but could also provide service and maintenance before those technologies suffer an outage. For larger organisations, we see two scenarios: a “public crowd” of crowdsourced freelance-technicians and a “private crowd” of technicians within your business ecosystem such as contractors, partners, subsidiaries and corporate professionals. Imagine that: through crowd service, organisations can proactively ensure that they never face the dreaded downtime that can end up costing millions of dollars per hour.

 

The bottom line is that businesses today need to focus as much – if not more – on stellar customer service as they do on building innovative products, but finding the time and resources required to meet rising consumer demands for real-time service has become increasingly difficult.

With crowd service, organisations can streamline their field service operations to deliver service as quickly as the same day the customer requests it, which delivers benefits from both a cost savings and customer satisfaction standpoint. Clearly, this crowd service model has the potential to be highly disruptive in the field service industry, but unlike many other technology based developments that are often lazily called disruptive, crowdsourced field service isn’t simply a nebulous concept.

 

FSM software providers are not only laying the groundwork for crowd service as we speak, but have customers deploying the technology in the real world – and many in the FSM industry, including Coresystems, expect crowd service to revolutionise the way that organisations service their customers in 2017 and beyond. So, as organisations look for a solution to the field service resourcing problem created by the IoT, they should turn to the crowd.

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by:  Coresystems
Title: Understanding Crowd Service Solutions: The Evolution Of Field Service

 

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Synopsis:

Companies looking to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to the rapid advancement of digitalization in their respective industries have long been concerned with Field Service Management (FSM).

They have reimagined their business philosophies around the conviction that customer satisfaction is a major priority and that new innovations are also shifting customer demands. Innovative CEOs and service executives know that FSM software alone will not be enough to meet real-time service expectations and needs.

They are looking to something with the groundbreaking potential to revolutionise the services industry and customer experience. They are turning to crowd service solutions. What promises does crowd service offer the field services industry?

How can you use them to improve brand loyalty? Why will they be the only way forward in the age of IoT?

This white paper outlines the premise that the only way forward is to combine field service management with crowd service technology

Overview:

The white paper explores three key areas in establishing the case for a new crowd sourced approach to field service that leverages the growing 'gig-economy' in order to meet growing customer demands whilst reducing operational costs for field service organisations.

The Service Executive Bible: What Matters Most

It is only logical that service executives would be primarily concerned with optimising the customer experience.

In fact, a study conducted to determine key issues facing service executives in comparison to other business executives highlighted how much CSOs value customer satisfaction over other KPIs.

However, with the manpower currently available to them, CSOs are running up against a brick wall. In order to continue achieving their aim of consistent customer satisfaction improvement rates, they need a bigger team of technicians and experts who can keep up with the new pace being set by the latest innovations in technology. The trend is heading towards crowd services.

It will soon be the only way to meet the demands of a growing workload.

The Evolution Of Field Service

Just as the rise of machines gave rise to more advanced and capable machines, so to have field services evolved over the years. What used to be an analog process of collecting and sharing information about customers and devices, has now become automated, and in some cases completely digitalized.

This has in large part been the response to the need for more streamlined and efficient processes. FSM software ensures that everyone is on the same page: the company, the technicians, the customers.

The white paper explores the development of FSM in depth focussing on:

• The Way It Used To Be: The Analog Approach
• Today’s Standard: Field Service Management In The 21st Century
• Where We Are Headed: Crowd Service And Predictive Maintenance

Crowd Service Technology

A crowd service is a pool of skilled, freelance service technicians who are available to respond to service calls when needed. These crowd service technicians possess the necessary IT know-how to address various technical issues. Thanks to field service management software, they also have access to internal company manuals, tutorials and videos as well as to customer and device/machine specifics for getting the job done quickly and effectively.

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems explains the Crowd Service concept...

There has been a rapid increase in technological advancements designed to enhance our quality of life and a consistent trend towards gadgets that save us time. From checking in for flights on our smartphones to having our food home-delivered, we have become accustomed to getting things and accomplishing things as quickly as possible.

Where we stand now 

Recent surveys conducted across a broad spectrum of people located in numerous countries determined that 60% of consumers defined a bad customer experience as one that involves waiting a long time for service after booking an appointment. Customers want reliable and fast service, and they want it in real-time. They are looking for convenience:

Time is Precious: Every moment spent waiting for a technician is one spent away from other important activities. Consumers do not want their time taken for granted. They expect service in real-time.

Keep It Simple: Complex booking systems that involve multiple steps or unnecessary time investment (e.g. being on hold with call centres) are a big turn off.

Freedom to choose: Customers do not want to have to fit their lives to the suppliers’ schedules.

They want the flexibility to decide which service appointment best accommodates their day.

Room for Improvement

The problem: many of the gadgets produced for our consumers, though intended to buy them a few precious moments a day, are in fact costing them even more time. Minutes lost on hold with customer representatives. Hours spent waiting for technicians to arrive. Days lost because machines have broken down and can not be repaired immediately.

According to studies, “61% of all field service suppliers cited ‘customer satisfaction’ as their top measure for success”. However, they simultaneously ranked ‘response time’ (3%) and ‘customer complaints’ (5%) as substantially less significant priorities.

When taking into account what customers really value – real-time service and their time – the current supplier ranking of priorities needs to be adjusted to reflect what would actually keep customers satisfied. Emphasis needs to be placed on optimising field service and reducing the amount of time it takes to meet service demands.

The Surmountable Roadblock

Though it is easy to isolate the best way to improve customer satisfaction, many field service suppliers still face a serious obstacle when it comes to addressing this need. Real-time service requires access to an extensive, widespread and qualified workforce. Access that many suppliers do not have.

A lack of trained and readily available personnel has always led to longer wait times and unsatisfied customers. However, the dawn of IoT is making the problem more pronounced. More and more devices are interconnected. Predictive technology is making it possible to accurately foresee technical malfunctions and breakdowns before they occur. There is a greater demand for service than ever. And yet the number of technicians that most service providers has on hand has remained the same.

The reason for this is mainly the cost factor. Hiring full-time technicians is expensive. Particularly when they are needed for short-term projects. In addition, hiring full-time service employees does not guarantee that they will be where they are most in demand. Having a full-time team member in a remote corner of the globe is not a viable business model.

However, having access to a skilled worker who could provide these same services in remote areas is. What is the solution?

The Solution Is Crowd Services

This is where the Uber-like on demand model prevails. The company created a business model that utilises untapped resources to meet an unfilled demand Receptiveness to this concept of the shared economy has given rise to the crowd service model. And it is being applied to field service management.

The creation of a crowd – a group of competent and certified technicians, partners or freelancers available upon request – to accommodate the growing need for real-time service is a game changer in field service management. Companies have all the benefits of skilled labor, at a fraction of the price. It saves companies enormous overhead costs and end customers the most valuable commodity: time.

Revolutionise the Way You Do Service Before It’s Too Late!

Coresystems, with its ample experience in platform implementation and extensive knowledge of all legal aspects, is pressing this revolution forwards by providing the software that makes crowd service implementation possible.

We are on the cusp of a significant shift. If one supplier does not start adapting to real-time demands, consumers will find a supplier that does.

Now is the time to adopt the measures necessary to keep pace with IoT and the direction it is taking us. Make your service model about real-time convenience served up quick and hassle free.

When customers feel that you value their time, they will value your products. Only crowd service can deliver in real-time. Empower your ecosystem today

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems outlines a clear plan for smooth software implementation...

Software implementations fail across various industries and markets, but mostly for human reasons rather than software catastrophes.

According to research firm, Gartner, 55% to 75% of all ERP projects fail to meet objectives.

Panorama Consulting worked with independent research company Mint Jutras, and found that more companies in 2015, 21% to be exact, are defining software implementations as failures, up from 16% in previous years. Field service businesses bring their own challenges in levels of complexity, remote access, and skills, but these are manageable with the right planning and partners. Here are my five tips for successful implementation of field service software.

1. Setting Objectives Is Key

It’s easy to get fixated on features when choosing a new software solution. However, there’s more to implementing a new system than that. Features and functions are obviously important, but you should choose software and a delivery partner that understands your field service business and what you’re trying to achieve. While choosing a software solution, think of the end-to-end process and the people that will have to use the software to do their jobs and how information will be accessed and used throughout that process.

Data entered by the admin team needs to be in the right format and accessible to technicians remotely.

 

Set objectives before starting to compare systems so you know what you’re trying to achieve. What ROI is the Finance Director looking for? How will you measure the degree of success or failure?

Think holistically about the whole field service business, including the people. Take a baseline measurement before you start for comparison purposes, e.g. average number of site visits per day, time taken per visit, call backs, technician upsells, direct online access by customers, cost per visit.

2. Getting Acceptance and Trust From Your Staff

A new software solution can succeed or fail depending on how your staff reacts to it. They after all are the most important part of the business and the software is only there to make them more productive, so take care of them before everything else. Identify everyone affected by the roll out: sales, admin, technicians, accountants, line management, etc. Plan ahead and maybe even get their input during software selection. Plan in detail how the software will accomplish the business processes, especially the interaction between the new system and humans.

Offering training pre- and post-implementation is vital, plus having ongoing support.

3. Ensure Security of Data 

Just because a new software system is based in the cloud, that doesn’t make it immune to problems. The implementation should be treated the same way as it would be for a traditional IT system. It’s very important to be just as rigorous with project management, objectives, data migration, phased rollout, testing, etc. A cloud implementation will bring many benefits and cost savings, but it also has its own challenges around access, compliance, and security.

The main servers and networking infrastructure will be looked after in a secure data centre, but technicians need remote access on-site. Their tools, such as mobile devices, should be tested and given as many means of data connectivity as possible at fast speeds with significant amounts of storage for downloading manuals, catalogs, video, etc.

 

The new system shouldn’t bypass your company’s compliance rules, or the industry rules in regulated regimes such as some utilities. When it comes to security, it is still your responsibility to ensure personal and confidential data is kept secure so be responsible when specifying requirements for data connectivity, VPN tunneling, encryption (including on mobile devices), rewalls, etc.

4. Pick A Project Management Team

Strong project management skills are vital during this phase, which will mean choosing a supplier and delivery partner that understands your business. Plan out the whole end-to-end field service deployment with them and keep staff and customers in the loop. Still, you should stay flexible enough to take on unexpected changes without risking derailing the whole project.

Don’t expect staff to be able to do their day jobs and run the implementation, too. You’ll need to assign dedicated people to set up the product information, customer site details, report structures, etc. These people may come from the delivery partner, but you’ll still need to assign time for internal experts to pass on information and perform testing.

Don’t be afraid to make carefully considered changes to the plan. For instance, if a big new customer comes on board half way through with new service requirements, decide whether to delay working with the customer or delay the whole project. Either decision can be right, but you should have a process ready to help you make the decision, understand the consequences, and communicate your decision.

 

Getting the features right is one thing, but installing the new system will take time, and it will probably be disruptive to ongoing operations and cause anxiety among a affected staff. All of these disruptions have to be planned for and managed properly so they don’t spin out of control and take the project down.

5. Implement Step by Step

It’s usually much better to adopt a phased approach to implementing a new software system rather than expecting to do it all in one big bang.

Keep the phases manageable by dividing the rollout into controllable chunks. These chunks could be based on regional teams, functional steps, the business model, or all of the above. A good way to start might be to choose a team that performs well and is fairly close to HQ. Spend time getting them up and running smoothly, iron out any wrinkles, and be sure to understand their worries and objections because you’ll see those worries again at every other site.

 

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