Benefits of the Rapid Evolution We've All Endured (Podcast Highlights)

May 27, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

In this highlight form the Field Service Podcast, Kevin Green, former CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News focus on the potential upside of the crisis we've all faced together...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Galvanising Effect of Rapid Evolution at times of Crisis

There is no doubt the pressure of global lockdowns has forced organisations to change. There simply wasn’t adoption for most businesses to ‘stay calm and carry-on’ as the popular British meme suggests.

Business survival as the world went on temporary hiatus was more in line with dynamic Darwinian concepts than steadfast stoicism. It was not the largest organisations that found themselves at safe enough distance from harm, just look at the aviation sector for evidence that the pandemic has taken its toll among industry heavyweights and minnows alike, it is those who were able to adapt the fastest.

Yet, dare we say it in the light of such a wide reaching tragedy that has touched the lives of almost everyone on the planet in some way shape and form, but there is equally an opportunity presented here for organisations that have the innate ability to adapt enclosed within their corporate DNA.

In fact, it is perhaps the responsibility of those organisations capable of doing so to thrive now as we plot a path back towards whatever it is that will be our ‘new-normal’. We need them to do so for the sake of kick-starting floundering economies. We need them to do so because this whole saga is in desperate need for a silver lining.

Green certainly sees that there are opportunities to establish more dynamic cultures within our organisations and that those who do so will flourish. However, those who fail to do so may face a future of extinction rather than evolution.

“The way most organisations change is when they're in crisis,” he explains.

"One of the great things about change is that if your backs are against the wall, it's easier to make big calls than if you're trying to change in an organisation in a more evolutionary, type of way, in a more incremental manner...”

“As we've seen in the recent health crisis, lots of organisations have made very quick decisions and changed at pace because they've had to, there was absolutely no choice, but what you find is most organisations don't change. When I was at the Royal Mail as HR director, we were losing a million and a half pounds a day. So we had to change, we had to change at pace. That galvanises people and they make choices that would have never been choices and decisions that wouldn't have been made in normal circumstances.

So, one of the great things about change is that if your backs are against the wall, it's easier to make big calls than if you're trying to change in an organisation in a more evolutionary, type of way, in a more incremental manner,” Green adds.

However, while the onset of Covid-19 has forced rapid change within many organisations, for those companies with a more rigid leadership structure, Green warns that evolving into a more dynamic organisation can take time, something some companies may find scarce.

“If you're a new leadership team and you've inherited an organisation which is very, very mechanistic and top down, then it [establishing a culture change] takes time. It is not an easy thing to change your culture. It is about involving people. It's about engaging people. It's about trying to manage people, but in a different way.

“It's about creating, but also some of it will be about dismantling systems and processes. You need to take apart ways of working, that have been in place for many years. Changing a culture is something that has to be deliberate, thoughtful, and well executed. It's not something you can just swap overnight and expect everyone to behave differently. In fact, if you do that, you’ll end up in chaos.”

What is certain though is even if your organisation leadership is based in a top-down, mechanistic style of approach – there has never been a more pressing time to address this and begin introducing more modern, dynamic approaches to leadership within you organisation then right now.

The Importance of Consistent Values In Leadership (Podcast Highlights)

May 22, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

In this highlight form the Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Kevin Green, former HR Director of the Royal Mail and author of the best selling book Competitive People Strategy about how we identify the...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Leadership Values should be lived not put up on a wall

One of the things that has been evident amongst many organisations who have adapted best to the challenging operating conditions of the last few months is that there has been a genuine in the trenches approach to how we're all getting through this together.

One of the things that has really come to the fore in terms of good leadership has been a leadership method that has strengthened this message. The common mantra of many a leadership communication at this time is that so we're all pulling together, we're all moving in the same direction together and to achieve recovery we must embrace a very collegial approach.

As Green outlined in Season Five, Episode One of The Field Service Podcast the ability to not only convey such a message, but to actively live it, is something that is embedded in strong leadership.

“We talk a lot about behaviours and values within organisations,” he begins as we touch on the topic. “When organisations are tested, they're put under pressure, then it's how you behave that your people will remember. They won’t remember what's written down on a piece of paper or the value stuff up on a wall. They remember when there are tough decisions to be made, how our leaders made those decisions - did they live by their values?

“The obvious one is has the organisation tried to keep as many people employed as possible and get as many people to the other side?” He adds.

"When recovery comes and people have a choice about who they work for, will people will want to stay and work for your organisation?"

This consideration is something that has been echoed across much of the content here on Field Service News and beyond. The way an organisation acts towards their staff during crisis could have a significant impact on their ability to retain skilled field workers when the economies begin to reopen. Remember, many field service organisations will be seeking to catch up on capacity lost during the crisis and as such the field service engineer is likely to be a role very much in demand.

Green touched in this in the wider business context as he continued; “Staff don't forget, there's a long corporate memory within most organisations,” he explains.

“So leaders have got to think about the decisions they're making with a lens as to how does this play out to my people now, but as you mentioned, when recovery comes and people have a choice about who they work for, will people will want to stay and work for your organisation? A lot of that will be dependent on how the leadership behaved when the organisation was under huge pressure, and whether they did the right thing by the people.

“Now, that isn't to say that organisations don't make to make need to cut costs and make some people redundant because I think in this environment, some have had to do that. But it's also about how you communicate that and how do you engage your people?

“One Chief Executive I was talking to recently phoned every single member of staff that was made redundant, and had an individual conversation with them, and then said at the end of that conversation to every single one, and there were about 60 or 70 people, ‘this isn't your fault, and when we get back, then I'm going to prioritise and re employing you people. I really don't want to do this, but I had no choice’ and he explained the circumstances on a personal one to one level.

“Now, that is leadership. [He] still made the tough decision, but actually [he] implemented it in a way which means those people most probably will go back and work for him when the roles do become available again.”

Identifying Organisational Culture in Business (Podcast Highlights)

May 22, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News and Kevin Green, former HR Director of Royal Mail and the best selling author of Competitive People Strategy discuss what culture is within an organisation and how to identify whether a corporate...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Does your leadership team understand the Value of Nurturing culture within the business?

In the few short months since the Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world and we went into a global lockdown everything has changed.

As Kevin Green explained in Season Five, Epsiode, One of the Field Service Podcast, it is as if a meteorite has hit us and the world of industry went into temporary shutdown operating at minimum capacity. There is talk that in terms of economics, we could potentially bounce back as sharply as we fell, although the majority of analysts are now predicting a longer more sustained road to recovery

However, the truth remains that we are collectively waking up into a different world than that which existed pre-pandemic and that will be the case no matter how quickly we get to the recovery.

There are fundamental things that will have changed, particularly in some of the service industries which have been hardest hit such as the hospitality sector. Yet similarly we have seen a massive boost to the digital transformation projects that were dots on the horizon for many companies just a few months earlier which have become mission-critical necessities today.

Equally we have seen businesses become adaptive, with those leading the way pivoting in some of the most remarkable way to help battle the pandemic but also to keep their teams in work and the revenue flowing even in these most challenging of years.

But how do we create an adaptive culture? How we make sure that our team are able to continue evolving throughout the recovery processes, we move beyond into a post COVID-19 world?

"The issue for me is whether the organisation has really spent time thinking about it [the corporate culture] and understanding it and do the leaders get that developing, enhancing and reinforcing a culture is what gets great results?"

“Every organisation has a culture, whether it's a well-articulated and something that's been designed or created over a period of time, or whether it's just how people behave within the business,” explained Green.

“One of the good examples I always use when I talk about culture is how do people behave when the manager is not there? Do they still work incredibly hard and do they still give discretionary effort? Or actually when the manager is not around, they just muck around, and not work hard? That will describe your culture, how people feel about the organisation.

“The other great example is when you meet someone that works for an organisation in a social setting and you ask them, what's it like to work there? What do they say? That's when you can, that's a real articulation of your culture,” Green adds.

For Green though the value of culture within an organisation goes far, far beyond coping within crisis – it is where the inherent value of the business lies and is something that absolutely needs to be nurtured by the leadership team.

“The issue for me is whether the organisation has really spent time thinking about it [the corporate culture] and understanding it and do the leaders get that developing, enhancing and reinforcing a culture is what gets great results?

“My belief is that most value in today's economy comes from human beings. It used to be about access to capital and machinery. But now it's about you know, and if you look at the PwC survey of Chief Execs globally, the number one issue is talent. Have I got the talent? Have I got more talent than my competitors? Can I find it? And can I retain it?

“To do that, you've got to have a culture where people want to work, where they can turn up and do good work, you and that's the fundamental thing about having an adaptive culture, you must articulate your purpose. Why does the organisation exist?”

As we continue to grow into a post Covid world, it is likely that it is those companies that understand what it is to establish and adaptable culture that are likely to thrive in the ‘new-normal’.

Service Businesses Can Now Give Video Estimates Using Zoom

May 21, 2020 • Features • Covid-19

Workiz’s New Integration with Zoom Allows Service Businesses to Provide Estimates Remotely, Protecting Clients and Technicians during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Workiz, the leading field service management and communication software, announced today a new integration with Zoom, the video conferencing service. In response to a growing need, Workiz provided this new integration feature to enable service businesses, such as repair services, junk haulers, and carpet cleaners, to give video estimates to their customers.

Service Providers

By reducing the need for physical interactions between service providers and their customers, this innovative solution helps maintain social distancing guidelines during the pandemic.

Video estimates allow service businesses to:

Work more efficiently by having service providers give estimates remotely rather than traveling back and forth to customers’ homes.
Protect the safety of both service providers and customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Save recordings of estimates in Workiz, their scheduling and management software.
Troubleshoot simple problems over video for a reduced rate

According to Workiz’s data, an average of 70% of service providers’ time is spent preparing and providing estimates, rather than actually performing their services. Only 28% of these estimates ultimately result in paying jobs. This new feature allows service businesses to do online estimates via video which saves them time, thereby improving their efficiency and helping them become more profitable.

“This Zoom integration allows customers ease of mind during this pandemic,” explained Thomas Dawson, Founder and Owner of Dumpster Intervention Patrol, a trash, recycle bin and dumpster sanitizing and cleaning service based in Peoria, Arizona. Furthermore, ”If somebody who lives 50 miles away called me and asked for a free home estimate — as a business it doesn’t make sense to drive 100 miles without knowing the job is guaranteed.” In the junk business sector, 76% of technicians’ time is spent on estimates rather than on actual jobs for which they get paid. An average estimate for the industry is $650, with a win rate of 27%. Therefore, the ability to do online estimates can be a game changer in this industry.

Workiz provides small to medium-sized, on-demand field service businesses with all the tools they need to manage their business, grow their revenues and improve customer experience. Its software as a service (SaaS) solution is being used by tens of thousands of service professionals, such as junk removal companies, carpet cleaners and appliance repair professionals in North America.

“Due to COVID-19, service companies are experiencing a 20-40% decline in new job orders, as clients think twice before calling in service professionals,” said Adi (Didi) Azaria, CEO of Workiz. “Real-time video can provide service companies the ability to answer questions and request information via a live stream with clients. They can guide clients to use their smartphone cameras to show them what needs to be done for better understanding, quick problem-solving and providing estimates.” Furthermore, “For clients who are more concerned with having service professionals enter their house, service businesses might look into offering paid video consulting for different types of projects.”

Leadership in a Post-Pandemic World (Podcast Highlights)

May 20, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Kevin Green, former CEO Recruitment and Employment Confederation and the best selling author of Competitive People Strategy about what leadership looks like in the face of the Covid-19...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

The Importance of Trust Within leadership

The role of leadership has perhaps never been under the microscope more than it is today.

It is in times of crisis that we see strong leadership come to the fore but is there a different type of leadership required for managing an organisation through a crisis. Winston Churchill for example, regarded by many as one of the world’s great leaders was able to galvanise the British during the second world war to somehow bring to a halt the apparently unstoppable might of the Nazi war machine. Yet, in the first election of peacetime in 1945 he led the Conservatives to a shocking landslide defeat at the hands of Clement Attlee’s Labour Party.

As we read, listen and watch about the impact of Covid-19 the war-time analogies continue to flow, it is hard for us to draw any other parallels as none really exist within living memory.

So, are the leadership traits that we're seeing emerge now different to what will be required after the pandemic? Or is it just that there is a magnifying glass on good leadership at the moment and what we are paying attention to is best practice in terms of leadership?

“I think the businesses that have responded most positively and have been the most agile and responsive in in the face of something which is a pretty extreme and very rare event are the organisations who have very clear ideas about how organisations should be run,” Kevin Green, commented on The Field Service Podcast, Season Five, Epiosde One.

"The centre of the organisation is responsible for strategy, long term thinking and some guiding principles and then they devolve decision making to people to in the appropriate place in the organisation to respond to customers wants and needs."

One of the common areas that Green has identified amongst such organisations is that there is an understanding that trust must be embedded across the organisation rather than the absolute approach of a more authoritarian leadership style.

“It's not command and control from the top,” he explains “it's not everything rises to the top but [these companies are applying] very dissipated decision making. Here the centre of the organisation is responsible for strategy, long term thinking and some guiding principles and then they devolve decision making to people to in the appropriate place in the organisation to respond to customers wants and needs.

“Those organisations that have already got that type of leadership, mentality and culture are the ones that have responded most quickly and most effectively. If you’ve got a command and control structure it's very, very difficult for one group of people, that don't have all the facts, [who] aren't in control of everything ,to make decisions on every data point,” he adds.

However, it is not just an efficiency challenge that Green sees in a command and control approach. There is also the heavy weight of burden that this can carry on the leadership team and this can have a significant impact on their own performance as well if left unchecked.

As Green explains; “You get swamped and the pressure becomes quite profound. [To avoid this] the centre of the organisation needs to create direction, clarity and communication for their people and then allow leaders at a local level to make decisions about how best to implement them.

“What this [Covid-19] has highlighted is that good leadership, where people trust their people and trust their managers to make the right decisions in 90% of circumstances and have got the benefit [of that approach] while those are perhaps a little bit more old fashioned [in their leadership structure] have struggled.”

A Challenge Greater Than Anything We've Known (Podcast Highlights)

May 18, 2020 • Features • Royal Mail • The Field Service Podcast • Covid-19 • Leadership and Strategy • Kevin Green

While the hope of a V-shaped dip in the economy is still a possibility, we cannot underestimate the sheer magnitude of the economic impact of the global lockdowns as Kevin Green explained in a episode of the Field Service Podcast...

Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

Understanding the True Economic Impact of Covid-19

Talking to Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News during episode one of season five of the Field Service Podcast, Kevin Green outlined just why the challenge we face now is different from anything that has come before.

"I suppose the starting point, is recognising the difference from an economic perspective the Covid-19 health crisis has created in comparison to previous recessions," Green began.

Going on to draw on his own experience both as Chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Federation, as well as former HR Director for the UK's Royal Mail, Green continued "the recruitment industry always rises to the economic waves quite well. In that, it goes into recession early, but it also comes out early.

"I can remember in 2008, and that was a pretty unprecedented economic downturn, six quarters of contraction where our industry lost 30% of its revenue. However, in 2008 there was a period before we went into that recession. There was a debate going on, as to whether a recession was coming or not. So, most businesses had six to nine months to prepare for the downturn. The difference with COVID-19 is it happened within a week.

"The government first decided it was going to start asking people to self-isolate and close down parts of the economy. But actually, when we then entered lockdown, in reality with like an asteroid hit the planet, effectively we were switching off 70% of the economic activity of the country. What that has done to our economy is created a huge shock. We've not got any preparation. People weren't prepared at all, and we've just gone headlong into a recession, which will be pretty significant."

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side..."

The point Green makes is crucial for how we are to make the necessary adjustments as we prepare a road towards recovery. We cannot under-estimate the sheer magnitude of the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy and how that will have an ongoing effect on the business chains our organisations exist within.

As Green continues; "So [this recession] is clearly more severe than previous recessions and much faster. I suppose the obvious way to compare is if you think about unemployment. Within the first two weeks of the this crisis, we have had a million people [within the UK] register for Universal Credit. In the last recession, it took us nearly three years to get a million more people unemployed. So that gives you an indication of how rapid the changes be."

This is an eye-opening statistic. It does well to outline how the current scenario is not comparable to the global economic downturn in 2008, where we had a more generic, slower build into a recession. Something that allowed companies to make advance decisions around not hiring and cutting back on investment.

Green went on to describe the situation in 2020 as one where "businesses were, all of a sudden on a precipice, deciding whether they could survive. [They were] taking costs out having to make very draconian and hard decisions very, very quickly, just to survive.

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side."

It has been a period of testing times for all of us, and those in leadership roles have had hard, hard decisions to make. Green is closely connected to many involved in such conversations in his role as a serial entrepreneur.

"It's been a time of crisis, and it's been incredibly difficult for leaders and leadership teams," Green explains. "it's taken its toll in terms of stress, anxiety, and lots of sleepless nights as businesses have had to take really tough decisions."

Yet, despite being in the heat of 'battle' on many fronts and having a comprehensive viewpoint on how the challenges we face today are genuinely unprecedented, Green still sees a glimmer of optimism in the future.

"Hopefully there is some good news in that we can come out of recessions as quickly as we entered it. As soon as soon the government starts lifting some of the self-isolating and people having to work from home, then parts of the economy can and will switch back on again. I think what we all have to hope is that, while we've gone into recession very, very quickly, we will come out pretty fast on the other side as well."

ServiceMax and Krios Partner to Create Service Recruitment Platform

May 07, 2020 • News • future of field service • ServiceERP • servicemax • Service Recruitment • Covid-19

Field Service Finder comes in response to covid-19 recruitment challenges.

Five P's to Post-Covid Service Resilience

May 07, 2020 • Features • future of field service • Martin Summerhayes • corona virus • Covid-19

Martin Summerhayes offers a take on the five P's business acronym that could help service directors when they switch their infrastructure back on.

Before you jump to a different conclusion, the five P’s in the title is not the normal phrase that many of you know (poor planning, promotes poor performance!).

As we are all living, and possibly working, in the current restrictions, it seems strange to be thinking of what comes as we start to transition out of these times: locked down, social distancing, restricted movement and travel, etc. Discussing with colleagues and organisations, many are focused on the immediate business needs; furloughing staff; pairing back on the services that are delivered; are just a couple of activities they are focused on. So why think about when we start to exit?

Field Service Management operating in lockdown

Well, to think of exit, we need to consider how we entered the situation. The UK was put into lockdown on Monday 23rd March in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus (Lockdowns and restrictions were also applied across Europe and the rest of the world. If your service business relies on global networks, then this is even more of a complex situation). During the lead up to that day, many companies, organisations, and services had carried on much as normal. Shops; retail outlets; restaurants; public houses; garden centres; sports facilities; the list could go on and on; but most were trading and operating as normal. Almost overnight, the restrictions meant that many places had to close with immediate effect.

Here comes some (but by no means all) of the potential issues. For ease, I have broken them down into three categories.

Product Issues

Having worked in IT Services for many years and been involved in the support of both new, as well as legacy solutions, two big issues with regard to the products spring to mind.

The first is, for many of the organisations that were shut down, how was their IT systems shut down? I would imagine that most, if not all, was shut down as the there were no timescales provided for the lockdown. Were these servers, storage, network devices, etc, shut down properly or were they just turned off? The implications for Windows and Unix environments when not shut down properly, can often mean that you can end up with problems when you try to reboot them (corrupt databases, applications and operating systems spring to mind). In addition, prior to being shut down, did they take a full backup, rather than an incremental one? I have seen situations where restoring incremental backups was a complete nightmare, as the backups were not all stored.

Secondly, as many of us know, when you have a legacy product – say a server – over time the component boards become brittle. The solder joints and the multi-layer component boards get impacted by the constant heat. I have often seen that when an IT product is turned off – either in a planned or unplanned manner – quite often, it fails to start back up. The component boards break down and the solder joints fail.

Repair & Logistic Issues

For many IT service organisations; and I would imagine it is similar in other technology service markets; there is a finite spare, and repair loop. One of the biggest costs of after-sales service, is the provision of spare parts available to service the needs of customers. Both in terms of “good” spares, those spares that are ready to be used to resolve issues, as well as “bad” spares, that have been swapped out of a product to resolve the issue.

"The level of service requests has dropped dramatically as the market sectors, organisations and clients that are served are closed..."

This repair & logistics loop is an almost infinitive loop. Optimising this loop means only having the minimum stock of spares to meet the repair and logistics loop UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES (I have used CAPITALS as this is important!). This normal logistics and repair loop can be between fifteen to twenty days on average. The lockdown has effectively frozen this loop. Where are your spares? In the repair loop at a depot waiting to be shipped back to a repairer? At a repairer awaiting repair? Or at a repairer, repaired, waiting to be shipped back as “good” stock into your stock loop? You might even have been in the process of servicing requests, in which case the spares were in forward stocking locations awaiting call off against new service requests?

Service Staff Issues

For many organisations, the level of service requests has dropped dramatically as the market sectors, organisations and clients that are served are closed. This means that many service technicians, technical couriers and service engineers have been furloughed; retaining the staff, but at the same time, reducing the staff cost overheads verses the services revenues received from clients.

This is where the first set of P’s comes in. “Precise Planning Pre-empts”.

We are going to come out of this at some point. However, it is not going to be a mass switch on of services; mass opening of markets and outlets. Think of a giant “Turn On” switch being pulled. Rather, it is going to be phased approach, something that the UK government is still defining. Every indication is that it will be a phased relaxation of restrictions across industries, sectors and services (I imagine that this is similar across different countries and governments as well).

If you take into account the issues above and the likelihood of the impact of IT failures, the level of service requests and the ability to be able to meet those requests when the services reopen is going to be a huge challenge. I can easily see an increase of service failures of more than 20% increase of normal failure volumes.

This is where elements of “scenario planning” and an element of “game theory” comes into their own. The “Precise Planning” element. You can take a set of scenarios to then precisely plan the impacts. This evolves around asking a series of open ended questions and describing in detail the responses and impacts.

For example: One of your customers that has a mixed legacy IT estate that is distributed across a number of outlets around the country.

Do you know what is the makeup of the IT products across the customers estate? By outlet? By size of outlet? By type of outlet?
As it is a mixed legacy estate, do you have failure rates by product for both new, as well as legacy products? Do you have data based on previous peeks of service (say Christmas, holiday peeks, etc)? Or have you had service outages in the past (say due to a power failure) and have details of the resultant failure rate of the products?

"Have you spoken to your customer and asked them what their expectations are?..."

Have you engaged your most senior support and service engineers to review the estate, failure rates and the likely impact of “turn off v’s shut down” and provided their best judgement of the impacts? Their knowledge and insight are crucial.
Did the customer instruct its outlet staff to correctly shut down the IT estate, or were they told to just “turn it off”? What is the impact of doing this? Do the support engineers believe that there will be a need to rebuild or restore servers? Replace hard disks that crashed and were destroyed? Do the field engineers have the ability to restore backups? Reinstall applications, databases and operating systems? Or can this be done remotely? If remotely, is there sufficient staff to do this?
If the customer is allowed to open, will they want to open all of the outlets in one go? Will they phase this? Are there more significant outlets that they will want to open first? Which are the most important? The biggest? The most revenue generator?
Have you spoken with your customer and asked them what their expectations are?
Where is the current spares stock? At repairers? In transit? Lost? Based on collating details by product and part, from the questions above, can you proximate the level of stock that you are going to need? This is going to have to be a “rough order of magnitude” as this situation has never occurred before. Will you need to supplement spares stock? How? Do you have whole units in storage that you could break down? Do you have technical support stock that you could use? Does the customer have spare stock?
From a field service engineer perspective, have you got the skills and technical knowledge to be able to deal with the surge in volume? How can you help the engineers be able to deal with the volume of service requests? Will you have to have extended service hours? Weekend working?
From a health & safety perspective, it could be that social distancing is still going to be in force. How will the field engineers deal with this? What level of PPE will they need to have to be able to visit the outlet? Will they be mandated to wear masks and gloves? Will they be asked to sanitise their equipment and the outside of the spares boxes? How will you get the PPE to the engineers? Will they be expected to replace / renew PPE at each customer site or only at different customers? Who will purchase the ongoing PPE that the engineers will need? You? Will they be expected to purchase it themselves?
Note: this list is not exhaustive.

The final part of the 5 P’s is, “Proactive Performance”? Have you captured all of the impacts, potential outcomes and put it into a plan? A resource profile? A spares planning spreadsheet? Have you shared this across your organisation teams? With the customer?

Then multiple scenario this by the many customers you serve and you can see why acting on these scenarios now will support, Proactive Performance. You will need to explore at least 5 different customers and scenarios to start to see a trend and start to see the common elements that you need to work on now.

How many service organisations are taking the time to theorise and plan along these lines during this time? Are you living the scenarios now? Are you planning along these lines? Please do share how you are planning for the future. The service community is living in completely unknown times and it is only through being open and sharing experiences, successes, as well as failures, that we can be successful.

The following quote made me smile:

“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.” ― Claire Cook, writer and motivational speaker

PODCAST: Switching Service Back on with Martin Summerhayes

May 07, 2020 • Features • Martin Summerhayes • Podcast • field service • field service management • corona virus • Covid-19

Service is now moving from 'reaction' to consolidation; where the global lockdown is loosening, and service is turning back on having been left dormant. How should we approach this new phase?

In the latest Field Service Podcast, Deputy Editor Mark Glover is joined by Martin Summerhayes who gives new insight into what the sector should be considering as we emerge, blinking slightly, into a new service world. In this excerpt from that podcast Summerhayes explains why precise planning pre-empt proactive performance...

Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

Planning for Fully Reopening the Field Service Sector

"We are going to come out of this at some point," Martin says. "However, it is not going to be a mass switch on of services; mass opening of markets and outlets - think of a giant “Turn On” switch being pulled - rather, it is going to be phased approach."

In this episode and off the back of a recent article exclusively for Field Service News, Martin takes the ubiquitous 'Five Ps' business acronym - Poor Planning Promotes Poor Performance - and swaps in new first, third and fourth words: Precise Planning Pre-empts Pro-active Performance is a possible blueprint for service directors who might be daunted or overwhelmed when sizing up a re-start.

"Take a set of scenarios to then precisely plan the impacts," Martin says, unpacking the first part of the acronym. "This evolves around asking a series of open ended questions and describing in detail the responses and impacts. This is where elements of “scenario planning” and an element of “game theory” comes into their own.

Martin backs the theory with an example: a mixed legacy IT estate distributed across a number of outlets. Here he applies open-ended questions on health and safety, customer expectations and spare parts to garner these responses and impacts.

Proactive performance is approached with questions also but the aim is to spot patterns: "Have you captured all of the impacts, potential outcomes and put it into a plan? A resource profile? A spares planning spreadsheet? Have you shared this across your organisation teams?" he says. "You will need to explore at least five different customers and scenarios to start to see a trend and start to see the common elements that you need to work."

At the moment our feeds and inboxes are being bombarded with webinars, articles and other podcasts taking a long view approach to service's current challenge. Here, Martin suggests stepping back and concentrating on the now might be the way forward.

However, he acknowledges this approach might not be the best way and he is keen to hear your feedback and to be challenged on his theory. So please let us know your thoughts.

Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

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ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘covid-19’ CATEGORY

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Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

Planning for Fully Reopening the Field Service Sector

Further Reading:

Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

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