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Nick Frank, Managing partner at Si2 Partners explores an important topic in the face of an ageing workforce crisis - how to make your brand an attractive prospect for the growing Millennial workforce...

Today, brands pervade our lives – be it food, clothes, shoes or phones - and drive the value of companies, particularly on the stock market.

The brand value of Samsung Electronics (ranked No.6 on Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands 2017”) is $56.2 billion – while for Small Medium Enterprises, their sales turnover and assets generally create their value. In either case, the value of your employer brand has an impact on many areas, including your ability to deliver growth opportunities, to hire the right talent, as well retention.

Understanding the new workforce in this regard will be critical for your Talent Management efforts – Sarah Gibbons wrote “I’m a millennial, and I embody a lot of the clichéd things you’ve heard about the generation: the frivolous wanderlust, the tattoos, the addiction to Instagram, and one pretty powerful behavioural trend – the insistence on ethical substance and integrity from brands, or in other words, choosing to make mostly idealistic purchase decisions. Without a socially conscious framework, your brand means nothing to me or many of my millennial cohort, and without capturing the millennial market, you’ll never amass the army of brand advocates you need to partake of the nearly $200 billion in millennial-driven sales each year”.

Unlike many of their Consumer driven organisations like Coca-Cola, many Manufacturing Service companies being technical driven do not focus on this critical area so this article aims to provide some assistance in what to consider.

However what is an employer brand?

It is the internal and external perception of your company. It is often not a single ‘something’ that drives the perception. For example, the belief you have in the Apple brand starts with the shop you visit and the service they provide. The decision to purchase a wonderfully designed product is only reinforced when it works well, and by the reception and quality of the phone. If something does not work, you take note of how Apple deals with maintenance or the return policy. This end-to-end experience drives a belief in you and it is the belief that drives your behaviour - a positive belief will have you returning to buy more Apple products.

It is critical that you develop and communicate workplace expectations internally - what is acceptable and what is notIn the same way, a person experiences how a company responds to and leads their employees.

This will be communicated to others and of course, will influence whether people are retained or if they will look elsewhere for a brand they want to work for.

So, what can you do to build a strong employer brand? There are many actions that can be taken to grow or strengthen your employer brand, and the energy exerted will be driven by how seriously you wish to be taken and how important your employer brand is to the delivery of business opportunities.

Our goal here is not to overload you with the many actions that can help, but to share what I consider to be the critical few – 3 simple things you can do irrespective of the size of your organisation.

First, it is critical that you develop and communicate workplace expectations internally - what is acceptable and what is not. In developing the expectations, try to reflect the organisation you want to be and the people you wish to hire and retain. For example, as a software company, you will inevitably hire younger generations.

When a leader is seen as driving the right behaviours, share their success, its impact on team morale and the impact on the organisation’s growthHaving flexible work hours and dress codes will help you, as these are important attributes today! However, frankly, these are the easy wins – expectations around leadership style and development of the team will carry far more weight and will be shared amongst top talent more than the hygiene factors.

The second step is to reinforce and redirect workforce behaviours. When a leader is seen as driving the right behaviours, share their success, its impact on team morale and the impact on the organisation’s growth. Equally, when a leader does not drive the right behaviour, they need to be told and redirected to what is expected. If this leader is permitted to continue with their unacceptable behaviour, it will undermine your employer brand building efforts.

The most important contributor to your employer brand is for the leadership team to view it as equally important as product brand value. In the great brands I have worked for, I can remember very clearly the good and great leaders who absolutely represented the brands they led.

They made me proud to work there, valued my contributions, reminded me of my obligations to the employer brand in what they said, but most importantly in what they did.

Value your employer brand as much as your company/product brand. Set expectations, hold people to these expectations, and always walk the talk.The real employer brand is defined in the moment when an employee issue raises itself in the workplace. Is the company compassionate, caring or mechanistic in its HR actions? The rest of the workforce watch, as this will define exactly the company they work for.

In summary, value your employer brand as much as your company/product brand. Set expectations, hold people to these expectations, and always walk the talk.

Companies, as well as people, define themselves every day by what they say and, more importantly, do. There’s no doubt - great employer brands built with this in mind will attract and retain top talent.

For more information on ‘Building your Employer Brand’, contact Dag Gronevik or Nick Frank at info@si2partners.com or call +44 208 144 6452.

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Leadent CEO, Alastair Clifford-Jones discusses the fundamental elements that should come together when building a strong request for proposal document...

The purpose of an RFP is to join two or more parties together. One has a need, and the other a product or service to fulfil this need; it’s imperative that companies must never lose sight this objective. To be successful this needs to be met with the right commercial structure.

With a technology requirement, there are many ways of approaching this.

On the one hand, companies can draw up detailed requirements and the vendor can determine how their solution can meet these on a point by point basis. On the other hand, companies can simply put forward a business problem, and the RFP allows maximum flexibility for the vendors to determine how the problem can be solved.

Both have their pros and cons, but with the right approach solution seeking companies can be successful.

Considerations for Success

To produce a successful RFP process there are several things to be considered:

1. The End Goal

Many organisations lose sight of the fact that the RFP is a process, not a document. Many companies, particularly when the RFP is procurement led, focus their efforts on the document and build a very rigid structure. This will work for simple point solutions where the only challenge is a functional fit. As the requirements become more complex organisations must never lose sight of what they are trying to achieve, and not be driven by the initial document. You can never do enough planning.

2. Include Credible Suppliers

It is vital that credible suppliers are included. The process is inevitably very time consuming, and you don’t want to waste time sitting through demos and presentations with suppliers that are not credible.

To determine credible suppliers, it is worth doing your desk research and running an RFI process. There are a number of companies that produce research about the industry’s best suppliers etc. Given that time is limited, it is better to spend this time researching a handful of suppliers than a vast array.

3. Remind Yourself; You’re Buying a Solution, Not a System

Systems need to be implemented to deliver a solution and this part is often forgotten by organisations, namely because it is much easier to evaluate on functional fit rather than implementation skills.

Often organisations will look to split the responsibilities of implementation and software between two vendors. This has its own pros and cons, but if split needs to happen at the same time. Selecting software and then an implementation partner is very disjointed, and whilst you might select the best technical solution it may be the hardest to implement.

4. You’re Building a Partnership

You are building a partnership, and not producing a test or a framework for procurement. Whilst these are important they are not the reason for talking to suppliers. When producing an RFP you’ll want vendors to want to work with you, and the RFP document is a critical window into your organisation. For this reason, it is important that neither procurement or IT write the document.

Their input is, of course, important, but it’s a business challenge you are trying to solve through technology so it’s the business requirements that are critical. A badly written ITT will stop vendors from responding and will be very hard to evaluate.

5. Consider the Evaluation Criteria

The evaluation criteria should not be an afterthought, it must be considered in the planning stage.

Many organisations revisit their evaluation criteria during the processes and this impacts every aspect. This evaluation criteria need to be agreed by all the stakeholders who will be carrying out the evaluation.

Organisations must be very clear about any show stoppers early on and communicate these, with the full criteria to the vendors. There is nothing worse than taking a vendor through the process to realise that their cloud solution is hosted in a country that is not acceptable. The more transparent an organisation can be the more successful the process will be.

6. Make it an Easy Decision

Making a decision is hard but it needn’t be if you have done your planning right, agreed on what you want (evaluation criteria) and have the right level and expertise from the stakeholders. The problems occur when all the vendors meet your requirements, their references are good and you can’t differentiate. This is the point where relationships and cultural fit come into play. These can be determined by the bid team, but often this team is different to the client team and presentations have been led by the sales team and not the people doing the work. If needed, this is the time to do more work. Meet reference clients, insist on meeting the delivery team, understand the vendor strategy and how they will work with you in the future.

Trusting Relationships Will Win Out

Often the RFP process fails due to its transactional nature. This is the start of a partnership between two businesses and as mentioned at the start, you need vendors to think about how this will progress. It is true that in today’s world the start of a relationship is often transactional (meeting a partner via Tinder) but for it to be successful as the relationship progresses there needs to be transparency and honesty, and this no different in business.

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Across the last five weeks, we've been presenting you with the findings from our most recent research project, which we ran in partnership with ServiceMax from GE Digital. 

Our focus was to see what the field service engineer of the near future will look like and across the first three features of our analysis, our focus was on the changing face of the field service engineer as we see an ageing Baby Boomer workforce reaching retirement age being replaced by a new wave 'millennial'  field service workers.

In the first feature, we looked at the threat of the ageing workforce and the changes in training methodologies that are emerging. In part two we explored if and if and how field service companies are utilising their experienced field service engineers to train the incoming generation and in part three we asked if field service companies were reacting quickly enough to these challenges.

In part four we changed tack slightly and looked at how technology is playing a role in attracting new field service talent and in the final part of this series we look at how field service companies are utilising technology within their training methodologies and bring together some conclusions from the research project as a whole

There is also a detailed white paper outlining the wider findings of this report which is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers...

Not a subscriber yet? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner email and get this resource sent to you instantly

(Please note that by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain English version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

Technology as a training tool:

In the previous feature, we discovered that technology appears to play an increasingly important role in attracting new field service engineers to an organisation, and our research revealed that it also plays an important role in their development and training as well.

Indeed, just under three-quarters of companies in our response group stated that they use smartphone or tablet apps as part of their training, over two thirds (69%) utilise knowledge bases and over half utilise video conferencing.

The use of video conferencing is of particular interest as 57% of companies also stated that they have programs in place for older technicians to support newer recruits and video conferencing is a highly convenient means of facilitating this.

The use of video conferencing is of particular interest as 57% of companies also stated that they have programs in place for older technicians to support newer recruits and video conferencing is a highly convenient means of facilitating this.However, it is interesting to note that only 9% of companies are currently using Augmented Reality (AR) tools as part of their training programs.

This raises the question of why companies are yet to make what on the surface seems to be a natural transition from video to AR. Given that the processes for offering remote support via video conferencing are essentially the same as for AR it would seem that many field service companies are already well positioned to take advantage of these tools.

Competition amongst AR providers is increasing which will likely drive down prices, whilst case studies and use cases are becoming more apparent - meaning the increased efficiency that AR offers over video conferencing will become more widely acknowledged.

Therefore, it would seem a likely assertion that we may soon see wider adoption of AR amongst field service organisations.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that technology is playing a crucial role in the training and development of field service engineers. In fact, only 7% of field service companies stated that they didn’t use any of the various technologies we listed in the survey as training tools.

The reason for such widespread use of technology in field service organisations training programs was also made apparent within the research. 87% of companies stated that technology was at least partially responsible for reducing the length of time necessary it takes to train a new field service engineer.

Just 10% of companies commented that for them the delivery platform of their training wasn’t an important factor.Of that 87%, well over a third of companies (37%) went on to state that incorporating the latest technology into field service engineer training can reduce the amount of time taken to onboard new field service engineers significantly, whilst just 10% of companies commented that for them the delivery platform of their training wasn’t an important factor.

Of course, with technology being ever more integrated with field service delivery it perhaps makes sense to be embracing technology throughout the onboarding process and beyond.

The good news here for field service companies recruiting new millennial talent is that in general, our respondents experienced that they found that Millennials are able to familiarise themselves with mobility tools etc far quicker than the existing Baby Boomer workforce.

In fact, over half 53% of our respondents commented that they believed this to be the case whilst just 4% disagreed and stated that their older field service engineers see the benefits of technology and adapt just as well as the younger engineers now entering the workplace.

One final point on the insights gained from this section of the research is that whilst the use of new technologies such as AR may be an important element in attracting talent and also in reducing training times, it is also can play a role in keeping that talent and reducing attrition rates.

In fact, over three-quarters of the respondents (80%) stated that for them harnessing the latest technology is a factor in keeping attrition rates low.

The Key Stats:

• 67% of field service companies believe that the technology they employ can have a positive effect on attracting talent
• 69% of field service companies use digital knowledge bases as part of their Field Service Engineer development
• 57% of field service companies use their more experienced Field Service Engineers to support younger members of the team
• 87% of field service companies stated that their technology was at least partially responsible for reducing the time it takes to train a new Field Service Engineer
• 53% of respondents felt that the incoming generation of workers would be abe to adapt to mobile tools quicker than their existing Field Service Engineers
• 80% of field service companies believe that the use of emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality will help them reduce attrition rates

The Conclusions:

Firstly, it is absolutely clear that the threat of an ageing workforce is real – yes it may not be of a critical pressing nature just yet for many organisations but the research would certainly indicate that for those companies who fail to address it, it could become so in the not too distant future.

Secondly, the difference between the incoming generation of millennial workers and the exiting baby boomers should not be underestimated.

Fortunately, it seems that the industry at large is aware of the challenge which is a good starting point - although the fact that 84% of companies who have identified the issue have yet to take any action on it is a worrying one.

The answer to both challenges is actually a fairly obvious one.

By using more experienced engineers edging closer to retirement to support those new engineers working in the field it is possible to stop tribal knowledge walking out of the door, whilst also providing training via a platform that is both attractive and familiar to a millennial.

Again, whilst this seems to be a reasonably well-accepted wisdom, those who are practising what they preach remain in the minority with just 17% actually having such a solution in place.

This really needs to change.

Our research has also revealed just how high the expectations are for field service engineers. Technical skills are viewed as-as important as ever, yet modern field service engineers are also expected to have great people skills and be expert problem solvers.Our research has also revealed just how high the expectations are for field service engineers. Technical skills are viewed as-as important as ever, yet modern field service engineers are also expected to have great people skills and be expert problem solvers.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, the rise of knowledge banks has meant that when an engineer is sent out on a call he is not only expected to achieve a first-time fix but often he is trying to establish a fix that wasn’t easily resolved through an initial triage at the contact centre stage. With this in mind surely we should be doing everything possible to empower those in the field – and giving them access to the knowledge and experience of our seasoned engineers should be a fundamental part of that.

Technology has already become an integral part of both field service management and field service delivery.

Our research also confirms that it plays a highly important role in both the recruitment, training and development of Field Service Engineers.

It also absolutely offers the solution to two of the biggest challenges our sector currently face and we should absolutely be embracing tools like AR to overcome these challenges. The transition from a Boomer to the Millennial workforce is bringing with it an evolution of the field service engineer.

Such a significant shift will, of course, have problems and the technology available can certainly smooth out some of the bumps in the road Such a significant shift will, of course, have problems and the technology available can certainly smooth out some of the bumps in the road - as to will establishing new or redesigned processes.

Ensuring your organisation comes out of this transition phase (which all companies will have to go through at some point in the next few years) without major impact to your business will require an investment of time, resources and money in your field service engineers.

With this in mind, it is perhaps even more important than ever before, that field service organisations are able to retain those engineers they have invested so heavily in. It is, therefore, no surprise that the majority of field service companies understand the importance of clearly defined career progression paths.

In summary, across the various key factors of this research, we have identified that in the main the challenges and solutions field service companies are facing are understood by the majority. However, it is those companies who act on these challenges today that will be best positioned to take advantage of the sector-wide disruption we are set to face, whilst those who too long may well find themselves in a precarious position sooner than they think.

The question is which of these will your company be?

Want to know more? There is also a detailed white paper outlining the wider findings of this report which is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers...

Not a subscriber yet? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner email and get this resource sent to you instantly

(Please note that by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain English version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

 

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Salesforce’s VP of Product Management Chet Chauhan, explains why for those companies seeking to embrace a vision of outcome-based services at the heart of their business future, the platform approach is vital...

Servitization is very much top of mind right now, particularly in manufacturing circles - but also in the wider business landscape as well.

A lot of companies are seeing that their products are getting commoditised and have rightly identified that the path to much-needed differentiation is through enhancing the service experience. Whether they are business to business, business to consumer or even something more complex like business to business to consumer, we are seeing companies of all different types focussing on services as a way to get closer to their customers.

It is an approach that yields multiple benefits - companies adopting such an approach get to see how their customer base is using the products, meaning more tailored and better-targeted marketing and sales efforts - but also they can gain insight into how they can better improve those products and feed that insight back into their R&D teams.

However, the fact still remains that for most companies the initial steps on a path towards a servitized business model often tend to stem from companies feeling the pressure to get closer to their customers - a pressure that is in itself driven by the fact that customer service has widely become one of the key differentiators between businesses today.

Senior business leaders across the globe are asking “as our products become more and more commoditised how do we differentiate on additional services that we can introduce to our offering?”

Field service has played an intrinsic role in the quest for improved CSAT standards in recent years, and with so many customer touch points becoming digitised, that is only likely to increase in the future.So let’s try to unpack some of this and explore what the future of field service looks like on an intelligent platform.

So the first thing to consider really has to be ‘How do you get closer to your customers?’

It is only at this point that we can really start to consider the next important consideration, which is ‘How do you deliver a better customer experience?’

Of course, field service has played an intrinsic role in the quest for improved CSAT standards in recent years, and with so many customer touch points becoming digitised, that is only likely to increase in the future.

However, the smart companies embracing servitization see that for the approach to be truly effective, i.e. for it to be more than just a shift in revenue from product to services, but to actually become a genuine paradigm shift that simultaneously makes your customer relationships more profitable and longer lasting, they need much better capabilities to connect to with customers across the whole journey within the organisation.

This concept needs to not only sit on the service side of the business but also be understood from the sales and marketing perspective as well. When an organisation understands this and wants to fully manage the whole customer journey seamlessly - this is when the importance and value of a common technology platform really come to the fore.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen some very important technologies emerge which are having and will continue to have a significant impact on field service delivery.

Firstly, Cloud Computing really drove down costs whilst offering the ability to offer infinite opportunities in terms of scaling businesses. IoT is perhaps the technology that has grabbed the most headlines in 2017 with a some excellent IoT platforms appearing including our own, that allow you to constantly connect to your assets. Mobile has of course been around for many years now but again the technology is keeping pace with other advancements, meaning our engineers and technicians are increasingly more empowered even when working in highly remote areas.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen some very important technologies emerge which are having and will continue to have a significant impact on field service delivery.However, it is another big technological trend that we are now seeing really bring everything together and that is Artificial Intelligence (AI). In a sensorised world of IoT & Big Data AI really is critical. When you have a hundred million sensor events being recorded every hour, a human simply cannot comprehend meaning from that level of information - they will simply drown in the data. Yet, AI can deal with such quantities of data very well and then turn that data into insight, the insight into actions and then it is in actions that we will find value.

We need to think of all of these technologies as being integral elements of an ecosystem rather than being individual technologies - and this is why we are seeing the common technology platform become vital. If you are to adopt a truly servitized business model then you absolutely need to be able to orchestrate the full life-cycle of service and customer interaction in one place.

Indeed, we are already beginning to see examples of these types of forward-looking developments appear in a number of different sectors.

We are seeing many companies connecting their assets - though really this is only the first step in the process. It is when Artificial Intelligence is introduced to take this data and turn it into insight and action that things really begin to get exciting.

In fact, some of our clients are now using multiple layers of AI across their entire service cycle. Often there will be one core AI to draw insight from the vast sets of data across a whole fleet of assets. Something like IBM’s Watson can transmit that data into our own Field Service Lightning platform the second AI, Salesforce’s Einstein takes over as it is designed to handle the more specialist needs of a service call.

The basic premise is that an AI like Watson will assess the data, figure out where it needs to take action and will then communicate directly with Salesforce.The basic premise is that an AI like Watson will assess the data, figure out where it needs to take action and will then communicate directly with Salesforce.

If there is a break-fix scenario or if there is a maintenance scenario where an additional job needs to be added to the next preventative maintenance work order, that is all done in an automated fashion within Field Service Lightning.

The engineer can be automatically scheduled using our own AI (Einstein) to make sure the person scheduled has the necessary credentials. If it is a preventative maintenance scenario then it will look at when the next preventative maintenance job is scheduled, make sure that it’s within the time frame required, put the work order in and make sure the parts are ordered and will be on the truck on the day of the job.

So let’s just recap briefly to think about how this process comes together across all of the various technologies.

Firstly, you need to have the IoT element which in turn is dependent on Cloud Computing and Big Data. Then the various AI capabilities to initially read those events in order to begin automatically creating field service job and finally there is a need for the second AI to actually handle the setup and scheduling of both preventative maintenance and break-fix jobs.

Of course, reaching back to the customer and keeping them informed of the stellar service you are delivering is also key so we need to be connected to the contact centre solution as well. And let's not forget that the customer themselves will want to be on whichever channel they prefer - whether it be a mobile app, online portal or SMS and you need to facilitate that for them in whichever fashion they choose.

Many of our clients are already embracing the growing trend of outcome-based revenue models and field service is one integral element of thisSo all of this really needs to be running on a single dedicated platform for it to work seamlessly - yes, you can definitely bring together a number of different solutions and tools by having various integrations across the network, but the reality is that the cost of doing so would be prohibitive - that’s before you even consider the ongoing challenge of keeping everything updated and working harmoniously.

Indeed, the evident need for a common platform approach that can facilitate the seamless transfer of data and actions across different business divisions is the exact reason why we launched Field Service Lightning in the first place.

Our customers were coming to us and telling us ‘this is what we need to do.’ ‘This is the experience we want to deliver and we need you to add field service to your platform so we can orchestrate all of this.’ Many of our clients are already embracing the growing trend of outcome-based revenue models and field service is one integral element of this, as is sales and marketing and as are all other business units.

The key is being able to let the data and insights flow across the business as a whole and to achieve this you really need a platform that can bring together all of these various functions and technologies we’ve discussed in this article including AI, IoT, Mobile and of course FSM – you need all of that in a single place to make it work effectively, but the benefits of doing so will be felt across each and every department within your organisation.

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Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum continues his exclusive series of articles for Field Service News on ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ this time turning his attention to the second winning habit: Dialogue...

A Common Mistake: Paralysis By Control

Recently I had an interesting conversation with a Service Leader from one of the leading printer and copier manufacturers about how to empower co-workers to drive change from the bottom up. They had already abandoned their outcome-oriented performance review system but nevertheless, their teams still find it difficult to drive change at a high pace.

An important reason is that dialogue between different management levels and operational specialists is rather infrequent and even then, most conversations are still about outcomes and targets. Even this informal pressure for results preserves feelings of insecurity and low confidence which blocks attempts to adopt and drive change.

Traditionally, many business leaders assumed that they needed strong control mechanisms to manage performance, a dated belief that is still common today. During the last few decades of relentlessly growing markets, the name of the game was rationalising processes and keeping the ability to scale up quickly enough. One of the challenges was control and predictability.

In today’s world, these traditional planning and control mechanisms do not work anymore. They limit teams’ ability to think and act collectively, to innovate their business and drive change. Planning & control mechanisms punish poor performance and setbacks. Employees sense a default unsafe environment and are pushed into a defensive, survival mode. It is safer to keep aspirations low, externalise challenges, blame others and limit ownership.

This results in a strong force to do more of the same and stick to the status-quo.

The solution: A forward-looking and constructive dialogue across all levels and functions

Our recent research clearly shows that winning and dynamic manufacturers have embedded practices and habits which empower employees to drive continuous, easy change from the inside. These modern mechanisms for dialogue across all levels and function are:

• Forward-looking objectives and priorities which drive change and collaboration
• Constructive reviews
• Forward-looking interventions

1. Promote change and collaboration with the right objectives and priorities

Continuous alignment of objectives and priorities: Winning companies focus on strategic objectives that build strong organisational capabilities for performance and continuous business innovation. Building and maintaining a fit and healthy organisation is the focus of (top) management. The most important objectives and targets are about the organisational capabilities, small changes and bigger innovations.

Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.

Shared outcome targets: Teams and individuals share the same common objectives for results in operational performance and innovation. Their bonus schemes are based on the same indicators. They are all in the same boat, trying to achieve the same objectives. Each team and individual will be open and looking for ways to contribute to the overall targets. Instead of resisting or getting complacent, they all collaborate where needed.

Individual contribution targets: Each team and individual has full clarity on how they are expected to contribute to achieving the outcome. Think about maintaining and developing organisational capabilities, building personal competencies, collaborating with other teams and the level of effort required. For example, the financial department could contribute to the customer experience by improving invoicing (speed, accuracy, transparency, responsiveness to inquiries).

2. Build confidence & safety with constructive and forward-looking reviews

Positive feedback: Colleagues are open to candid feedback and provide constructive feedback to each other. Feedback is not about performance, but approach, activities, priorities, opportunities and threats and is intended to encourage them to adapt and improve. It is related to aspirations, the vision, the strategy.

Forward-looking: The focus is not on the fact that something went wrong, but on how to get it right. What can be learned from setbacks or issues, how can the approach be adjusted? What are new ideas and approaches? It doesn’t make sense to argue about the past.

Multiple stakeholders: Best practice is to include other stakeholders and experts in the reviews, by collecting their feedback, sharing feedback and asking for their view on the problem. This prevents unnecessary bias, reveals many more opportunities for improvement and will get more active support to easily and rapidly implement the interventions.

3. Solve from 1st principle

Root Cause Analysis: Leading companies make it a critical organisational habit to perform a root analysis for pretty much every issue or set-back. As many issues or opportunities affect more than one team or department, it is a good habit to follow through with a diverse group of people and teams who can contribute to the analysis as well as the solution.

What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions.What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions. Root causes and the success of new interventions are standard topics of meetings and conversations. “No time” is not seen a valid reason to skip the root cause analysis.

Structural solutions: Based on the root cause analysis, managers create long-term interventions that define the fundamental solutions and sustainable decision-criteria. They do not step into the trap of short-term, cost-oriented decisions that would let them fall back from fundamental solutions to symptom fighting.

Phased implementation: For complex and time-consuming solutions they define a phased implementation, where first steps can be low-hanging fruit or quick workarounds when the criticality is high. In such cases they ensure that the phased implementation continues after the first steps, to prevent falling back into symptom fighting.

Benefits

The big benefit of this ongoing and forward-looking dialogue across the entire organisation and all levels is to build an environment where everybody feels confident and safe. They feel they can take the initiative to solve issues and pursue opportunities, to come up with interventions when things go differently than expected and ensure coherence between all initiatives.

In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.Employees are open and transparent about their successes and struggles, raise risks and problems, ask for help, provide help and simply do what is needed to perform and move forward for future success. Not because there is pressure from a burning platform, but because they want to.

In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.

The Essence

We believe that this is not about better articulating the burning platform and creating a sense of urgency. It is about creating a constructive and forward-thinking environment where your colleagues want to, can and do take the right initiatives and bring them into practice.

Magic happens when you bring together business innovation on one hand and employee development and empowerment on the other.

Are you interested in these 4 winning habits and how to implement them?

Follow our articles and case studies over the coming months and join us for one of our Momentum Impulse Sessions through Europe. Reserve your seat @ http://fs-ne.ws/WQih30gRcev

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Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director for Service Management, IFS explores how service organisations can leverage digital transformation to improve customer service and exceed expectations...

Servitization. Uberization. Driverless cars. Drones. Digital transformation appears to be both a blessing and curse to the field service industry. The downside to digital revolution? Customer expectation rises as new technology makes a consumer’s life easier. But fundamentally, a service organisation strives to deliver the right products and services at the right time. The upside? Digital transformation can enable this endeavour.

CIO defines digital transformation as “the application of digital capabilities to processes, products, and assets to improve efficiency, enhance customer value, manage risk, and uncover new monetisation opportunities.” New technologies help field service organisations achieve their goals by enabling them to acquire and process the right data, deliver services and products more accurately and efficiently and provide an unrivalled customer experience.

According to a research study by The Raconteur, even in digitally rich 2017, 28% of field service operations (FSOs) are failing to attain at least 80% service level agreement (SLA) compliance, with 66% of these organisations also citing concern or serious concern over their current cost model. The challenge becomes this: how do organisations leverage digital transformation to exceed customer expectation and achieve long-term sustainability?

Customer-Driven Digital Transformation

The customer is the focal point of any field service operation. Traditional statistics state that by the year 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator (Walker) and by 2018, more than 50% of organisations will redirect their investments to customer experience innovations (Gartner). Making the customer the centre of your organisation’s digital transformation ensures that all changes will directly support your central goal of putting the customer first.

Technology can transform the customer experience in a multitude of ways including:

More accurate demand forecasting

Predicted demand, provided by the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data technology, allows an organisation to collect real-time data and utilise advanced forecasting algorithms to predict the optimal window for predictive maintenance or service visits, rather than relying on historical information or regression modelling.

Faster service times

IoT technology that is seamlessly integrated with intelligent field service management (FSM) software dispatches field service engineers automatically and predictively when an asset requires service, improving the customer experience and saving costs on time spent on wasted visits.

Seamless workflows

Real-time operational intelligence gives managers insight into all aspects of their service operations while end-to-end FSM automates the entire service supply chain. This eliminates paper processes and reduces the time from initiation to invoice, transforming service delivery from reactive to proactive. These technologies allow organisations to reduce operating costs and focus more on the overall customer experience.

At The Collision Point

So, your customer is one of the future; digitally savvy and increasingly demanding because of it. Digital transformation exasperates and solves this challenge at the same time. How can you use this to your advantage? Focus on growth and innovation.

According to new research, 47% of FSOs reported that growth opportunities in new markets were a driving factor for digital transformation, while 33% of organisations cited evolving customer needs and preferences as a top driving factor (Raconteur).

Facilitate Growth

Your organisation needs to grow internally and externally. Digital transformation can facilitate this by allowing you to offer new service models, appeal to new customer bases and enter new markets. But in order for this to be effective, you need to ensure that you have the right organisational and governance model to facilitate growth and embrace change. Internal buy-in and change management are imperative to leveraging digital transformation to ensure growth.

Leverage Innovation

Innovation gives your organisation an incredible competitive edge by providing services or products that are entirely different from the competition. Digital transformation doesn’t just fix current problems with logistics, customer service, delivery and more, it also presents alternative ways of doing business to better serve the customer.

Service organisations surveyed in Raconteur’s research were overwhelmingly convinced in the importance of investing in big data, analytics and IoT. These technologies are already working to help leverage innovations in service delivery, closing the loop between the customer and operations.

Now What?

Embracing digital technology requires a deep understanding of your organisational needs and your customers’ expectations.

Clear direction, internal buy-in and change management processes will help ensure your technological investments reap the most ROI and provide the best improvements for your organisation. Moreover, working with third-party vendors that understand your business and imperatives is key to success.

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For our latest research project, which we ran in partnership with ServiceMax from GE Digital our focus was to see what the field service engineer of the near future will look like. In the first three features of our analysis, our focus was on the changing face of the field service engineer as we see an ageing Baby Boomer workforce reaching retirement age being replaced by a new wave 'millennial'  field service workers

In the first feature, we looked at the threat of the ageing workforce and the changes in training methodologies that are emerging. In part two we explored if and if and how field service companies are utilising their experienced field service engineers to train the incoming generation and in part three we asked if field service companies were reacting quickly enough to these challenges.

Now as we change tack, we explore the role technology has to play in attracting and developing new field service engineers

There is also a detailed white paper outlining the wider findings of this report which is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers...

Not a subscriber yet? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner email and get this resource sent to you instantly

(Please note that by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain English version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

The field service sector is changing rapidly.

Not only are technologies constantly emerging that continue to enable field service organisations to push the boundaries of service excellence, but as we saw in our last article in this research series, the shift from an ageing workforce of Baby Boomers reaching retirement age and the Millennial generation coming in to replace them heralds an unprecedented change in culture within field service companies across each sector and in every corner of the globe.

However, one thing is certain this change is happening, it is happening on a large scale and the pace of the change is increasing day by day, week by week and year by year.

Almost half (48%) of the companies we surveyed admitted that the threat an ageing workforce poses to their business is either significant or severe. Those companies who are slow to react may find themselves with a potential crisis on their hands in the not too distant future - in fact almost half (48%) of the companies we surveyed admitted that the threat an ageing workforce poses to their business is either significant or severe.

In a previous part of this research analysis, we reported that not only did most companies acknowledge the potential threat to their service operations but also that they had identified that they would need to change their recruitment and training policies to make them a more attractive proposition to Millennials.

Yet at the same time, the majority of companies had so far failed to make any real changes in how they approached these dual challenges.

Now in this second half of our analysis, we explore the potential benefits of harnessing technology as a tool to attract, retain and develop talent from the Google Native generation.

Does technology attract talent?

One of the key findings of the research that we revealed in our first article in this series was that the role of the field service engineer is evolving into one which has multiple skill requirements.

Taking this into account, attracting the best talent to an organisation is of course highly important process for any field service company – but what role does technology play in making a service organisation an attractive option for the brightest and best recruits?

We asked our respondents if they felt that those companies who are harnessing technology such as mobility tools and Field Service Management systems to empower their field service engineers are likely to be more attractive to potential new recruits.

Here we saw a real even split of opinions. We gave our respondents three options to this question which were:

• Yes – we find that our adoption of FSM technology is a key factor in recruiting future FSEs
• Yes – but currently our adoption of FSM technology is limited and this could have a negative impact on our recruitment drives.
• No – we find that there are other more important factors such as salary levels and holidays etc.

In fact, the responses were almost perfectly split across the three options.

34% of respondents stated that they felt that adoption of technology was likely to make them more attractive but they felt they current solutions were limited, whilst 33% answered with both of the other options.

The consensus then is that technology does certainly have a role to play in attracting new talent to a field service organisation, even if a sizable section of companies feel their own levels of technology are not currently sufficient to fully take advantage of this fact.

Want to know more? There is also a detailed white paper outlining the wider findings of this report which is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers...

Not a subscriber yet? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry practitioner email and get this resource sent to you instantly

(Please note that by applying for your subscription via this link you accept the terms and conditions here and a plain English version is available from our main subscriptions page here) 

 

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With a new US patent approved for their Quantum Computing algorithm, Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower explains her vision for what the future of customer experience excellence will look like and outlines the path her organisation can offer to consumer-focused organisations as they begin rolling out a raft of new CX tools...

The last time Field Service News sat down and spoke with Marne Martin, ServicePower’s bold and ebullient CEO, for a formal interview, it was to discuss their recent acquisition by private equity firm Diversis at the beginning of this year.

At that point, Martin was keen to express the fact that it was she who had courted investment with a vision to expand upon their product suite more rapidly than they could through organic means alone and that this acquisition was not just another PE shark circling the rich pickings of the Field Service Management sector. At the time Martin commented ‘I felt that we were 75% and we were really looking for someone to get us to 100% of where we saw the opportunity in the sector not just for the current but in the future.”

I felt that we were 75% and we were really looking for someone to get us to 100% of where we saw the opportunity in the sector not just for the current but in the future.”Of course, many a CEO has said similar things in the past having just been acquired, a message of confidence is par for the course to keep the client base assured that their future is still safe in a steady pair of hands. But just how far along the path Martin outlined have ServicePower come in the last six months?

“We are completely thrilled with the progress we have made already in 2017” Martin responds when this question is put to her. “We’ve been supplementing the talent that we already have by bringing in some really great people and we will continue doing that, as it’s allowing us to constantly move forward with the development efforts and plans that we already had in place.”

One thing that has certainly seemed to materialise since the acquisition is a greater outward projection of where their core market lies. For Field Service Solution providers this can be a challenge within itself as field service straddles so many vertical industries, which whilst sharing many shared pain points and challenges, also have their own specific vertical nuances to be considered as well.

Yet whether it’s the result of some business refinement that came out of the acquisition process, or whether it is simply something they are now verbalising that little bit more, ServicePower now seem to have a very clear understanding of their target market.

“All of this [development] is around really expanding our dominance in consumer industries” Martin explained. “We sell B2B but we are enabling the consumer experience for our customers so we are essentially B2B2C primarily, ServicePower is really unique in dominating that positioning. The other field service providers are either more focused on preventative maintenance or other such aspects of the sector. We really are the only field service company that has this domination and focus in the consumer sector and that empower our customers to cultivate consumer experience as they deliver it - whether that be through different service routes or through different types of technicians.”

But how does this translate into actual developments of the solution?

“The new customer experience will incorporate a lot more of web service front end User Interfaces that we are coding with the latest programming standards,” Martin tells us.

It is really designed to give customers a better digital experience whilst also making call centres more productive and for the technicians“It is really designed to give customers a better digital experience whilst also making call centres more productive and for the technicians, the mobile tech enablement is better. We’ve done a huge amount of R&D on how integrated ecosystems deliver a much-improved customer experience but actually it is better for every stakeholder in the service continuum.”

“I firmly believe, and so do many of our customers, that the customer and the tech want the same thing - a great experience,” she continued.

“That is either an experience where things don’t break - because of processes like tailored proactive maintenance or incorporating IoT diagnostics to leverage what you know about the assets, or if they do require repair then we’re facilitating a repair experience that doesn’t necessarily require a truck roll, ideally they’re able to do some remote maintenance and fix it without coming into the client’s home.”

“However, if there does have to be a truck roll, if they do need to come to the client’s home - then they should be making sure they are coming into the home at a time that’s convenient for the customer and with the best knowledge about the asset possible - that is how you facilitate the first-time-fix. So now you are seeing the first few steps to making this all happen and soon you’ll also see some of the additional predictive types of improvements that we’re also rolling out with Smarter Field Service and the new algorithm.”

“In fact, we were recently awarded a new US patent for our quantum annealing work and you’ll definitely be seeing the further evolution of this vision as we move into 2018.”

Now, it was felt in some corners that it was ServicePower’s research work into Quantum Annealing that made them such an attractive proposition for investment in the first place. However, up until now the conversation had centred mainly around theoretical research ServicePower had undertaken.

But if this research work is set to move into the practical realm, then this could truly be a game changer for field service optimisation.

What I think will be the service experience of the future for our customers, is tying in the power of this quantum computing algorithm not just to do the traditional pipe of ‘technician-route-schedule-optimisation’ but also to think about optimisation across the different types of service.“What’s interesting to me and what I think will be the service experience of the future for our customers, is tying in the power of this quantum computing algorithm not just to do the traditional pipe of ‘technician-route-schedule-optimisation’ but also to think about optimisation across the different types of service. For example, having more flexible work queues or how you triage and route the delivery of service for a customer - all through digital enablement,” Martin explains.

“Say for example, a customer hits our new intelligent customer portal - you can send them to a process, you can use IoT diagnostic information, or upload photos or whatever type of triage type of information that you have, then depending on how you assess that you might then send them through to a work queue that is optimised and we can have a dynamic work-flow between back-office activities, call centre activities, technician experiences and triage assessment activities.”

“We’re actively thinking about how to use our quantum annealing algorithm in a more flexible way to optimise the total service experience. What I have seen is that even amongst our customers and prospects that have an IoT diagnostic group, they are not working that information into an integrated service experience.”

“They might have some techs that are trained in that or the might have an elite network that is doing it, but they are not tying it into the overall workflow and optimising a more efficient service experience.”

“Ultimately you only want to send a technician on site when you really have to and as much as possible you want to make sure that when the technician gets on-site they’re able to do what the customer really needs - which is, of course, a first-time-fix.”

This scenario is, of course, the ideal field service win-win-win. The customer is happier because they are back up and running, the engineer is happier because they have a better work-life balance and less angry customers and the board is happier because they are seeing improvements to the bottom line. Indeed, if it is achievable, we are getting close to field service nirvana.

Martin concludes: “We are also looking at how we can use the quantum computing power looking at demand forecasting, capacity planning, and parts information, focusing on consumer industries and how we deliver a great service experience. It is about so much more than just the technology – it is a whole integrated approach that looks at the digital journey with the customer, the call centre and mobile technician enablement.”

It seems that Martin and her team at ServicePower are undeniably still on the right path to deliver the future of customer experience.

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It’s been a whirlwind year in terms of technology development impacting the field service sector and the breakneck pace of development shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems takes stock of the rapid technological advances we’ve seen across the last twelve months and outlines what we can expect in 2018...

Just as automation gave rise to more advanced machines over the past decade, so too has field services evolved.

The analog process of collecting and sharing information about customers and devices has now become automated, and in some cases completely digitalised. Service executives are continuously pushing the envelope of what’s possible with field service management software, and 2017 was a great example of that drive towards innovation.

As discussed previously, the growth of the Internet of Things and its real-time connectivity has led to a massive spike in consumer expectations for instantaneous customer service. As a result, organisations have been forced to rethink their customer service delivery strategies, including their workforce resources and supporting technologies.

In field service, we see a future in which for-hire field service technicians can connect This year, pioneering companies (for example, Airbnb) have continued to lay a blueprint for other industries to follow using a gig economy model. 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 that need extra manpower for their field service teams.

At Coresystems, we understand the challenges organizations face when field service requests greatly outnumber that company’s field service technicians. By leveraging independent workers in the gig economy, organisations can deliver the real-time service that customers now demand. By introducing technology that enables the crowdsourcing of field service to independent, for-hire field service technicians, FSM software providers can help their customers find those field service technicians anywhere and anytime. This would check organisations’ critical box of providing real-time customer service.

In 2017, virtual and augmented reality (AR) technologies became more prevalent in many industry sectors, including field service.

There’s a huge market opportunity for organisations looking to enhance their field service businesses with these technologies – and you can find more on that here. Essentially, a specialised AR headset would boost the first-time fix rates and average repair time by allowing technicians to view, search and digest any information they need for an installation and/or repair on a heads-up display (think manuals, checklists and more).

AR would also connect on-site technicians with more experienced engineers back at HQ, who can visually supervise and troubleshoot more difficult technical issues, thus benefiting staff training and mitigating skills shortages.

Looking ahead to 2018, we believe the customer touchpoint will become a point of focus. Put simply, customer touchpoints are the various ways in which a customer encounters your company and products. This can be before, during or after purchase, and can be through social media, your online help center or word-of-mouth conversations.

Rather than selling a new machine through traditional methods, we’ll see companies handle the customer touchpoint better and more effectively Amazon Alexa and Google Home, for example, are perfect illustrations of successful customer touchpoints: they can meet their customers’ demands quicker than others because they understand their customers better, thanks to the use of smart home devices.

Alexa already knows which brand of water you prefer, and how many bottles you usually order, and with a short command you can place your order and have it on your doorstep within hours.

In contrast, in a traditional retail setting you need to go through several clicks to begin the delivery process.

To translate that to field service, rather than selling a new machine through traditional methods, we’ll see companies handle the customer touchpoint better and more effectively. For many companies, service is considered last. In my mind, that’s backwards – it should come first. Before you start digitising machines, you should think about how to digitise the service.

The evolution of technology has propelled us into the age of digital transformation, and it’s fundamentally changed the way we interact with technology and even the way technology interacts with itself. That shift will continue in 2018, at least in field service, with innovations such as crowd service platforms and AR headsets gaining further traction.

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