For fourteen years technological giant SCCI Alphatrack has relied on Tesseract’s service management software to run a lean, fit and growing operation. Today periodic and reactive maintenance for over 195,000 customer sites falls within Tesseract’s...
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Feb 09, 2017 • Features • field service management • Software and Apps • tesseract service management software
For fourteen years technological giant SCCI Alphatrack has relied on Tesseract’s service management software to run a lean, fit and growing operation. Today periodic and reactive maintenance for over 195,000 customer sites falls within Tesseract’s remit.
SCCI Alphatrack is one of the leading providers of TV, media, security and life safety systems in the UK. These include multi-point TV systems, access control, CCTV, fire and smoke protection, emergency lighting and a wide array of internet access solutions. The company’s clientele ranges from Premier Inn and Center Parcs to Ladbrokes and HM Prison Service, along with numerous housing authorities, developers and financial institutions.
Pre-2003, SCCI Alphatrack used a cumbersome, manual and paper-heavy system to run its operations. In order to move forward, the company sought out a streamlined system that could take care of everything — customer records, call control, scheduling, engineer reporting and invoicing — and found Tesseract.
An all-encompassing system — with some helpful integrations
Since 2003, SCCI Alphatrack has managed installations and maintenance work using Tesseract’s all-encompassing suite of services including Customer Assets, Call Control, Remote Engineer Access and Parts Centre. The system enables customer, contract and site data to be compiled and managed; materials to be distributed to engineers in the field and stock to be replenished; and engineers to log in remotely and generate service reports. More recently, SCCI Alphatrack has incorporated Tesseract’s Remote Customer Access module, enabling customers to log in, report faults and track progress and response times.
SCCI Alphatrack uses non-Tesseract systems for accounting, customer relationship management and time recording. Tesseract has provided various interfaces so that its software can communicate with and feed data to these systems. This has eradicated several error-prone manual processes and allowed the company to run a seamless operation.
With over 195,000 sites to look after, managing our data and service work would be a real challenge if it wasn’t for Tesseract. -Richard Spencer, IT Consultant for SCCI Alphatrack”
Richard Spencer, IT Consultant for SCCI Alphatrack, says, “With over 195,000 sites to look after, managing our data and service work would be a real challenge if it wasn’t for Tesseract.”
Health and safety management
One of the priorities for SCCI Alphatrack is the health and safety of its engineers who are often working at height or in dangerous areas. Therefore, managing and maintaining the vehicles and equipment they use is of the utmost importance. Originally, equipment inspections were paper-based processes. Last year, SCCI Alphatrack decided to bring its inspections activities under the same umbrella as its service work: Tesseract.
“Our inspections management has now gone completely paperless,” says Richard Spencer. “Before, there was scope for error or records going missing. We are now treating our kit and vehicle inspections like any other planned maintenance work we do for our customers. We schedule inspections so that they appear in engineers’ diaries and can be actioned. This creates a central electronic record and helps us keep our equipment safe and in proper working order.”
SCCI Alphatrack also monitors health and safety by way of Tesseract’s Checklist System. This is a custom-built list of questions that an engineer will need to answer before he or she can proceed with a job, e.g. are you signed in; are you working at height; have you got the right equipment; does your equipment need inspecting; and so on. The client sets the questions and the Tesseract system configures them to respond dynamically to the user, so that how a question is answered determines what question comes next. The Checklist System is designed to enable service organisations to adhere to their health and safety obligations.
A flexible and secure system
SCCI Alphatrack has experienced powerful efficiency gains since implementing Tesseract, which is why their partnership remains so strong fourteen years on.
Richard Spencer explains, “Tesseract has been a key part of our business process. By replacing our manual and paper-based procedures, it has enabled us to grow the business without taking on additional staff. From our customers’ point of view, they can rest easy knowing that we have a flexible and secure system in place to manage their information safely.”
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Jan 30, 2017 • Features • Manitowoc • case studies • Catering • Hardware software and apps • Software and Apps • software and apps • Asolvi
Manitowoc Foodservice UK have been relying on the service management software supplied by Tesseract for 20 years. Now they have decided to further automate their systems with one of Tesseract’s most useful tools – Diary Assist.
Manitowoc Foodservice UK have been relying on the service management software supplied by Tesseract for 20 years. Now they have decided to further automate their systems with one of Tesseract’s most useful tools – Diary Assist.
With customers like Debenhams, Wetherspoons and the Ministry of Defence, Manitowoc are the world leaders in manufacturing, supplying and maintaining cutting edge kitchen equipment, as well as designing and refitting kitchens.
From ovens, grills, fryers and steamers, to ice machines, refrigerators and beer coolers, Manitowoc produce equipment for numerous renowned and award-winning catering industry brands. These include Garland, Frymaster, Convotherm and Merrychef – the world’s number one designer and supplier of pioneering accelerated cooking systems.
More than 80,000 Merrychef ovens are in use around the world
With keen eyes for revolutionary technology and efficiency and smooth operation in even the busiest kitchens, Manitowoc are not only concerned with food facilities, but with food itself. Their global team of development chefs can help venues compile creative, innovative menus to suit their customer base and achieve greater success, drawing on their immeasurable experience of the catering industry.
It’s this desire to make their customers’ establishments better and more efficient that sets Manitowoc apart from other food service companies.
No room for error
Manitowoc’s high status and market-leading position mean they cannot afford to let any of their customers down. This is why, 20 years ago, they turned to Tesseract for help in the revolution and modernisation of their service management.
For all of their kitchen installations, Manitowoc have a committed team of engineers who carry out planned and reactive maintenance. Manitowoc use Tesseract to log calls from customers when a piece of equipment incurs a fault, as well as assigning jobs to the engineers, invoicing, parts ordering and reporting. Service requests are transmitted to engineers’ tablet devices using Tesseract’s Remote Engineer Access technology.
Engineers close down jobs on their tablets, at which point the information is transmitted back to Manitowoc instantaneously.
However, choosing which engineers to deploy for both planned maintenance work and reactive tasks was always done manually. Now, in order to further automate their systems, improve efficiency and save huge amounts of time, Manitowoc have integrated Tesseract’s Diary Assist software for both planned and reactive maintenance tasks.
Before the integration of Diary Assist
Manitowoc used to rely totally on a manual system for scheduling engineers for reactive jobs and diarising them for planned maintenance tasks. They used mapping software such as AA Route Planner and the now discontinued Microsoft MapPoint and would assign particular engineers based on location, skill set and fair division of work.
Manitowoc’s manual process for deployment not only took a lot of time, much more than an automated process would, but it also introduced a human element to the decision-making that wasn’t always consistent.
“Before Diary Assist, the deployment of our engineers relied on human intervention and scheduling typically consumed 3 – 4 hours a day,” says Manitowoc. “We had staff trying to ensure that the division of work was fair according to engineers’ skill set and geographical location. A side effect of this was that sometimes it would be unfair and inconsistent.”
How has Diary Assist changed things for Manitowoc?
Diary Assist is a dynamic, centrally hosted web service for call optimisation. It’s designed to handle both planned appointments and reactive service calls and is capable of scheduling 200 hundred calls in just 20 minutes.
The software allocates jobs to engineers based on their skill sets, availability, travel time, work time and shift patterns, as well as call response time and customer site cover times. Manitowoc used to have staff making evaluative decisions about which engineers were most appropriate to allocate; now an automated program does it for them.
Manitowoc says, “We are already seeing the long-term benefits of using Diary Assist. The service provides consistent logic to our scheduling process and saves us 3 – 4 hours a day of manual manipulation, whilst eliminating the potential for human error.”
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Jan 27, 2017 • Features • eBECS • field service • Software and Apps • software and apps
Stephen Wilson, CMO, eBecs provides some key advice on making sure you select the right software provide to meet your needs when making the important decision to invest in Field Service Management software...
Stephen Wilson, CMO, eBecs provides some key advice on making sure you select the right software provide to meet your needs when making the important decision to invest in Field Service Management software...
Choosing the right field service software is an important decision, as it has real, long-term effects on your business’ profitability and customer retention. So taking the initial time invest to understand your options and how they will improve efficiency, information, and communication sets you up for long-term success. You’re investing time and money into a product and so, in turn it should also save you time and money. There are questions you should ask and key issues you want to investigate as you compare vendors.
Development Costs
Oftentimes vendors will have a base product that provides your business with the basic tools to automate and store information. It’s the additional add-ons and customisation that starts to increase the initial set-up fee or monthly subscription fee. These costs are not always apparent when simply looking at a list of features.
It’s important to understand what features will incur additional costs, and whether or not you need them. While certain features may appear to increase productivity, reduce frustrations, etc. you need to know if the ROI is going to justify the cost.
Implementation Time
How soon can the system be up and running? If you’re working with a vendor who is building your application from the ground up, while being white-labelled and built to fit exactly your needs, development time can be up to a year. Meaning your ROI is a long way out and you may find that your business needs will change during that time.
A system built using a plug-and-play model tends to have shorter implementation time, and allows for those initial building blocks to be built upon, adding customised features as needed.
Mobile Applications
When building enterprise grade mobile applications there are some very key differences between the coding of a web application and a mobile application. What works on a desktop, doesn’t necessary translate to a mobile device. Performance, security, and features can all be affected.
Ask vendors what they use to build mobile apps;, if they say HTML5 they’re not going to be the right solution for you. Native apps provide a stronger, more dependable solution, especially for field service techs who are consistently on the road and rely on the app to manage client calls.
Third-Party Integrations
The ability to integrate with third-party applications is key. There is no solution that does absolutely everything a business needs. From a customer facing website, to a CRM, to payment processing. There are applications that will need to be integrated with your field service solution. Find out how the vendor handles third-party integrations. Are there limitations on what can be integrated?
Security
Consider all the different employees in your business. Do they have different access to different information? Does the vendor’s solution handle multiple roles and access permissions? You may need this on both a group and individual level and so the system needs to be flexible. Make sure you know what types of permission levels you need and what is possible.
Automated Routing
A key feature of many field service software solutions is the ability to automatically generate routes for techs, scheduling their service calls in the most efficient manner (to save time wasted between calls and the distance a technician has to drive). Automation can have big benefits, freeing up employees to do other tasks, but you want to ensure that the automation is creating the most efficient solution, and that it’s easy for a human to step in and make adjustments to the schedule board when necessary.
Also, take a look at the scalability of the solution. As your business grows and you add more technicians or additional jobs into the system you want to ensure that it runs as quickly as it did before. The ability for the system to update in seconds as opposed to minutes is important in ensuring that techs have the most up-to-date information.
Start making strategic lists
Before speaking to vendors, build a checklist of features: the needs and nice to haves.
Create a long list of vendors to ensure you are properly evaluating all your options. Then address your needs first so that you can eliminate any vendor that isn’t going to be able to provide you with a solution that will make your business run smoother and more efficiently.
The nice to haves can help you compare overall cost of working with one particular vendor over the other. When you’ve narrowed you’re your long list to 3-5 potential vendors, then use your checklist to compare each individual feature/benefit.
Your field service management vendor is going to be a long term investment, so you want a partner that will grow with you and provide you with the best possible solution for your needs.
If you would you like to learn how the right vendor and field service solution can help you grow your business, by better managing your customer’s changing expectations and still deliver high customer satisfaction, sign up for the January 31 live webinar here
Jan 18, 2017 • Features • Leadent • Oracle • Software and Apps
After a decade of building a solid reputation as a management consultancy specialising in mobile workforce management, Leadent recently announced a new string to their bow - Leadent Service Cloud. It’s a bold step to move from consultant to solution...
After a decade of building a solid reputation as a management consultancy specialising in mobile workforce management, Leadent recently announced a new string to their bow - Leadent Service Cloud. It’s a bold step to move from consultant to solution vendor, so Kris Oldland caught up with Alastair Clifford-Jones, CEO of Leadent to find out more about both the new solution and why they felt it was right for them to bring their own offering to the table...
Having built a successful business as a specialist mobile workforce consultancy delivering successful Field Service Management (FSM) solutions based on technologies such as ClickSoftware, Leadent is a name reasonably well known within the field service sector - particularly within their home shores of the UK. Indeed, CEO Alastair Clifford Jones is a man that should be familiar to Field Service News readers as an occasional FSN columnist and member of our inaugural #FSN20 list of key industry influencers back in 2015.
However, as many readers may have noticed across the last few months a new Leadent brand, Leadent Service Cloud has appeared alongside the original Leadent offering - it appears that Clifford-Jones and his team have decided to take all they know when it comes to implementing other vendor’s solutions and launched a solution of their own.
Well, that’s half-right. Leadent Service Cloud is in fact essentially Oracle Field Service Cloud with additional other solutions tailored to specific vertical needs included which Leadent have identified dependent on their expertise specific vertical markets.
The key USP however, is that Leadent Service Cloud also draws on the experience Leadent have in implementation and so they are able to work to incredibly short implementation times of just a few weeks - not bad for a cutting edge solution that incorporates other vertical specific requirements you may have.
“The idea is that Leadent will be able to advise what other products would also benefit a field service organisation that can be plugged into the Oracle suite via the Cloud,” Clifford-Jones explains.
We already had many clients talking to us through the consultancy side of the business, where we are quite heavily involved in software evaluation and various other things,”
It’s quite a dramatic addition to their existing business so I was curious to understand if this was something that had been planned for some time - was it the classic case of an overnight success story that took ten years to put together, or was it more a case of everything just falling into place at the right time?
“Basically we already had many clients talking to us through the consultancy side of the business, where we are quite heavily involved in software evaluation and various other things,” Clifford-Jones begins.
“We’ve always done the large scale implementations - and with Oracle Field Service we had begun doing all their training - we do all the training for the Global Partners. From that we felt there was a really good opportunity for us to combine our understanding of the industry and our understanding of processes, plus we really understand product implementation - you put those together and you can start to do really rapid implementations.”
In addition to this evident skill-set that Clifford-Jones identified within his own team, there was also the market pull of the Cloud. As we saw in our own recent research into Cloud based FSM solutions, not only is adoption of the Cloud increasing at a greater speed than ever before, but also amongst those companies still using an on-premise system the majority are considering a Cloud based solution when they next overhaul their existing solution. This is something Clifford-Jones has identified within the market also.
Because everything is implemented via templates we can get people set up and running within four to six weeks and the implementation costs are all rolled into the monthly fee so there is no upfront CAPEX fee
“Because everything is implemented via templates we can get people set up and running within four to six weeks and the implementation costs are all rolled into the monthly fee so there is no upfront CAPEX fee,” he continues “it just seemed a logical progression with us bolting on the consulting part of the business with the technology part of our business - especially with the backdrop of changing customer requirements and changing customer demands.”
However, whilst some demands are changing as the power of Cloud computing starts to gain resonance amongst field service organisations, other demands remain the same, even across disparate verticals - and it is here where the experience embedded within Leadent Solutions comes to the fore.
“As we work with more and more companies from different industries what we’ve found is that in reality field service really is a straight horizontal process that is undertaken the same in almost all industries.” Clifford-Jones explains.
“The big challenge companies have had in the past is that so many implementations were about reimplementing existing processes with new technology and that’s kind of failed.”
“So if you can go in and say these are the best practices and processes you should be using - and redesign the organisation to fit those processes that allows for truly rapid implementations. In terms of industry specifics there are then certain tools that various industries will then want to use, such as GIS, and these can be simply bolted on, as required”
And perhaps here lies the rub - as an organisation known as a consultancy rather than a software vendor, Leadent are more used to putting such questions to their clients, and similarly their clients and prospects may be more open to such a conversation also - it would be a much tougher sell from a software house to convince a company to change their workflow. The more cynical amongst us thinking that they are perhaps just trying to get us to adapt to their software because either it is hard to customise or lacking in functionality.
When you’ve got processes that have been designed and they’ve worked and they’re proven already in your specific industry why reinvent them?
“When you’ve got processes that have been designed and they’ve worked and they’re proven already in your specific industry why reinvent them?” He asks
“You’ve already done that work and the thinking has already happened. It’s the heritage of consultancy, and dare I say it, our own rock solid understanding of how businesses work and their processes. This allows us to leverage the technology pretty easily as we approach projects always thinking about the business challenges and how we address these challenges - rather than going in to talk just about technology.”
“When you start to think about it much more as consulting led rather than technology led (even though technology is a huge part of it) you can have much more sensible conversations. You can start to challenge people a lot more about why they ought to use standard processes rather than reinvent processes, all because you really understand what it is they are ultimately trying to achieve.”
“I also think, given the number of clients in field service we’ve worked with over the course of the last ten years that we absolutely understand the challenges and the types of processes that are needed.”
Such a confident approach is of course understandable, Leadent have indeed worked with and delivered for some great high profile clients in the last decade. However, the flip-side of that coin is that having made the move from consultancy to software vendor their legitimacy as a consultancy could be diminished.
“It’s a very different dynamic, but that is why we’ve done it through a separate organisation.”
Clifford-Jones replies when I put this point to him.
We don’t want to see consultancy as pre sales for technology.
“Also, generally speaking the consultancy clients we are talking to have huge workforces and it’s not something that our version of Oracle Service Cloud would work for - we are looking at organisations that can have up to 250 field service engineers for Leadent Service Cloud.”
Of course, the Oracle Service Cloud can handle much bigger organisations (for example Virgin Media are one of their clients in the UK.) However, those kind of implementations are a lot more complex - you’re not going to get up and running with that in four weeks.” He adds.
Indeed, one of the many benefits of Cloud models is their scalability which in addition to the SaaS business model mentioned previously makes Cloud solutions perfect for small organisations.
With this in mind I was curious to see if there was a lower limit for Leadent Service Cloud also.
“I guess there is a lower limit because if you have a smaller number of engineers then you don’t need sophisticated technology to manage your workflow. So our view is that a lower limit would be around 25 to 30 engineers. The reality is that below that number, there are cheaper products that provide the functionality you need at that size,” admits Clifford-Jones honestly.
Indeed, this is the kind of answer that you would expect from a consultant, or even from a software vendor trying to adopt a consultative approach to their sales process - but this does lead us to an important question - how does Clifford Jones see his two separate businesses evolving? As a consultancy Leadent’s very strength, (i.e. being small and focussed enough to fully understand both their clients and the niche sector of field service in general), will also always be the biggest barrier for them in terms of rapid growth.
Various research sources including, Aberdeen, Service Council and Field Service News all identify that there is a sizeable chunk of the industry that are yet to adopt a FSM solution
In short there is a lot more potential for quick wins that can fuel growth for Leadent’s technology business than there is for their consultancy business. Does this mean that Clifford Jones thinks ultimately Leadent will be more focussed on that area of the business, with the consultancy becoming a side show?
“In terms of revenues I think the Leadent Service Cloud will take off more but in terms of importance I think the consultancy business will always remain incredibly important to us as that is the part that gives us the knowledge that will allow us to accelerate the growth in Leadent Service Cloud,” he begins.
“In terms of the business, our vision is absolutely to maintain the consultancy business. We are doing more than ever in terms of market development on that side. The consultancy side of the business is set to grow by about 50% this year, so we are on a pretty good trajectory to grow that part of the business as well.”
Of course the other side to this story is that whilst this seems a great deal for Leadent - it is also sees Oracle gain wider access to the market as well. Given the recent release of Salesforce’s Field Service Lightning and Microsoft’s acquisition of FieldOne, both of which were of course preceded by IFS’s acquisition of Metrix and 360 Scheduling a few years back - there is a very distinct feeling that the market for FSM solutions is once again potentially going to be dominated by a smaller number of larger players rather than a wider pool of smaller, independent best-of-breed solutions.
I was keen to see if Clifford-Jones agreed with this sentiment and what it meant for the field service organisations that rely upon such technology.
“One of the things about the smaller players is that they tended to do well in areas where they could be price sensitive,” replies Clifford-Jones.
When you’re buying Software as a Service, your not having to invest in a whole lot of hardware, you’re not having to invest in a whole lot of things that you would have had to have done in the past if your were to implement ClickSoftware for example. And that is going to cause a challenge for some of the smaller players
“It is also probably a similar case for Salesforce’s Field Service Lightning and, Microsoft Field Service as well - so I would see some of the smaller players currently coming under threat at the moment.”
“When you’re buying Software as a Service, your not having to invest in a whole lot of hardware, you’re not having to invest in a whole lot of things that you would have had to have done in the past if your were to implement ClickSoftware for example. And that is going to cause a challenge for some of the smaller players.”
Of course, one potential danger is that the FSM solution sector which has rapidly evolved in the last decade, could potentially be facing a period of stifled innovation as we get used to seeing just the same few faces around the table. However, Clifford-Jones believes that can be avoided if the big names pay attention to the partners within their ecosystem.
“I think that all depends on how they use their partner ecosystem,” he comments. “The big difference is that in the past a lot of these big guys have done technology for technology’s sake and they haven’t really understood what the business requirements were.”
“I do think this is one of the problems with larger organisations, especially when they are technology organisations - how do they get the real understanding of the business challenges?”
“I think what a lot of these big players need to do is think about their partner ecosystems and make sure that they take the input from that - because we understand where all the challenges are for field service businesses really easily -far more so than a software provider.”
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Jan 16, 2017 • Features • maximize • Events • gartner • IoT • servicemax • Software and Apps • Uncategorized
With a handy announcement from Gartner arriving just in time for their annual European conference Maximize Europe, ServiceMax were in buoyant mood across the two days in Amsterdam. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was on hand to get...
With a handy announcement from Gartner arriving just in time for their annual European conference Maximize Europe, ServiceMax were in buoyant mood across the two days in Amsterdam. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was on hand to get reaction from ServiceMax’s Dave Yarnold and Rick Gustafson...
With in excess of three hundred attendees sitting in the main hall of the Krasnopolsky Hotel in Amsterdam waiting for Dave Yarnold’s keynote speech, the mood in the ServiceMax camp was already on a high. However, what tipped the mood into one of true celebration was the announcement just a few days earlier that the San Francisco based company had just come out at the top of the pile of the much awaited Gartner Magic Quadrant Field Service report.
With a whole bunch of product innovations and customer success stories already lined up for the next two days - this recognition from Gartner really was perfectly timed - adding both a sense of gravitas and triumph to the sessions across the two days of Maximize Europe.
“We didn’t know when it [the Gartner announcement] was going to hit the street so everything you saw, the whole presentation around our model, our platform, our services, and our passion was already in place. But then we were able to insert the validation of all of that as well,” comments Dave Yarnold, CEO of ServiceMax as I caught up with him a little later in the day.
“It was a beautiful thing to be able to come here present our mission and our progress and then show that validation from a really credible third party - it was really fantastic. The timing was terrific - Dave Yarnold, CEO, ServiceMax
Indeed, one of the biggest factors in why the Gartner Magic Quadrants are so widely acknowledged as key industry benchmarks is that it they are not just based on a set defined group of criterion from one organisation, but also upon feedback from each company’s own clients. This is something that makes the recognition even more important for Yarnold.
“It’s the biggest thing,” he says. “Everybody meets with these analysts and everybody presents their products but where there the rubber meets the road is the references.”
“Being able to give the analysts lots and lots of accounts with lots of companies getting results from their operations and then of course the specific comments that were made in the report about large companies expanding their global roll outs and actually getting all kinds of great financial returns - those are the things that go beyond hype,” he adds.
However, one gets the feeling that even without the Gartner announcement, the conference would have been a very upbeat affair. Field Service News has now attended the last three Maximize Europe events in a row and there are considerably more people and more buzz about the place than there was at the inaugural event held in Paris just a few years ago.
“We changed our strategy a little bit this year,” explains Yarnold when I comment on the growth of the event. “Instead of having a major event in San Francisco and two minor events in Europe and APAC, we’ve acknowledged all three regions are important to our business so rather than force our European or Japanese customers to fly to San Francisco we decided to make a concerted effort to do a great event in all three places.”
“I think what’s important when you're trying to grab the hearts and the minds of a group is you have to create an environment for the tribe to get together so they can share experiences and learn from one another,” Yarnold continues.
“Even at lunch I was introducing companies who were saying ‘oh you're a ServiceMax user that’s great, we use your parts in our products so let's talk’ and that really helps. It helps them with their business and clearly it helps us because they’re bonding around the experience that they’ve had with us.”
There was one slide in particular that really caught my eye in the morning’s opening sessions and that was the sheer number of partners within the ServiceMax ecosystem, the market place for which was only launched just over a year ago. I was keen to understand just how important that partnership ecosystem was in the continuing success and vision of ServiceMax and what role it would play in the future of the company.
“Several years ago we came to a couple of realisations,” opens Yarnold when I discuss this with him.
We’ve brought to market a nice bite-sized way to go about this that can deliver real business value -Rick Gustafson, CFO, ServiceMax
“The other thing that we were seeing, especially as we got into larger situations, was there were areas of functionality that it just didn’t make sense for us to build when some of our partners had that functionality.”
“Still we were surprised how fired up those partners were to engage with us and the last time I checked about half of our customers have actually used one of our partner’s products in conjunction with ServiceMax. It’s been really great to see that since we set up that partner market place . We can’t do it all so we’ve been thrilled with the support we’ve got from the partner community.”
In terms of the technology itself there was one definite show-stealer Field Service Connect, ServiceMax’s IoT solution, which was showcased with a number of successful case studies. Given the relative infancy of the product which launched just over a year ago, were the team at ServiceMax surprised how quickly these customers were able to show real value in using the tool?
“I was not surprised by it all,” replies Rick Gustafson, CFO, ServiceMax. “We’ve brought to market a nice bite-sized way to go about this that can deliver real business value. We’ve had the early adopter program which we’ve run half a dozen customers through it and now we have a couple of customers that are going to expand it broaden it out across the business.”
“I think the key to this is we boil it [IoT] down to a very simple value proposition and we talk about it as a way of getting started with IoT. We make it very understandable, very pragmatic, with well-defined outcomes and when we sit down with the customers we intentionally say let's focus on two or three use cases lets not try to boil the ocean,” Yarnold adds.
“The key to these hype areas is you’ve got to get some value for your early customers otherwise everybody says it was just over-hyped and it dies. Here there is real business value,” he concludes.
It would seem that both an army of satisfied customers and now Gartner themselves would agree with him too.
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Jan 16, 2017 • Features • infographics • resources • ClickSoftware • infographic • Infographics
Infographic from ClickSoftware explores the consumer and suppliers views of key field service consumer frustrations...
Infographic from ClickSoftware explores the consumer and suppliers views of key field service consumer frustrations...
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Jan 15, 2017 • Features • Management • machine to machine • omni channel • Capgemini • digital disruption
Jeff Bird, Customer Experience and Analytics Consultant, Capgemini, outlines what he thinks the future holds for the field service industry.
Jeff Bird, Customer Experience and Analytics Consultant, Capgemini, outlines what he thinks the future holds for the field service industry.
The customer centric business models of today are geared up to meet the ever increasing needs of customer service from buying to after sales care. It has never been more important for businesses to wake up to digital disruption and have an edge on their competitors by being innovative.
Retailers have recognised that it isn’t just about offering a digital presence either; the traditional way of buying physically in the store is as strong as ever. Companies on the high street are realising that it is the connected blend of services being offered to consumers through mobility which is becoming the differentiator.
Once those giant leaps of transformation have been made it then remains a question of how to evolve further, providing the after sales service they desire. This is where a proactive customer service comes in, anticipating a problem before it has started and offering them a service before they come to you – it’s all about showing them how much you want their business and loyalty.
Field service and customer care, which helps to maintain the customer relationship, is providing a service to a business/consumer that predicts what you want and when you need it from its existing services. Over the years the role of self-service has had a positive effect on the way we communicate with organisations, now with 24/7 as opposed to business opening hours, the business/consumer has the power to take control and be kept updated on their status when they want it.
A brave new world in field service
The service model has now shifted from a supply (vendor) and demand (customer) to a new world in service management.
Traditionally in a business, if something breaks down, let’s say a vending machine (yes, the thought of employees not being able to grab a daily fix of chocolate on a break is important, you know). This would involve calling the supplier to report the problem or that stock needed to be replenished, but this has all changed.
From a consumer perspective, the needs of customer service have never been greater.
From a consumer perspective, the needs of customer service have never been greater. The opinion of service after a product has been bought can strengthen preference or loyalty to a brand.
Although the link for the individual consumer in field service has yet to be fully recognised, new innovations have delivered smarter technology to improve the customer experience. We experience this in our everyday lives from using mobile apps to record TV programmes or sending a command to a washing machine to run a chosen cycle. By using an app to program washing, users have remote control and visibility which gives them an insight into the progress of the wash. Within the same app, users can also be notified to identify minor problems that they would be able to fix without the need to call out an engineer.
New service, new opportunities...
With the new reach of technology in the field comes new opportunities for the vendor supplier or company to improve their customer service by:
Using mobile software applications - the vendor supplier can now take advantage of getting up to date information from any one of their products being used by the customer. This enables a faster response to manage fixes, scheduling in a date to visit or the anticipation that a routine appointment is due for its customer.
Onsite representatives making a difference - whilst on site the value added opportunity is for its representative to train staff there on how a problem can be dealt with and sharing knowledge of up to date work instructions as a visual. Growing this type of trusted relationship also has its benefits. A repeat business customer who is happy with the service is more likely to be engaged in an upsell of a product or repeat business.
Cutting out the paperwork - enabling the use of smart devices for field representatives while working remotely also brings with it the opportunity to renew contracts and services electronically sooner and keep the competition at arm’s length.
Better understanding of the customer needs - with new technology comes the ability to understand customers better, insights into their buying behaviour and what products suit their needs over a period of time. These are essential metrics to reap the rewards of repeat purchases.
What will the future hold?
Within a customer service model, companies will see the continuing benefits of managing their customer’s activities through connected channels. The hub of this, likely to be the contact centre will incorporate the field service as part of the profile of a customer in one omnichannel experience.
Bringing a service to the customer and using new technology to empower field representatives will enhance the customer experience but the challenge will be transfer of knowledge from one generation to another
Bringing a service to the customer and using new technology to empower field representatives will enhance the customer experience but the challenge will be transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. Companies should act now to train and manage this space of learning. The resource challenge of field staff will be another factor but will be countered by the use of GPS tracking service software and the continuing increase of customer self service knowledge.
Bespoke services, such as Bouton Darcy®, are already trailblazing the next generation of instant support to customers through their after sales offering.
To serve or not to serve?
We know that companies who fail to serve their customers and are not proactive are losing loyal customers. In field service, companies now have a chance to increase loyalty through new technology and be part of a great customer care experience. Is your organisation only thinking about this or doing it right now? Imminent action is needed to sustain businesses and deliver customer’s expectations.
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Jan 12, 2017 • Features • Management • management • Microsoft 365 • eBECS
Stephen Wilson, CMO, eBecs looks at why understanding customer expectations is perhaps the biggest challenge and requirement for field service companies in 2017...
Stephen Wilson, CMO, eBecs looks at why understanding customer expectations is perhaps the biggest challenge and requirement for field service companies in 2017...
How do you ensure that your field service technicians are completing their jobs effectively and fulfilling customers’ expectations? First, you’re going to have to identify what your customers’ expectations really are. Many businesses assume that because they know the product or service, they know best what customers need. This assumption is incredibly risky. It can lead customers to feel like they’re not valued, that their needs aren’t going to be met, and in the end selecting another company to do business with.
What can you do to better understand and meet your customers’ expectations in order to keep customers satisfied and loyal to your business?
Customer Information
Part of being able to meet your customers’ expectations is ensuring that your technicians are provided with all relevant information before they leave for a service call.
Technicians can easily view past call notes, identifying any challenges that may not have been anticipated, thus saving everyone time.
Keeping customer information all in one place improves future service calls as well. Technicians can easily view past call notes, identifying any challenges that may not have been anticipated, thus saving everyone time.
Touch Points
Where do your customers interact with your company? What is their experience along all touch points? Your customers’ experience, from everything from your website, to the emails from your team, to the technician they interact with, matter. Even more importantly they all need to align with your brand and business image.
One of the biggest disconnects for a customer can be going to your website, expecting a certain level of professionalism, only to receive communications and experiences that don’t align. Regardless of the size of your company, holding your business to a professional standard at all touch points will ensure that customers’ expectations are being met. Adopting technology such as Microsoft Dynamic 365 for Field Service can help your business maintain a professional standard.
Time Management
When a customer has a problem, they want it resolved in a timely fashion. While they understand that they’re not your only customer, what expectations are you setting in regards to their service call? Are you even setting an expectation? One of the biggest disservices to a company is customers having low or no expectations at all. When customers’ expectations are met it builds trust in the relationship with the business.
When it comes to service calls, customers feel more comfortable when provided with a time frame, even before they submit their request.
Using a resource scheduling tool will help you to better calculate, with accuracy, when technicians will be able to complete work orders, and allow you to fit more work orders into each day. Setting those time expectations with your customers can provide huge benefits to your company, because the reality is, the competition likely isn’t making them or holding to them.
Customer Feedback
One of the most important aspects of understanding customer expectations is in getting direct feedback from them. Customer needs are continually evolving and changing, and to stay on top of it you must actively engage with customers.
Using an integrated system that automatically sends out a survey once a service call is completed is a quick and effective way to get immediate feedback. It will help you change and adapt your business to what your customer needs are.
Customer satisfaction is ranked as the highest metric in defining service success. It ranks higher than first-time fix rates and service cost.
Customer satisfaction is ranked as the highest metric in defining service success. It ranks higher than first-time fix rates and service cost. When customer expectations are met customers have more trust in the business and are more likely to use your services again in the future. Using an integrated Field Service solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 to help understanding customer expectations will be a game changer for any business.
To learn more on how to understand your customer’s changing expectations and still deliver high customer satisfaction, sign up for the January 31 live webinar here
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Jan 10, 2017 • Features • Future of FIeld Service • drones • IFS • IoT • Managing the Mobile Workforce
The IFS World Conference has been held in Barcelona and Boston in recent years, A telling testament to the Swedish software company’s growing importance on the global stage. However, in 2016 it was time for a successful homecoming as the conference...
The IFS World Conference has been held in Barcelona and Boston in recent years, A telling testament to the Swedish software company’s growing importance on the global stage. However, in 2016 it was time for a successful homecoming as the conference headed to Gothenberg.
Field Service News was there to report on the key announcements made...
At the IFS World Conference in Boston held 18 months ago the headlines were all about milestones. The company had recently hit their millionth user, Applications 9 had just been launched and key partnerships with the likes of Microsoft and Accenture had seemingly launched them into the world of enterprise level organisations as a genuine challenger to the likes of SAP and Oracle.
So looking ahead to this year’s event in Gothenberg there was an anticipation of just how the Swedish ERP provider had moved onwards from those milestones - just how much progress had been made?
However, just ahead of the conference in September 2016 it was announced that private equity firm EQT had acquired 97% of the company which added a further dynamic to the backdrop of the conference’s three day agenda - what did the acquisition mean for IFS and would it change the roadmap for better or for worse?
These questions were addressed swiftly as Alistair Sorbie, CEO IFS took the stage for the opening keynote session - and the message was clear.
It was still business as usual and field service remained a significant priority for the company.
This sentiment was echoed when we spoke to Paul Massey, Managing Director, IFS Europe West, about the take over.
“They’re very hands off, have been positive in terms of their messaging and are supportive of the existing management” Massey commented.
Taking an initial view of where we might target some early investment field service is an obvious candidate because we weren’t maximising the benefit we’ve got from having that product. - Paul Massey, Managing Director, IFS Europe West
“It’s a growing market that we have got some really good stories in which we haven’t exploited as well as we might, so with EQT coming in and us taking an initial view of where we might target some early investment field service is an obvious candidate because we weren’t maximising the benefit we’ve got from having that product.” he added.
So with field service still very firmly on the agenda and the private equity acquisition looking - upon initial observations at least, to be something that is good for both IFS and their existing users the tone of the conference was able to gain sharper focus - and that tone was very much all about innovation in the technology. The headline stealing announcement being the introduction of IFS IoT Business Connector...
With IoT still very much the key technology on everyone’s buzz list it was an anticipated launch and potentially an essential one, as competitors in the FSM space at least, race to deliver similar tools.
What is interesting about the IFS solution is that as you may guess from the name it is a tool that connects other systems potentially shortening the time from ‘ideas to tangible benefits’ for IFS customers’ by providing an end-to-end architecture.
Designed to de-risk and accelerate IoT initiatives in areas such as predictive maintenance, service management, asset management, and manufacturing, it provides the ability to harness data gathered from products, assets and equipment to identify actionable observations that trigger either user-defined, automated or semi-automated workflows in the wider IFS software suite.
Another important benefit is that it also comes with plug-and-play connectivity to the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite (but also has open APIs to connect other IoT platforms also.)
Essentially the IFS IoT Business Connector is designed to bridge the gap between analysis of IoT data and using the output to then execute maintenance and service more efficiently.
A number of earlier adopter case studies were rolled out during the announcement including Songa Offshore, an international mid-water drilling contractor, ATS, a leading provider of factory maintenance and IT services based in the U.S., Anticimex, an international pest control company, and Hecla Mining, the North American precious metals mining company.
By working with our customers and partners we are able to connect the dots so that investments in IoT not only yield piles of data and pretty charts, but result in real actions... - Dan Matthews, CTO IFS
ATS Automation Director of IT Christopher Lebeau said. “By connecting our field service value chain we are able to automate our processes in a new way and use the insights to make smarter business decisions.”
IFS CTO Dan Matthews added, “By working with our customers and partners we are able to connect the dots so that investments in IoT not only yield piles of data and pretty charts, but result in real actions that are co-planned and executed in an optimal way together with everything else that is going on in a business. For our customers it means an easier way to get started with IoT, lower risks, and faster time to realised value.”
The new version of our dynamic work scheduling solution represents a major product investment aimed at helping our clients streamline and automate their scheduling processes... - Jørgen Rogde, FS product director for service, asset, and project based solutions
Major feature updates include automated resource planning, rostering and shift scheduling as well as extended deployment options in the cloud. Commenting on the updated solution IFS product director for service, asset, and project based solutions Jørgen Rogde commented,“The new version of our dynamic work scheduling solution represents a major product investment aimed at helping our clients streamline and automate their scheduling processes while maintaining and enhancing the flexibility of the solution through new options for cloud deployment and big data management.”
“It will help our customers use their resources more effectively, ultimately saving them time and money.”
Another important announcement made at the conference was the unveiling of a new version of IFS Enterprise Operational Intelligence (EOI).
Included within the new version - the first major release since the solution was acquired through the acquisition of VisionWaves in July 2015 were a number of new features such as capabilities for adding custom visualizations,
plug-and-play integration with IFS Applications, and of course integration with the IFS IoT Business Connector.
A number of elements of EOI are particularly suited including of course the scheduling element, which is powered by the IFS dynamic scheduling engine that users will be familiar with.
This tool used in combination with the ability to customise maps by incorporating drawings, illustrations or performance data onto a map could be a fantastic tool for prescriptive analytics and potentially modelling different schedule scenarios. In combination with the in-memory database technology demonstrated in Boston last year could theoretically mean that running simulations to find optimum workforce division could be done in minutes as opposed to weeks or even months that such a task using manual tools.
However, whilst the developments of both EOI and MWM and their integration to the wider suite of IFS Applications were not only impressive but also have easily identifiable use-cases within field service operations, it was the glimpse into the not too distant future from IFS Labs that was the show stopper from a field service perspective.
At IFS Labs, we look beyond the current needs of businesses to anticipate what solutions will be required in the future... - Bas de Vos, Director, IFS Labs
The drone proof-of-concept featured live integration between a drone and IFS Applications for automatic generation of work orders whilst inspecting assets on a scaled model demonstration.
Using computer image analysis, a drone flown by a member of the IFS labs team was able to recognise a break in a power line within the model and automatically generated an observation that is registered in IFS Applications via the IFS IoT Business Connector.
The end user can analyse and process the drone observations via the IFS Lobby interface, in which additional information such as geolocation and customer feedback is cross-referenced to help the user action appropriate maintenance and repair.
Although still not available, the proof-of-concept demonstration certainly opened up a number of eyes as to the power of technology to help in the delivery of field service within the not too distant future.
“At IFS Labs, we look beyond the current needs of businesses to anticipate what solutions will be required in the future,” IFS Labs director Bas de Vos said.
And perhaps this is the key takeaway from the three day conference, for those asking how the EQT acquisition will affect the IFS, the message was it’s business as usual - and on the evidence on show in Gothenberg this year, the usual is innovation.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
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