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Field service is one of those sectors most likely to be affected by a European Court of Justice ruling on what constitutes “working time” for mobile employees.

The ECJ has ruled that time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time. Previously some organisations, including those engaged in field service, have not regarded this element of travelling time as work.

The court says the ruling, which has caused some controversy among European Union member states, has been enforced to protect the health and safety of mobile workers as set out in the EU's working time directive, which stipulates that they cannot work more than 48 hours in a week unless they opt out. Member states will be required to ensure national legislation on working time complies with the ruling. Workers are required to sign a waiver in order  to opt out.

Mobile workforce management software developer Auto Time is one company advising that service organisations may now find themselves in breach of EU working time regulations unless they review operations. Christian Berenger, Operations Director at Auto Time says: “The new ruling could leave contractors, already under pressure to deliver their services cost-effectively, confronted by increased labour costs and facing a tough battle to operate profitably within tight margins. To minimise compliance risk, employers need to put systems in place that will enable them to gain total transparency of their workforce, track their movements and plan staff workloads to coincide with their daily commute to minimise costs.”

The ruling by the European Court of Justice deeming time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers should be regarded as work means businesses now more than ever should be carefully considering the deployment of their workforce, agrees Marina Stedman, director at ClickSoftware.

“Thousands of employers may be in breach of employment law, requiring them to implement workforce management strategies that take this ruling into account. Businesses not already doing so should be looking at software that manages all time related services with one single platform, to ensure when staff are dispatched to a task, this is being factored in. Having this in place, businesses will be able to proactively design rosters that consider the capacity of staffing shifts days and weeks in advance.”

Christian Berenger adds: “The role of technology in supporting organisations to comply with the new ECJ ruling surrounding mobile workers should not be underestimated. With HR teams under increased pressure to keep up with changing employment regulations, employers must evaluate their business practices or risk falling foul of the law. By gaining instant visibility of their remote workers and streamlining compliance tasks, workforce management systems. can not only meet their legal obligations but optimise their workforce for future bottom line growth.”

 

Real-time data access allows managers to track the whereabouts and task status of their workforce, calculate the ‘actual hours’ worked and respond to operational issues with better informed decisions as they happen, he points out and recommends empowering staff to manage their hours, via a secure web portal using their smartphone or tablet. ”

There’s likely to be an impact on schedule optimization, too, thinks Bereneger. “Scheduling functions provide managers with the ability to optimise staff shifts by allocating job tasks to dovetail with their daily commute, ensuring assignments at the start and end of the day are located near employees' homes to minimise travel time.

 

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UK gas distribution company SGN expects to save about £1million by implementing a driver performance improvement programme across its 2,000-strong fleet.

SGN,  the gas utilities company which operates across the south of England and the whole of Scotland, is using TomTom Telematics technology, including the driver behaviour improvement system OptiDrive 360, to tackle inefficient practice.

During a 100-vehicle trial, SGN reduced the volume of fuel wasted through idling by almost 68% and improved average fuel consumption by 11%.

“The finance department at SGN recognised a huge opportunity for using driver performance data to transform operational efficiency and we now stand to make major savings on both fuel and maintenance,” said Chris Stone, Head of Finance at SGN.

“Prior to implementing this programme, the company was wasting 13,000 litres a month through vehicle idling alone, but now we are able to provide drivers and managers with visibility around problem trends and the reasons why they occur.

“We understand drivers don’t intentionally drive badly so this isn’t about punishing them. Instead, we are focused on working with our employees to help them perform more efficiently and safely on the road.”

OptiDrive 360 scores drivers based on a range of key performance indicators including speeding, driving events, idling and gear shifting and constant speed. Regular performance reports are shared with managers, allowing them to work with individual drivers to tackle any specific issues.

The TomTom system also integrates with SGN’s fleet management provider Inchcape. This means Inchcape is given access to live engine fault code data, allowing them to conduct pre-emptive maintenance work when required.

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Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) are the lifeblood of the UK economy - it's a sentiment we hear quoted all the time, and while their professional use and maintenance is very important, it's something that many companies neglect. John Mills, Head of Mobile Workforce Telematics for Microlise, wants that to change.

The number of vans registered in the first quarter of 2015 was up 23% on the same quarter in 2014, at 98,000. According to the Department for Transport the last twenty seven months have seen sustained year-on-year growth -  exceeding that of cars. The Freight Transport Association (FTA) estimates that there are over 3.4 million van drivers on the roads.

It’s clear that LCV drivers and fleet managers have found themselves at the epicentre of a seismic shift in consumer behaviour. Many organisations are now engaging with their customers through home visits and deliveries. Historically, however, driving has been a necessary but often overlooked secondary part of the job for field service engineers and LCV drivers.

This means that significant financial savings and improvements in fuel economy, environmental impact and safety are sometimes overlooked - but they are very much there for the taking. Giving the professional the tools to do the job is an important first step in identifying and taking appropriate action to realise the potential financial and customer experience benefits.

Giving the professional the right tools

During the  2015 Open golf tournament at St Andrews, Irish amateur Paul Dunne came within a whisker of becoming the first non-professional to win in more than 80 years. The truth is, he was about as likely to win as a field service engineer with no training or telematics analysis tools is to drive in an economical, low environmental impact and safe way.

It might work but certainly wouldn’t perform in the way it should. It would be inefficient, unpredictable and downright dangerous (I have experience…). Engineers go on training courses for all types of equipment from simple tools to complex installations. But we then  hand them a key to the van and say ‘on your way’ and hope for the best. The lucky ones also get training and coaching on driving style and risk minimisation. The unlucky ones can’t hope to match their colleagues who are using the latest technologies to track and improve their driving behaviour.

 

Delivering the benefit

So, the first step for LCV fleet operators and field service operatives is to appreciate what an important element driving is of the job - too often, it is seen as secondary. Once driving skills are recognised as essential, driver performance can be given the status it deserves, and the latest tools put  in place to realise tangible benefits.

It’s been a long time since a non-professional won the St Andrews Golf Open, and though Dunne came close this year, the professionals have won every single one since 1930. Going pro can clearly provide immediate and fast improvements in the LCV fleet context too. Savings vastly greater than the million pound winnings of the St Andrews Open are up for grabs given the right solution and team motivation.

 

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Try it for yourself

This Autumn we will be hosting our Field Service Conference at the fantastic MIRA facilities near Coventry. This year's theme is Driver Engagement. The packed event will give delegates the opportunity to not only hear from industry leading speakers and practitioners, but also to get first-hand experience of driving on timed city courses and other handling tracks at the MIRA proving ground whilst interacting with our driver engagement solutions.

Join us there: Click here to claim your free place

 

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As we continue to bring you a selection of features from The Service Manager Handbook (2015 edition) published by Advanced Field Service we now turn our attention to one of the core tools for building future success, namely the implementation of Analytics and intelligence

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Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

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In today’s challenging business environment, there is little margin for error. Service managers need an even greater and fully in-depth understanding of their business to improve business planning, helping them make better-informed decisions, to ultimately keep ahead of the competition whilst attracting new customers and retaining their existing customers.

Instant access to management information

The benefits of replacing hand-crafted reports and spreadsheets with more interactive, integrated and intuitive tools are well documented.

As well as removing the unnecessary heavy wastage of man hours, and delaying what is often critical business decisions that can impact your opportunities to not only grow but also identify areas of weakness within your business that could potentially lead to loss of clients, easier access to your data improves control of your business with the following key insights:

• Intelligence to recognise emerging trends: Today’s business environment is faster paces nad more dynamic than ever before, whilst in the past reputations could be built on doing what you do and doing it well, today standing still can lead to dangerously dramatic decline in business, particularly from a service point. Since the economic crash in 2008 service has risen to become the key differentiator between businesses and with modern consumers (both B2B and B2C) well equipped to air any grievances in public via social media the pitfalls of failing service can be catastrophic for a business. As technology continues to push the boundaries of what is possible, it is imperative that service orientated companies embrace this to stay ahead of the competition and deliver service excellence at all times.
• The ability to identify and seize new opportunities or ward off threats: Of course embracing technology doesn’t just mean delivering better standards of service to customers. New emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things can help businesses move from a traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more efficient and cost effective preventative maintenance approach. Through remote monitoring optimum performances can delivered across the install base ultimately leading to less service calls in the long term.
• Power to understand key areas delivering profit (and loss): As the old adage goes you can only manage what you measure. Field service companies are perhaps uniquely positioned to be able to gather more information about their customers than any other industry as they have the benefit of ‘eyes and ears’ on site with your customers. The flow of this information from business unit to business unit allows for far greater insight of where new potential revenue streams may lie, as well as profit leakage may be occurring.
• Fast, informed decision-making based on accurate and live information: The rise in prevalence of dashboard analytics now make it possible for field service managers and their colleagues in other business areas such as procurement and sales to see trends based on the data collected easily and instantly, empowering them to make critical business decisions, and to get them right.
• Unprecedented insight into the most/least profitable areas of your business: In terms of data collection, processing and analysis we are truly living in a golden age. Businesses that harness the power of the data they have access to not only have superior understanding of their own businesses but also of their customers and most crucially of their customers pain points.

Your back-end service management solution should be able to do all the work of collating real-time information automatically across your jobs.

It should also make easy work of presenting it in the formats that are most useful to your management team, providing full visibility of contract profitability and equipping decision-makers with instant access to vital information on the business, including your profit forecasts.

Easy-to-understand analytics

As a matter of course, your data should be regularly analysed in a multitude of ways and in varying degrees of complexity, from viewing a daily high-level graphical KPI dashboard, down to examining detailed monthly reports.

Not surprisingly, analytical dashboards are fast becoming the service manager’s reporting tool of choice. They offer true anytime/anywhere reporting, via a browser or mobile device, in a way that makes it easy to instantly grasp the significance of the information.

If you have this dashboard facility in your service management solution, you’ll be able to drill down to the original data source to analyse all your core data including: customer status; financials; performance and productivity of engineers, with hours worked and number of visits; stock and supplier KPIs; calls by equipment, site and efficiency; costing of jobs and engineers; call response times.

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The Internet of Things is predicted to have a huge impact on customer service. In this article,  Paul White, CEO mplsystems, identifies the top three changes he expects to occur.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects embedded with electronics, software and connectivity that are able to be controlled remotely with the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

Gartner have predicted that three years from now, 5% of customer service cases will be autonomously initiated by connected devices as more objects connect to the internet. This is supported by Nicola Millard, Head of Futures and Insight at BT, who recently commented at mplsystems’ customer conference, “I think a lot of the technologies we are starting to see like the Internet of Things could be used more proactively with the contact centre so it becomes more in charge of demand rather than just responding passively to it.”

The IoT introduces opportunities, but how will it really change to the day to day running of the contact centre and the role of the agent?

1. The contact centre will start delivering proactive rather than reactive customer service

Our number one prediction for the Internet of Things is that it will transform the contact centre from a reactive inbound customer service centre to a proactive outbound service. This will be achieved by devices being able to self-diagnose problems and immediately alert the contact centre of the issue, often before the customer realises. The integrated system will automatically trigger an outbound call to be delivered to the agent desktop who will then offer proactive customer service, rather than waiting for the product to fail and the customer make an inbound enquiry.

For example, washing machines will be able to self-diagnose problems and notify the manufacturer when a part needs replacing, the contact centre is then able to make a call to the customer to notify them and fix the device before a more serious problem can occur, significantly improving the customer experience.

 

Alternatively, products that needs refills, such as drinks dispensers, will be able to send a notification straight to a field based workers mobile device, who can then add this to their list of jobs and deliver with their boot stock. This means that they will never need to alert the contact centre, alleviating the number of calls and requests they are having to deal with.

2. The role of the contact centre agent will become more specialised and they will be better prepared

As a result of devices detecting and alerting the contact centre of problems, the contact centres agents will transition from receiving high levels of inbound, reactive customer requests to delivering an outbound proactive service. This will result in the agent’s role transitioning from a generic customer service role to a specialist in a specific product or problem type. Agents are going to need to know about the faults that are being alerted in the contact centre as they will often be more informed about the issue than the customer and will need to convey this information. At the point of engagement, they will not just be aware of the issue but will have remedies in place and may even have started applying them to resolve the problem. From a business perspective, the level of customer service is greatly increased, agents are more knowledgeable and productive and the business should experience cost savings through a more streamlined, proactive way of working.

3. Masses of new data will help to improve the customer experience

The Internet of Things will bring with it a whole new explosion of data that, if managed correctly, can be of enormous value to the contact centre and customer experience delivery. Contact centres will be able to gain more control of customer service by the Internet of Things providing them with new streams of information that is integrated in to their existing infrastructure. Customers will not have to wait in long queues, go through time-consuming security questions or try to explain complex faults, as agents are presented with all the information they need from multiple sources of data.

 

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As we continue our in depth exploration of our recent research project assessing the latest trends of field service companies turning to the Cloud which was run in partnership with ClickSoftware we turn our attention to those companies who have moved their field service management systems to the Cloud to find out what benefits they are seeing and why they made the switch away from on premise field service management systems...

 

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Missed part one? Find it here

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Want to see the full picture? Download the full research report here!

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HEADS IN THE CLOUD

So what are the key findings from those companies who have made the move to the Cloud? Well firstly if our previous hypothesis is indeed correct and one of the key factors in why companies are not moving to the Cloud is that they have yet to move into an upgrade cycle from their existing system, then this should be evident in how recently those who are using a Cloud based field service management solution made the switch.

In fact over three quarters of companies that have moved their field service operations to the Cloud have done so within the last three years. Which again would support this hypothesis. What really adds further strength to the assertion that the Cloud is now gaining momentum however, is the fact more companies have moved to the Cloud within the last six months (29%) than have been using a Cloud system for over three years (24%).

This would seem to be strong evidence that the Cloud is becoming more readily and swiftly adopted today than it has been previously.

So what are the key reasons for companies making this move? As mentioned in the first part of this series  the benefits of Cloud computing are numerous however two reasons were particularly popular amongst our respondents.

These were the fact that Cloud is “scalable and flexible” which 76% of companies highlighted as important to them, whilst 71% of companies cited “easy remote access” as a significant reason for their selection of the Cloud for their field service solution.

Whilst these two reasons were comfortably the most popular, other commonly cited reasons were “less reliance on IT” (59%), “more functionality” (53%) and “disaster recovery” (41%). Of course in part one we also discussed one other reason that companies may move their ield service operations into the Cloud, i.e. many are seeking to integrate smoothly with Salesforce (or of course other Cloud based CRM systems ).

With this in mind it is it was interesting to see that of those companies that were using the Cloud for their field service operations overwhelmingly the most common Cloud solution being used in other areas of business was CRM. In fact 53% of companies who operate a Cloud based field service solution also have a Cloud based CRM.

This was twice as much as the second most common business solution Marketing, which was Cloud based for 24% of these companies. What is particularly interesting is that although beyond the peaks of CRM and Marketing no other areas of business (other options included ERP, Accounting, Payroll, Asset Management & HR) were placed in the Cloud by more than 17% of companies using a Cloud based field service management system.

 

Yet despite this reluctance to put other business solutions in the Cloud currently, 53% of respondents felt that their companies would will ultimately move all of their software solutions to the Cloud and in fact 6% of companies already have.

If we look at the benefits of those using the Cloud for their field service management solution, again there were two clear leading benefits identified.

These were “Cost” and “Productivity”, which were both cited by 47% of the respondents as the biggest single benefit they had seen since moving to the Cloud.

And perhaps the single most revealing finding of the set of questions put to those companies using a Cloud based field service management solution, was that when we asked “Would you recommend a Cloud field service solution over an on premise solution” the respondents answered unanimously (100%) that they would.

However of those who don’t think such a wholesale move to the Cloud is a good thing, security remained the clear overriding concern alongside a reluctance to be fully dependent on the Internet... Look out for the next part of this series where we look at the findings from those companies who felt that the Cloud presented too much risk so have opted to keep their field service management systems on premise... 

 

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Want to know more? Download the full research report here!

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Reducing fuel costs and improving road safety in service organisations  means convincing engineers they are drivers as well as engineers,  Field Service News editor-in-chief Kris Oldand discovers.

In our feature "Taming White Van Man" I wrote about my experiences driving a white van at the launch of Microlise's Clear field service telematics solution.  Having a  licence to drive cars  means, like service technicians, I am legally able to drive a van without any further training. However, it doesn't mean I am qualified to do so in the most efficient and safe manner.

Service organisations,, of course, employ engineers first, not van drivers.  Indeed, one of the biggest challenges of improving the driving standards of our field engineers could possibly be convincing them they are professional drivers in the first place.

The size of the challenge was neatly put by Mark Cartwright, Head of Vans and Light Commercial Vehicles for  the Freight Transport Association. “If I meet a truck driver he’ll have told me within five minutes of meeting him that he is a truck driver. But van drivers don’t exist. If you meet one they’ll always tell you they are a plumber or electrician or some form of engineer, but never a van driver”

This mind-set certainly exists amongst both service managers and field engineers alike in some companies.

For many field service engineers driving a van is just a means of getting from one job to the next. Yet in reality, driving that van from A to B is actually an intrinsic part of what their job is. If they do it well - even just slightly better than they are currently doing so - the cost savings available for field service companies could be considerable, as has been very well documented.

So perhaps it’s time we reinvented the image of the White Van Man, repositioning him as the true professional he is, the pillar of our community, the saviour who comes to solve our problems in his tall white chariot. Let’s encourage our engineers to take pride in being not only professionals within their trade but professionals behind the wheel as well.

 

A  solution like Microlise's Clear, which engages with the field engineers and puts the quality of their driving right in front of them, and which is translated into easily accessible graphics and pages, does reinforce the fact that they are in fact as much professional van driver as they are service engineer.

Microlise may not be treading an unwalked path with Clear - there are similar solutions already in the market. However, they have certainly developed what at first glance at least, seems to be a powerful tool, with an impressive feature set and attractive user interface.

And like many telematics products, if deployed correctly I would imagine it could pay for it’s self through the cost savings it would generate in terms of fuel reduction and lower maintenance costs within a year or so, maybe even less.

Field service solution tools like Clear that empower both service managers and engineers to improve driving standards across the fleet, be it 10 vehicles or 1000, are going to be crucial tools pivotal to success.

Join Field Service News and Microlise at a one-day interactive Field Service Conference, 4th November, Warwickshire. There will be workshops on compliance and driver engagement techniques, operator presentations on their experiences and business change management,  tips from former Stig Ben Collins on good driving practices, and the chance to test your driving skills on the City Circuit.

Register your interest here:

 

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Having undertaken a recent research project exploring trends amongst field service companies involving use of the Cloud for Field Service Management Systems as well as the ongoing development of mobile solutions for field service, Field Service News, sponsored by ClickSoftware are pleased to bring you this four part report exploring the research findings written by Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland....

 

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Click here to download the full white paper now!

 

 

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FIELD SERVICE, MOBILITY AND THE CLOUD

Cloud computing has been a key topic in field service circles for some time now. In fact it seems every time we read about a company implementing a new service management system it is mentioned that they opted for a Cloud based solution. Indeed the benefits of the Cloud are well documented.

Less reliance on IT, built in disaster recovery, regular and free updates, lower overheads, and so on and so forth. And the Cloud is no longer a particularly new technology. It’s not emerging anymore, it’s emerged. In fact it is now almost twenty years ago that Salesforce, a company born in the Cloud when it was just not more than a whisp of cirrus in the stratosphere, first began evangelising Cloud computing as the way of the future.

Fast forward to today and Salesforce is the leading player in the CRM sector and despite not having a direct presence within the field service sector, is arguably one of the key driving forces for the adoption of the Cloud in our industry. How often do we hear companies stating that ‘integration with Salesforce’ was a big factor for them when deciding to opt for whichever of the numerous modern service management suites are available.

Certainly those service management software providers that were savvy enough to develop field service apps for the Salesforce App exchange such as ClickSoftware’s ‘ClickWorkforce’ have gained something of a competitive edge in recent years by doing so.

Yet despite these seemingly all conquering headlines the reality highlighted by various research appears to be very different at least for the adoption of the Cloud as a platform for field service management solutions. Indeed our own 2014 research project showed that only 23% of companies were running there field service management software in the Cloud. So why this discrepancy?

Is it a case that we in the trade media are over egging the pudding and putting to much hyperbole around the use of Cloud in field service?

Or is it a case that Cloud looks like a more attractive prospect from distance, but when companies begin to explore their options when upgrading to a new solution, in reality staying on premise is the easier and safer option? There is of course the argument that it will take time to see a full migration across to the Cloud.

 

This is of course valid and many companies will eke out every last drop of functionality they can from their existing legacy systems rather than face the turmoil of moving a business critical operational tool from one system to another. But if this is the case surely we should start seeing a growing momentum towards the Cloud year on year? With this in mind Field Service News in partnership with ClickSoftware has decided to the revisit this area of research some 18 months on.

When writing the report for last years research I concluded that the Cloud is set to become an established platform for field service technology, and even ultimately become the most commonplace method of distributing field service software. Is it time I reassessed that statement, or is the momentum of the Cloud slowly gathering pace?

ABOUT THE RESEARCH:

The research was conducted online across July and August this year. The respondents were a mix of Operations, IT and Business Leaders working within organisations that had a field service operation.

Company sizes range from SMB’s with under 10 field workers to the enterprise level companies with over 800 field workers. In total 150 respondents answered the survey with respondents coming from a number of different verticals including Manufacturing, Engineering, IT solutions, construction, fire and security, healthcare and more. As with our 2014 survey after the question ‘Is your current field service solution on premise or in the Cloud?’

The survey split into two in order to give us insight from those currently using the Cloud and those that are still on premise. This enables us to better ascertain the benefits being seen by those using the Cloud alongside the reservations of those who are not.

MID SIZED MOVEMENT

The headline statistic to come out of the research is that indeed there has been a slight shift towards more companies using the Cloud than before. In fact there has been a swing of 3% in favour of those using the cloud with 26% of companies now having their field service management solution in the Cloud versus 74% who are using on-premise.

Whilst a small movement, given the timeframe this increase could indeed help support the argument that the Cloud is slowly becoming more prevalent and that the move to Cloud is very much tied to companies moving from their legacy systems to more modern next-gen equivalents.

 

However, a logical continuation of that thinking is that we would find those companies with larger field worker numbers more likely to remain on premise than those smaller companies for the simple reason that they are more likely to have invested in the expensive infrastructure to run an on premise solution and would therefore potentially be more tied to their existing system - making a switch to a new solution harder work.

Yet when we drill down into the data and separate the companies out into three groups – those with less than 50 engineers, those with between 50 and 500 engineers and those with more than 500 engineers we find that in fact this doesn’t hold true. Actually whilst the trends amongst the largest companies very closely mirror the respondents as a whole (25% Cloud vs. 75% On premise) it is amongst the smaller and mid sized companies that we see the biggest variance. Interestingly smaller companies, who are generally viewed as being the most likely to be attracted to the Cloud due to the more affordable Software as a Service subscription model that most Cloud vendors offer, were the group that were most reluctant to have their field service operations on the Cloud - with just 17% doing so.

Meanwhile the mid tier companies (i.e. those with between 50 and 500 engineers) were the group that had the most Cloud based systems with 37% of these companies using the Cloud.

 

When we look at the same demographic in our previous research this is an increase of 21% of companies, so whilst on premise still remains the way the majority of run their field service management systems, a shift to the Cloud, amongst this demographic at least, is clear. Still the question remains why are we seeing more acceptance towards the Cloud within these mid sized companies than amongst their smaller counterparts? (If we accept the earlier premise that those larger companies may take longer to adapt due to greater change management challenges.)

One possible answer could be found in the make up of the decision-making units of those smaller companies. Of those companies with less than 50 engineers that are not using the Cloud, only 15% of companies had input from their IT director or equivalent whilst of those mid sized companies that have adopted the Cloud 71% involved their IT Director or equivalent in the selection of a field service solution.

Could it be that amongst smaller companies it is a case that without the input of a technology specialist, some of the headline fears around the usage of Cloud persist. Whereas amongst those larger companies, who have a more developed IT department adding their insight, perhaps there is more understanding of both the true benefits and dangers of the Cloud?

One question within the survey that could certainly give us further insight into this assertion was ‘Which of the following sums up your perception of the Cloud in business’ which had the following four options

• I believe it is the future of enterprise computing
• I see it’s benefits but still have some concerns
• I wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud but would use for general applications
• I think we should keep everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.

[/unordered_list]Given the fact that there was a fairly even balance between the two groups of company sizes, the varying responses certainly indicated a more cautious outlook towards the Cloud from the smaller companies than their mid sized counterparts.

Within the group of companies with between 50 and 500 field service engineers 58% felt that Cloud was” the future of enterprise computing”, with a further 32% stating that they “saw benefits of the Cloud whilst having some concerns.” Interestingly not a single respondent from this group stated “we should be keeping everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.”

When we compare this to the responses of those companies with less than 50 engineers we see the confidence in the Cloud significantly reduce with only 38% stating they “believe the Cloud is the future of enterprise computing” whilst 20% “wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud but would use it for general applications” and “5% stating they think “we should be keeping everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.”

 

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As we continue to bring you extracts from The Service Manager Handbook, published by Advanced Field Service here we look at three quick tips to help you manage your service P&L whilst keeping your field workers happy and motivated…

Download the full 40 page ebook for free by simply clicking here and completing the brief registration form

 

Mine your data to plan for the future

Today’s customers are flexing their buying muscles and exerting pressure on suppliers to fulfil ever more challenging SLAs. To stand a chance of meeting rising customer expectations, while maintaining profit levels, you need full visibility over your contracts and tighter control over your SLA management.

Setting realistic budgets and timescales

Having access to historical information on the actual cost of similar projects, contracts and large installations helps to ensure that future bid costs and resource requirements are accurately assessed and a realistic price proposed.

You want to win the contract but not at a cost that could break you!

There are many factors that will determine the price of the project to the client, but the cost and resources that are needed to deliver the contract are not always fully considered at the bid stage. Without formal systems in place, many service organisations find it difficult and time-consuming to compile this historical information.

 

As a result, bids are based on gut feel and best guess, running the risk of perpetuating profit-killing mistakes. With an accurate budget in place – covering all your materials, labour and subcontractor costs – managers will be able to track actuals against estimates and use this information for future planning.

Optimising parts management - Don’t tie up your cash 

If your organisation stores parts, you will be all too aware of the dangers of stockpiling when cash flow is so important. Rather than relying on best guess, automating the forecasting process to predict usage will avoid the pitfall of holding more parts than are required.

Your systems should give you the power to analyse your parts history, so you can recognise trends and fluctuations to ensure that levels fall within the desired optimum range and can anticipate demand at peak times. This will reduce the amount of cash held in unnecessary high numbers of parts, and reduce the overheads of managing your inventory, while ensuring that your engineers achieve maximum productivity by having the right parts at the right time.

Managing parts ‘on-the-move’

Your systems should also enable you to keep track of your van stock levels and usage, as well as automatically re-ordering and replenishing when nearing a minimum level.

A good service management solution can help to effectively manage your inventory of parts, enabling you to carry the right levels to meet customer demand, without restricting cash flow. Good planning will also help avoid overstocks by scheduling parts to arrive when you need them, and ensuring you are able to optimise fluctuations in demand and effectively manage

Monitoring and managing performance

KPIs are a vital tool for service organisations to effectively track, monitor and evaluate performance to achieve sustainable growth. It is vital to identify which KPIs align to your business success. Standard service management metrics include: [unordered_list style="bullet"]

• First-time fix rates
• SLA adherence
• Engineer productivity
• Job costing
• Call rates
• Net profit margin
• Stock value
• Customer satisfaction/retention

Without proactively monitoring KPIs, service businesses are vulnerable to problems that can seriously undermine both performance and profitability. For example, failure to regularly monitor sales margins could mean that a costly recurring mistake is discovered only at year-end.

Sharing achievements

All too often, key performance information is only available to managers and directors, with staff review periods that are too infrequent to proactively affect the outcome of future jobs.

 

Also, this information may only be available through a central source, which can lead to a feeling of ‘them and us’. Relevant information should be available to all members of the team. Simple, clear and targeted information – not complicated reports – will help them to take ownership of their utilisation, performance and deliverables.

Using systems that can provide this vital information in real-time, such as mobile or web-based reporting, allows field engineers to see if they are on track to deliver within the schedule allocated. If not, the issue can be raised at the earliest opportunity, the causes assessed and appropriate action taken.

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