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Servitization has been talked about for many years but all of a sudden it seems to be a key topic on the agenda of many manufacturing companies and also amongst may service based organisations as well. For those companies that tread the path being dubbed the fourth paradigm it will mean a complete rethinking of how they view field service. 

At the recent AfterMarket conference in Amsterdam Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland hosted a panel debate with three speakers key to servitization; Professor Tim Baines, Aston University a leading proponent of the movement, Brendan Viggers, Product and Sales Support for IFS Aerospace & Defence division who has worked closely with a number of companies such as Emirates on moving towards a servitization model and Koen D’Haeyer, Global Manager Service Development & Technical Services Lely who had been through the journey himself with Dutch Farm Technology company.

Kris Oldland: The case studies we hear around servitization to date all seem to involve large organisations with quite complex or evolved business models already. Is it the case that servitization only applies to companies that have the size to make it work?

Tim Baines: I’ve worked with quite a few smaller companies which has been quite interesting first of all to break away from the myth that servitization is just about large companies. By this time next year we will have got around 70 companies within our region of the UK the west midlands engaged in servitization.

One company which helps us breakaway from this idea that it is all about delivering complex products is a company that actually delivering pallets, regular wooden pallets and these pallets are used in the automotive industry to move windscreens and cars and things like this. There business model before we got involved was they would make a pallet, sell the pallets.

 

But what they are doing now is slowly but surely getting into the space where they are making the pallets, they are designing the pallets for the application, they are working with the customer to make sure the pallets are well suited, they are actually putting the pallet in the system, they’re tracking the pallets, they are taking care of stock control and slowly and surely they are moving to a position where they are becoming the business process outsourcing partner for the customers own material handling system.

Whilst this may not be a perfectly clinical example of servitization by some definitions, but nevertheless it is a good example of a small company that has adopted the principles of servitization and then put them into practice.

Koen Dyaeyer: I couldn’t agree me that smaller companies companies servitization can work. I have a history in smaller to medium sized companies, and we went drastically through servitization aspects even by a make and buy proposition through to quality assurance etc so it’s applicable for sure in all industries.

What I would say is that technology there is an extra opportunity as in complexity it is very much possible to create the value of your expertise which is also holds true of course.

Audience Question: Whenever we decide to do any transformation a big chunk of it is behavioural change, besides the software and the hardware how to you trigger the behavioural change within a company?

Brendan Viggers: For us its understanding the processes, being able to model those processes and work as a team to fully understand what the different functions and responsibilities you have within that team. But its also being able to drive down to having a piece of data that will ultimately help you deliver that new change.

Koen Dyaeyer: My experience is set directions clearly for each individual so people understand what is needed from them to achieve the goal. Also motivate people, there is a study that says people only get a message when it is [quote float="right"]There is a study that says people only get a message when it is repeated twenty three times. That’s often a slogan that I use, just repeat it and to be honest sometimes it may need to be repeated forty six times

repeated twenty three times. That’s often a slogan that I use, just repeat it and to be honest sometimes it may need to be repeated forty six times but energise it, make it engaging.

 

Tim Baines: The companies that I studied when we wrote made to serve, were all companies that were pulled into the delivery of advanced service by their customers. In some instances companies they were pulled into this space kicking and screaming, they were product based companies and they were given no option.

What’s interesting to me now is this second wave of organisations where in some instances you are not being pulled into this space by your customers, rather your looking at the benefits that organisations such as Rolls Royce and Caterpillar have got from servitization and you want a piece of that action. But you have a different set of challenges. Some of the challenges remain the same but some are very different.

For example you have to educate your customers, about the opportunity, this is the theory here, an innovation theory showing us the difference between market pull and technology push. You’ve now got to educate your customers. You’ve got to get the buy in of the whole organisation to the servitization approach. Some of the processes and tools that are out there are great once you’ve started down the path but really to start to get the traction in the first instance, to really get people at board level to buy-in to the idea is one of the biggest issues.

 

How to inspire the senior management, how to get the messaging about what it is that servitization is about both internally and externally, how to frame servitization so they know what you are talking about. Going to customers and stimulating a customer demand which then pulls everything together.

Look out for more from this debate coming soon... 

Servitization is a key trend in that is rapidly on the rise in manufacturing realm and it's impact on Field Service could be game changing. But what exactly is servitization, how can it change the way we work and will it live up to the hype?

To find out more Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland spoke to Professor Tim Baines one of the leading proponents of the servitization movement

 

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Near Field Communications (NFC) as a technology has been around for a fair while yet hasn’t quite got the traction that it could have. However, with Apple introducing NFC albeit in a restricted capacity into the latest iteration of the iPhone the technology could potentially come back in vogue.

This is a good thing as it has the potential to streamline workflow for field service engineers, and NFC tags are a low cost addition to field service technology toolkit.

Here are three quick ways NFC could speed up a field engineers workflow that could easily be written via an android smart device without any need for complex coding.

In the field engineers vehicle.

A tag placed into the dashboard of your field engineer’s vehicle could be written to activate a number of functions on their smart phone. For example it both log the journey start in your dedicated field service apps solution and simultaneously open a routing app.

Combining these two has a double benefit of saving time for the engineer plus by combing the start of your field engineer’s journey with a process that is required for him to make that journey (i.e. routing software), you can ensure logging in won’t be overlooked.

At your clients reception

If you have a regular maintenance contract at a specific client where you know your engineers will be making regular visits you could send that client a tag for them to place on their reception desk.

This way when your engineer arrives and is signing into your clients premises they can tap the NFC tag and automatically log their arrival on site within any dedicated field service management app you may have implemented.

On the device

When your engineer arrives at a device a well placed NFC tag could contain offer access to some key insight into the device he is there to fix.

This could be a link to the most recent maintenance notes and that devices specific history, a web page that holds manuals for the device or even opening up a parts ordering page specific to that device so the engineer can easily access the right parts for that specific device.

 

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Field Service is evolving in front of our eyes. Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst at Aberdeen looks at what we need to do now to embrace the future...

Many things aren’t as they were for your father or grandfather. Technology moves at such a rapid pace that even I have lost track as to what is the latest and greatest social media platform that has revolutionised the internet, or at least the lives of teenagers.

Even though it is easy to dismiss either end of the technology spectrum – should our business jump at the latest trend or will we save money and heartache by staying the course that was paved by our legacy systems back in the early 2000s?

Both strategies have their faults and may lead to hard times, but I propose there is a middle ground that is necessary for field service.

As much as we would all like to bury our heads in the sand and not accept that the world around us is changing, field service has evolved.

[quote float="left"]Customers expect better service every day, management has seen the light in regard to the value (i.e., profitability) that field service can drive, and our service teams are getting older and are deciding to move on. So why hasn’t field service adapted?

Customers expect better service every day, management has seen the light in regard to the value (i.e., profitability) that field service can drive, and our service teams are getting older and are deciding to move on. So why hasn’t field service adapted?

 

Why are we so reluctant to change as the winds around us continue to sway.

Partially it’s because changing a global network which has become accustomed to doing things a certain way is difficult. Also, no one wants to be wrong, this is our livelihood. But we can no longer sit back and let the rest of the technology world pass the field service industry by as we move in 2015 and beyond.

Not only have customers changed, but almost as importantly the field service technician within your businesses is changing and service leaders must begin to react to keep and hire the next wave of field service heroes. This isn’t easy, but below are three trends which will play a big role in the success of organisations as they move into the future of field service:

Use the tools that make your techs more productive.

As more and more millennials enter the field service workforce, organisations must begin to adapt to their preferences and strengths. In Aberdeen’s recent research report, Emerging Workforce in the Field: Tech-Savvy to Technician (December 2014), the average age of the field worker was 32 years old with approximately one fifth of the workforce under 30.

This isn’t quite a wave of millennials just yet, however a top challenge for many organisations is the ageing workforce and retirement. Why wait to adapt to the changing needs of your workforce?

Despite the (negative) buzz, millennials aren’t that different from previous generations. But they have grown up in an age which they have always had access to the internet and a connected device. They expect to have this capability at work too. Organisations that provide these workers with the latest technology, much of which is moving towards a more consumer look and feel, will have a better chance of hiring the best of the next crop of technicians.

BYOD is not dead in field service.

The wave of excitement for BYOD (bring your own device) has waned a bit since the thoughts of this strategy revolutionising IT. Concerns around security, device proliferation and management, and a decrease in productivity led some organisations to turn away from BYOD.

However, as seen in Aberdeen’s BYOD: A Flood of Devices in the Field report (December 2014), nearly two-thirds of top performing companies currently leverage some level of BYOD within their field service operation.

These top performers found that this strategy had no negative impact on key metrics such as SLA compliance and service margin, while slightly improving employee satisfaction. And as we all know, happy employees make happy customers.

Create the right incentives to drive the right behaviours in field service delivery.

As customer expectations as to what great service is continues to change, the field service team also needs to evolve. No longer is it good enough to just show up within a four or two hour window, resolution is the name of the game for many customers. Furthermore, the way organisations are differentiating in this 21st century economy is through service, and the quality of service being provided.

[quote float="right"]This may seem like marketing or consumer jargon, but even in B2B environments customers have begun to expect a heightened experience and more value-add services.

With this shift scheduling technologies must ensure that the right technician with the right skills and the right service attitude shows up to work with the right customer. This may seem like marketing or consumer jargon, but even in B2B environments customers have begun to expect a heightened experience and more value-add services.

 

This is both a threat, but also an opportunity for the savvy service organisations that adapt to this changing environment and ensures that technicians aren’t only showing up to turn a wrench, but are equipped to solve customer needs.

The field service environment is not stagnant. However, too often organisations work under the mindset that customers will not leave, profitability will continue to grow, and technicians will always do the right thing. The challenge many organisations are facing as we enter 2015 is that the status quo will not be acceptable, and the field service organisation will need to evolve in order to excel.

The opportunity is still great, but the leaders will do well by adapting to the needs of their customers and technicians.

 

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To read Aly Pinder's latest white paper sponsored by Trimble Field Service Management which looks at why Generation Y is a good fit for field service click here

 

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The internet of things (IoT) is fast becoming a field service priority as the revelation that IoT can drastically increase customer satisfaction while reducing costs comes to fruition. IoT has the potential to eliminate unplanned downtime, more accurately meet SLAs, inform product development, and improve business decisions and forecasts when it comes to field service processes. IFS's Tom Bowe takes a look at the challenges being faced by companies looking to embrace this brave new world... 

Adopting IoT technology can change the dynamic of how your service organisation is run and provide vision into future possibilities and opportunities.  None of this is disputed; clearly the benefits of IoT are huge.  But field service organisations still face a myriad of challenges, particularly when it comes to meeting growing customer expectations with new market technology that disrupts internal processes, transfer of knowledge, and more.  How can field service organisations take the challenges of adopting IoT head-on, and achieve an infallible competitive edge?  Here are some suggestions.

Challenge: Lack of a Shared Infrastructure and Common Standards

IoT is actually a complex combination of hardware and software that constitutes a platform for developers and organisations, and the vertical nature of this platform contributes to the fragmentation of its infrastructure (Rachel Kalmar, Forbes 2014). With limited open source platforms, IoT devices are currently installed in their own platforms and ecosystems, which can run up costs and make IoT projects more technically complicated. Additionally the industry has yet to be standardised, including communication protocols and methods.  This makes integrations challenging and can hinder scalability as well.

Solution:

Implement technology that has developed IoT functionality but preferably has not tied itself to a specific platform or IoT vendor.  Solutions with open APIs will allow easy integration with sensors, etc. and will allow you to grow as the industry changes and develops.

Challenge: Data Control and Data Sharing

Large scale adoption of IOT technology is hindered by issues with data control. Decisions around who can access data, especially private data, must be made.  This can be a slippery slope which has yet to be addressed effectively.  With remote sensors and monitoring, there is a need for heightened sensitivity to data control.  This goes for data sharing as well. Since there are currently little to no compliance frameworks to address IoT’s unique issues, partner vetting needs to be even more critical and details about use of transmitted data will need to be clearly laid out.

Solution:

Don’t wait for standards to be fully defined and approved.  Develop your own “standard-inspired” approach by working with your technology vendors on a flexible, OS agnostic pattern and protocol that meets your most important (rev 1) requirements.  Make sure that data auditing is part of your software functionality, and align your IoT with existing company security and privacy demands.  Consider using the AllJoyn framework which is a developing open-source device agnostic IoT standard with the strongest community and downloadable SDK’s. And keep a watchful eye on the top IoT standard competitors including OIC, IIC, Thread (Google) and IEEE (P2413) for ideas, patterns and best practices.

Challenge: Security

The more devices that IoT connects, the greater the risk of malware and breaches.  Devices and sensors are also at risk of being physically comprised.  The latest debate of cloud security also applies here.

Solution:

Work with software vendors that have addressed IoT and cloud security.  Prepare your IT department to keep up with safety and security measures and explore your platform options before implementing.

Challenge: Implementation and Training

Another challenge that field service organisations potentially face in adopting IoT is in the implementation of sensors or other IoT technology.  Will this be a responsibility of your field technicians, or a third party?  Either way, re-education and new training will likely be needed.  This may lead to more upfront costs and internal adoption challenges.

Solution:

Use forecasting and planning software to predict the change in service demand before, during, and after the roll-out of an IoT initiative.  Explore what-if scenarios to see if your current field force can manage an IoT implementation effectively.

According to GE’s Global Innovation Barometer report, 67% of organisations agree that agility and speed in adapting and implementing emerging technologies into their organisation is essential to innovation (Ray Wang, 2014).  Being an early adopter of IoT, especially in field service, opens a world of opportunity in regards to new value creation, business models, and revenue streams.  It will allow your organisation to create new value for customers, bringing the concept of delighting them to a whole other level.

Face newcomer challenges head on, work with vendors that take an open and scalable approach to new technology, and work to make your field service technology nimble.  By doing this, and avoiding a rip and replace mindset, your organisation will be able to reap the intrinsic value of this new technology.

 

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In the first part of this feature we looked at why medical device manufacturer Elekta felt it was necessary to establish a global knowledge sharing platform, now in this the concluding part of this feature we look at how they managed the task...

In terms of logistics, Elekta took a broad approach initially with a couple of duplicated platforms to ensure that everyone had access to the knowledge. The main plan was to integrate the knowledge base within the deployment of their new CRM system, which would provide automated access to relevant articles dynamically, based on customer, service desk or field engineer requirements.

However, they also placed the articles from the knowledge base onto a searchable database as a secondary system whilst the CRM was being rolled out, leaving no stone unturned and meaning full global access to the program was achieved from the start.

The content itself was then tailored dependent on its use, with the knowledge base comprising of a mix of mediums including text, images and videos with links to e-learning snippets also embedded within many knowledge article.

Expanding on this further Gilday explained

“If the article was talking about a particular part of the machine, and one of the procedures was something that often caused a difficulty for the engineer, we would just embed a link into an e-learning module that was only a few minutes long that would demonstrate to the engineer how to do a particular procedure.”

 

“For our engineers in China or Japan or many of the other evolving countries these were really valuable because it didn’t require any translation or any language issues, they could simply look at what was done.”

Of course the global scope of this project was one of it’s key drivers in the first place and whilst gaining adoption of the program on a global basis sounds like a huge task, in reality, for Elekta at least it actually wasn’t that big a hurdle.

“The adoption around the world wasn’t particularly difficult because there was a pull from the field service engineers in the first place.” Gilday states.

“There really is quite a bit of internal competition in that the engineer that has provided the most knowledge articles or the engineer that has provided the article that is used by the most engineers round the rest of the world holds an awful lot of kudos.”

Indeed it is perhaps a phenomena of the connected world we live in where public ranking has become ingrained within our thinking.

 

As Gilday elaborated “There is a lot of pride of being a very competent technician and being able to share your knowledge. I think many years ago the approach was knowledge is power and people were less inclined to share it but today its the other way around and people are keen to be seen as experts in their area.”

Indeed Elekta play on this mentality by publishing internal league tables with 1,000 users generating on average 60 new knowledge features a month the approach is certainly working at present. It was simply a case of getting the ball rolling.

To do so they made good use of the knowledge that they had locked up in siloes across the organisation and harvested close to 4,000 articles which were put into the knowledge base initially.

They also created some video material captured at a global summit and established a training and awareness program through targeted webinars across the team.

“We did a lot of training and awareness around the whole program to say that this is everybody’s collective responsibility once it started its actually fairly self perpetuating, you just need to clean up every now and then, to focus on the areas that get a lot of attention, take out the articles that are never used.” Confirmed Gilday

“Everybody has responsibility for it and the constant peer review means you can improve the quality of the content as you go.”

Linking the knowledge directly to support

The other advantage Elekta were able to utilise by aligning the knowledge base to their new CRM system was that they could now connect this into their service desk function.

Previously Elekta had been a very product driven company, which had largely grown as a result of continuous product innovation. In such an environment often service is a secondary consideration and so it was for Elekta in the past. However, by Gilday’s own admission that is rapidly changing.

So the benefit of setting up a service desk environment where upon receiving a call from a customer and as the service desk agent is typing up a problem, a keyword search on the knowledge base which pulls up the articles that are most related to this problem, is even more widely felt.

 

By clever design the system is also continuously refining itself making it ever more efficient.

“We implemented a scoring system so as the engineers close the service call they are encouraged to identify whether a knowledge article helped them and to link it to the particular problem” Gilday illustrated “So the system essentially self learns. This further qualifies that list of knowledge articles to be able to present it in a very dynamic form at the help desk.”

So with Elekta having established what from the outside seems a very slick and effective means of sharing knowledge across their global network the ultimate question is has it had any impact on the levels of service they are delivering?

It is of course impossible to establish a true value contribution of a new service initiative unless you undertake them really do them one at a time. And to do so severely limits the speed at which potential progress that can be made. In this instance the implementation of Elekta’s knowledge base program has coincided with them up-skilling their service desk staff and also driving forward with remote support connectivity.

However, across these three initiatives Elekta have seen more than a 20% visit avoidance, which will result in quite a dramatic effect on their efficiency on service to the customer.

Looking specifically at the Knowledge Base they are getting over 2000 knowledge articles views each day, nearly half of the articles are used with service cases attached.

 

There are also over five and a half thousand knowledge articles published now. And whilst they started with a large amount of features, they are undertaking more and more clean ups, removing any articles not being used regularly or related to old products.

There is also a lot of potential value in the product base for those customers who maintain their own equipment. Generally Elekta will offer a second level support to customers in those situations, and the value of the knowledge base could potentially be leverage further amongst these clients, either as a value added proposition or even on a transactional basis.

Finally there is the benefit that bringing the knowledge to the fore can have on future product refinement, which is a real benefit for the team working in R&D.

As Gilday outlined “A lot of this knowledge goes straight back into product updates. This product intelligence form the field says if we can eliminate this particular problem this will have an x percent benefit.”

So whilst the initial project may have seemed daunting, it appears that knowledge really is power, and by bringing it to the fore, we can truly harness it a number of different ways to push our organisation forwards to ever greater heights.

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In part one of this exclusive interview with ServiceMax COO Scott Berg we looked at the the similarities between widely differing industries, the rapid rise of ServiceMax and why the IoT hasn't quite got fully up to speed as yet.

Here in this second section of the interview we begin with the another key significant technology trend, Big Data and why it was the at the heart of the headlines coming out of the ServiceMax CIO summit a few months earlier.

As our conversation turns to this Berg begins nodding agreement.

“We think we are in quite a unique position to make Data actionable.” he says. A pretty bold claim.

He begins to expand further “These Data lakes and all the other terminology around Big Data, all this predictive stuff and data science is all great but somebodies got get it into the hands on a technician in order to benefit from it. To maybe direct their next step or predict their next move. There will always be people involved in the chain, so we think its really our unique place to play as we make Big Data actionable.”

 

“We have a configurable process, we have the mobile device, so if there is going to be any directing or leading or sharing and tapping into knowledge its probably going to be done on a disconnected mobile device under ground at the top of a scaffolding or something like. So our interest in it is trying to connect data science and Big Data into that actionable footprint that you can put in front of the technician.”

This focus on the end user leads us to another current topic of conversation in software circles – is customisation the root of all ills or an acceptable process to refine off the shelf solutions?

 

“I think the whole nature of customisation has changed” answers Berg as I put the question to him “As you know we are on the Salesforce.com platform, and I don’t think that customisation is necessarily a bad word because its so controlled and its such a configurable and extendable experience anyway.”

“We certainly do stress configuration to the extent that this year we’ve really tried to repackage our implementation and delivery offerings. For small businesses we have something called Express, which is an out of the box ‘trust me this is what you need’ solution. If you work with us in three weeks you’ll be live and it’ll look just like the demonstration.” He says

“So we’ve tried to get certainly more prescriptive about it but I do think that peoples notions of customisation are ERP. So obliterated unrecognisable sets of code that drop you off at the road map and that quite frankly it’s a large part of our success I think. Because there is so much of that in Siebel today, one of our big customers has three versions of Siebel all of them deprecated so their off support and they’re faced with this problem its unrecognisable, its un-upgradeable they may as well just go buy another solution.”

“I think that the Salesforce platform has really changed everything. The way that we have to operate in that platform as an independent software company on someone else’s cloud means everything has to go through vulnerability, security and compatibility automated checking. So anything your customer would do on top of that, or anything we would do for a customer, basically inherits that stability. I think that’s just a radically different technological model than traditional ERP”

 

Of course Salesforce.com ended up proving a lot of their far bigger competitors wrong and now it seems that this is a rush to catch them up. It’ll be interesting to see if in the future all companies will follow their route.

As Berg himself outlines “ I think you’ll see a lot of the vendors out their trying to follow Salesforce’s lead and trying to follow some of Salesforce’s approach and try to become that platform as a service provider. You see them all launching market places and trying to attract people. Microsoft have been making a lot of noise around this and trying to launch the Dynamics platform. “

“But as somebody who jumped into the Salesforce.com bandwagon early on and as someone who every year we periodically reassess our situation I can say that nobody has really built the breadth and depth of a business application platform that those guys have.”

It is obvious to all that the connection between Salesforce.com and ServiceMax is particularly close. But is it too close? How reliant is the continuing success of ServiceMax on the Saleforce platform I ask.

“Having been involved with several start-ups in the past I think that they [Salesforce] were extremely critical for us especially in the early days.” Responds Berg.

 

“If you think of what it would have taken for us to launch a data centre and secure it, to build all the platform capabilities and redundancy, also that some of our first 12 customers were in the Middle East and Europe and there we were with two founders selling everything themselves out of northern California… how could that be right?” he pauses leaving the question hang for just a second before continuing.

“All because of the global reach and the global acceptance level of the Salesforce.com platform. So yes it was very important early on.” He concludes.

However as Berg explains the relationship has changed overtime as ServiceMAx themselves have grown to stand on more of an equal footing.

“Overtime I think that the value of the relationship has shifted a bit.” Berg concedes “Salesforce has become much more of a platform, and we don’t tend to get as many outright business referrals from them as before.”

“And it is certainly a big credibility statement to pass our EU safe harbour framework certifications and things because we’re in it but we’ve expanded so much in our own intellectual property investments around the mobile devices, iPad, and frameworks for our configurable workflow that I think when you stack up all the functionality in our product today, its heavily tipped to us now.” He admits.

Look out for the final part of this exclusive interview coming next week... 

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The telecoms market is undergoing a huge transition in the UK and across continental Europe. A number of high-profile acquisitions have been made with analysts expecting further consolidation of telecoms companies still to come. The reason behind this spate of acquisitions? The attempt to bring to the market a quad play offer for consumers writes Tim Faulkner, Vice President EMEA ClickSoftware 

Quad play is a term that has been around for a while now. The idea is that a telecoms company can offer a fixed telephone line, broadband, TV and mobile service. For consumers, they get a one-stop shop for all their services. It means dealing with less providers, consolidated bills and makes the overall service much easier to manage. 

 

The last element of the quad play offer is perhaps the most important one. In research conducted by ClickSoftware last year, we found that over a third (34%) of consumers have either cancelled a service or stopped using a brand altogether as a result of poor customer service[1].

A staggeringly high figure to think a third of the customers that businesses come across on a daily basis can be so quickly and so emphatically put off spending any more money with them.

For quad play to be a compelling offer to consumers, it needs to improve the customer service aspect and ensure that there is consistency in service delivery across the company. Regardless of the role, every employee and contractor needs to be provided with the training, tools and information they need to perform a good job.

Whether it’s discussing a service over the phone or an engineer installing a solution at a customer’s house, everyone working for the company is a brand ambassador and the end user shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the levels of service. In order to succeed, customers need to feel like they are dealing with one company rather than four different suppliers.

When it comes to cost, industry commentators are undecided about whether it will lead to cheaper bills for consumers, however they are in agreement that bringing all of these services together should lead to better customer experiences. That said, in any acquisition, merging the companies together can be a difficult task.

This is further complicated when considering the multiple suppliers each company deals with and how these are integrated. For quad play to take off, companies buying others will need to work out their supplier roster quickly to minimise disruption during the transition.

For the telecoms companies, each should now be in a more powerful position to deal with suppliers. Because there will now be less telecoms companies to work with, the suppliers will need to compete more fiercely than ever.

The purchasing power will be in the hands of the telecoms companies but it will be up to suppliers to provide the best possible offer.

What we will see as a consequence of a quad play market is the development of a marketplace bidding system. Suppliers will need to tender their services via a marketplace platform and the telecoms company will then have to take its pick of the supplier it feels provides the best service.

This new way of working will also benefit the telecoms companies as they will be able to have full visibility across all field resources, including contractors. By extending the same technology utilised by the company to its contractors, they can better ensure consistent processes and level of service are carried out across the organisation.

 Regardless of which service provider is performing the task, the visibility should ensure consistency and a better customer experience. Not only will this achieve greater customer satisfaction but also does so without the need for additional staff overhead, by increasing capacity only when it is needed to maintain service performance levels through demand spikes.

The rest of the year will see the issue of quad play develop. We will see telecoms companies aggressively promoting the offer in order to acquire customers. It will be crucial that for quad play to really take off, the customer experience element improves right off the bat.

Utilising service providers in this new marketplace model is one way of ensuring this takes place

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[1]UK Service Industry Consumer Frustration Index

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The digital issue of the latest issue of Field Service News is now available to download here

This issue is focussed around what connections can mean in field service as Kris Oldland explains in his Editor's leader...

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Connections are everything...

I firmly believe the above statement. Connections are everything.

But what are connections? It’s such a broad term isn’t it? I mean connections of some form or another are all around us each and every second of our lives. From the tiny electric sparks connecting the neurons in our body through to the gigantic gravitational pull that connects the planets of our Solar System together all revolving around the sun.

And then everything in between.

OK so perhaps a little bit melodramatic, a definitely a touch off piste but the thing is that when I was pulling this issue together all could think about were connections, and how important it is for the field service industries to make sure they get there connections working, and also keep there connections happy.

Of course perhaps the most important connection of all is the connection between your company and your customers. I’ve said it once and I’m sure I’ll say it a few more times in my lifetime - the customer is the heartbeat of every organisation. Look after you customers, ensure that connection is a good one and you can be fairly comfortable that your business is on a decent path. A sentiment echoed in two of our expert view features this month as Bill Pollock explores the difference between customers’ wants and needs, whilst Paul White extols the virtues of putting the customers back in control.

Of course the other heartbeat of field service (OK for the sake of the metaphor lets just assume field service like Doctor Who has two hearts) is of course the mobile workforce. Again there are vital connections that need to be maintained across our the relationship between field worker and company.

How do we connect to the worker to tell them where their next job is? How are they connected to HQ when they are out in the field with access to all that lovely rich data that can helps us further enhance our connections with our customers?

 

Of course, as I alluded to in my grandiose opening of neurons and planets, not all connections involve people. In fact some of the most important connections that are at the forefront of our minds right now are digital connections. The Internet of Things, remote diagnostics and machine to machine communication are all trends that have moved from interesting concepts that could shape the future of field service to ground-breaking developments that are being adopted and implemented today. The market for IoT may appear slow and appetite is not quite as advanced as it should be, something ServiceMax CIO Scott Berg agrees with and refers to in our interview in this issue, but it is there and some companies are already embracing it fully.

One of those companies happens to be Elekta, who as well as being thoroughly set for remote diagnostics and the Internet of Things have also successfully implemented an excellent means of sharing the knowledge stored amongst their engineers across their entire global network. Yet another example of connections being of the utmost value. This knowledge sharing program not only has the benefit of improving engineers efficiency, it is also a powerful tool for the Service Desk who are able to in turn improve the leves of service they are giving to Elekta’s customers.

Whilst Elekta’s focus has been on knowledge sharing across their network, Pitney Bowes focus has been on connecting their disparate working processes across Europe. An equally daunting task and one where yet again the objective is to attain maximum connectivity between divisions, locations, and countries. Such a task is always going to be a significant challenge, but when some of your countries are operating on manual processes and others are using a whole plethora of different systems that cannot connect ot each other, it really requires a methodical approach, and a team with the vision to see the whole operation holistically.

The way Pitney Bowes approached their task was a blueprint to success and there are many key learnings that could be applied to companies of all sizes.

 

And in these two features we find yet even more connections, and deep lying ones too...

For both of these examples were presented at recent Service Community events and whilst that connects the two in one way, it also leads us to The Service Community which is a perfect example of the power of connections. After the sad loss of founder Steve Downton, The Service Community’s future was far from certain, but the mantle has been picked up by fellow members of the community (expertly marshaled by Chris Farnarth) and through the exchange of ideas from one set of connections to another the community continues and it continues to be something very special. A community run by service executives for the service industry. You’ll find no sales pitches and advertisements at a Service Community event, just excellent presentations and the opportunity to widen your network of connections amongst your peers.

And the Service Community connects me neatly to the final part of this leader, where I wish to focus on this months special report, The #FSN20 - The twenty most influential people in field service.

For there are a few of the prominent members of The Service Community sat amongst this elite band of 20. The response we had from you our readers on building this list was fantastic, so thanks to each and everyone of you who made nominations. Of course we had to whittle the list down and we have tried to take a fair minded approach that was reflective of the many different corners of the field service industries. The good thing is even if you don’t agree with our final twenty it means you are thinking about who should be in there.

Which means we have acheived our objective - to get people thinking about all the good things going on in our industry today. We’ve also included twitter handles for each of the #fsn20 so you can follow them and further your connections yet another way!

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