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To help customers monitor and manage their energy usage, British Gas is rolling out smart meters as standard to homes and businesses across Britain by 2020, as part of a Government mandate. A team of 1200 field engineers (known as Smart Energy Experts) are responsible for this task. To work efficiently, these Smart Energy Experts need appropriate IT devices to support them, but the existing tablet estate was aging, and at the limit of its designed capability....

Computacenter solution

British Gas partnered with Computacenter to help upgrade its tablet estate to Dell devices running Windows 8. Computacenter was responsible for sourcing, testing, pre-configuring and asset tagging the devices before delivering them as required to British Gas sites. The project was successfully completed on time to aggressive timescales.

Results

Smart Energy Experts use the new tablets to support every stage of the smart meter installation process. This includes receiving their jobs and updates through the day, workflow through different types of jobs, as well as the commissioning activities for smart gas and electricity meters. Using the new devices has simplified their day-to-day tasks, and improved employee satisfaction, productivity and customer service. This will help British Gas achieve its goal of ensuring the smart meter installation is a seamless experience for its customers.

Customer profile: Powering homes and business across the UK

British Gas is the UK's leading energy supplier, and serves around 12 million homes in Britain – nearly half the country's homes – as well as providing energy to one million UK businesses.  British Gas provides "value for money, dedicated customer service, innovative energy solutions and the highest quality Home Services expertise in the country."

Business challenge: Helping customers be smarter about energy usage

By 2020 smart meters will be rolled out as standard across the country as part of a Government initiative, replacing current gas and electricity meters. British Gas adopted a strategy to introduce smart meters early in order to bring the benefits to customers as soon as possible, and currently leads the industry with more than one million meters already installed in customers’ homes and businesses.

Each home receives a smart gas meter, a smart electricity meter and a smart energy monitor. Smart meters communicate how much energy is being used to a smart energy monitor so customers can see their energy use and its costs in pounds and pence in near real-time. The smart meters also record energy use at up to half-hourly intervals and send these readings back to the energy supplier, once a day, putting an end to estimated bills.

Alan Fairhurst, Technical Consulting Manager with British Gas Strategic Systems, explains: “British Gas has already installed over a million smart meters into homes and businesses, and the roll-out is gathering pace as we look towards the Government deadline of 2020.”

To ensure British Gas can achieve this goal and safeguard the quality of customer services, the Smart Energy Experts need to be equipped with the right tools. “The IT devices they use have a big impact on their productivity. We need them to be able to focus on their customers and the job in hand, without worrying about IT issues and downtime,” says Alan.

The team was using tablet devices that were originally selected for their toughness, but the devices lacked the features and ease of use needed to maximise productivity.

Computacenter solution: New Windows 8 tablets for 1200 Smart Energy Experts

British Gas partnered with Computacenter to upgrade the tablet estate. “We have worked with Computacenter for a number of years,” explains Alan. “Mass device change is not our core business, so when it comes to projects such as this, we need a partner with expertise and experience, such as Computacenter.”

Following an internal exercise to evaluate the devices available on the market, British Gas turned to Computacenter to help procure and build the selected Dell Latitude 10 tablets, which run the Windows 8 operating system.

Computacenter helped British Gas negotiate pricing with Dell, and from June 2013 took responsibility for building and delivering the new devices over a four-month period. “Computacenter managed the logistics of the project, which included monitoring and tracking shipments to ensure they arrived on assigned dates so we could meet our tight deployment deadlines,” comments Alan.

Following delivery at Computacenter’s Hatfield Configuration Centre, each device was BIOS-tested, pre-configured and asset tagged. They were then packed with accessories, including a ruggedised Griffin survivor case, and retained at Computacenter’s buy and store facilities until British Gas required delivery.

Results: Improved engineer satisfaction and customer experience

By partnering with Computacenter, British Gas was able to mitigate the risks associated with deploying such a large number of devices within a short timeframe. “It was quite an aggressive project where we had to get the new tablets out to our Smart Energy Experts quickly and get it right first time,” confirms Alan. “With Computacenter’s expertise and experience, we were able to successfully complete the project to deadline without having to invest in additional resources and space.”

As a result of working with Computacenter, British Gas has been able to:

Reduce project risks: Computacenter’s commitment to British Gas’s tight deadlines, vendor relationships and best practices helped ensure the project was a success.

Simplify the installation of smart meters: The British Gas Smart Energy Experts use the new tablets every day when installing smart meters. They receive full details of each property and task, and track the progress of every job, via the tablets. The devices are also used to take photos of the meters in location for future records.

Improve engineer productivity: The enterprise-grade Windows 8 tablets bridge the gap between the corporate and consumer world, combining the reliability of a corporate device with the ease-of-use of a consumer interface. This not only simplified training, but also maximises productivity on a daily basis.

Increase employee satisfaction: Although corporately owned, the devices are personally enabled so Smart Energy Experts have an incentive to look after the tablets. They also enable them to take advantage of a growing range of helpful apps.

Enhance customer service: As Smart Energy Experts can access all the details they need about each customer and site quickly and easily, they can provide a better informed and more efficient service.  They are also able to demonstrate a number of British Gas services and products whilst at the customer premises.

“With support from Computacenter, our Smart Energy Experts have the tools they need for the job. They are happier, more motivated and able to provide better customer service,” concludes Alan. “This will help us achieve our goal of installing smart meters as standard to homes and businesses across the country by 2020.”

 

In part one of this exclusive interview with rugged specialist manufacturer Getac's UK president Peter Molyneux we looked at how long we can expect a rugged device to last as well as whether Microsoft could return to power in the mobile arena. Now in the concluding part we look at how the rise of tablets has changed the landscape for rugged devices, whether there is still a future for rugged laptops and why Molyneux thinks that BYOD just won't work...

One of the major changes in mobile computing across the last decade has been the rise of tablets themselves. This has led to a number of Getac’s competitors, perhaps most notably Panasonic appearing to shift focus away from their traditional fare of rugged notebooks and laptops. However, this isn’t the case for Getac.

When pushed on whether there is still a market for the rugged laptops Molyneux reacted with a clear belief that there is still plenty of space in the market for laptops, tablets and of course their lovechild the convertible.

“We are very committed to continue to develop our fully rugged notebook range” he states effusively “The B110, B100 and the X500 all fully rugged and we are continuing to push them”

“We have just won a couple of large projects (with rugged laptops) in Europe but we’re finding that our main competitor are not doing the same. Now that may mean they are focussing on tablets as their primary offering from here on but we are continuing to develop our Android platforms, we will continue to develop our windows 7 and 8 platforms and we will continue to develop our Laptop platforms so we can keep that broadness open.”

“The question may be will we continue to support Win Mobile and ther I’d say probably. But certainly rugged notebooks and rugged tablets of all form factors and both OS’s we will continue to develop” Molyneux added

In fact Field Service News ran a feature earlier this year asking if we were seeing the Death of the Rugged Laptop and our conclusion was that whilst rugged tablets may well become the form of choice, there is still very much a need for rugged laptops especially when large amounts of data input is required. Molyneux echoed these sentiments alos.

“Although you are right to say there is still very much a market for rugged notebooks, tablets have certainly taken some of the fully rugged notebook market. However, the main impact will be on the 3.5” win mobile market. Even in transport logistics they’re thinking of tablets now. Frankly the performance and cost of tablets is much better compared to the older 3.5 inch mobile computer.”

Having touched earlier on the consumerisation of mobile workforce and now discussing perhaps the end of line of the handheld computer the conversation began to lead inevitably to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) which has been a topic of conversation for a number of years but has failed to materialise into the major trend it was anticipated to be.

 

“Openly speaking I have seen the subject around for the last three years.” opens Molyneux  “Maybe it’s because I’m slightly separate from that community but I have yet to come across an actual BYOD project. I do think it is an opportunity but in my mind the reliability, the replacement cycle, the insurance, the security risk I still think there is a lot of unanswered questions.”

He stops for a moment as if confirming his thought process before continuing “When you are looking at mainstream IT in the field, I think there could be a need for something in perhaps the lower demand area, something running on a  HTML5 basis where someone just needs to see something…” he says as he ponders the concept a moment before reaffirming his initial thoughts “…but in a critical working environment like delivering gas, water, electricity or delivering facilities management in a nuclear production plant I can’t see how BYOD can fit.”

“I’m open to be told I’m wrong,” he continues  “But I’ve seen this approach being presented and reviewed and a full BYOD deployment is a very tough call for an IT infrastructure.” He adds.

However, whilst BYOD might not be something Molyneux sees happening on a major scale anytime school there is a related trend that he does think we may see.

“Coming from the other side, we are hearing from a customer perspective, especially from local government that they are looking to roll out devices to their workforce that can be used for both business and pleasure.”

“There are many benefits to this…” he continues  “To cite an old statistic I heard when Blackberry first released launched, you would see an increase in 25% in productivity per user beause they takes the device home and work. It’s true and we all fell for that one! Have a Blackberry and work more and now it’s common practice to be at home working tapping away whether it’s on your iPhone or a rugged computer. Look at the way Microsoft are marketing their devices now – we all do it these days we all take our work home”

“Also of course another additional soft benefit is that is that the device is yours so you look after it more. Which is another major positive for businesses and one which I don’t think would be particularly hard to map in terms of seeing a tangible return on investment.”

So whilst Molyeux doesn’t see a future for BYOD he does see an exciting prospect in a similar concept but in reverse.

“Absolutely – reverse BYOD is definitely on the cards” he agrees “we just need to put our heads together to think of a decent new acronym now"

Glyn Dodd, Managing Director of Centrex Services looks at if we can re-invent the service supply chain cost model before it becomes to late... 

The fixed verses variable cost structure has long been debated in the industry – and continues to remain a hot topic.  With the evolution of technology, customers demanding innovation in service delivery and all the intelligence that can be derived in the provision of a break-fix service; the industry seems to remain adamant in delivering an outdated, antiquated delivery/cost model.

The big question is whether innovation within services can be delivered on a variable cost base? And can pricing be a differentiator in the evolution of the service supply chain?

As the majority traditional service supply chain continues to steadfastly remain fragmented, its fixed inflexible cost structures have become increasingly expensive against the context of the revenue they are earning today.  It’s these costs that are putting price pressure in the market; the change in the products and the simplification and reduction of the revenue attached to the maintenance has made the fixed price model and its legacy engineering costs outdated.

The anatomy of the fixed and variable cost

If we look at what the fixed service costs are, we see a combination of skilled engineers, external repairs, parts and logistics, as well as diagnostics – all of which often are still operated in the traditional unconnected way.

On the other hand, if we work within a re-designed (fit for purpose) connected infrastructure based model then variable service innovation and pricing modernisation becomes the norm  The customer pays by the type of activity that’s required, when it’s required with the correct skill to deliver. This means that when there is a requirement for a particular skill in the field environment then that’s what is assigned to the call, not an over-skilled or under-skilled engineer/technician/tech courier.

There will always be a need for various skill levels in the field, the difficulty in the traditional service supply infrastructure is its inability to respond and adapt to the rapid simplification of product and its continued incapability to deliver modern service

Is variable viable in the service supply chain?

Looking at anecdotal evidence within the market, the complex service call requires a senior engineer, which accounts for approximately 20 per cent of all service calls. The rest is split between the technical courier and the internal engineer. It’s within this ground where a variable cost model is far more effective and specific in responding to a customer demand driven ethos but only within a fit for purpose infrastructure model.

This allows the service provider to flex the cost base against the demand using the re-designed skill profile as required.  This in turn creates the environment for innovation and increases the responsiveness to the customer enabling the service provider to create a modern, intelligent service supply chain, while freeing valuable working capital on the core IP and differentiators.

These economies of scale can be achieved through aggregation.  While many of the larger service providers all have their own infrastructure, if one of those components is non-core it doesn’t add any differentiation. If it can be shared with multiple parties, greater value can be obtained for the end client where they do differentiate.

However, sharing infrastructure and the ability to aggregate can’t be orchestrated within a siloed organisation.  The industry needs to embrace more efficient ways of generating economies of scale, by taking the non core competencies in a connected supply chain and putting them into a service model that’s connected and can demonstrate aggregation and economies.

Can we do more for less?

The fixed verses variable pricing model is without a doubt a huge step change in the methodology, collaboration and delivery.  And the consequences are even greater.  To meet customer demands, major changes are required in the infrastructure to meet innovation and pricing needs.

To deliver the variable cost model, service providers have to make strategic changes that will impact almost every element of service, from repair centres to logistics providers and sub-contractors. In my view, this is the only way the industry can not just reduce costs, but continue to innovate, make sustainable margins within its break fix business and ensure it stays a sustainable and strategic component of its managed services proposition.

 

Field Service News regular Nick Frank returns to his series looking at various case studies from companies he has worked with both past and presesnt to help us better understand best practice in service. This time out Nick takes a closer look at customer satisfaction...

Do Satisfaction surveys or Net Promoter systems really tell you how your customer’s experience your company? When you are satisfied with your car, does it mean you will buy the same brand the next time round?  The reality is that tools such as these are better than no tools at all! They do bring a focus on the customer by employees. . But to really get insights in how customers currently experience your brand in terms of needs, expectation and value perception,  requires  more intimate forms of communication and most importantly a change in MIND-SET.

Industry leading companies tend to exhibit an OUTSIDE-IN approach. They actively search out their customer’s thoughts and act on them. They use more sophisticated methods to capture deeper customer insights. They are mature enough to take on-board comments, which might be negative or not fit their agenda, because listening and action are in their DNA.

The on-stage/back-stage model: 

Typically these companies recognise that customer experience is not just an outcome, but can be designed into the service delivery model. Key is identifying the key factors influencing the customer’s perception at each touch-point. The On-stage/Back-stage model is often a useful tool to do this.

These are easy ideas to accept, but a recent consulting experience really brought home to me that for many organisations it’s much harder to put into practice.

We were working with several very successful capital equipment suppliers with very similar situations:

• They want to gain deeper insights into how customers experience their service business.
• They desired to move to the next level as they moved through a period of service transformation.
• They want to go much deeper than their own Net Promoter Score / Customer Satisfaction programmes.[/unordered_list]

In one of these projects, we dealt with a division where a significant proportion of the revenue came from the consumables that supported the product. They decided to invest in a programme where they recorded their staff’s interactions at the touch-points and then interviewed various key stakeholders of their customers.

This brought some unexpected observations within the buying process. The buyers recognised and appreciated the company’s knowledge and professionalism.  But they felt frustrated that the Sales people did not bring any value to the table other than taking orders for consumables.  They actually felt let down, which significantly harmed their overall perception of the brand and encouraged them to look for new vendors.  They made explicit statement statements such as  ‘We want a leading Solution Provider and not merely a leading Product provider’.

Don't be defensive - all feedback is useful

The challenge for this organisations was to take the feedback at face value, not get defensive and take the actions needed for improvement. But this market leading organisation struggled to do this. Why?

Often organisations are structured in silo’s with very specific targets, which are not necessarily aligned with customer value. For example, sales people who meet their incentive plan from significant sales of consumables, are not enticed to walk the extra mile and deliver more value, as this could prevent them from meeting their individual targets

• A focus on short term financial targets stimulates attention on low hanging fruit which directly drives financial results
• Wanting to Stick to the product related values and competencies
• Not being able to accept another perspective on the world.

In truth it’s probably a mixture of the above. The moral of the story is that if you are not ‘truly’ open to what your customers need and say, or are not committed to acting on the feedback, you are probably stuck in an IN-SIDE OUT world. It’s hard to innovate for your customers and provide an excellent experience, when you are only focussed on internal issues such as the next quarters sales or your next product’s features.

And we know that the OUTSIDE-IN mind-set is more likely to lead to growth. Recent research shows that companies who push themselves to gain insights into customer experience from a wide number of sources, are more likely to achieve higher corporate growth. But its not surprising that those companies that make this effort have a better understanding of what is valuable to their customers and how to deliver a customer experience that will drive loyalty.

For more information on how to develop your MINDSET and Design Customer Experience into your Service Propositions, why not look at some of our courses on Service Leadership(23^rd Sept in the UK) and Service Design.

Bill Pollock, President and Principal Consulting Analyst with Strategies for GrowthSM takes an alternative look at ensuring your mobile workforce is well resourced throughout all seasons...

“The world of work has changed,” according to Jeffrey Leventhal, CEO and co-founder of Work Market, a leading platform and marketplace for finding and managing freelance labor. And this may be especially true for the services industry, where simply doing things the same way they’ve always been done just doesn’t cut it anymore.

However, Leventhal also warns that, “finding the right talent is one of the primary challenges in building an on-demand workforce. Especially for companies who use freelancers at scale, it’s imperative to find a reliable place where you can routinely tap into top-tier freelancers.” For the services industry, top tier typically means highly trained – and in many cases, certified – field technicians that may be confidently dispatched shortly after being recruited and vetted by the organisation. Oh, yeah – and they must also be conveniently located proximate to a wide distribution of customer sites.

How can this be done? And what are the potential pitfalls of not having a well thought out plan for action, or not employing the proper tools to support an expanding market demand? Well, … unfortunately, there are many potential stumbling blocks – unless the plan is built on a foundation structured upon an effective onsite freelancer platform.

According to Diego Lomanto, vice president of marketing for Work Market, “there are six tools, or processes, that a services organisation requires in order to effectively manage its field technician freelancers. They are find, verify, engage, manage, pay and rate.” Each of these tools may be described as follows:

Find

Identifying and finding the right freelancers for the job at hand represents the best place to start. For many businesses, it is relatively easy to screen lists of potential freelancers in easily defined industry segments, such as accountants, home healthcare aides, plumbers and electricians, etc., by relying on any one of a number of widely used list sources such as Craigslist, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), LinkedIn or Google, etc. However, in the services community, most of these list sources will often come up short.

However, an onsite freelancer platform, such as that offered by Work Market, can handle things much more efficiently by providing a tool that:

• Allows the user to build assignments quickly, based on previous work,
• Identifies candidates that best meet the required skill sets, and
• Provides a mechanism for generating and tracking community ratings for each selected candidate (i.e., to assure a consistent level of freelancer quality)

Verify

The verification of the required skill sets represents another major obstacle for most services organisations in terms of their ability to check out the candidate’s background and capabilities, as they relate specifically to field service. In other words, do they have the right stuff – stuff meaning skills, experience and certifications, among others?

The use of an effective onsite freelancer platform takes nearly all of the burden out of the verification process by allowing the user to:

• Verify the candidate’s credentials via an integrated verification process; and
• Identify limit functions which, in turn, will automatically off-board the independent contractor when compliance thresholds are reached, or if certain details change, (i.e., such as expiring insurance coverage or certifications, etc.).

Engage

The engagement process is typically where too many organisation begin the process, as it is typically far less painstaking for some to start with the recruitment of “warm bodies”, rather than mounting a concerted effort upfront to find the most qualified candidates – and be able to verify that they are, in fact, eminently qualified for the job.

This is where an onsite freelancer platform provides, perhaps, one of its greatest value propositions to its users, by allowing them to:

• Organise their field technician workforce into groups for easy assignment en masse; and
• Eliminate the need for having to deal with only one contractor at a time, or conversely, having to rely on group e-mails that make it impossible to manage responses quickly or effectively.

Manage

Managing the freelancer field force should require the greatest levels of attention and oversight by the organisation; however, many managers find themselves too overwhelmed and/or understaffed to effectively handle the situation. Nonetheless, this is often the single process that ultimately defines the direction – and the success – of the organisation in terms of its ability to send the best qualified people to each site, and track their performance and progress over time. Many services organisations utilise fully functioning mobile applications to communicate with their mobile field force in real time – but this may not be enough!

By utilising an onsite freelancer platform, users benefit from a variety of tools that allow for:

• All field communications and management tools to be resident in a single system
• The use of geo-location tools to identify the exact locations of their freelance contractors in real time, and
• The ability of workers to upload and complete all tasks directly through their mobile devices.

Pay

Paying the organisation’s mobile field force freelancers should be one of the easiest jobs to do – but any HR or accounts payable professional will likely tell you different. What should typically only involve the tracking of hours, and cutting checks to the appropriate individuals is generally anything but easy – and PayPal simply doesn’t cut it!

What can make this process as easy as it gets is the ability of the onsite freelancer platform to empower the organisation to:

• Allow for Application Programming Interface (API) integration into existing payment platforms so they can continue to manage their respective accounting processes all in one place, and on a business-as-usual basis; and
• Create a robust mechanism for reporting key financial and compliance data to HR, Accounting – and the CFO – as necessary.

Rate

However, the series of processes does not end once the freelancer is paid, and the transaction is reported. In fact, the process is never-ending – and cyclical – in that the performance of each and every freelancer is rated, tracked and ranked to identify top talent for future projects, and measure the performance of the onsite freelancer model as a whole, over time. It can also be well argued that the organisation will likely have greater confidence in the ratings provided directly by their customers (and/or, their territory managers) rather than by an outside third party, such as Angie’s List or the Better Business Bureau (BBB), etc.

Therefore, the principal benefits of an onsite freelancer platform are that it provides users with:

• An online capability for rating, and viewing ratings, on a much broader scale, and
• The ability to determine the “height of the bar” with regard to the desired, or expected, quality of the worker’s performance.

Coordinating all of these individual tools into a single set of processes may be daunting for many organisations – but not so much when they have the power of an effective onsite freelancer platform such as that offered by Work Market, at their disposal. It is difficult enough to run a services organisation (or any business, for that matter) in general – but it is far more difficult to attempt to do so without the support of the proper technology, tools and processes.

[To download a complimentary whitepaper on “Finding & Managing Onsite Freelancers” for businesses and field service organisations click here]

In the final part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we look at what conclusions can be drawn from the research and analyse what can be expected of modern field service software.  

Missed the earlier parts of this series? You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here and the second part looking at management reporting here , and the third part looking at the future of field service software here

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report which includes even further analysis then you are able to download it for free by clicking this link.

Conclusion

When we look at the findings of this research as a whole there are a number of conclusions that can be drawn. When it comes to scheduling solutions there is still a large section of the industry not utilising any scheduling software, which ultimately leads to poorer levels of efficiency in the management of the mobile workforce.

This is of course in turn leads to fewer members of the overall workforce being in customer facing roles that could potentially generate revenue.

Based on the improvements in dispatcher to engineer ratios that scheduling software is proven to deliver, for those companies still operating on a manual basis, investing in some form of scheduling is no longer a nice to have but a necessity if they are to remain competitive.

Just a fifth of companies are able to exploit their field engineers’ trusted adviser status by giving them the tools to sell directly. This represents a major opportunity for companies with the means to invest in such systems to capitalise on their competitor’s hesitancy and gain a commercial advantage. Yet despite this opportunity currently few companies place investing in mobile hardware and software near the top of their priorities, with both categories sitting midway on the priority lists of the majority of organisations.

Perhaps the biggest trend this research has unveiled is that cost has become less of a concern for companies looking to implement new technologies, with issues with legacy systems now being the most common concern. [quote float="left"] Many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard.

 

This could well be a direct result of the influence of the Cloud. The SaaS business model has now meant that service management software is an affordable option for smaller companies, however, integration has been a early documented issue with some Cloud based solutions.

Our research earlier this year on SaaS and Field Service would also seem to support this hypothesis. To sum up, it appears that many elements are coming together to offer vast improvements to the software available in the field service industry. Also many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard. Meanwhile we also see exciting technologies such as the Internet of Things and Big Data starting to encroach into service management software.

The future indeed seems bright indeed, but in the here and now there are still things that can be improved upon. Whether it be scheduling software or management reporting tools the results of this research indicate that on the whole there is room for improvement in the software being used today.

However, the research also identifies examples of excellence in the service management software as well. Integration is becoming more and more important, and end-to-end service management has become a reality.

Careful consideration is essential when selecting a software provider and an understanding of your own strategic aims is as important as understanding the options available to you. However, it seems that investing in a service management solution in 2014 is both more affordable and beneficial than ever before.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report featuring additional exclusive analysis then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.

Well it’s certainly been an interesting few months…

I think the only place I can start this column is the Service Management Expo which ran in mid June. As a brand Service Management Expo (or Service Management Europe) has been around nearly as long as the Service Management Technology industry has existed. Indeed this was the exhibition’s 30th Anniversary so it is an event that has long served our community.

However, it has been far from a steady ride for what is still Europe’s largest event of it’s kind. The brand has changed ownership a number of times over the years, as well as venues and co-located partner shows. It’s been a standalone show of it’s own, sat with alongside a call centre event one year, facilities management another and this year was part of an all encompassing ‘protection and management’ series which current show organisers UBM put together at the London Excel.

Perhaps this is the problem with our little universe. Whilst field service and service management sit neatly across a whole range of other industries the challenges Service Managers and Directors face, and the solutions to those challenges are largely specific to field service. So whilst field service spans across a huge array of different verticals there responsibility for making that service division run smoothly requires a very distinct knowledge base and skill set. With this in mind it is probably understandable that there was a touch of apprehension as to how Service Management Expo would fare it is new home in London’s Excel as the smallest cog in what was in honesty a behemoth of an event?

Yet despite some misgivings, reflecting on the whole they pulled it off. Okay at times the show felt a little lost against the enormity of some of the other events (IFSEC the international fire and security show took up half of the Exel on its own!) and there are definitely more than the odd kink to be ironed out, but as one SME veteran put it ‘a little bit of the buzz was back’ a buzz that had perhaps been becoming conspicuous in its absence for the last few years.

 

Certainly the area surrounding the Field Service Solutions Theatre which was hosted by our good selves had a great feel about it.

Maybe it was the constant stream of excellent, short presentations that we were very proud to have had a hand in arranging that kept people returning to the small auditoria but there was a definite buzz of conversation in the air for large parts of every day.

For me personally the highlight of the Solutions Theatre was the panel debate I hosted featuring Conor O’Neil, Ian Mapp, and Philipp Emennegger  where we discussed the Future of Field Service. In fact I enjoyed it so much I invite them back to take part in the panel discussion in this issue which appears on page 18.  Also you can find our coverage of SME itself across starting on page 32

However, Service Management Expo wasn’t the only event to run in June.

After the sad loss of Steve Downton earlier this year, it was fantastic to see a group of industry professionals, headed up by Chris Farnarth come together to put on a very special Service Community event which was both dedicated to the memory of Steve (whose wife and daughter were in attendance) but also had a second goal of discussing with the community itself how we can continue to build on Steve’s legacy and keep the Service Community thriving.

The event itself was a truly remarkable day absolutely crammed with presentations from some very seasoned service professionals including Coca-Cola Enterprise’s Mark Rawding, Siemans’ Graham Coyne and Fujitsu’s Martin Summerhayes (who is also interviewed for this issue which appears on page 12) amongst others. Coverage of the whole event begins on page 42

Perhaps the most fitting testament to the day was when the session headed into a breakout session at the end for those who wanted to be part of the conversation of how the Service Community should continue almost two thirds of the 60 or so people that attend remained. Steve’s vision for a non-profit, knowledge sharing community that supported each other was never more evident and we are very proud to be part of helping the community to continue to grow from strength to strength.

So after much change it seems that when it comes to our industry events it remains very much business as usual and on that theme I turn my thoughts to the other event that has dominated the headlines throughout June – the World Cup.

England are on the plane home whilst Argentina, Germany, Brazil and Holland remain in the hunt for glory. Yep. Seems like it’s a case of business as usual everywhere then…

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In part one of this exclusive two part interview Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland talks to Martin Summerhayes of Fujitsu, about his spending over two decades as a pioneer in the field service industry... 

There are a number of key people who have been there and done it in field service. Professionals who have dedicated there lives to service, who have an inherent understanding of what it means to put the customer at the heart of the business strategy, and what it takes to develop a successful service division on an enterprise scale.

And then there is Martin Summerhayes.

A day before our interview I was able to witness Martin give a presentation at the recent Service Community event. In the half hour during which he spoke he gave the impression not only of a man that had a very firm understanding of the whole picture is in terms of service delivery, but also a man who had gained that understanding by paying attention to the minutiae of every aspect of the process.

However, after speaking to him one on one at some length a day later, it was clear that we had only just scratched the surface of Summerhayes’ depth of understanding of the industry in which he operates, as well as his passion for getting it right.

In terms of his entry into the world of field service Summerhayes, like many of his peers took a fairly straightforward path into the system. Having graduated from university in London in the late 80’s he joined HP as a field engineer on a graduate scheme working in their volume repair business.  As he puts it himself “You started as a man with a van and progressed from there”

Summerhayes himself ending up doing so rapidly and was soon not just progressing at HP, but was changing the way the business operated.

 

“My boss asked me to come up with some ideas for generating service revenue” he began as I asked him to describe his path from service engineer to service manager

“I came up with what I called the ten million dollar opportunity, which was literally sold up front. We offered a multi year extended warranty on the HP printers and PCs that we were selling in the UK, this would provide HP with an incremental ten million dollars worth of revenue. It was called the HP support pack business and when I left HP was generating over a billion dollars of revenue per anum.”

And perhaps here is a glimpse at what makes Summerhayes such a fascinating subject for interview or indeed just someone to have a conversation with. Whilst announcing what was a really quite an extraordinary achievement, he makes it sound as if  it was essentially a logical development that anybody else could have made

This of course isn’t true, to create a billion dollar business in any industry takes vision by the bucket load and to do it in a fledgling IT service industry even more so, but the touch of humility he shows when outlining his achievements, and an almost a blasé outlook on such a success, hints at an impression of a man who is almost certainly quite an inspiration to both his peers and his team alike.

In total Summerhayes spent nearly 20 years working with HP, having risen up the ranks from the “Man with a Van” to being at differing points responsible for 450 engineers, developing new programmes within the company to change their processes, to being heavily involved in overseeing the merger with Compaq (which actually also included absorbing Digital Equipment Corporation and Cabletron into the HP structure as well). Eventually he was asked to move to Texas as part of a management restructure, which Summerhayes declined and the HP chapter of his career came to an end.

He then took a decidedly left-field step in his career and took up a role with the Metropolitan Police Force. Spending two years with the ‘Met’ which he describes as “a mix of secret military, local government bureaucracy gone mad and IT” where the culture was one of “meetings, about meetings about meetings” Summerhayes eventually returned to the more familiar corporate environment with Fujitsu where he has been for the past six years.

Here in his roles as Head of Strategy and Business Development he now works directly with the firms fourteen largest accounts in the UK, working with them to establish margin and service improvement opportunities. (Last year alone he was able to deliver over two million pounds of margin improvements.)

Look out for part two of this feature coming soon where we look at Summerhayes' biggest frustrations in field service today as well as what makes him go home smiling after a long day... 

Paul Adams, Marketing and development manager at Solarvista looks at why no two field service companies are ever quite the same and what that means when choosing service management software...

 'At Solarvista, we have implemented hundreds of service management and workforce mobilisation systems over the years. And the biggest thing we have learned over that time is that everyone in service management does everything differently… even in the same industry sectors!

This issue became quite a big problem for us. We’d be approached by a prospective user in the same industry sector as current customers (they were often referred to us by them) and we’d think, “Great, we have a service management solution off the shelf for you”. Then, we’d find out that they did just about everything differently! Ouch.

We’d pitch modifications that required the use of developers going into the core product and making changes to meet those needs. In itself, quite a workable proposition and we’d done this successfully for many years. But as we grew, managing this code change became more costly to us, and sometimes to the customer. And it’s fair to say that developers don’t come cheap.

The ‘gaps’ that we normally address with specific modifications or code usually are categorised as:

1. Missing functionality
2. Integration to legacy systems
3. Logic or business logic modifications/additions

 

To our customers, these gaps needed to be filled to ensure a successful, efficient solution was implemented. But, deep down, it often felt risky to them… they couldn’t see what they were getting until the latter stages of the project, when maximum resource exposure occurred. It doesn’t matter how good we are as developers, it’s only natural to feel anxious about such risks.

We needed to do something that enabled us to address the (mostly) totally different needs of each customer without resorting to changing or modifying our product.

I’ve written in previous articles about our R&D effort in cloud based services and some of the answers came as a result of this research. In cloud systems, one of the key cost reduction drivers is “one version of software for all customers”. But we knew that this was contra to what service management systems need. After some deep thinking by our best developers, we managed to find a solution.

Firstly, we re-architected many parts of our software to offer, what we call, Extensibility. This means that we can add completely new client-side features, 100% integrated with the core product, without needing to modify a single line of the underlying product code. In other words, one version of software BUT with new functionality added specifically for the customer needs, which operates as if it’s part of the existing product (the user wouldn’t realise). Not only that, the feature can be added in (literally) hours or days (not weeks) and with no requirement to regression test the underlying product. This enabled us to address Missing Functionality and Business Logic Change issues.

This didn’t solve the problem of connecting to ever increasing legacy and partner systems however. Often we would need to read customer data from a corporate system, or update a third-party system of a partner company. In fact, we often built 30+ interfaces in one system! How could we do this without needing expensive development?

The answer came again from our R&D into cloud architecture. We thought about power supply adapters and how they could be “plugged” together to achieve a whole unit. From this we built something we call a Dynamic Adapter operating via our Service Bus system that allows us to connect as many systems together without needing to code a single line. Once again, one version of software, but implemented doing very (very) different things.

The results have been impressive. In fact, we have recently addressed the service management needs of a very famous coffee shop company using Extensibility and Bus/Adapter technology alone without needing any core changes to our products. Another, in the automotive sector, that had pulled out of a service management project with a competitor, has had 35 ‘gaps’ filled with this same technology.

Service management software is often standard. But this doesn’t mean you cannot have exactly what you want.