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Results of a recent survey by DA Systems into attitudes towards technology amongst firms within the UK transport and logistics industries highlighted that whilst the majority believed in the importance of technology to create a superior service offering, getting access to the financial and operational backing required to make the necessary investments still remains an issue for many companies...

88% of companies participating in the research agreed that technology was an essential source of competitive differentiation, yet over 50% of respondents revealed that they have yet to introduce real-time track and trace capabilities, although it was high on their wish lists of process improvements. This ‘relaxed’ attitude towards implementing new technology was further highlighted by the finding that 58% of delivery fleets are not using mobile data services to enhance driver information and provide real-time job monitoring capabilities. Budgetary constraints may be a key factor behind the lack of technological investment, because 80% of respondents cited budget restrictions as the main barrier.

According to DA Systems, these findings highlight that companies are failing to make the connection between the introduction of technology and an ability to generate additional revenue to offset the initial investment costs. This can be achieved through operational savings from paperless working and by improving service levels to ultimately become a delivery partner of choice amongst consumers.

“The research showed up some surprising results, for instance, companies understand the role technology needs to play but have some way to go to making the investments required. And clearly, although there is a perception that ePOD (electronic proof of delivery) is a mature market, many within the industry remain reliant on paper based proof of delivery processes, which cannot be good for profit levels,” says David Upton, Managing Director of DA Systems.

Returning to the survey findings, although business confidence is improving, costs remain a concern and this was reflected in the improvements respondents cited they would like to make to delivery processes. 88% said reducing driven mileage and fuel consumption was a priority, followed by improving driver behaviour monitoring (47%) and reducing the total number of hours worked by implementing efficiency improvements (also 47%).

Demonstrating the business impact of controversial BYOD (bring your own device) IT policies within the transport sector, 53% of companies who were using POD solutions (proof of delivery) said they were considering the possibility of allowing their drivers to use smartphones instead of traditional rugged devices.

E-commerce has undoubtedly had a big impact on the UK’s transportation sector and this trend continues. Nearly 1/3 of the companies surveyed (28%) believed that the free click and collect services offered by retailers were ‘a possible threat to a courier’s delivery business from e-commerce orders’. This finding can be further verified by the recent launches of new sameday or special Sunday deliveries by major delivery firms working with e-commerce companies, again demonstrating the need to continue improving service levels to compete with increased consumer expectations for faster deliveries and the growing popularity of click and collect.

When given a wish list of improvements they would like to make to their own service offering, ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction was clearly an ongoing business priority. Almost three quarters (70%) of the survey respondents said they would like to offer an estimated delivery ETA messaging capability and have the ability to send an email or text to recipients alerting them to expect their delivery at a particular time of day. A further 41% said they would like to allow recipients to change the delivery drop location for convenience.

And yet whilst these service improvements may be high on the business improvement agenda, continuing budget restrictions and a perception amongst budget holders that this type of technology is potentially being seen as a ‘nice to have’ by some, could result in a gap forming between the smaller independent transport providers and larger operators with greater resources to invest in new technology.

“It is clear from the findings that delivery firms have not understood the potential to reduce costs and generate additional profits as a result of investing in technology and working more efficiently. Being constrained by budgets is a short-sighted view because the business case for an investment in proof of delivery software, or a messaging system that notifies consumers with an ETA for their parcel deliveries, will deliver an immediate return,” concludes David Upton.

 

Resource Type: White Paper
Title: 6 things you need to know when purchasing Service Lifecycle Management software
About: Based on independent research Michael Blumberg provides critical information for anyone who is preparing to purchase Service Lifecycle Management (or Service Management) software.
Download: Download the white paper by clicking here.

 

Synopsis:

As President of the Blumberg Advisory Group, Michael R Blumberg is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading consultants across field service, aftermarket services and reverse logistics. He is also a prolific commentator on industry and an accomplished author of many white papers. Field Service News is pleased to bring a selection of his white papers to you. The first of these is based on an exclusive research conducted by the Blumberg Advisory Group which was a yearlong market research study sponsored by the CSDP Corporation which looked at the experiences of hundreds of companies when purchasing Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) software.

As Jerry A Edinger, CEO of CSDP corporation comments “An ideal SLM solution puts terms and conditions of the contract at the heart of the system and builds on that system with solid experience in service delivery.” “There are many Niche players in the SLM space. Decades of  experience  and trusting your provider is key to everyone’s success. We treat all of our clients as a trusted partner.  By doing this,  it creates a Win-Win for everyone” In this white paper “6 things you need to know when purchasing Service Lifecycle Management software” Blumberg distils the knowledge found in this research into six key findings for organisations looking purchase enterprise standard service software. These are:

What to expect in the sales process?

Whilst you are almost certainly going to be doing a lot of research prior to even speaking with any software providers (like reading this feature and then downloading the white paper for further detail) when you do reach the point where you are contacting providers what can you expect? Well first of all most software provider’s will give you a top level demonstration of their software either during your initial call or soon after. Typically this is just meant to give you an idea of how the software works and a more detailed, a second demonstration, customised to your own specific company’s requirements will follow. Often the software provider will request that you fill out a demo prep form ahead of the next demonstration so they can tailor the demo to your needs.

What to look for in a Software Lifecycle Management software vendor?

The service management software market is a crowded niche, there are a number of software vendors available to you and understanding the different offerings can be a confusing if not overwhelming. In this section Blumberg looks at what were the common features that companies sought from software providers. The top three factors were software feature and functionality, technical competency of vendor, and vendor flexibility, with all of the respondents rating these factors as either the most important or second most important factor they considered when purchasing service software.

How important is price?

Interestingly price is far from the dominant factor when purchasing service software with only a quarter of companies indicating that price was the most important factor when purchasing SLM software.  In fact over half of respondents selected a software solution that was somewhere in the middle in terms of cost.

How important is the role of discounts in the buying decision?

As in many industries discounting is reasonably standard and common place when pricing software so there is often room for negotiation in the purchasing process. Blumberg reveals that 83% of those who purchased an enterprise software solution in the past 24 months received a discount and 89% of those planning to purchase in the next 24 months expect a discount. However, remember to be wary of software providers who drop their price too much without concession. The lower price may just come to haunt you when it comes to implementation.

CRM, ERP or best of breed service software?

For service lifecycle management software there are often three choices; buy your service software form your CRM provider, buy from your ERP provider or choose a best of breed service software provider. Whilst it may be easier to go with the CRM or ERP providers who you already know, best of breed providers specialise in service and their products are designed to contain all the functional requirements to support the full service lifecycle management process in an organisation.

What happens after the sale?

Perhaps the most important aspect of the white paper, understanding what you can expect after you have purchased the software is of course an essential piece of insight that will shape your decision on choosing the right vendor. It is important to understand exactly what the vendor’s expectation are of you during the implementation as well as understand the level of resources the vendor will commit to you during the implementation and for post implementation support. In this final section of the white paper Blumberg provides some excellent guidance on getting this detail correct. Buying any kind of software can be a daunting, this is magnified when it is for business and when it comes to mission critical software such as Service Lifecycle Management software the stakes are even higher. Understanding the buying process is an important element of getting the right product, at the right price, with the right level of implementation support that your company needs. Drawing on the insight of hundreds who have been through the process this white paper is therefore a great resource for those considering SLM software.

Download the white paper by clicking here.

Across April and May of this year (2014) Field Service News in partnership with mplsystems undertook a research project to assess the current usage of field service software...

The survey was split into four categories. Scheduling systems, integration and interaction, management reporting and future options. In total we spoke to over 120 field service companies of differing sizes and differing industries. These were predominantly UK based although there were respondents from all over the world including Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

Scheduling Systems:

Whilst Service Management software as a whole is about far more than scheduling there is no doubt that it often dominates conversation. This is likely due to the sizeable improvements in efficiency that scheduling software can deliver. In fact companies that were using any sort of scheduling software, be it batch, automated or optimised, showed considerable improvements in the efficiency of their dispatch units with 39% of companies using scheduling software having a ratio of more than 16 engineers per dispatcher.

This figure reduces to just 8% when we look at companies who still operate with manual dispatch systems. In fact of those companies operating without scheduling software virtually half of them (49%) are only able to manage a ratio of 5 engineers per dispatcher at best.

With developments in mobile technology opening up opportunities for field staff to establish new revenue streams (whether directly or indirectly), the greater the ratio of engineers to dispatchers, the more a company’s labour resources are placed in positions which could potentially generate revenue.

With companies shifting away from manual based scheduling and starting to utilise scheduling software, the question of how well that software is performing takes on even greater importance.

The majority of companies (46%) identified their current scheduling system as average, with both extremes (excellent and very poor) being the least common response at 7% each. 14% of respondents identified that they felt their systems were poor, whilst 27% rated their scheduling system as good.

Taking a broader view this does indicate that 80% of scheduling systems being used are operating at an acceptable level of average or better, although it would also indicate that there is plenty of room for improvement as well

Integration and interaction:

There has been much talk of late around end to end service management solutions, whereby all systems across the customer lifecycle such as CRM, Service Management Software, and Asset Management Software are fully integrated with each another, offering full transparency across multiple divisions of a company. This in turn creates greater opportunities for improving customer satisfaction levels, improving efficiency and establishing new revenue streams within a business.

Specialist field service software has been available for some thirty years now, and as the industry has evolved a number of differing elements of service management software has developed such as scheduling, routing, and asset management software etc. In fact a fifth of companies are still working with five or more software providers.

With so many different products in the mix its little wonder that there are issues with integration in field service companies.

Well over a third of companies (38%) are still facing issues with integration stating “We have a number of different systems across different divisions and it makes communications between departments tricky”. This represents a sizeable section of the industry that has the potential to improve the overall efficiency and productivity of their field service operations.

Given that the integration of systems is not fully ubiquitous across the industry, it is important to see how companies ensure that their service management software supports their business processes. The most common means of ensuring this is through customisation by software providers, with 34% of companies taking this path.

With competition amongst software providers high within what is a relatively niche sector, it is such additional layers of customisation that can make a difference when implementing a new service management software system.

Yet conversely almost a quarter of companies (23%) admit to having to fit the way they work around their software.

This represents a real issue, if a company has to change their processes to accommodate their software then there may be a danger of efficiency bleed, in which case the surely the software isn’t fit for purpose? This serves to further highlight the importance of ensuring that you choose software provider wisely. Perhaps the cheaper ‘off the shelf’ solution doesn’t always offer the best value in the long term?

In part two of this feature we will look at what of management reporting software is being used and what fears companies have when adopting new systems.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report 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.

 

Resource: Five key steps to make field service profitable PLUS James Automation Case Study
Format: PDF
Abstract: Is field service seen as a cost centre at your business? Providing field service can be a complex process, but that does not have to mean it’s unprofitable. Every field service interaction is an opportunity to not only delight customers, but also increase revenue. This resource covers five easy steps to get your field service organisation in the black this year, as well as a case study of how one field service organisation did so. click here to download this resource now.  

Making field service profitable:

Operating a service division as a profit centre rather than a cost centre has been at the top of the agenda for service professionals for many, many years. After the global economic downturn in 2008 companies cut margins as far as possible to remain competitive, making the shift to profit centre even more prominent and important.Whilst the economy has improved somewhat the ability to establish service revenue streams remains a priority, and with the technology now available acting as an enabler the move to profit centre continues at pace. With this in mind ServiceMax have put together a handy guide for companies looking to turn their service division into a profit powerhouse. The guide, which includes a case study from James Automation detailing how they increased service revenue by 30% is available to download here.

The resource also lists the key steps that you should consider if you are going to make field service profitable which include:

1. Just say no to giving away free service – a fairly obvious point but one that gets overlooked by so many companies. If your field service engineers have no visibility into whether your customers have an up to date warranty then they are either potentially missing sales opportunity  or worse giving your valuable service away for free.
2. Optimise scheduling – One of the biggest areas that field service companies can see profit drain away is through inefficient scheduling of their engineers. With modern scheduling systems being far more affordable than before it really is inexcusable for companies to still be operating with a white board and an exel spreadsheet.
3. Never lose parts ever – parts logistics can sound somewhat overwhelming, but it needn’t be. Essentially it’s just a case of keeping track of your own assets. For field service organisations who service high value equipment with expensive parts this is especially critical. Knowing your inventory in real time is essential to keeping a healthy bottom line.
4. Market better, sell better – like all businesses, you need to shout about your successes. If you have customers that value your service you absolutely need to make it easy for them to continue buying it. Defining the value proposition of your service offerings is critical and they must be clearly articulated by everything and everyone that talks to your customers. This of course includes your field service engineers so be sure to train and incentivise them to sell services in the field.
5. Go mobile – Field service is of course an inherently mobile job – so modern mobile tools are of course a natural fit for the industry. Whether it is smartphones, tablets or laptops it is important to match the right hardware and software to your own specific field service needs. The benefits of going mobile will be seen across the board and will not only improve productivity but make your field service engineers lives easier – for which they will certainly thank you.[/ordered_list]

To find out more about these five steps as well as how James Automation were able to improve there field service revenue by 30% and decreased their revenue leakage by 20% click the link below.

Trimble Field Service Management's new Managing Director John Cameron joins Field Service Service News as a guest columnist and outlines the importance of managing mobile resources effectively...

Many companies managing a large field service workforce operate in industries which require highly skilled individuals, whose work is variable and complex in terms of location and task. Add in a high degree of compliance-focused work and that means that field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. However, with market competition and customer expectations at an all-time high it is more important than ever that organisation’s ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day. Understandably, the biggest area of concern for those in field service is workforce management[1] and 69 per cent of organisations are investing in technology to help manage jobs more effectively[2].

Expert Insight: Defining the challenges

Establishing what it takes to manage a large field service operation today, from managing the people and scheduling the work, to the technology that helps to drive efficiency, is essential and requires organisations to overcome a number of obstacles, including:

• Jobs overrunning if they are more complicated than first thought
•  Traffic congestion and vehicle breakdowns causing delays or even failure to meet an appointment
•  Workers potentially calling in sick, starting late or getting delayed can impact adversely on the productivity of the workforce.

The biggest and most repetitive challenge facing organisations managing a mobile workforce is cost and this is closely related to a secondary challenge - the role of the technician in the business.

The technician is often the only contact a customer has with the company and therefore exposure to the company’s service delivery and brand. With a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience. The challenge facing organisations is therefore around the role and responsibility of the technician.

An additional challenge is measuring service performance, suggesting that the old adage of you cannot manage what you cannot measure certainly rings true. Measuring what is happening in a hugely diverse workforce and identifying what the key metrics are to do that is essential. Ultimately you need to understand what has happened and you want to know that ‘now’ to use that data to enable real-time decision-making.

Finally, managing change and embedding best practice is core to a successful field service operation. Organisations often wrestle with this change on a regular basis from all sorts of areas, whether it is new technology, new people, new policy or new vans and equipment. In a remote workforce, managing change and making sure that it sticks is particularly difficult, due to their activities, but finding a way to embed change and making sure that best practice is shared across the workforce is a key success factor.

Putting workforce management technology into action

Reassuringly, developments in workforce management technologies have begun to offer a solution to these challenges, through intelligent scheduling tools and performance management analytics. This capability provides the stepping stones needed to help organisations measure, manage and improve their operations through optimising resources, offering real-time visibility and monitoring and giving warning of tasks at risk or showing the impact of work allocation decisions.

Traditionally, many organisations scheduled tasks based on a technician’s allocated territory but with today’s most common customer complaint being that a technician did not resolve the issue on a first visit, scheduling the most knowledgeable technician to a task or one who has the right tools or parts in their vehicle, is crucial. As a result, more and more organisations are beginning to realise the value of intelligent scheduling - incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into their scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer’s issue the first time. Aberdeen Group[3] found that intelligence is at the heart of scheduling with over half of organisations using service performance data to evaluate the effectiveness of scheduling criteria.

Self-learner tools can also help considerably with intelligent scheduling. They incorporate an algorithm that quickly learns preferences for each mobile worker and will allocate tasks accordingly. This includes geography, such as which mobile workers normally service particular areas, and what skills mobile workers have and to what degree they are qualified to do certain types of work. Such capabilities help to improve customer service as tasks can be scheduled to best meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs), produce efficient routes to reduce travel time and ensures work is only given to those with the right skills, carrying the right assets and tools.

A case in point: Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS)  

Justin Keane, Chief Operating Officer at PTS drove change in the organisation after recognising a need for additional effectiveness in its scheduling processes. Every morning the company would give a batch of tickets to its technicians for their assigned regions and would see what they could get done in a day. Technicians would print a list of their tasks and spend half an hour planning routes based on their own knowledge of the area. They tried using a map to sequence the stops, but that took about an hour a day for each of the eight regional hubs, which is eight hours a day just to build the routes. With these scheduling problems having a detrimental effect on the company’s productivity and growth, it sought a solution which would allow it to become more efficient and reduce or eliminate the time required for scheduling.

PTS deployed a field service management solution which allows dispatchers to view all their tasks and schedules in one place. This has reduced the time that dispatchers spend on routing from three hours a day to 45 minutes a day – an efficiency saving of 75 per cent or about 11 hours a week. Additionally, since the technicians no longer needed half an hour a day to plan their own routes, it has saved more than 200 hours per week of their time and job completion rates have increased by 10 per cent.

PTS has expanded its field service technology to all of its regions and this has made the company more productive, which means improved efficiency, happier customers and a more positive bottom line.

 

Dave Hart, vice president of global customer transformation at ServiceMax provides a tale of two field service companies and how listening to your field service techs is not only easier than ever but more important than ever also...

Here’s a tale of two field service companies — one that figured out how to build better products by tapping into their technicians’ on-the-ground experience, and another that didn’t and then paid the price.

First, the company that stumbled: Years ago, I worked for a manufacturer that released an update to one of its most popular products. There wasn’t anything wrong with the existing version: it was easy to use, rarely broke down and, when it did, it was simple to fix. The “new and improved” version, however, wasn’t well-designed and didn’t work as well. Our field service techs were left scratching their heads. “How could we get everything so right with one product and then so wrong with the next?,” they asked.

The reason was obvious: the research and development (R&D) teams and the service techs never spoke to each other. 

 

Now, for a different story: A large healthcare technology company has installed a knowledge management system on the smartphones, tablets and other assorted devices its tech carry with them on the road. The techs document what they and the customers experience with the products day in and day out. The information is delivered to the company’s product development team for consideration when updating the system — or even creating a new product altogether.

The lesson? Your service techs know your company’s products the best — even better than the customers do. They are on the ground every day and hear what customers like, and don’t like, about the product. They develop an intuitive sense for what can (and probably will) go wrong.

The Power of Data Collection in the Field

Unfortunately, the story of a product rollout that didn’t go according to plan is more the rule than the exception. The strange thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way. Collaboration between field service techs and product teams, such as R&D, has never been easier. Field techs carry smartphones, tablets and laptops in the field Communication apps such as Salesforce Chatter, Skype and Apple Face Time make it simple, fast and efficient for product developers to work with field service techs.

So while companies are embracing knowledge management systems on mobile devices, they’re not capitalising enough on the information that gets collected. The operations side see the real-time updates about product glitches or common customer gripes, but the research and development side doesn’t. That’s a huge missed opportunity.

Consider the healthcare company that I described above as the exception. So far, the company has collected more than a thousand product suggestions from field workers who use its mobile knowledge management technology. Both the technical support and product teams vet the suggestions, and share the most informative ones with the rest of the company.

How Service Tech Feedback Can Boost the Bottom-Line

Here’s a basic example of how technology-enabled collaboration between service techs and product developers can improve business. Say that a product has a fundamental problem or part that needs to be regularly replaced. Field techs can often spot design flaws that, if corrected, would reduce maintenance and repair times. If a product developer can look at a product from the tech’s perspective, everyone benefits — the company, its customers and the techs who service the equipment.

Multiply that across multiple products and service calls and you start to see the time and money savings. There’s an added benefit, too: like all employees, service techs want to be heard. Giving them a strong voice in how the products they work with every day are created goes a long way toward engaging them in all aspects of the business.

The healthcare company is a prime example of how companies can tap into their technicians’ vast product knowledge. Every field service company should follow its lead.

 

 

 

DA Systems outline 6 very good reasons why you should make sure your customer is focussing on delivering service excellence through the doorstep experience you give to your customers in this excellent infographic.

 

Continuing his series looking at case studies of how service companies adapt their culture to improve their productivity Nick Frank, service management consultant with Noventum Service Management looks at how happiness became a key tool for Dutch firm Hutten...

It sounds so obvious that people are the key to any business change, so why do we often overlook their importance.  Is it because managers are so wrapped up in their strategies and actions plans, that they forget talking to customers and employees requires a different kind of language?  That the ‘just get it ***** done!’ mentality does not achieve the results they want.

Whatever the reason, the lesson we learn time and time again is that it’s your ‘people that make you stand out from the crowd’. So how do you then make sure that people development and communication is a key part of your plan.

Some companies take a very novel approach. Take Hutten, a leading Dutch kitchen service provider. Pascal Verheugd their HR director told us about their unique approach;

“Most companies, particularly in Holland, are driven by productivity and profit margins. Here at Hutten, we thought differently. We wanted to position happiness as the central driver within our company.

Working from the ground up, we engaged with all team members to develop our mission to promote the values of happiness, collaboration, transparency and sustainability across our organisation. This was not just a top down initiative, and neither was it only internally generated. Our partners, suppliers and clients are key stakeholders, so these values were generated also considering their input from the outside in.

This ‘happiness vision’ could have been difficult to justify on board level but in our case, the CEO, Bob Hutten and I were singing from the same hymn sheet. We were both of the belief that social innovation should be the most important goal for every company and that managing targets, bonuses and profitability simply isn’t enough.

People have to want to work for you. If they share the same values internally and are happy working together then it stands to reason that their happiness will create better productivity and that this will filter through to customers in the end.”

Now this may be a very different approach, but I am sure there is a lesson here for us all in both our professional and work lives!

So if you are interested to know more more about the importance of people in achieving your goals, you can get more information from this link, or you can sign up for our next UK Service Executive Leadership Course in September, where you will get an opportunity with your peers to develop your thoughts on people and leadership…and perhaps have a a bit of fun yourself.

 

 

Customer requirements for field service and customer support will never be the same from one country to another, any more than they will be the same from one customer to another. However, one thing remains very clear – the requirements for service are becoming increasingly standardised, even on a global basis. Bill Pollock President of  Strategies For Growth^SM explains more...

The above is particularly true as more and more local services organisations are going regional, regional organisations are going national, and national organisations are going international in terms of their sales, marketing and global services capabilities.

Just a few years ago, only the largest services organisations had credible worldwide global service and support portfolios. However, today, mainly through the proliferation of Cloud-based technologies; Internet, tablet and social media tools; and the increasing use of strategic alliance partners, even the small and medium-sized services organisations are finding themselves empowered to support their customers on a global basis.

Still, the perceptions of what it might take to be a “world class” global services provider remain inconsistent even among some of the most sophisticated vendors. However, regardless of each individual organisation’s approach or perceptions, it can safely be said that services requirements are both every bit the same, and every bit different, in each corner of the globe.

Further, many services providers in the United States have discovered over the past several years that there is more than one language spoken in global service. This was a lesson learned years earlier by most European and Asian providers trying to break into the U.S. market, as well as by Canadian services organisations that have been dealing with bilingual support (i.e., Canadian English and Canadian French) for decades. However, the globalisation of service and support refers to much more than simply language differences – it must also focus on the cultural, economic and business differences that are manifested in varying forms all over the world.

 

As most individual businesses continue to grow larger, and larger businesses continue to acquire, merge and consolidate, there will be increasing pressure on global services providers to grow along with their customers’ needs for a broader and more sophisticated range of services – both in terms of breadth and scope (e.g., a full array of professional services in addition to traditional break/fix and help desk support, etc.) and geographic coverage (e.g., cross-border capabilities).

The conventional wisdom is that some of the services providers that presently offer very high levels of service and support, but only among the basic, or “core”, types of services, or only in a limited geographic area, may actually end up losing out to other, less high performing providers that offer a wider array of services over a larger geographic (i.e., global) area.

The general rule of thumb among customers is often, “why settle for varying or erratic levels of service and support over the whole of our enterprise by relying on the use of multiple vendors, when we can ensure a more standardised mode of delivery – all at satisfactory levels – provided across our entire system?”

While the former mode of service delivery may range from “excellent” to “average” depending on the type of service provided, or the location of the end user, the latter mode generally assures that, at least, there will be consistent levels of service provided enterprise-wide – i.e., with no geo-by-geo “surprises”.

In today’s services environment, the true measure of a provider’s ability to adapt to its marketplace is no longer answered strictly in terms of how well it can deliver different types of support to different types of customers, but in how well it can provide desired levels of service and support to each of its customers, regardless of their size, industry segment or geographical location.

As such, the word “global” should no longer simply conjure up images of field technicians trudging through the wilds of the Great Australian Outback, or cross-country skiing to a remote IT site through a harsh Canadian winter terrain (although this may also be the case from time to time), nor should it be interpreted solely as fostering a company mentality of trying to be “all things to all parties”.

Rather, “global” should be defined as “offering the full complement of desired services and support, either directly or through strategic services partnerships, to support the full enterprise-wide needs of the customer.”

It has taken the services industry the last century to get to the point to where it is today. However, it will be around this definition of “global service" and support that the future of the industry will likely be based. Where it will ultimately take us will, as always, be heavily dependent on how the services marketplace believes its providers are responding to its “global” needs.