New research charting the servitization journey of companies shows a significant gap in progress between firms with only 3% surveyed at a stage of maturity.

The study, instigated by IFS and extrapolated by global analyst firm IDC, surveyed 420 global manufacturing companies, active across the physical value chain, who were at varying stages of their servitization strategy.

From the data, IDC developed a Servitization Maturity Framework (The IDC Servitization Barometer) comprising four levels that segments companies based on their level of adoption.

 

The Four Stages of Servitization Adoption

The ‘Splintered’ stage, and the lowest level, represented 14% of firms.Typically these companies operated in silos, running dis-jointed, manual processes and fragmented business systems producing little or no visibility in performance.

The next stage, ‘Side-Car’, was the largest representation of companies (49%). Here firms had standardised their back and front office operations but were yet to integrate the two.

‘Joined-up’ companies have integrated front and back offices in both directions and have progressed to leverage technologies such as IoT to feed core systems with real data. This segment was represented by 39% of firms surveyed.

Only 3% of canvassed firms operating at the fourth ‘Borderless’ stage (or “Servitization Nirvana,” the report says). These companies have processes that start and end outside of the organisation with operations and technology facilitating the connection between different elements of the value chain.

However, IDC said those firms at the ‘Joined-Up’ stage, who were exhibiting some, but not all elements of a servitization strategy, for example an integrated back and front office and the use of IoT, were still able to show significant financial proof-points, with service revenues - on average - one third larger than their peers’ as a proportion of total revenue.

“Organisations that bundled projects with services or offered their capabilities in a consumption-mode are already enjoying competitive advantages,” Phil Carter, Chief Analyst at IDC Europe and one of the authors of the report says. “Manufacturers engaging in this transformation should demand applications that are natively connected across the full value chain, from the shop floor to customer support and service.”

IFS carried out the survey in July 2019 and the President of the firm’s Service Management Business Unit Marne Martin said IDC’s maturity framework identified the key barriers firms are facing in their quest for full servitization adoption. “The IDC Servitization Barometer lays out the key hurdles facing many manufacturing organisations,” she says, “including the lack of internal know-how and the perrenial problem of running legacy, disjointed business systems.”

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Further Reading: 

• Read the full report IDC Sertvization Barrier - Charting your Path to New Revenue Streams here.
• Read more about customer servitization in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/servitization
• Find out more about IFS here.
• Find out more about IDC here. 

Monitoring the driving behaviour of your fleet can have tangible positives for KPIs but negative affects culturally. Mark Glover spoke to Alistair Dobson from Whirpool about his approach to integrating a positive safety culture.

When engineers carry out on-site maintenance there is always an element of risk. I've written many times on the dangers of lone workers, which field service engineers essentially are. However, there is another high-risk environment that engineers often operate in, and that's even before they've got to the job itself.

Driving is a Central part of the Field Service Industry

Driving is an important metric of a technician's day-to-day. Time wasted while travelling either from heavy traffic or an poor route-planning can have a detrimental affect on that day's output. Fortunately, route-planning software and telematics solutions can assist in the latter, but the fact remains the roads will always be a risky environment.

In the UK, more people are killed or injured in at-work road accidents than in all other workplace accidents put together. It is estimated that around 200 road deaths and serious injuries involve someone driving whilst at work and around a third of all crashes are estimated to involve someone who was at work at the time. This means that up to 1,000 lives are lost in the UK each year through driving for work-based practices.

In the US, the figures are obviously higher. Motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) are consistently the leading cause of work-related fatalities in the U.S. A total of 8,173 workers died in work-related MVCs on public highways from 2003 to 2008, representing 24% of all work-related fatalities for the period.

We're tracking them so we had to very quickly move away from the fact that we're not tracking you. This is a health and safety initiative, this is about keeping you safe.

"Driving is 30 per cent, give or take, on average of an engineer's day of what we do," said Alistair Dobson, speaking at a recent Field Service News Think Tank session. Whirlpool's Service Operations Director explained that his fleet typically travel very short distances between customers in a designated local area, a routine common for the majority of service engineers where time is spent more on residential streets rather than high-speed motorways or roadways.

Alistair and his team took the decision to integrate telematics into their fleet strategy six years ago. It was a decision met with some resistance. "We invested in telematics which was a huge step and one viewed negatively viewed by the engineers," he recalls. "We're tracking them so we had to very quickly move away from the fact that we're not tracking you. This is a health and safety initiative, this is about keeping you safe."

Outlining the Benefits to Your Field Service Engineers

The moral and ethical questions around tracking technology are part of its implementation however, framing the technology as a safety initiative, one that is in place to protect drivers rather than a spy on them. This approach can help sell the technology to cynical engineers.

"It goes back to trust," Alistair continues, explaining how fragile the relationship between engineer and manager can be. "I'm not putting these cameras on your vans to watch and monitor you. I'm doing it to help keep you safe.

"Because if you're talking about culture and trust and you do things that destroy that trust, like, 'I'm going to be watching you every single day and I'm going to have someone in an office watching you on a screen,' then you quickly erode that trust."

One element of manifesting trust, Alistair explains, was being transparent with his own driving habits. He had the technology fitted to his own car and shared his own scores in a weekly email to the workforce.

"If I'm asking my engineers to do something why should I not be prepared to do it myself? What have I got to hide?"

Engineers were encouraged to 'Challenge Alistair', to try and beat his own table-leading metrics from driving safely. A combination of friendly competition and setting a tangible example helped cement the trust further. "I was driving very slowly because I've got an example to set. Leading by example becomes a key thing. If I'm going to ask the engineers to have it fitted then I should also have it fitted. If I'm asking my engineers to do something why should I not be prepared to do it myself? What have I got to hide?

"We're running a very consistent programme and we haven't changed it after six years. The methodology hasn't changed, we still need to go out and repair things in an economical way."

As we look into the next 12 months, one that is inevitably going to be affected by Covid-19 then communication between management and team will become more important.

Fleet management and the deployment of drivers as the lockdown lifts stringent will require a new approach in bringing the system back up to speed and engineers will be expecting clear, concise and controlled instruction.

It may require another shift in culture, another period of operating slightly differently to what's gone before yet what's important is consistency.

"And it's that consistency that creates that culture," Alistair explains. "So, when you talk about culture change, if you can gain that respect it means I can do something from my level down which drives the culture and behaviour."

We're operating in a Covid-19 affected world right not and it's a challenging time for everyone that offers little certainty. When I write next year's article for the Handy Little Book, I look forward to speaking to Alistair again to see how he drove that culture change in fleet management in such difficult times and ultimately thrived.

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Further Reading: 

• Read the full Field Service News Think Tank Executive Briefing on Health and Safety on the link below

• Read More articles from the Field Service News Think Tanks @ thinktanks.fieldservicenews.com
• Read more about Driver Behaviour @ www.fieldservicenews.com/DriverBehaviour
• Read More about Fleet Technology @ www.fieldservicenews.com/fleet-technology
• Read More articles from Mark Glover @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/mark-glover
• Read more about Whirlpool on their blog @ www.whirlpoolcorp.com/latest-news/
• Connect with Alistair Dobson on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/alistair-dobson-25128826/

As the service sector looks to reduce site visits in line with current social distancing measures Aquant suggests a solution to maintaining continuity during the pandemic lies in (Artificial Intelligence) AI, remote technology and better data collection.

The service industry does what it does best when in the field, repairing or maintaining equipment. But the medical community is urging us to #StayHome while we fight the pandemic. Service pros can’t unilaterally stay home, but there are ways to reduce the number of site visits needed, while still solving customer issues. And even as the pandemic declines, we are likely to see some social distancing remain, and a rollout of more rigorous health and safety policies that slow a full return to business as usual.

 

THE BEST WAY TO MANAGE fIELD SERVICE CONTINUITY

Service leaders are accelerating longer-term transformation plans that include self-service solutions, AI tools, more remote diagnostics, better data collection for predictive maintenance, and other changes that limit the number of visits technicians must make to work sites. While some solutions can be deployed more quickly than others, there are ways for service organizations of all sizes to immediately resolve issues faster.

 

Problem Solving & Planning With AI

 

1. Increase First Contact Resolution

Resolve less complex issues on the first call. Al tools can enable customer support agents to triage problems during initial contact. To do so, empower agents with the assistance of a robust triage tool that understands every customer and their equipment, and is able to make intelligent service recommendations.

That smart system gives your customer support team the ability to walk through dynamically generated, intelligent checklists with customers. Unlike decision trees, these checklists are created by using smart algorithms that are validated and improved by expert employees and continue to learn and evolve over time.

The more information the agent can prompt the customer to provide, the more accurate the suggested solutions, and the shorter the job duration. For example, the more time spent on remote triage upfront, the better prepared a technician will be on arrival — bringing the appropriate parts or tools. In addition, it provides opportunities for customers to undertake simple solutions themselves when possible.

2. Offer Self-Service Solutions

In addition to providing customer-facing agents access to a diagnostic solution, consider adding a self-service tool to your website for customers to access directly. Direct customers to use the resource to diagnose, and in some cases resolve, simple issues remotely without the need to dispatch a field technician. The most important aspect is that self-service tools are intuitive and:

• Includes an easy-to-use UI
• Asks questions in plainly worded language
• Can understand customer intent regardless of word choice they use to describe a problem
• Recommends the most likely fix that’s possible to achieve remotely.

The addition of self-service tools will immediately mitigate some of the travel problems associated with COVID-19, while also laying the foundation for a longer-term strategy that reduces the burden on an over-scheduled workforce.

3. Use the Right Parts the First Time

Most service organizations face two big parts problems:

The first is a lack of parts or rather a lack of the right parts. If a technician goes into a job without enough context about the issue or is a more junior member of the workforce, there’s a good chance the first visit will simply be a diagnostic one, and then they’ll need to return at a later date with the correct part or parts to complete the job. No technician wants to make multiple visits right now.

The second problem is often harder to detect. That’s the challenge that goes by many names including shotgunning, swap ‘til you drop, or troubleshooting with parts. It’s far more costly when field technicians cycle through more parts than required for a job. It’s also a drain on resources when inexperienced technicians, without the right guidance, struggle by swapping out parts until the issue is resolved. Instead of trial and error, choose AI tools that tap into organizational data, analyze that data, and provide techs on-site with the most efficient path to resolution — decreasing the time it takes to complete a job while also lowering service costs.

4. Analyze Hidden Data to Transition to a More Predictive Service Model

We’ve talked to service leaders across the country, and a common thread is that they are preparing for the post-pandemic, new normal. Future-looking service organizations are driving towards more planned and predictive models which will allow for more strategic workforce planning, fewer site visits, and more steady streams of revenue. And they know that to get there, they need better ways to wrangle historical data along with the ability to monitor and react to IoT and machine outputs effectively.

Start Planning for the Future What’s next for your service organization? Learn how AI-powered Intelligent Triage reduces repeat visits, increases first contact resolution, and creates a better customer experience.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about remote technology in service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/remote
• Read the latest news about Covid-19 and service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/covid
• To find out more about Aquant click here.

Dr Shaun West of Luzern University offers us some insight into the barriers to digital transformation - one of the biggest areas of focus within the field service sector globally...

 

I believe digital transformation is difficult for manufacturers to design and develop, before considering its execution or delivery. I will draw from published materials, an unpublished survey and study, and personal experience to help understand the challenges we face, and suggest realistic actions firms can use to help them overcome the barriers and develop new value positions and solutions.

The motivation for our research came from a Swiss study that identified the drivers, barriers and risks for digital transformation (Figure 1 below).

 

 

The Need for Digital Transformation:

Why do we need to make this transition? Within a Swiss context, a recent survey by Swissmem confirmed the importance of the development of new digital solutions. The Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation report “Research and Innovation in Switzerland 2020” expanded further: they anticipate “that future revenue models for these new digitally enabled solutions will be mainly driven by data and platform exchanges and will become output focused (e.g., pay-per use)”. It is clear that even in an economy focused on manufacturing there is an ongoing shift from a goods-dominated world to a services-dominated world.

Reading the newspapers, it would appear that digital transformation is all about technology and within ten years we will all be out of jobs as robots and AI will have taken over. Read beyond the hype, and it becomes clear that the development of new digital solutions within a product service system environment is as much about organization change as technology.

"Digital transformation has a wider impact than most companies see, and this creates barriers within firms..."

Much of the new technology will allow us to redesign our current work and the way in which we deliver it. Netflix evolved from a DVD subscription model based on postal services to an internet-based model. As Netflix evolved, they removed the physical material from their system, improved the efficiency of the service delivered, and increased the value in their offer (anyone who watched UK television in the 1970s would be amazed by Netflix today).

Digital transformation has a wider impact than most companies see, and this creates barriers within firms. Digital has a clear impact on production (e.g., MES, ERP), IT (e.g., cloud services) and marketing (e.g., big data behaviour insights), but it has a hidden impact on other parts of the business, often in unexpected ways (e.g., your customers have more information on status than your service personnel). Perhaps a better way to view digital’s potential impact is to consider the technology, people and processes involved. Think how we moved to faxes, then email, then to WhatsApp, now to Zoom and workflows; we have absorbed each new technology and changed processes and our behaviours, as Table 1 shows.

 

 

Examples of the digital transition:

Before examining our survey in detail, it is useful to consider some cases. Table 2 gives insights into a range of firms and the barriers they encountered: Piaggio is undergoing a servitization journey with a product-centric mindset; Kone have wide range of technologies within their installed base; FAVI’s workforce resisted empowerment; Unilever built their own data-lake with a massive amount of data; Mass Mutual moved to real-time fraud detection; Domino’s integrated production technologies into a manual process; Cannon faced challenges connecting machines; Allianz moved from operational silos to a process driven business. No firm is alone in the digital transition, many face similar challenges, and all firms should look to others for lessons.

 

 

Survey and interview insights

We conducted a survey with 124 respondents from different-sized firms, the majority (+90%) of which were industrial. Most information was provided by middle management, with over 2/3 of the respondents being from the firms’ headquarters.

When we asked what was driving digitization in each company, we discovered firms wanted to improve internal process efficiency, develop new customer value propositions and use both to deliver new business models. Some companies expressed concerns with hiring Gen-Y or millennial staff, as they felt they were “somewhat old-fashioned and not an attractive employer” but they confirmed they needed Millennials. We were concerned that many firms were only interested in internal efficiency improvements, rather than wishing to build new digitally-enabled value propositions.

The barriers firms were facing were based around weak/no vision from the leadership, existing/legacy IT, the lack of skilled talent, and general resistance to change. Lack of vision from leadership was considered a major barrier, the interviews showed flip/flopping with direction and application of digital was an issue.

"The lack of skilled talent matches with the lack of leadership vision: how can you hire the right people when you have no clear vision?"

I have some sympathy for this as it’s hard for a second-tier manufacturer to be able to create a clear and viable strategy and vision when it comes to digital – just look at the challenge VW Group are facing today with this. Existing IT systems were considered next most important, as in the new world IT skills become core to value creation and capture, rather than just being a business cost. The lack of skilled talent matches with the lack of leadership vision: how can you hire the right people when you have no clear vision? Resistance to change and an organization’s silo mentality cannot be broken without clear leadership.

Respondents strongly agreed that business development should lead the digital transformation, as it’s not a technology development program but rather a business and cultural change program that has impacts across the business. Treating it as an IT project means it will fail; treating it as a technology play means it will fail. Treating digital transformation as a change management program (that is even more transformational internally and externally than Lean) means it may well succeed.

The respondents confirmed that digital will impact on all areas of the business, however service was considered to be the area most affected. Most thought the firm’s internal infrastructure would be impacted, and this is one of the most visible aspects of the transformation– in effect the whole business will change.

Over 330 individual comments were left by the respondents, demonstrating how important this topic is to the community. Analysis showed that ‘people aspects’ were more commonly mentioned (80%) as barriers to a successful digital transformation:

• Strategy: lack of vision & mission from the leadership, transformation roadmap.
• Leadership: resources, sponsorship and management conception, and fear of losing power
• Culture: customer centricity, openness and willingness to change, silo management, hierarchy vs network.
• People: capabilities, expertise, roles, adaptability.
• Governance: communication and collaboration, KPIs, alignment.
• Middle management: as a key role between leadership and workforce.
• The workforce: knows that they need to update, but Leadership does not understand where to start.
• Education: is key for long-term sustainable implementation.
• Digital transformation never starts at C-Level: provide evidence that it can be profitable
• Build teams – members must have digital skills, flexibility (intellectual) and the capability to do abstract work.

Technology must always be applied in tandem with effective, well-designed processes. These converge into a “single system” where data is shared, processed, and integrated across the organization. Technology and process barriers (20%) were based around:

• Automation and connectivity (ICT infrastructure, cyber-physical products).
• Intelligence (processing and analyzing data).
• Operations, supply chain, product lifecycle (channel and business practices/processes, agility, Integration and data exchange).
• Select a technology that fits with your value chain.
• No technologies are perfect.
• Missing customer voice: Involvement of customers in product development.

When it comes to implantation in the business, we found that:

• Legacy systems are a barrier: How to digitalize all company levels? Not only buy technology but adapt products and processes accordingly.
• DT costs money and time.
• New jobs/ functions as a DT consequence.
• Start small, and if it works, go ahead; if not, change strategy.

Companies must adapt their organizational structures and processes to allow their workforce to drive and deliver Industry 4.0 initiatives. This must be done within a clear vision set out by the leadership. Some new ways of working will fail, and some will be successful. The lessons learned need to be openly shared within the firm. Companies should encourage cross functional and cross business collaborations on smaller projects rather than large formal “IT” projects which generally lack long-term business impact. The overview of the transformation should be led by business development and be close to, but separate from, the operational business.

Teams need to try out new technologies, such as cloud computing and machine learning. Assets and equipment need to be integrated with the enterprise system, to monitor and analyze the performance on both a technical and an operational base. As processes within production, services, sales, supply chain and the product lifecycle become integrated, they will converge allowing data to be shared, processed, and integrated across the business. Figure 2 (below) provides graphically the complex environment in which we live and the considerations we have to take when designing Smart digitally-enabled services.

 

 

How can you help your firm overcome barriers preventing digitalization?

Knowing where to start isn’t easy, however the survey sheds some light on the barriers preventing or slowing digitization. Our view of the future is shown in figure 3 (below)and knowing where you and your firm sits within this ecosystem is the key. Three ways you could help your firm, based on our insights from the study:

1. Develop a digital strategy, vision and road map for your team or business and communicate it clearly inside and outside the team. Ask at every team meeting how digital will impact and change the business and discuss opportunities and risks.
2. Use small mixed teams to develop digital solutions with impact within the firm. Learn from these teams what works and what doesn’t in your business environment.
3. Share your digital lessons learnt from the projects within the firm, with your customers and your suppliers. Work with suppliers to improve operational efficiency: work with customers to develop, prototype and test new digitally-enabled solutions and value propositions.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts for providing the funding for the study as well as my colleagues (Günter Zepf, Ute Klotz, Barbara Kummler, Pilar Gil Fombella and Paolo Gaiardelli).

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Further Reading:

• Read more about digital transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital_transformation
• Read more articles from Dr West @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/shaun-west
• Read more articles from academia @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/academic
• Connect With Dr West on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunwest

Martin Summerhayes offers a take on the five P's business acronym that could help service directors when they switch their infrastructure back on.

Before you jump to a different conclusion, the five P’s in the title is not the normal phrase that many of you know (poor planning, promotes poor performance!).

As we are all living, and possibly working, in the current restrictions, it seems strange to be thinking of what comes as we start to transition out of these times: locked down, social distancing, restricted movement and travel, etc. Discussing with colleagues and organisations, many are focused on the immediate business needs; furloughing staff; pairing back on the services that are delivered; are just a couple of activities they are focused on. So why think about when we start to exit?

Field Service Management operating in lockdown

Well, to think of exit, we need to consider how we entered the situation. The UK was put into lockdown on Monday 23rd March in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus (Lockdowns and restrictions were also applied across Europe and the rest of the world. If your service business relies on global networks, then this is even more of a complex situation). During the lead up to that day, many companies, organisations, and services had carried on much as normal. Shops; retail outlets; restaurants; public houses; garden centres; sports facilities; the list could go on and on; but most were trading and operating as normal. Almost overnight, the restrictions meant that many places had to close with immediate effect.

Here comes some (but by no means all) of the potential issues. For ease, I have broken them down into three categories.

Product Issues

Having worked in IT Services for many years and been involved in the support of both new, as well as legacy solutions, two big issues with regard to the products spring to mind.

The first is, for many of the organisations that were shut down, how was their IT systems shut down? I would imagine that most, if not all, was shut down as the there were no timescales provided for the lockdown. Were these servers, storage, network devices, etc, shut down properly or were they just turned off? The implications for Windows and Unix environments when not shut down properly, can often mean that you can end up with problems when you try to reboot them (corrupt databases, applications and operating systems spring to mind). In addition, prior to being shut down, did they take a full backup, rather than an incremental one? I have seen situations where restoring incremental backups was a complete nightmare, as the backups were not all stored.

Secondly, as many of us know, when you have a legacy product – say a server – over time the component boards become brittle. The solder joints and the multi-layer component boards get impacted by the constant heat. I have often seen that when an IT product is turned off – either in a planned or unplanned manner – quite often, it fails to start back up. The component boards break down and the solder joints fail.

Repair & Logistic Issues

For many IT service organisations; and I would imagine it is similar in other technology service markets; there is a finite spare, and repair loop. One of the biggest costs of after-sales service, is the provision of spare parts available to service the needs of customers. Both in terms of “good” spares, those spares that are ready to be used to resolve issues, as well as “bad” spares, that have been swapped out of a product to resolve the issue.

"The level of service requests has dropped dramatically as the market sectors, organisations and clients that are served are closed..."

This repair & logistics loop is an almost infinitive loop. Optimising this loop means only having the minimum stock of spares to meet the repair and logistics loop UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES (I have used CAPITALS as this is important!). This normal logistics and repair loop can be between fifteen to twenty days on average. The lockdown has effectively frozen this loop. Where are your spares? In the repair loop at a depot waiting to be shipped back to a repairer? At a repairer awaiting repair? Or at a repairer, repaired, waiting to be shipped back as “good” stock into your stock loop? You might even have been in the process of servicing requests, in which case the spares were in forward stocking locations awaiting call off against new service requests?

Service Staff Issues

For many organisations, the level of service requests has dropped dramatically as the market sectors, organisations and clients that are served are closed. This means that many service technicians, technical couriers and service engineers have been furloughed; retaining the staff, but at the same time, reducing the staff cost overheads verses the services revenues received from clients.

This is where the first set of P’s comes in. “Precise Planning Pre-empts”.

We are going to come out of this at some point. However, it is not going to be a mass switch on of services; mass opening of markets and outlets. Think of a giant “Turn On” switch being pulled. Rather, it is going to be phased approach, something that the UK government is still defining. Every indication is that it will be a phased relaxation of restrictions across industries, sectors and services (I imagine that this is similar across different countries and governments as well).

If you take into account the issues above and the likelihood of the impact of IT failures, the level of service requests and the ability to be able to meet those requests when the services reopen is going to be a huge challenge. I can easily see an increase of service failures of more than 20% increase of normal failure volumes.

This is where elements of “scenario planning” and an element of “game theory” comes into their own. The “Precise Planning” element. You can take a set of scenarios to then precisely plan the impacts. This evolves around asking a series of open ended questions and describing in detail the responses and impacts.

For example: One of your customers that has a mixed legacy IT estate that is distributed across a number of outlets around the country.

• Do you know what is the makeup of the IT products across the customers estate? By outlet? By size of outlet? By type of outlet?
• As it is a mixed legacy estate, do you have failure rates by product for both new, as well as legacy products? Do you have data based on previous peeks of service (say Christmas, holiday peeks, etc)? Or have you had service outages in the past (say due to a power failure) and have details of the resultant failure rate of the products?

"Have you spoken to your customer and asked them what their expectations are?..."

• Have you engaged your most senior support and service engineers to review the estate, failure rates and the likely impact of “turn off v’s shut down” and provided their best judgement of the impacts? Their knowledge and insight are crucial.
• Did the customer instruct its outlet staff to correctly shut down the IT estate, or were they told to just “turn it off”? What is the impact of doing this? Do the support engineers believe that there will be a need to rebuild or restore servers? Replace hard disks that crashed and were destroyed? Do the field engineers have the ability to restore backups? Reinstall applications, databases and operating systems? Or can this be done remotely? If remotely, is there sufficient staff to do this?
• If the customer is allowed to open, will they want to open all of the outlets in one go? Will they phase this? Are there more significant outlets that they will want to open first? Which are the most important? The biggest? The most revenue generator?
• Have you spoken with your customer and asked them what their expectations are?
• Where is the current spares stock? At repairers? In transit? Lost? Based on collating details by product and part, from the questions above, can you proximate the level of stock that you are going to need? This is going to have to be a “rough order of magnitude” as this situation has never occurred before. Will you need to supplement spares stock? How? Do you have whole units in storage that you could break down? Do you have technical support stock that you could use? Does the customer have spare stock?
• From a field service engineer perspective, have you got the skills and technical knowledge to be able to deal with the surge in volume? How can you help the engineers be able to deal with the volume of service requests? Will you have to have extended service hours? Weekend working?
• From a health & safety perspective, it could be that social distancing is still going to be in force. How will the field engineers deal with this? What level of PPE will they need to have to be able to visit the outlet? Will they be mandated to wear masks and gloves? Will they be asked to sanitise their equipment and the outside of the spares boxes? How will you get the PPE to the engineers? Will they be expected to replace / renew PPE at each customer site or only at different customers? Who will purchase the ongoing PPE that the engineers will need? You? Will they be expected to purchase it themselves?
• Note: this list is not exhaustive.

The final part of the 5 P’s is, “Proactive Performance”? Have you captured all of the impacts, potential outcomes and put it into a plan? A resource profile? A spares planning spreadsheet? Have you shared this across your organisation teams? With the customer?

Then multiple scenario this by the many customers you serve and you can see why acting on these scenarios now will support, Proactive Performance. You will need to explore at least 5 different customers and scenarios to start to see a trend and start to see the common elements that you need to work on now.

How many service organisations are taking the time to theorise and plan along these lines during this time? Are you living the scenarios now? Are you planning along these lines? Please do share how you are planning for the future. The service community is living in completely unknown times and it is only through being open and sharing experiences, successes, as well as failures, that we can be successful.

The following quote made me smile:

“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.” ― Claire Cook, writer and motivational speaker

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Further Reading: 

• Read more from Martin Summerhayes @ www.fieldservicenews.com/martinsummerhayes
• Read more Covid-19 related content @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/covid19
• Follow Martin Summerhayes on LinkedIn here.

Service is now moving from 'reaction' to consolidation; where the global lockdown is loosening, and service is turning back on having been left dormant. How should we approach this new phase?

 

 

In the latest Field Service Podcast, Deputy Editor Mark Glover is joined by Martin Summerhayes who gives new insight into what the sector should be considering as we emerge, blinking slightly, into a new service world. In this excerpt from that podcast Summerhayes explains why precise planning pre-empt proactive performance... 

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Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

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Planning for Fully Reopening the Field Service Sector

"We are going to come out of this at some point," Martin says. "However, it is not going to be a mass switch on of services; mass opening of markets and outlets - think of a giant “Turn On” switch being pulled - rather, it is going to be phased approach."

In this episode and off the back of a recent article exclusively for Field Service News, Martin takes the ubiquitous 'Five Ps' business acronym - Poor Planning Promotes Poor Performance - and swaps in new first, third and fourth words:  Precise Planning Pre-empts Pro-active Performance is a possible blueprint for service directors who might be daunted or overwhelmed when sizing up a re-start.

"Take a set of scenarios to then precisely plan the impacts," Martin says, unpacking the first part of the acronym. "This evolves around asking a series of open ended questions and describing in detail the responses and impacts. This is where elements of “scenario planning” and an element of “game theory” comes into their own. 

Martin backs the theory with an example: a mixed legacy IT estate distributed across a number of outlets. Here he applies open-ended questions on health and safety, customer expectations and spare parts to garner these responses and impacts.

Proactive performance is approached with questions also but the aim is to spot patterns: "Have you captured all of the impacts, potential outcomes and put it into a plan? A resource profile? A spares planning spreadsheet? Have you shared this across your organisation teams?" he says. "You will need to explore at least five different customers and scenarios to start to see a trend and start to see the common elements that you need to work."

At the moment our feeds and inboxes are being bombarded with webinars, articles and other podcasts taking a long view approach to service's current challenge. Here, Martin suggests stepping back and concentrating on the now might be the way forward. 

However, he acknowledges this approach might not be the best way and he is keen to hear your feedback and to be challenged on his theory. So please let us know your thoughts.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more from Martin Summerhayes @ www.fieldservicenews.com/martinsummerhayes
• Read more Covid-19 related content @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/covid19
• Follow Martin Summerhayes on LinkedIn here.

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Want to know more? Check out the this full episode of the Field Service Podcast as well as all of our previous episodes in the podcast section of our Premium Content Library by clicking here

How you define success when it comes to your managed print services (MPS) program will vary depending on your strategic plan and your overall objectives. Here, Laryssa Alexander, president field service division, ECI Solutions, runs through the must-track KPIs and how they should be used.

For any business, an increase in revenue and a growing workforce or operation, are all key indicators of success. But how do you measure how you got there, what did you do right and of course what can you improve going forward to gain a better outcome and move the bar higher?

Success in Field Service Management

How you define success when it comes to your managed print services (MPS) program will vary depending on your strategic plan and the overall objectives of your business. The metrics you track and measure to indicate your success, will also differ based on your business priorities.

Having clear key performance indicators (KPIs) set right across your team, from your helpdesk and customer support, to financial sales and marketing, gives you a benchmark to hit. Even if KPIs are just words and numbers on paper, in reality they offer data-driven insights about the day-to-day operation of your business. This can make planning more effective and help you create a well-defined strategy that helps your business grow.

So where do you start when thinking about what KPIs to set your business? Here are five KPIs you should be tracking to measure success.

Machines in field (MIF)

For any field service business, having a fix on the number of devices you’re monitoring is integral to your operation - and there are a number of ways to track them.

For an overview of your print program, you can track how many devices you are monitoring across all customers. If you want to know how many print devices you are monitoring on a customer level, you can find out the average MIF per customer. You can even take it a step further and look at what percentage of customer’s total devices you have under contract. Every layer adds extra detail and with having access to this level of data, it can help you to determine your marketing, sales and other business processes.

Delving into your MIF data will give you an insight into your customer habits and show you where you can grow. Are your customers using your devices more often, is there room to upsell or should you be focusing on acquiring new business? By tracking device data you are able to show the real time usability of your devices.

Early Toner Cartridge Replacements

For any business, cutting costs, while increasing revenue is a win win. So your customers are always looking at ways they can streamline any business expense. Your MPS business can help them do just that. You can save them up to 30 percent on print-related expenses, making it an ideal solution for customers looking to reduce spend.

One of the metrics you can measure to increase your customers’ profitability are toner levels. Many businesses will often order new toner cartridges when they think they’re low, wasting ink that's left in their current cartridge.

"SaaS solutions are typically more scalable and affordable than their enterprise counterparts because they are subscription-based..."

Regularly tracking and mitigating early toner cartridge replacements for your customers can help reduce unnecessary shipping and distribution costs, increase revenue yield on pages printed, and save your customers money on supplies.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

As more and more data moves to the cloud, businesses are adding software-as-a-service (SaaS) options to their offerings to provide customers with greater flexibility. SaaS solutions are typically more scalable and affordable than their enterprise counterparts because they are subscription-based.

Many MPS businesses offer both. SaaS services arm providers with the ability to forecast revenue on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. MRR is the focal point of a SaaS business model and a key KPI that you can monitor to identify growth opportunities. This helps your finance team to create more accurate forecasts and budgets for the next fiscal year. 

Support Ticket Close Rate

Once you have built a quality product or solution, the next step is to support your customers when they begin using it. It is a standard practice to have customers sign a service level agreement so both the provider and the user are aware of their roles and responsibilities, and these expectations are clearly communicated. A good measure of how successful your team is executing your service level agreement is your support ticket close rate.

How many tickets are you closing on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis? This metric will help you determine how responsive your technical support team is, address any internal process or communication issues, and help you craft SLAs that better reflect your business capabilities. Another KPI to keep in mind if your offering is service-orientated is your resolution time. Like your ticket close rate, this will tell you how effective your support team is at responding to and resolving customer challenges.

Customer Satisfaction

Regardless of what industry you work in, customer satisfaction is a good benchmark to use when trying to gauge your success. It’s a truth universally acknowledged in the world of business that a happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer and to recommend your products and services to others.

Regularly conducting customer satisfaction surveys provides you with valuable insights into what customers think of your business, your team, and your product or service. If done correctly, you can also data mine customer satisfaction surveys for ideas on your product roadmap, the features and functionality of your offerings, and potential competitive advantages. If you listen to your customers and take their feedback under consideration, you are more likely to drive future customer satisfaction and, in turn, future growth.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about MPS in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/mps
• REad more about KPI strategies in service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=KPIs
• Follow Laryssa Alexander on LinkedIn here. 
• Find out more about ECI here. 

In this final video in our series looking at the grown-up gig economy and field service, we discuss the importance of customer perception when utilising gig workers as field service technicians...

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Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now! 

 

 

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How to Protect the Brand Reputation of Your Field Service Operation, While Harnessing the Gig Economy

An important question remains when it comes to the gig economy. What about the perception of the gig worker in the eyes of the consumer – in an era when the service call plays a significant part of a company’s reputation and brand is it wise to hand that responsibility to someone who is not part of your corporate family?

There is a certain amount of trepidation amongst some companies around this approach for exactly this question. However, ultimately if the engineer is on an emergency break-fix call and gets the customer back up and running, realistically will they really care whether the engineer is a direct employee or a gig worker? Probably not.

Similarly, if the engineer is performing fairly routine preventative maintenance, then will it really matter if the engineer is gig worker or employed? Again in reality, the customer is unlikely to have too much of a concern. However, there is a potential negative impact to a brand if it becomes apparent that the company is sending out what could be viewed as cheaper, less qualified labour to maintain their customers assets.

There are a number of ways in which this could be overcome, however. 

 

Employ in the Gig Economy Like You Would for your Own Team. Hire Excellence.

One suggestion could be leveraging the natural gravitas and authority that more experienced engineers are able to bring to the table.

Of course, we are not suggesting that an organisation employ based on an age criterion here (that would be unfair, illegal and limit your potential reach into the gig economy market).

However, it could be wise to set a slightly higher experience requirement level for your jobs than is actually needed. This would have the benefit ensuring that each of your gig workers is overqualified for the work they are going to undertake on your behalf.

This may approach may be a bit more expensive than the regular approach to harnessing the gig economy, but it is still cheaper than it would be to develop and retain your own workforce, and you would be likely to see high level first-time-fix rates which not is not only good for your own P&L negating any additional expense, but perhaps more importantly would allow to maintain a strong brand reputation for your service operation whilst leveraging the gig economy.

This is however, just one potential suggestion, but there is one thing which is a simple necessity required in order to make sure you are able to successfully leverage the gig economy, whilst retaining the trust and loyalty of your customers. That is to present a consistent and unified look across all your communications with your customers regardless of whether they are internal workers or gig economy.

 

Embrace the Technology That Empowers Your Organisation and Delight Your Customers

It is essential that from your customers’ perspective that they still have clear visibility and a route of communication that is seamless.

This is where technology such as Localz can play a major role in facilitating field service organisations to truly harness the power of the gig worker market. 

In fact, moving towards an on-demand service model doesn’t have to be a huge operational or organisational change.

By using the power of location technology, such as that which the Localz solution has been designed to maximize, you can “offer” jobs to available engineers in the area with the right skill set, delivering a flexible schedule for employees and a seamless on demand experience for consumers, who are demanding more services which work around them.

 

Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now! 

 

 

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The world that we entered into at the start of 2020 is a very different one to the one we inhabit today. The Covid-19 novel coronavirus pandemic that brought national borders crashing down as we entered into a global lockdown has seen to that. Michael Blumberg assesses the situation outlines the challenges ahead and explains why he believes there is still a light at the end of the tunnel...

When I initially accepted the request to submit an article for The Handy Little Book for Field Service Managers, I did not anticipate that we'd be in this precarious situation. The topic that I intended to write about no longer seems relevant as we face growing uncertainty over public health and the future of the world's economies. Yet, the wheels of commerce continue to churn, and field service organizations continue to operate.

So, what can the service industry expect int the next 12 months? When faced with uncertainty, we can look to the past for insights and perspective of what we might be able to expect in the immediate future. If we consider this in terms of quarterly action plans, we will manage the next 12 months effectively

 

How Field Service Companies Can Manage the Pandemic

Over the next quarter, the service industry will need to do everything it can to move past this current crisis. While we might have the knee jerk reaction to throw our hands up in the air and proclaim, "we've never seen anything like this before," the truth is we have the means and ability to respond.

It is highly likely that segments of the economy, those businesses that are deemed essential, will continue to operate at full capacity and require high levels of service availability. In contrast, others will have decreased demand as they scale back operations to comply with shelter in place and lockdown orders. Field service organisations will need to be agile and flexible when it comes to resource and staff planning. If dealing with a large number of employees on sick leave, field service organisations can turn to subcontractors and contingent labor provides to augment staff.

To respond to social distancing and self-quarantine issues, field service organisations must ensure they have secure and reliable cloud-based systems in place to facilitate telecommuting. Field labor may be scarce due to illnesses, so field service organisations must ensure that have technicians who are working can easily find the parts and knowledge they need to resolve services right the first-time fix. There's no room for repeat visits.

"Field service organisations will need to have implemented the right technology and processes to facilitate this model..."

In dealing with social distancing , we may have to alter or modify service delivery. We may need to switch from a field service to Customer Self-Service or Remote Support. Field service organisations will need to have implemented the right technology and processes to facilitate this model. Guided troubleshooting, same day/next day parts delivery, Augmented Reality/Merged Reality, online customer portals, parts catalogs, and knowledge bases are all part of this model.

An essential thing that field service organisations can do is build goodwill and strengthen relationships with their stakeholders. This is required now more than ever. Managers will need to interact with employees who work from home through online communication platforms to ensure high levels of productivity and morale while employees work from home. Some customers may be faced with economic hardships and contemplate canceling their service contracts or placing their renewals on hold. Field service organisations can pre-empt this and build goodwill by offering freemium services and flexible payment terms. Field service organisations can also extend the length of service contracts, or explain to customers the contingency plans that they have put in place will not cause any disruption to their service.

 

A Rocky Road Ahead for Field Service Organisations

Medical experts predict that the spread of the Covid-19 Virus pandemic will begin to peter out and reach containment by the middle of Q3 2020. Even with government bailouts, economists predict that we will likely face a recession, and it could take another six to nine months to recover from it.Field Service Leaders should not be caught off guard. They can dust off their Recession Playbooks from 10 years ago and implement strategies to get through it.

During a recession, companies typically need to find ways to reduce or recover costs and create value. For field service organisations, a large percentage of operating expenses may be tied up in their parts inventory and labor. Field service organisations will need to implement strategies to reduce parts stock and recover the value from excess and obsolete inventory. At the same time, they'll need to implement processes and systems to ensure they have the right parts on hand at the right place when technicians need them to provide high first-time fix rates.

"Field service organisations mustn't abandon their plans when it comes to broader strategic initiatives like Digital Transformation and Servitization..."

Field service organisations will also need to remain flexible when it comes to resource planning and allocation. They may find themselves outsourcing their logistics operations to reduce costs or turning to service provider networks and subcontractors to deliver service. Of course, the field service organisation's service management systems must be able to connect and share data with all stakeholders and participants in their ecosystem.

Field service organisations mustn't abandon their plans when it comes to broader strategic initiatives like Digital Transformation and Servitization.

However, they may need to reprioritise them or reign them in at least temporarily. Instead of implementing multiple initiatives, they will need to focus only on the one that results in the highest return in the shortest amount of time. More then ever before, field service organisations will need to maintain strong rapport with customers and strive to obtain high service contract attachment and renewal rates. To maximize customer lifetime value and generate revenue from a satisfied installed base, field service organisations must rely on warranty and service contract management software solutions and continue to provide excellent service.

 

The Light at the End of the Tunnel for the Field Service Sector

Eventually, we will pull through this crisis and come out of it stronger and more resilient than ever before.  By late Q1 or early Q2, we are likely to observe what economists call "green shoots" as the economy begins to recover. Field Service Leaders mustn't lose sight of the mission and business objectives they established before this current crisis.

field service organisations must continue to manage their business against KPIs and achieve performance targets during the next 12 months if they expect to obtain investment resources to grow the business once the recovery is here quickly.

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Further Reading:

• Read more about how the impact of Covid-19 on field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/covid-19
• Read more of Michael's exclusive features for Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/michael-bluemberg
• Join Michael's professional community @ www.fieldserviceinsights.com
• Follow Michael's work @ m-ize.com

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