ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘features’ CATEGORY

What role can AR play in helping field service companies overcome the ageing workforce crisis they may be facing?

JOHN BISHOP, PRESIDENT, LIBRESTREAM
As the ageing workforce continues to challenge field service operations, the need to transfer and harness the knowledge of these experts is undeniable. With statistics such as 10,000 workers retiring every day in the US market for example, it is clear why this trend is a major driver for AR within field service.

STEPHEN JEFFS-WATTS, PRODUCT MANAGER, SERVICE MANAGEMENT, IFS
The key use-case in this area is the remote expert whose expertise can be leveraged across multiple field technicians to rapidly increase competency in the field.

This is critical in supporting the next wave of service technicians which the industry needs as more experienced technicians leave the workforce.

This use-case also provides a potential way to extend the career of some technicians, re-deploying field-based workers as remote experts whose specific objective is to increase competence and transfer their extensive knowledge, gained through years of in-field experience, to the next generation of technicians.

We see increasing attention for the way to manage and lead organisations and teams and to build confidence to innovate and change in a rapidly changing world. The widespread fear to fail has a paralysing effect which hinders sustainable change, innovation and improvements.

To reduce this fear to fail, the idea has emerged that it is okay to fail:
• We should ‘Fail fast, learn fast’;
• ‘Failure is an option’;
• We should organise ‘Failure celebration nights’.

However, in practice I see many people finding it difficult to really embrace these concepts wholeheartedly. In the end, failure is a failure, it doesn’t feel right and by nature is something you try to avoid. It will not feel okay fail really, whatever we say about failure and how much we celebrate failures.

In some cultures, this is stronger than others. Besides that, most industries and companies experience increasing pressure on performance. So, should we take it easy when performance is behind expectation?

I fully agree with the point that many companies suffer from the paralysing effect of the fear to fail. However, I am afraid we are missing the point and do not get the right balance between accountability on the one hand and confidence to perform, learn, explore and change on the other hand.

Learning From Young Ambitious Athletes
I have the pleasure of being involved in coaching young and ambitious judokas who have a dream of participating at the Olympics some time. My sons are pretty fanatic judokas as well. They train hard - five evenings per week - and play three tournaments per month. Losing a match often happens very intensively: you’re on your own, and within a few minutes or even seconds you are violently thrown on your back – game over! If you’re not the top of the league (yet), you lose most of the matches.

How to stay motivated? How to keep on learning and performing? How to feel proud of what you are doing and accomplishing?
I’d like to share three things around failure and success, which I have seen working very well for these youngsters as well as for the leading and dynamic manufacturers which are ahead of the game during today’s rapid transitions and change.

Focus On The Right Actions To Get Results, Not The Results Themselves
Instead of focussing on winning the match, the most talented athletes focus on their task, doing the right things to have the best chances to win the match. They evaluate how well they performed their task and how they could do better. The end-result (winning or losing the match) is hardly indicative. There are so many other factors which influence the end-result. Their best match could be the one they lost, not the one they won.

In practice, many businesses focus too much on the results alone when managing their teams. Everything is okay as long as the results are okay. However, when they miss a deal, lose a client, or when a new service-product does not sell well, there is a problem
which has to be fixed ‘yesterday’. It doesn’t matter how - only the results count!

On the other hand, successful teams and individuals focus on building strong capabilities and competencies. They feel accountable for execution and results. Whenever either results or execution are below expectations, they review, find the root causes, try other approaches and learn. This will bring the best, sustainable results.
This is success! Not doing this – on the other hand - is the failing. So, failure should not be an option!


                       "Many businesses focus too much on the results alone..."


Articulate The Expected Outcome Of Learning And Experiments
I have seen how much more pleasure, engagement, learning and the results judokas get when they are very targeted in their learning and experiments. The experience the effects on intermediate objectives which are leading indicators for the overall result – winning more matches. For example, they will focus an entire tournament on dominating their opponents, force them to move and then experience how much more they are in control and get more opportunities to make a throw.

Too often, we see teams trying something new without being explicit about the expected effect and about how to ‘measure’ the impact. They tend to relate this impact to the end-result only. This reduces their ability to evaluate and validate their actions properly. They abandon good ideas too quickly because of the lack of performance improvement on the short term and move on to try something else. As a result, they learn slow and sometimes even follow unproductive paths.

However, successful teams articulate the learning objective, the expected impact and outcome of their initiatives and experiments very well. Whether it is about improving performance, finding new ways of working or developing a new service or business model, they have:
• A proper root-cause analysis;
• Clarity on critical assumptions which need to be valid for success;
• Formulated the critical questions;
• Designed their experiments to validate the critical assumptions and answer their key questions;
• Defined how to measure the results and validate their hypothesis.

Our Experiment-Learning-Card can help better articulate your experiments.

As a result, they can truly say that any answer or result is a good one and brings them further. A negative outcome is not a matter of failing at all. However, not following these kind practices is the failing. Failure should not be an option!

Like Edison said: “I did not fail, I only discovery 10.000 ways that don’t work.” Focus on learning from success and progress
Many young athletes with aspirations to get to the top – and ultimately will make it – are the winners at the moment. However, they have a mindset, attitude and practice to have a steep learning curve. That motivates and is the best predictor for good results.

Many of us often forget that we learn more successes and progress towards an aspiration than from failures themselves. Failures can increase a level of threat, stress and adrenaline, which can improve performance in a typical flight-or-fight situation. The effect is often short term and limits openness, creativity and collaboration. Which is not really a good situation for innovation and learning.
Our hormone-systems (dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin and more) are built around feeling rewarded and connected when achieving something (together), making progress and getting closer to the goals and feeling connected with
each other.

Every step we get closer to the desired result will motivate us more to be persistent and find ways to make the next step.

Conclusion
• Learning ≠ Failing and Failing ≠ Learning;
• Focus on actions and tasks for results;
• Focus on building capabilities for results;
• Celebrate progress and (small) successes;
• Specify objectives of learning, experiments and discovery as explicit as possible;
• Use our Experiment-Learning-Card to better articulate your experiments.

Jan van Veen is Founder and Managing Director at moreMomentum.

To paraphrase Peter Drucker, we cannot manage what we do not measure and of course we cannot improve what we cannot manage. So it is handy to have such a highly regarded industry analyst as Bill Pollock, President of Strategies for Growth^SM, on hand to give his expert insight into how field service organisations should measure and improve their service delivery...

Whether your present customer service performance is good, bad, or anything in-between, one thing is certain - it can be made better! Even the best customer service or technical support personnel will admit that they have some shortcomings in certain areas, and that there could, in most cases, be some improvement made. And if you can see it yourself, you can rest assured that your customers see it as well!

Some companies monitor their employees’ performance on an ongoing basis through the use of customer satisfaction surveys and/or field engineer skills assessments and performance evaluations. However, regardless of whether your company conducts these types of studies, it will always be your responsibility to measure your own (and your organisation’s) performance, and determine how you may be able to improve it over time.

There are some specific guidelines that you can follow, and we suggest that you use the following to conduct a self-assessment (or organisation-wide assessment) of your current customer service performance levels:

Select the areas where you believe you can attain the quickest improvement - both on the basis of your own evaluation, as well as through the eyes of your customers. Be aware that you and your customers may not always agree on which areas of your performance need to be fixed first, or which will require the greatest attention. Still, it will be helpful to look
at it from both perspectives as you prepare a “list” of the specific areas that you will need to improve.

Elect to do something about improving the areas you have identified on your list. This is not the time to go into “denial” if either your company’s performance appraisals - or your customers - are telling you otherwise. Remember, there are no “perfect” service technicians out in the marketplace; everybody makes mistakes, everybody has some problems that need to be worked out, and everybody can stand to benefit from some improvement. But, no improvement can ever be made if you do not first identify what it is, and; second, elect to do something about it.

Leave behind any of the old conventions you used in the past if they are no longer applicable. If you have been in your job position long enough, you have probably seen how some of the things that used to work every time only work some of the time today; things that used to work occasionally don’t work at all anymore; and things that only used to work “once in a blue moon”, now, don’t even make sense! For example, in the past, it was easy to tell a customer, “Sorry I didn’t get back to you any sooner - I only just got your message late this afternoon after the close of the business day.” This excuse used to work; however, with voice mails, texts, e-mails, and cell phones, this is no longer an excuse in the customer’s eyes - even when it really is! On the other hand, with new conventions that did not even exist 15 or 20 years (i.e., wireless communications, texts, etc.), you have new opportunities to improve your customer service performance - but, again, only if you use them!

Follow the guidance provided to you by company management, your Human Resources department, and any of the various training programs you have been able to participate in over the course of your career. Listen to constructive criticism from those who are in a position to provide it; and take it to heart when you conduct your own self-assessment. Remember, it will be in the best interests of both the company and its customers for your customer service capabilities to improve. However, it will be difficult to improve your performance entirely in a “vacuum”, and that is why you will need to continually follow the leads that are often provided by these key internal and external influences. Assume that everything you do can be improved. You know it; your management knows it; and your customers know it. This does not necessarily reflect a shortcoming in your performance capabilities; all it means is that whatever you are doing, you can do it better.

Sometimes this requires further education and training; sometimes it requires simply fine-tuning what you have already been doing; and sometimes it simply means doing some things better, faster, or “cleaner”. Albert Einstein always felt that if he were “smarter”, he could have gone well beyond the formulation of his theory of relativity. Nobody believes Einstein was a slacker when it came to physics - he just felt he could do better. And so should you!

Strive to make the necessary adjustments for improving your customer service performance capabilities. Some of these adjustments may be major (i.e., new training, re-training, taking additional courses or classes, etc.); some may be relatively minor (i.e., taking more notes or documenting what you do on a daily basis better, following up by telephone more often than you have historically, etc.); and some may just work themselves out as a result of your ongoing experiences with customers.
But, whatever the case, you need to understand that the way you do things today will not necessarily be the way you do things tomorrow; that some processes will change, and some will be replaced by new processes. With this in mind, you will always need to be aware of the adjustments that will be required, and equally prepared to adapt them into your daily, weekly, and ongoing service performance routines.

Spend some time doing each of these self-assessment tasks. As a general rule of thumb, people won’t tell you that you are doing something wrong until you’ve done it wrong at least two or three times - or more! Sometimes they won’t tell you you’ve been doing something wrong until you’ve done it dozens of times! You cannot always rely on others to tell you when your performance is “off”.
Therefore, by routinely giving yourself (and your organisation) a self-assessment appraisal - nothing too formal; just something that can keep you in check over time - you will not need to depend on others to tell you when you are going wrong, because you will already know it. Just as it is advisable to do prescribed medical self-checks at home so you can diagnose diseases before they can do you great harm, it is just as important to do these customer service-focused self-checks at work before poor performance harms your reputation among your company’s customers.

Ease into a comfortable process that allows you to review, evaluate, reevaluate, and adjust your customer service performance over time, as well as allow you to keep tabs on how well - or not well - you are performing at any given moment.
The reason we emphasise the word “ease” is because if the steps you take to improve your customer service performance are not “easy”, then you are not likely to do them - or at least do them well. Find a process that allows you to monitor your own performance over time, change the way you are doing some things, and introduce new ways of doing things better, thereby allowing you to “play” with the way you conduct your customer service activities until you can find a better way of doing so.

See how well the process works and adjust, re-engineer, or “tweak” it as often as necessary until it virtually runs all by itself. You will find yourself constantly changing things, adding things, or just doing things differently as you learn more and more about what your customers want and expect from you, and the two of you - your customers and yourself - will likely end up working together toward a common goal of improved customer service. From time to time, ask your customers how well you are doing, and where there may be areas that you could be doing better.

Believe me, they will tell you! Also, from time to time, tell your customers what new things you have learned, what customer service training courses you have taken, or what other ways you have learned on how to improve the levels of service and support you are able to provide to them. They will want to know, and these joint interactions may ultimately make it easier for them to see - and acknowledge - how your performance has actually improved over time. The customer service process is an interactive one, and one where you may easily obtain input and feedback from a variety of sources; however, it will be up to you to find them - and use them.

Start the process all over again. And again. And again. In fact, whenever you think that the process is completed, that will probably be a good time to start it all over again.

The self-assessment process, if done properly, will be a continuous one that keeps you (and your organisation) current with your customers’ needs, and provides you with the underlying tools to ensure that you can continually strive to improve the way in which you are able to support your customers.

The good news is that you will never have to do it all alone; your customers will always serve as a source of checks and balances to ensure that you are focusing in the right areas; and your company management will continually be able to provide you with opportunities for improving your own customer service skills - and you should always take advantage of them.

But most importantly, by dealing with your customers’ needs on a daily basis, you will never allow yourself to become “inadequate” - or even just “dusty” - in your ability to support customers, and that is why the self-assessment process you develop will work for you.

By employing the use of these types of self-assessments on an ongoing basis, you will always know where you are meeting your performance targets, where you are not, where you need improvement, and where you have problems. Then, based on the results, it will be up to you and your management team to determine exactly how to fix the things that need to be fixed, and resolve any problems that have been identified.

While attending the Spring Servitization Conference, Mark Glover caught up with Professor Tim Baines (pictured), Director of the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School. Conversation ranged from the discipline’s origins to the impact of Industry 4.0 and why societal shifts in sustainability and service consumption are key factors behind servitization’s next movement...

When I joined Field Service News one word appeared more frequently in my browser and in-box than any others: servitization. Its resonance was affirmed by my Editor Kris Oldland; who, during one of our early induction meetings, explained the pivotal role it plays in modern manufacturing. Three months’ on, I flew to Stockholm, and then took a two-hour car journey to Linkoping where I was to attend a conference dedicated solely to the discipline.

So, it was during a coffee break I sat down with Tim Baines, Professor of Operation Strategy at the Aston Business School and a significant player in servitization’s evolution. I was pleased to have an audience with someone who could shed some light on an area that to a layman (me) can be slightly overwhelming. We both grabbed a coffee and one of the many excellent Swedish pastries on offer before finding a quiet corner to talk.

I started off (perhaps boldly) by explaining my slight surprise that a whole three-day conference on servitization existed; that universities have whole departments dedicated to its research – many of whom were here in Sweden presenting – and that academic papers on the subject are being circulated widely. “Business researchers observe industry,” Tim said, sipping his drink. “They’re looking for phenomena, which they are trying to conceptualize and describe and test their hypothesis and understanding. They ultimately arrive at a clinical description of what that phenomena is.”

The phenomena of servitization emerged from the marketing community in the 1980s, Tim tells me, with its first research work appearing in the European Management Journal. Sandra Vandermerwe and Juan Rada’s paper Servitization of Business: Adding Value by Adding Service was published in 1988 and the former is now credited with introducing the term ‘servitization’ to represent the addition of services to enhance a manufacturer’s commercial offerings.

However, the discipline went into incubation. That was until the 2000s when Tim, along with Andy Neely from Cambridge University and Raj Roy from Cranfield niversity respectively, were awarded a research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to resurrect its study. “We all put a lot of effort into it,” Tim recalls. “If you look at the citations; the academic citations on servitization; look at the highest cited papers on servitization, it was really down to our collective work.”

Thanks in part to the funding, as well as the efforts of Tim and his fellow academics interest in the discipline flourished both academically and in practice. Demand for a specialist, academic event grew and eight years ago the Spring Servitization Conference was born; its eight years testament to its growth and popularity. Its first incarnation was a workshop of sorts laying out the basic principles of what the group wanted to achieve; essentially something that was crossdisciplinary within a tight-knit, specialised community.

Tim explains: “The conference is a platform for people to network, to meet each other, to share those ideas, those insights, and to learn from a few carefully chosen manufacturers how they’re seeing the world. I think what we will see in a few years’ time, we’ll have a stronger group coalescing around the key topics. Ultimately, this is a community which could very well define an
equivalent of Industry 4.0 or Industry 5.0.”


“Don’t be put-off by the word servitization... all manufacturers can gain some value through service...”


Industry 4.0 discussions were a key part of that morning’s presentations. Chairing a debate himself, Tim asked panelists if servitization was part of Industry 4.0 or vice-versa? Away from the conference hall I pushed him on his own thoughts. “Most manufacturing companies,” he said, “would associate Industry 4.0 with what’s going on inside the factory. Servitization invariably is what’s going on beyond the factory gate. In reality servitization predates industry 4.0. It will exist concurrently, and in a few years’ time will be still going on and industry 4.0 will have come and will have gone.”

Aligning with the conference’s theme, Delivering Services Growth in the Digital Era, Tim suggests firms feel more comfortable adopting servitization as digital offered a layer of security. “Digital is de-risking, enabling those more advanced services to be offered with lower risk,” he says. “It’s making it easier for manufacturers to do it.”

The other driver, Tim continued, is a broader societal shift around service consumption superseding product consumption. “If you think about servitization; it’s not a question in my mind whether companies will make more money from services or less money from services – that’s an outdated question, an outdated conversation. It’s really a case in the way that society is going. We are consuming more services where the appetite is for more sophisticated services.” Sustainability, another large societal issue is also being bearing down on the servitization sphere.

Tim is hopeful that servitization - and industry 4.0 - can ultimately negate the environmental impact of material-heavy supply chains. He referenced a presentation that morning from Cranfield University’s Tobias Benjamin Widmer, who talked about the de-materialisation of the chain; reducing the consumption of raw materials while still achieving a desired outcome.

From that, our conversation naturally turned to regulation and the influence of Government on sustainability initiatives. Firm polices around electric cars, for example, would Tim Says, have an impact on the supply chains. “If the incentives are there for electric cars, why would you have a diesel manufacturing plant? If you don’t have a diesel manufacturing plant, then your whole supply chain evaporates.”

“Here’s an interesting one,” he smiles. “The number of rotational components in a diesel engine car: about 1,500. In an electric car: about 22. Now what’s that going to do your material supply chain?”

We finish our drinks, aware of the slow movement of delegates at they file back into the conference room, themselves refreshed by caffeine and pastries. I shake hands with Tim and thank him for his time, and we both agree to keep in touch.

The next day, I send Tim an email asking if he could possibly spare a copy of his book he wrote with Howard Lightfoot, Made to Serve. The book is seen as an excellent primer into servitization, and I said as much Tim in my email; how it could enhance my learning on a topic that I was beginning to find rather intriguing.

The book arrived in my mailbox a few days’ later; a good-looking tome with a striking cover. A contemporary, simple image of three factories, the middle one with a striking red path leaving its front gate; fanning in perspective to the base of the cover. I read the book’s preface: “Don’t be put-off by the strange word of servitization,” part of it said, “all manufacturers can gain some value through service.”

I recalled the interview in Sweden, when Tim told me about the early days of servitization; when people queried the term, wondering how you spell it, asking if they would make money out of these advanced services. “Now, we don’t have these questions anymore,” Tim had said.

What is a relatively young area of research, servitization now seems to be an integral cog of a manufacturer’s approach to revenue. As Tim suggested, technology will evolve and eventually become exctinct (Industry 4.0, for example), but servitization, as a theory and practice, will continue to grow alongside and compliment manufacturing. In short, making money from selling spare parts is no longer the revenue stream it once was.

STEPHEN JEFFS-WATTS, PRODUCT MANAGER, SERVICE MANAGEMENT, IFS
AR is a far broader topic, with wider use-cases and implications than simply being used for video calls and ad-hoc collaboration.

Slick, fast and easy to carry smart devices have undoubtedly enhanced an engineer’s approach to call-outs. Yet, research and guidance into the ergonomic risks remain thin on the ground. Mark Glover investigates whether a revolution in mobility could have a long-term negative impact...

Digital devices have over the years become more portable. For service technicians this improvement in usability has undoubtedly improved the way in which they work. However, the industry’s swift adoption of these devices has perhaps been too rapid, meaning health and safety guidance is yet to catch-up with the potential ergonomic risks that smartphone and tablet use carries.

I’ve written articles in these pages (and in our recent edition of The Handy Little Book) on health and safety, referencing the potential impact on a lone worker’s wellbeing, given that their work is carried out mostly in isolation. However, another area of the broad H&S spectrum that lone workers or field service engineers are vulnerable too is musculo-skeletal dis-orders (MSDs).

Defined by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as “any injury, damage or dis-order of the joints or other tissues in the upper/lower limbs or the back", MSDs, according to a study carried out by HSE for the period 2017/2018, shows 469,000 workers are suffering with cases of work-related MSDs, which includes long and short-term conditions. The knock-on result on productivity is 6.6 million working days lost as a result of the condition, the same research reveals.

The study does not uncover the extent to which lone or mobile workers suffer, although the top three industries where workers are most affected include fishing, forestry, agriculture (grouped together), construction and then transportation and storage (also grouped) will arguably include a section of field-based lone workers. The condition is also common for office-based workers who are vulnerable to neck or back issues, brought on by incorrect posture while using computer equipment at a desk.

It shouldn’t be ignored however, that while field service engineers are desk-free, incorrect ergonomic use of tablets and phones – the tool of the trade for most lone workers – carries its own ergonomic risk.

But with rugged tablet and laptop devices now a ubiquitous part of an engineer’s kit why hasn’t there been more attention on their dangers? It’s useful to look more generally at society’s relationship with smartphones and tablets, which are now commonplace in people’s lives.

It is estimated that five billion people in the world own a mobile device, of which, half of these are smartphones. Indeed, the rate at which we’ve adopted them is staggering which is primarily down to their relative ease of use and in-turn part of the reason why they have found their way into engineers and technicians hands who require rugged devices that perform but also offer a practicality. However, it’s this natural uptake both in public and the workplace that, according to one expert, is enabling risks around their ergonomic use to go unnoticed.

Ed Milnes is Founder and Director of Guildford Ergonomics a consultancy firm in the UK that specialises in ergonomics and human factors in the workplace and has contributed guidance and research into the risks of smartphone and tablet use.
“I think there’s a psychological element to it,” he tells me over Skype. “It’s as if it hasn’t come onto people’s radars because we use these devices so much in our everyday lives anyway. We accept them as something that – because they’re always around – they must be safe that there can’t be any inherent risks with them. When you use them day in and day out, almost every day, it does become more of an issue.”


            "It is estimated that five billion people in the world own a mobile device..."


MSD risks are linked to exposure and how long how and how often is spent on activities. In the case of service engineers this does oscilate in line with the complexity and length of a job but as technology advances – with AR soon to play a major role – then engineers will be looking at their tablets and then moving their vision and neck towards the asset and then back to the tablet.
It will, inevitably, place stress on the back and shoulder and other areas.

However, it’s the neck region, Ed tells me, that is most vulnerable to pain when using these types of devices. “The one area that does stand out, where we’re clear that there is an issue is in the neck area and the development of neck pain,” he says. “This is the absolute number one area when it comes to these devices.”

He acknowledges though, given the nature of lone workers, it is difficult to collaborate and collect insightful data. “A lot of the data on discomfort is basically self-reported data, so it’s very subjective. For example, how long people are using the devices for and how often they’re using them. It’s based on people estimating how long they’ve spent on them and very often you get people underestimating.”

Research ambiguity can in part be attributed to the lack of guidance that exists on the topic. HSE who inform legislation around health and safety in the UK, seem to have been caught napping when it comes to specific guidance on smartphone and tablet use. Their L26 guidance document, which advises on Display Screen Equipment was published in 1992 and updated in 1998 but fails to incorporate the mobility trend. “It [the L26] did its best to anticipate the development of things,” Ed sympathises, “but there is no official formal kind of guidance. It’s a real difficulty because you not only have that lack of regulatory clout behind doing anything. But it’s also about the physical aspect. People by the very nature of the work they are doing, are out and about, so they’re not under anyone’s eye.”

Back then to those office workers who receive regular risk-assessments around their display screen equipment (computer, chair etc.). For their mobile colleagues it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect a health and safety manager to attend each engineer’s call-out to ensure they are using a tablet correctly.

Ed does suggest however that companies and management need to incorporate more of a broad-based assessment and take more of an active role in the process, particularly around training, acknowledging the type of work they conduct. “It’s also about the physical aspect,” he explains. “People by the very nature of the work they are doing, are out and about, so they’re not under anyone’s eye. There has to be an understanding on the part of the company, including the health and safety manager who can potentially envisage the workers are going to face and put controls in place; putting devices in place that they can refer to to help them use their own mobile devices more safely.”

“The big thing really is training,” he continues, “which I know is right down the bottom of the hierarchy of control, but ultimately, it’s what you’re left with when everything else doesn’t really stack up as a solution.”

As devices continue to evolve more emphasis will need to be placed on their correct handling. A solution is undoubtedly required which should be driven by concrete guidance.

For now though, employers need to recognise the ergonomic risks associated with the hardware as continued incorrect use could spell greater difficulties for workers’ health later on.

The Uberization of Field Service has long a hot topic ever since the silicon valley firm disrupted the private transport sector and every other vertical at the same time. Localz, a solution provider focussing on last-mile communications might just be able to help field service companies deliver the ‘Uber’ experience. Kris Oldland reports.

There used to be an adage in business when it came to dealing with suppliers that jokingly went along the lines of “I only want one throat to choke.”

The idea was that if an organisation was providing you with a service, it was preferable to have just one touchpoint with them, one human at the end of the phone who understood the entirety of the relationship. One vendor who could provide the hardware, the software and of course all the services required to make that then all work.

However, today this concept seems somewhat antiquated, particularly amongst larger organisations. In a world of increasing connectivity and APIs, the prevalent thinking is more along the lines of “I want whatever you have to work with what I have.”
Best-of-breed solutions are once again returning to the fore to resolve specific challenges, often challenges that have arisen as the result of the disruptive nature of emerging technology we have witnessed in recent times and the ripple effect that disruption has on service across many varied and disparate industry verticals.

This development has led to a new wave of innovative companies rising to prominence within the field service sector. These include ‘Last Mile’ solution provider Localz who have already garnered an impressive roster of clients including DPD, Belron and UK utilities giant British Gas. The latter even having showcased their use of Localz technology as a major USP in their most recent high profile advertising campaign.

Localz is a perfect example of an organisation that has been able to identify an essential gap in the current field service management ecosystem that has been exposed by developments outside of the sector. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and fix parts that weren’t necessarily broken in the first place, they’ve instead focused on providing a well thought out, easily implemented and effective solution for an important but somewhat overlooked part of the service cycle.

“We’re not here to change the world for field service companies; we are not going to make you change everything you already have. We are here to help you quickly get big cost savings and massively improve your customer experience by simply plugging in our location based day of service software,” comments Tim Andrew, CEO Localz.

Of course, the twenty-first century has so far been the century of data. We have seen field service companies make a concerted effort across the board to knock down the silos between divisions to allow data to flow seamlessly across an organisation to enable them to attain the once fabled, but now commonplace 360-degree view of the customer.

This trend has played well into the hands of the major platforms who could facilitate this by offering multiple functionalities within their suite of solutions. SAP, IFS, Microsoft and others have all championed the benefits of the platform approach for this reason.

As is the cyclical nature of such things, it is often outside of the restrictions of enterprise providers, that we see innovation flourish and thrive. It is a well established pattern of evolution and consolidation that those of us in the field service sector with more than a few flecks of grey in our beards will recognise.

However, the difference between today and previous years is the prevalence of APIs and the increasing ease of integration, which allows a solution like Localz to plug-in on top of a broader system and deliver the impressive level of last-mile communications and visibility that British Gas has harnessed so effectively.

“Connectivity is the big thing,” explains Andrew as we discuss how technology development has evolved in the last decade.
“It’s also important for technology providers to realise they need to switch the model on how the technology works. Smarter providers have stopped putting themselves in the centre. Customers’ don’t want to hear about a solution that is the centre of their operation; they have already invested significantly in many solutions and established efficient processes that broadly work well. Now they want to improve; they want to see how we add value to what they’ve already invested in.”

                "The twenty-first century has so far been the century of data..."

The solution itself can be described in a sense as Uber for Field Service in that there is a very slick visual representation for the end customer to see the engineer arriving.

There is also, other useful technology within the solution, including scan to van stock management, which can be a game changer for the P&L of some companies struggling to cope with the constant movement of spares. However, it is in its ability to allow field service companies to deliver a service experience that has become an expectation in the age of Amazon and Uber, that Localz grabs the headlines.

This is mostly because it is addressing an issue that many service companies, whether it be a giant like British Gas is universal, or a niche SMB are facing - customer expectations and understandings of what ‘good’ service looks like are evolving rapidly.

“Something I touch on quite a lot is that customers are more informed across the board today,” explains Andrew
“Whether it be in a B2C, B2B or even a B2E environment, we’re all just universally more informed today as such customer expectations are radically increased. Also, the ability to switch providers, especially in the consumer world, is becoming easier and easier. I don’t need to speak to somebody; I literally can go on a website and choose from A, B, and C and get better service.”

The term that has risen to popularity over the last eighteen months in this regard is the ‘experience economy’ where customer satisfaction is no longer enough, we have to consider and understand the total customer experience to deliver customer delight. With this in mind, tools like Localz have become an essential part of the field service equation as they play a significant role in meeting the modern expectations of that service experience.

As Andrew touched on, this experience economy, these increasing customer expectations, have begun to break down the barriers of what we would traditionally define as business to business or business to consumer service standards.
The impact of disruptors, such as Uber and Amazon, is being felt wide and far beyond transport and e-commerce, it’s become ubiquitous across all industries.

“It’s definitely becoming that way,” Andrew agrees as we touch on how the lines across bB2C and B2B appear to be blurring.
“Service expectations especially around visibility and communication on the day of the service call are fast becoming table stakes in B2B, but I think we’re going to see it in B2B soon enough as well.”

If indeed the zeitgeist of the early twenty-first century, in the field service sector at least, is one of seamless service experience, then tools like Localz could very quickly become an essential addition to any field service organisation’s technology sector.

Maximize Bologna, the first of Servicemax’s series of customer events, included client case studies, company announcements and (very good) coffee. It also heralded a hit re-set for the company following a period of acquisitions and changes in the board room. Mark Glover sat in on the conference and saw what the future holds for one of the key names in service....

It’s been an eventful 12 months for ServiceMax. In April, Scott Berg relinquished his CEO position making way for IPC System’s Neil Barua. In December, parent company General Electric sold their majority stake (held since 2017) followed by SeviceMax’s own acquisition of real time communications outfit Zinc.

It all meant that the Maximize Bologna, an event consisting of a day of presentations from company figures and client case studies - and the first of four events in 2019 taking in London, Chicago and Tokyo - would represent something of a re-set for ServiceMax, an opportunity perhaps to usher in a new era.

With all this in mind, these are the five key threads I picked-up while in Italy:

1. Service Execution Management
Lubor Ptacek, the company’s SVP of Product and Solution Marketing, gave the first major presentation of the day, and following a brief run-through the firm’s 19-year history including their start-up origins to the role GE played in their development, he forecast where the sector is headed, aligning changes in the industry to ServiceMax’s new software category Service Execution Management, a new type of approach that includes field service and asset service management respectively.

2. Platform Is Now Managing 200 Million Assets
In the same presentation, Ptacek revealed a significant landmark in the firm’s growth, telling delegates that ServiceMax’s cloud-based platform is currently managing 200,000,000 assets. It’s an extraordinary statistic affirming the company’s core-service goals are statistically being met.

3. Real-Time Communication Will Play A Key Role
The firm’s integration of Zinc’s mobile-based app as a module into its own software platform signals their commitment to real-time communication in the service journey. Text, voice, video, handsfree, push-to-talk and broadcast features will all be possible on the mobile-first solution which encourages interaction across groups to share issues and offer knowledge. “The perfect combination of Zinc’s modern, real-time communication with ServiceMax’s cutting edge and comprehensive suite will be unparalleled in the market,” Zinc President, Stacey Epstein said at the time of the acquisition affirming the strategy. 

4. Automation And Anxiety
“Competencies are by far the main obstacle according to companies undertaking a path to industry 4.0,” Nicola Saccani, Associate Professor at Brescia University told audience members during his presentation. Professor Saccani, a specialist in service and digital transformation, suggested that employers are struggling to keep up with the pace of which technology is progressing. This, along with the growing competency gap created from retiring engineers and new blood coming in, presents one of the biggest challenges to the sector.

5. An Excellent Keynote
Maximise events always draw a special keynote speaker and this year was no exception with Fausto Gressini, the world’s most successful MOTO GP and MOTO GP manager in superbike history sharing his thoughts on the evolution of his sport.
Superbikes, Gressini explained, have become data sponges.

They absorb reams of information from its tyres and engines, from its brakes and exhaust; an endless spout of data that needs to be interpreted to the team’s advantage. Furthermore, the rider, as well as navigating bends at a hair raising 140mph, is expected to understand the information coming through and relay any trends back to his mechanics.

It was an excellent keynote and entirely relevant. On the surface a field engineer and superbike rider may not have a huge amount in common but when it comes to data collecting and refining there is a definitive link. It was a fascinating session and one that delegates appreciated and could genuinely use in their own processes going forward.

A Final Thought
ServiceMax is in a transition period, albeit a positive one and the event nodded towards another interesting 12 months. We’ll be following their progress in these pages as well as fieldservicenews.com. Stay tuned!

The next ServiceMax Maximise event takes place 7 to 8 October in London. Click here for more information.