ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘field-service-management’ CATEGORY

ClickSoftware, the leading provider of field service management software, has announced a number of new customer wins and updates from the second quarter of 2018.

The company announced several new customers in a range of industries and geographies, including Enbridge Gas New Brunswick, Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Home, IFM Restoration, and Lattelecom, as well other leading service companies. In the most recent quarter, ClickSoftware also signed a new agreement with a longtime partner, Diabsolut FSM, to resell its cloud-based field service management product, Click Field Service Edge in North America.

In May, the company enhanced its flagship offering, Click Field Service Edge, to further improve efficiency and effectiveness on the day of service by uniquely incorporating real-time traffic data into the scheduling process. Field Service Edge now automatically updates the schedule if an unexpected event impacts the planned route to the next task, such as a traffic accident or road closure, and proactively incorporates live traffic conditions whenever schedules are updated to further increase efficiency and operational insight.

“Field service today requires unprecedented agility to achieve service levels that both exceed customer expectations and are cost effective for the business,” said Mark Cattini, CEO of ClickSoftware. “Delivering measurable impact to service businesses is only possible through a combination of real-world experience and state-of-the-art computer science, and we are delighted to see our customers validating our approach.”

In March, ClickSoftware received industry recognition from Gartner, with the highest product score for the “High-Volume and Volatile Schedules” use case in Gartner’s 2017 Critical Capabilities for Field Service Management* report.

“We believe the achievement reflects the company’s commitment to delivering solutions that enable service organizations to predict and plan for exceptional customer experiences,” said Cattini.

*Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Field Service Management, Jim Robinson, Jason Wong, Michael Maoz, March 27, 2018

Note: Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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ServiceMax from GE Digital, a leading provider of field service software, today announced a major new release of Predix ServiceMax Field Service Management (FSM), a next-generation field service offering that brings new ways of working to all professionals in service delivery. Recognized as one of the most comprehensive and visionary FSM solutions, the newest ServiceMax offering gives service technicians greater autonomy, empowers dispatchers with more robust decision-making tools, and helps companies better plan and execute complex service projects.

“By delivering innovative field service solutions, our customers are able to achieve higher service efficiency and a better experience for their customers – while remaining competitive in an increasingly crowded market,” said Scott Berg, CEO, ServiceMax from GE Digital. “Responding to evolving customer needs and executing on our long-standing commitment to service innovation and thought leadership, we are excited to introduce our next-generation field service solution.”

Leading the market in customer response, ServiceMax FSM 18.3 addresses three key pillars in next-generation field service work, including technician autonomy, dispatcher empowerment and complex work execution.

Granting Technicians Greater Autonomy

Traditionally, technicians receive guidance from a central dispatch in a linear and prescriptive manner. As the face to customers, field service engineers need the flexibility to make decisions that best serve customer needs. Giving technicians and contractors the ability to make autonomous decisions on a mobile device without depending on the central dispatch supports more confident and effective execution of work – ultimately helping them be more responsive to customer needs.

ServiceMax FSM 18.3 is the company’s fourth-generation mobile application and the culmination of its history and experience in empowering and enabling service technicians. Today’s service operations rely increasingly on combinations of third-party and on-staff service teams, requiring a higher grade of usability, easy adoption and a variety of mobile devices. This new release represents a consumer-style field service mobile app running on the device of their choice.

Empowering the Dispatcher

Additionally, service organizations have evolved the role of service dispatchers. Most do not plan to replace their dispatchers with automated scheduling algorithms – but they do want to free them from the mundane task of day-to-day scheduling to focus on complex, strategic decision making. To support this, ServiceMax FSM 18.3 gives dispatchers tools to be more effective – with software serving up recommendations at every step.

Where dispatchers previously relied on their experience and intuition about how to deploy technicians, this FSM offering delivers a new user experience for the dispatchers and planners called Service Board. Featuring an intuitive UI and significant added functionality over the existing Dispatch Console, the Service Board adds new features that support more efficient planning, scheduling and dispatching. This solution gives dispatchers the flexibility to deal with escalations or problems, focusing on more sophisticated work where human decision making is required.

Addressing Complex Work

Not all types of service jobs are the same; they range from short duration and low complexity, such as cable TV installations in the consumer world, too much more complex and sophisticated service calls, as in the manufacturing and energy space. Major projects – overhauls, equipment decommissioning, installations and upgrades – can be highly complex. Additionally, industries such as power and utilities, aviation, and oil and gas must follow strict regulatory requirements. As service organizations look to expand their service offerings, they must be able to effectively manage service jobs that span multiple days, require multiple technicians, and even work done in multiple shifts. ServiceMax FSM 18.3 offers a new way of solving these challenges.

The new FSM solution helps service organizations scale this complex work, giving companies the ability to define standard or complex shift plans. This includes jobs with multiple technician skill sets, management of multiple resources, and situations when technicians must work on a job for days rather than hours. Additionally, FSM 18.3 can incorporate data from predictive maintenance software, such as GE Digital’s Predix Asset Performance Management, giving companies greater understanding of an equipment condition for highly complex assets.

“It is no longer working to just focus on ‘what’s wrong’ when delivering service in the field. Smart service organizations are working to focus on what RIGHT looks like for the customer, delivering reliable uptime rather than just fast response and resolution times” says Vele Galovski, VP of Field Services Research for the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). “To accomplish that, you need to really empower your employees with the right tools that help them get their jobs done. ServiceMax’s new capabilities capitalize on this trend, and it is great to see ServiceMax, now as part of GE, continue to focus on features that matter for our field service members.”

Availability

The new capabilities introduced in ServiceMax FSM 18.3 are currently available in beta. During this beta period, ServiceMax is working closely with select customers to refine use cases and the product experience, after which the features will become generally available in the first quarter of 2019. For more details about ServiceMax FSM 18.3, click here.

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Gilbarco Veeder-Root — the leading petrol forecourt equipment and services provider in the UK — has learned that route planning software really can work. Enter Fast Lean Smart (FLS) and its particular brand of automation.

Major petrol station brands, supermarket chains and independent dealers up and down the country rely on Gilbarco. By extension, so do millions of motorists. Gilbarco Veeder Root is charged with maintaining the equipment it provides by way of an extensive national network of field engineers. With so many forecourts to look after, Gilbarco Veeder Root’s operation has to be efficient and smart.

Until now, the smartest way of doing things has been manual. Gilbarco Veeder Root had tried automation years ago. It implemented a scheduling program that didn’t prove intelligent enough to plan routes that reflected the real-life business environment. Nor was it flexible enough to react to changes in that environment which include 2-hour responses.

It’s understandable, then, that when FLS approached Gilbarco with promises of radically improved scheduling efficiency through automation, David Cope — UK Operations Director for Gilbarco Veeder Root — was sceptical.

The main reason Gilbarco Veeder Root was willing to consider a change was because FLS lets prospective customers trial its software first. “We’d tried scheduling software before and it didn’t work, so I wasn’t sure how VISITOUR was going to benefit us,” says David. “However, FLS were keen for us to see that it worked in practice and come to our own conclusions before committing to a sale. We didn’t have that choice with the old system.”

David continues, “As a first step they offered to run a test using data from planned maintenance and customer callouts we had scheduled manually. We were expecting them to say that their software could schedule our callouts maybe 5-10% more efficiently. When they brought back a figure of 30-40%, it really was too compelling to ignore and we, therefore, agreed to proceed with a trial.”

Gilbarco Veeder Root trialled FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE in live use for a chosen geographic area. FLS VISITOUR schedules callouts and plans optimised appointments and routes in real time, taking into account traffic-based driving times and the changing priorities of the business. FLS MOBILE provides comprehensive on-the-road support for field engineers and streamlines communication between them, the office and the customer.

David explains, “We were impressed with the results. FLS VISITOUR makes intelligent decisions based on what’s important to our business and can adapt quickly to changing circumstances in a way the old system couldn’t. FLS MOBILE is going to improve the service we provide, particularly to our independent dealers, who we’ve had trouble keeping in touch with because of the complexity involved. FLS MOBILE will keep them up to date by sending automated messages with our arrival times.”

Following the successful trial, an interface was required between FLS and Gilbarco Veeder Root’s service management system to prepare for rollout. Their system has limited integration support and FLS worked with the supplier’s developers to create an innovative solution. David adds, “We were determined to solve the interface because we knew the size of the prize. The one thing that stood out through the transition was that FLS were always on hand to assist us, FLS could stand for Fast Lean Smart or Friends Lending Support — both fit well for me. We are delighted with our choice of FLS and to have enabled the benefits of VISITOUR to be realised nationally.”

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Across the last few weeks, we've run a mini-series of excerpts of from the latest white paper from IFS we take a look at how communication is changing and technology is evolving.

In the first feature in the series, we looked at how when it comes to communications, Customers Want It Their Way . In the second instalment, we explored how Complexity Is a Distraction to Delivering your Target Customer Experience.

Now in the third and final excerpt in this series we discuss "How to Reverse the ‘It’s Getting More Complex and Expensive’ Trap" that so many field service companies can fall into...

Are improving your communication channels a key issue for you?! The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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So far we have explored two points of view: the customer and the advisor. The customer’s adoption of technologies that enables an always connected, real-time responsive lifestyle has set an incredibly high bar for organisations to match. In particular, smartphones simplify the business of getting things done. An obsessive design focus on ‘one-click access has set expectations for simple, immediate engagement.

"Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices..."

However, organisations are yet to match this sophistication. Choice in communication channels is often offered in a fragmented way. Tactical procurement of ‘the next channel’ means they operate without the ability to orchestrate conversational continuity across channels and devices.

A similar fragmentation has also occurred with enterprise CRM deployments. These have an enduring reputation for being hard to deliver. Scaled down ambitions then tend to target a more pragmatic focus on the individual needs of functional teams. This makes personalised service a much more complex task for advisors who are still expected to be knowledgeable about any event across a customer’s lifecycle.

Organising customer data by functional priorities has meant CRM is failing to keep pace with expectations for informed, low effort customer service engagement. Operationally it is just too hard for advisors to locate and assess the context of a customer’s situation on the fly. Both customer and organisation suffer in terms of poor customer experience and ROI.

Instead, this is how customer data should be used.

At the point of initial customer contact, a rich mix of relevant data is used for automated decision making. The aim is to direct customers to their ‘best’ resource. In an omni-channel context, this could be live assistance, self-service or proactive service. The triggers for selecting the ‘best’ resource will depend on the demands of each customer journey and how each customer reacts during that journey.

As a rule of thumb:

• Repeatable customer needs at definable points of a journey can be anticipated and therefore offered as a proactive service.
• Whenever things typically become complex, emotional or require some form of relationship nurture, live assistance is best.
• Anything else is a candidate for 24x7, instant self-service.

As far as live assistance is concerned, the ‘best’ advisor experience is that data and workflow is proactively pushed to them at the right points during each customer journey. The function of an effective unified desktop is to make the complex look simple. As a result, advisors are less distracted and can remain in full rapport with each customer and their needs.

This simplification demands a single screen of information that will adapt as the conversation flows. What previously required toggling across multiple screens is now condensed into a single overview - with duplicated and inconsistent data entry a thing of the past.

Some of this design intent is achieved through visual layout: for instance just one inbox for all voice and text enquiries, one view of interaction and transaction history etc. All of which makes for the kind of intuitive user experience that advisors already expect from their mobile technologies.

However, there is also some clever stuff that happens before any customer information is brought to the advisor’s attention. In the design quest of presenting only the most simple and relevant view, an advanced unified desktop will combine many data sources into a single stream.

As previously mentioned, holistic customer insight is seldom held in one system of record or offered by a functional view. And hard-won experience tells us that the ‘rip and replace’ strategy of turning many legacy systems into a single consolidated version seldom works out as planned.

"Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need..."

Instead, there are less risky ways of achieving the same goal. Modern ‘digital glue’ such as data aggregation models and APIs can ‘mashup’ multiple data sources and present the advisor with everything they need.

Sometimes an even greater focus is needed around how customer information is organised and displayed. What about those instances when first-time resolution does not happen within a single session? Maybe the process that supports a customer journey inevitably takes time, such as making an application or a claim or trying to recover lost property. Maybe the customer or organisation has to find more information or do something else to reach a decision. All of which takes more time.

This is where case management comes into its own. It draws boundaries around this type of customer situation and attributes the relevant data, interactions, transactions and workflow for easy ongoing reference. This is especially important when there are multiple points of customer contact, which are progressed by different employees, who need to easily reference previous steps in the customer journey without expecting customers to provide the narrative.

This form of grouping is enabled by one of the defining functions of an omni-channel framework. So-called ‘universal queuing’ will organise all voice, text and workflow items into a single management system instead of treating them as separate queues. As a result, integrated views of activities over time are automatically generated and presented to the advisor, saving time and effort for all concerned. This ability is however untypical in a CRM centric approach.

Want to know more? The full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Adopting IoT as part of the greater service and business environment involves keeping up with industry changes as they take place. 

We recently looked at some research from Astea and WBR that looked at why companies were adopting IoT based approaches to service delivery. Now in the second excerpt from that same report, we look at the new challenges such new next-generation tools might bring to the table...

Is upgrading your field service systems a key issue for you?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers - click the button below to get fully up to speed now! 

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Now, the majority of field service companies are developing methods to make IoT-related services more efficient. Growth patterns suggest that they are being well received by customers as they use connected data to created advanced solutions.

Today, 75% of companies are using connected data and IoT to create advanced services; among them, 83% believe connected data and IoT lead to more profitable business decisions. Business decision makers who responded to the survey have identified several emerging applications of connected data where they are planning changes or are already seeing business results — security, product sustainability, new product technologies, and fleet management, among others.

Advanced Services in Practice

The research surfaced a wide-ranging and varied number of comments from service directors who participated which included:

“We are using connected data and IoT on an extensive level, with client dealings and remote problem solving with our advanced Affiliates Suite service to support client demands more efficiently. Under this service, we monitor data, alert clients about threats, and [provide] critical observation. With real-time data, threats can be diffused with faster diagnostics.”

“Recently, we have integrated IoT in order for vital health information to be passed on directly to those maintaining [the equipment]. With this innovation, the availability of details in timely manner is ensured, thus speeding treatment and dispensing medication. This solution will be subject to technological advancements from time to time with upgraded systems.”

“Once we derive information such as purchase patterns, market trends, [and] competitor stats, [connected data and IoT] is used to develop substantial products that are able to withstand and supply changing mechanisms. Advanced solutions using connected data and the latest upgrades benefit customers and organisation alike.”

Want to know more?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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A new fully-rugged solution purpose-built for the challenging conditions and uncompromising demands of those working within hazardous industries

Getac announced last week the launch of the new F110-Ex fully-rugged tablet, as an enhancement to its popular F110 model, designed to deliver unrivalled efficiency, reliability and safety to workers in hazardous environments.

In many industrial sectors, extreme temperatures, poor weather conditions and close contact with dangerous substances are all factors to contend with daily. Workers need devices they can rely on for efficient field maintenance, accurate safety checks and equipment monitoring tasks. IT failure not only has a significant impact on productivity, it also puts lives at risk.

The new F110-Ex fully-rugged tablet has been designed with this in mind. Featuring an 11.6-inch sunlight readable display and weighing just 1.49kg, it is both versatile and compact providing reliable operation in the field. MIL-STD810G and IP65 water and dust resistance certifications ensure seamless operation in wet, dirty environments, while an operating temperature range of -21°C to +60°C ensures full functionality in even the most extreme conditions.

The F110-Ex features intrinsic safety design limiting electrical and thermal energy output to a level below that required to ignite hazardous atmospheric mixtures. Like all of Getac’s Ex fully-rugged tablets it is certified to ATEX, UL913 and IECEx standards, for complete operator safety.

Powering digital transformation

Advances in AI and IoT technologies are powering digital transformation across all industrial sectors and the F110-Ex allows those businesses working in hazardous environments to fully benefit from productivity and process improvements and migrate legacy paper-based documentation to live and even cloud solutions.

Chris Bye, President at Getac U.K. Ltd, comments, “The F110-Ex enables users to safely collect and send digital data, capture images and even engage in video communication in high-risk environments, helping enterprises complete the last mile of digital transformation.”

Exceptional performance and security

Equipped with the 7th generation Intel Kaby Lake Core processors and multi-factor security mechanisms, the F110-Ex provides exceptional computing power and secure authentication. Full data protection is provided by Windows 10, with an optional face recognition camera compatible with Windows Hello, as well as barcode scanner and (LF/HF)RFID reader.

As one of the top rugged solution providers, Getac offers a comprehensive portfolio of vertically integrated solutions for all types of extreme operating conditions.  In addition to the new F110-Ex, Getac’s fully rugged tablet portfolio includes the EX80, ZX70, T800 and other ATEX-certified models, all delivering exceptional ruggedness and performance for hazardous industries.

Availability:

The new F110 will be available to buy from 27th September 2018. For more information, please visit: www.getac.com

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Trade service businesses now have the ability to become experts with job management software thanks to simPRO’s new learning resource.

The ‘simPRO Learning | Toolbox’ is the job management software company’s latest global product release, specifically designed to educate and support clients who are seeking short-term answers or long-term knowledge about the technology they use for coordinating business operations.

The new solution offers a growing library of essential resources, including how-tos and standard workflow practice materials, which can be learned at any pace. The online materials are self-directed, interactive and delivered in short, five-minute topics, supporting users in just-in-time learning to get the knowledge when needed. Users also have the ability to complete entire courses on specific simPRO knowledge or workflows. All materials reinforce the learning experience with knowledge checks.

simPRO Global Head of Customer Success, Erika Entz, said simPRO Learning | Toolbox was developed as a supportive resource for time-poor customers who wish to stay up to date with business demands.

[quote float="left"]This is a major stepping stone for simPRO customers, to gain a deeper understanding of our job management software, which has become integral to the trade service industry[/quote]“This is a major stepping stone for simPRO customers, to gain a deeper understanding of our job management software, which has become integral to the trade service industry,” she said.

“The learning toolbox allows businesses to enhance their simPRO knowledge anytime, anywhere. The learning materials will help businesses get new team members up to speed faster, and the self-directed learning allows users to become job management software experts in their own right.”

Ms Entz said the simPRO Learning Toolbox’s wide variety of resources would help simPRO to provide job management software that will lead businesses to future success, and help to make modern software a more accessible mainstream tool in the trade services industry.

“simPRO is dedicated to supporting our current and future customers with a variety of learning resources to ensure we enable our customers to get the most out of their software.”

“We regularly update and add new content, providing our customers with just-in-time learning in our new simPRO Learning Toolbox in addition to other learning resources, such as the simPRO Help Guide, videos and Walk Me Throughs to learn more about our groundbreaking solutions.”

The self-paced microlearning materials are available to users anywhere, anytime with internet access.

The simPRO Learning | Toolbox is included with simPRO customer’s user licenses, and comes at no extra costs and launched on 26 September 2018.

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Asset and service data will be a crucial element of making this transition to a more outcome-based business model. However, at present, surveyed organisations are not accessing the full potential of this data due to their inconsistent use of digital tools and technology. While 98% of respondents report that their organisation uses automated digital tools and technology to aid the collection and utilisation of asset service data, only around half or fewer state that these tools are used in the collection (51%), aggregation (43%) or analysis (52%) stages of the process.

This intermittent use of automated technologies is not only opening the door for inefficiencies but is also directly leading to difficulties with data collection and utilisation. Around four in ten respondents report that when it comes to the management of access to asset service data in real time (40%), aggregating asset service data in a structured way (39%), analysing asset service data (41%), and sharing asset service data analysis with the rest of the business (42%), their organisation either needs huge improvements in these areas, a complete overhaul or that they simply do not do this at all yet.

The difficulties regarding asset and service data are exasperated further by the 59% of respondents who agree that their organisation is held back from the successful analysis of data because the quality of it is usually poor.

Struggles are rife throughout the entire process, right from who is collecting it and how they do this, down to how it is being analysed and shared across the business. How can these organisations possibly expect to make any informed, strategic decisions using the data that is readily available to them if the process is so disjointed, outdated and underdeveloped digitally?

Lack of Data Confidence

And these struggles have led to a distinct lack of confidence among surveyed decision makers and their colleagues, with only 50% of respondents reporting that they or other service leaders in their organisation completely trust the asset service data that they have access to. But this will need to change because asset and service data is becoming an ever more integral part of organisations, and this is summed up by the 85% of respondents who agree that service asset data should be central to strategic decision making.

The requirement to boost trust levels is especially pertinent in those organisations where the C-suite is already using asset service data today (39%) or have plans to in the future (34%) because they will need to be able to trust in the data in order to make well-informed decisions for the business.

The use of asset and service data by the C-suite will also serve to set an example for leaders across other departments that this is the best way forward for the organisation.

Glaring Skills Gap

However, it is not just these deep-lying trust issues that are a concern for organisations, which is clear from the fact that only 22% of respondents are willing to admit that the IT and field service functions in their organisation work together completely effectively to achieve the goal of better data utilisation.

This lack of collaboration is compounded by a glaring skills gap whereby over three quarters (77%) of surveyed decision makers concede that the pace of data intelligence digitally collected by their organisation’s assets is outpacing the skills of those responsible for actually utilising the data.

Further to this, more than four in ten respondents report that the skills of engineers (45%) and the skills of management (44%) are a cause for concern when it comes to using data produced by advanced technologies (such as a digital twin) meaningfully. This should set alarm bells ringing for organisations because they are struggling with skills among both their employees on the ground and those higher up the organisation as well. It seems that even with the implementation of the appropriate technology for the collection and utilisation of asset and service data, there will still be work to be done in order to extract as much value as possible – this will likely need to be in the form of a rigorous training program.

An Appetite for Automation

A lack of collaboration between teams, an ever-increasing skills gap and an inconsistent use of the appropriate technology, leading to trust issues could become a recipe for disaster in these organisations if not addressed quickly.

The need for automated digital tools has rarely been clearer, and respondents recognise this. Only 7% believe that automating the process of collecting and utilising asset service data is not at all required because all data manually entered by service engineers is structured and entirely usable. Whereas over four in ten (43%) report that the automation of this process in their organisation is required to a huge extent, or that it is completely required because manually entered data never/rarely provides value.

Organisations will need to utilise automated digital tools more consistently if they are to progress, but they will also need to upskill their workforce and address any collaboration issues internally. These three areas are crucial if asset and service data is to be utilised to its full potential and this will ultimately underpin the successful transition to an outcome-based business model.

Want to know more?!  There is a white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to date now! 

 

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Every year, the team at Copperberg AB, producers of the forthcoming Aftermarket Business Platform gather the brightest service leaders from the largest manufacturing companies and from all corners of Europe to dissect the ongoing service transformation and share the key to a successful servitization journey.

It is a networking experience which has proven to be critical for defining new business models that can allow field service companies to respond to changing customer expectations, which are moving from ownership to outcome-based solutions.

One such service leader is Carl-Henrik Sjölund, Global Consultancy Service Director at SECO TOOLS, whom Copperberg recently interviewed for a new eBook in order to put together an eBook on Servitization that shares some practical steps towards a successful servitization journey.

Here, we take a look at some of that advice...

Want to know more? Register to access Copperberg's Servitization eBook @ http://fs-ne.ws/CAjc30lXctz

10 steps to servitization success... 

Within the eBook Sjölund outlines what he sees as 10 key steps that field service companies should consider when approaching shifting to a servitized business model.

These are:

1. Define the customer process where your product is in use
2. Define the components in the close world around your product
3. Define the challenges for efficient use, and cost of inefficient use
4. If necessary, define your own core competence (know-how, not product)
5. Match the customers’ challenges with the biggest cost of “inefficient use of components” with your best core competence to “fix it"
6. Check customer interest of your new service by using real proof of concept. Could be fake landing pages for services where people can click for interest to buy, subscribe or just know more.
7. If you find good interest for your new service, make a business case for profitability and start
8. Build a service organization by parallel “selling and recruiting”
9. Use Aftermarket Business Platform to communicate your strategy and you get many interested system suppliers that can help you to enable and control the business
10. Enjoy the success!

Hindsight with 20/20 vision:

Reflecting back on his own journey, one of the core challenges in making a transition to a business strategy he had experienced was the difference between the traditional sales approach found in product-focused sales compared to the more nuanced approach required to sell complicated, yet highly profitable outcome-based service-centric contracts. As Sjölund commented:

"The journey was more or less OK except that we had too much trust in the existing product sales organization to sell the new services."

"They just didn’t understand it, he added. "Instead we found a few of our own salespeople for service sales with different backgrounds to understand the complete customer journey (challenge) and communicate with the highest management level about this. It’s important to bring people from the product service organization along to learn and pick the best.

The major trends of Servitization:

The eBook also draws on the wider pool of senior Service Professionals that attend the Aftermarket Business Platform and as such outlines some of the key trends that are becoming prevalent amongst Manufacturers across Europe.

These include:

• Manufacturing companies are faced with smaller and smaller batch sizes because of faster and faster development cycles.
• This leads to challenges to estimate costs earlier, prepare for the unknown and have very fast set-up of machine. Added to that, the need to produce good parts directly when there are orders means there is no time for optimization.
• Companies lack staff with the right skills and working methods for this.
• Many suppliers are promising industry 4.0 ready-to-use solutions without success support and this leads to bad experiences.

The technology of Servitization: 

Of course, as we have discussed many times here at fieldservicenews.com technology is a major factor in enabling the growth of servitized business strategies and models.

However, for Sjölund, the sheer volume of innovative technology that is empowering field service organisations to push ever further the boundaries of service excellence, a path that logically leads towards servitization, can be something of a double-edged sword.

"Technology is part of the problem: what is good and what to do?" He asks. "We already tried out a lot of technology (AI, Robotics, 3D Printing, AR/VR) to know what is usable and what is not."

"Most important change according to my experience so far is the use of big data mining to predict the future and access virtual good advices combined with virtual collaboration between users for “reality checks” and confirmation between professionals," Sjölund continues.

"This needs, however, data generating systems (IoT) in the workshop and well managed virtual communities. This is today not yet spread and partly not even available."

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