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A recent survey has revealed that 88% of field engineers see no opportunity to progress in their careers.

This less than favourable statistic comes from specialist field engineering recruitment consultancy, Concept Resourcing’s latest Field Engineering Salary and Engagement Survey where they delved into average salaries across the industry as well as fluctuations and expectations in pay, employee happiness and ranked the most desirable perks and benefits.

Engineer’s reports of a lack of career progression were backed up by the fact that 81% of Concept’s respondents reported having more than 10 years’ experience in the industry, and yet 75% of them were still in the same role. Not only does this pose a problem for those who are feeling stagnant in their career, but it does very little to help draw the next generation of engineers into the sector, with progression seemingly curbed.

Between an ongoing battle with the STEM skills shortage and burgeoning concerns over an ageing workforce, some would say the field engineering industry has its work cut out when it comes to attracting new talent. When we look at how the sector has changed in recent years, from advancements in innovation - such as automation and augmented reality, to a natural increase in customer demand for instant resource in the digital age - it comes as no surprise that the sector is crying out for new talent.

Aside from attracting individuals into the industry, retention of existing skilled employees is equally as crucial. Particularly to facilitate knowledge transfer to new starters to ease the pressure on the ageing workforce. With that in mind, it comes as something of a surprise that the survey revealed that 44% of field engineering professionals are feeling undervalued at work.

 

Retaining your field service engineers

It’s easy to assume that field service organisations would be desperate to retain their existing workforce and would be bending over backwards for them as a result. This may well be the case, but if employers are concentrating their efforts in the wrong places – their engineers simply won’t reap the benefits.

Of course, salary is always going to be a big factor to employee happiness, but with a whopping 79% of field engineers stating that they were dissatisfied with their salaries, the industry may well have a problem on its hands.

 

"Just 9% of those who requested a pay rise were successful, and of those, 62% were still dissatisfied with their salaries, an indication that perhaps the salary increases weren’t significant enough..."

 

Just 9% of those who requested a pay rise were successful, and of those, 62% were still dissatisfied with their salaries, an indication that perhaps the salary increases weren’t significant enough.

A potential reason for this could be the commoditisation of traditional field engineering sectors and the skillsets of engineers becoming increasingly focused on replacement over repair, meaning salaries have been driven down.

It seems as though the sector as a whole is missing the mark when it comes to giving their workforce what it wants, not through lack of trying – but simply through not knowing what they truly value where non-financial benefits and rewards are concerned.

Thankfully for employers, it’s not all about money. Feeling valued at work can overshadow a less than desirable salary. However, it’s worth noting that it works both ways, 80% of those who said they didn’t feel valued at work were actively looking to leave the company within the next 2 years.

 

Making your workforce feel more valued

Whilst salary naturally came out as the most important factor when choosing a job, company culture-related factors such as job security, work-life balance and a good work environment all followed.

When asked which benefits made the most difference to their happiness at work, field engineers ranked having a generous annual leave package, access to a good pension plan, a company vehicle and fuel card as their top priorities.

We saw a direct link between employee happiness and training. While only 6% of respondents felt that they didn’t have the necessary skills for their role, the gesture of being supported with personal or professional development clearly had a positive impact. Of those who said they were ‘happy’ and ‘very happy’ at work, 94% had been on a training course in the last 12 months.

Dan Sholl, Concept Resourcing’s Business Development Director for the field engineering division had this to say, “The results of the salary survey have been really eye-opening, to say the least. It’s clear that the sector has some work to do when it comes to both employee retention and attracting new talent.”

“Not every organisation has the budget to be able to provide regular substantial pay increases, but there’s a lot that can be done to make field engineering employees feel valued and happy at work. In our experience as a field engineering specialist recruiter, we often advise our clients on the significant impact that things like regular training can have on engineers and their happiness. Evidently, it’s these additional benefits and perks that can make all the difference when it comes to bringing the next generation of field engineers into the sector.”

If you’re interested in learning about average salaries in field engineering, or if you’re working on your hiring strategy for the year and would like some extra insight, read the rest of Concept’s Field Engineering Salary and Engagement Survey here.

 

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Users now can engage their end customers with step-by-step visibility for the field service last mile with a live map view, job details and ETA countdown via a Glympse-powered journey...

MSI, a leading developer of cloud-based field service management software, has partnered with Glympse, the pioneer of real-time location technology, to bring rich technician tracking capabilities to customers of its Service Pro field service management solution. The addition of Glympse will enable MSI to strengthen the powerful value Service Pro delivers to its customers.

The partnership creates new capabilities for MSI to offer to field service teams using its leading cloud and mobile applications. In particular, Glympse will further help those companies meet and exceed customer expectations on the first visit, empower technicians to provide more responsive, proactive service, eliminate costly manual processes, and track technician location and status in real-time.

“Glympse is a clear leader in harnessing location and mobility to positively impact the customer service experience,” said Harvey Shovers, MSI President. “MSI is excited to add Glympse to the Scheduling, Mobility and Customer Experience suite of capabilities of our Service Pro platform, enabling thousands of field service appointments to exceed expectations with a real-time experience for the service customer.”

Through the partnership with Glympse, Service Pro users will now be able to:

• Initiate the customer-facing Glympse experience as soon as an appointment is booked – via SMS, email or push notifications – so end-customers can review appointment details, add to their calendar or connect with their provider right from the interactive web viewer
• Provide end customers with progressive updates and ETA countdown as the appointment draws closer so customers can more effectively manage their day
• Offer a real-time, live map view of the technician on the way to the appointment, including an ETA countdown, and culminating in an arrival confirmation
• Collect feedback via the Glympse Journey to view as soon as the technician completes the field service appointment, adding the ability to follow up with the customer quickly if necessary

“Glympse has a strong history helping field service teams communicate with their customers during the most critical step of a service appointment - when the end customer is waiting for their representative to arrive to their home, their office or even a construction site,” said Chris Ruff, CEO & President of Glympse.

“MSI has demonstrated a precise expertise in building modern field service solutions for diverse industries ranging from cable, HVAC and construction to medical equipment and manufacturing. We’re pleased to add a new layer of engagement to the solutions they’re delivering for these industries and most importantly, to help them give back time and control to the customers ultimately waiting for these critical services.”

For more information about Glympse, visit http://www.glympse.com, or follow the company on Twitter @Glympse, or on Facebook, Instagram or on LinkedIn.

For more information about MSI and Service Pro, visit http://www.msidata.com, or follow the company on Twitter @msidata, or on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

 

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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. That means incorporating better measures when needs arise in any business area and keeping cost-effective solutions in mind for the future progress of the company as a whole...

Already, 76% of companies are using IoT data analytics to establish product and/or process quality imperatives. Their decision makers can analyze IoT data to improve solution recommendations, feedback on installations, demonstrations, specific services, and others.

IoT also serves as a signifier for opportunities to improve more processes, such as identifying popular products and managing inventory.

Respondents to a recent research project undertaken by WBR and commisioned by Astea believe data should be usable in decision making at a variety of business levels. In every case, a majority of companies have either adopted IoT for specific business functions or plan to do so in the next 24 months. But companies prioritize customer-facing initiatives—service, products, and satisfaction—over internal functions such as business projections and aligning service data with financials.

 

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Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty:

73% of companies have incorporated IoT (42%) or plan to do so within 24 months (31%) for the purpose of customer satisfaction and loyalty. More companies have incorporated IoT for this purpose than for any other measured in the study.

With connected data, companies are able to understand and fulfil customer demands better thanks to improved communication. In this way, minor technological improvements can be made without delay or other consequences.

 

Service Processes & Optimization

Respondents agree that connected data and IoT have helped streamline processes across departments. By leveraging IoT data, they can measure efforts for overall growth through set channels, be they internal or service-driven.

Now, 41% of companies have incorporated IoT for process optimization, a close second to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Thirty-six percent have already incorporated IoT with service processes; more companies plan to do so within 24 months (37%) than with any other business function measured.

 

Product Uptime

Companies’ attention to customer experiences carries over to product support, where one respondent cites “notable improvements” to uptime in both industrial and consumer-driven channels. One healthcare executive says IoT helps them sustain products “during times of higher demands, especially due to the fact that these are used during medical procedures.”

More than one-third of companies have incorporated IoT for product uptime (34%); more than one-quarter of companies have plans to incorporate IoT with product uptime (30%) within 24 months.

 

Business Projections & Decisions

IoT data can be applied to various business requirements and provide essential statistics to support managerial functions. Derivations from reliable signals allow for better judgements when making business projections and decisions.

Over one-third of companies have incorporated IoT for business projections and decisions (35%); more than one-quarter of companies have plans to incorporate IoT with business projections and decisions (27%) within 24 months.

 

Predictive Maintenance

Respondents’ ambitions for better response to maintenance needs extends to real-time automated reporting, a better understanding of their products’ “general maintenance structure,” and even signals for customers to be proactive—to seek out maintenance themselves.

Several respondents cite their use of predictive reporting for scheduling, sustainability, and research methods, among others. Only 32% of companies have leveraged IoT for predictive maintenance; however, 29% plan to do so within 24 months.

 

Aligning Service Data with Financials

Fewer companies have incorporated IoT to align service data with financials (26%) than any other business function in the study. But the data suggests this is a growth area. More companies (61%) are either planning to incorporate IoT in this way within 24 months or are interested in incorporating IoT in this way than with any other business function.

Despite the prioritization of functions that drive customer success, it is in business projections, business decisions, and aligning service data with financials that companies take an increasing interest in incorporating IoT.

At least one-quarter of companies have already incorporated IoT for each of these purposes. Have you?

 

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Captec, the designer and supplier of specialist computing platforms, has teamed up with market-leading rugged tablet manufacturers to provide 360-degree in-vehicle solutions.

The specialist tablets from Dell, Getac, Panasonic and Samsung are designed to accommodate the needs of demanding applications in industries including construction, utilities, and fire and rescue.

In the modern working environment, it is crucial for fleets to have the tools that allow them to work efficiently through improved communication and efficiency. By securing these strategic partnerships, Captec provides fleets with high-performance technology and the flexibility to achieve an optimal balance between performance and budget for their application.

With features including high ingress protection, ruggedisation, built-in GPS and barcode scanners, the tablets meet and exceed the needs of mobile workforces across multiple sectors.

Each tablet can be combined with a vehicle dock, specifically designed to accommodate it – sourced by Captec from its trusted vehicle docking partners, Gamber-Johnson and Havis.

To provide a true 360-degree solution, Captec offers a complete installation service including full vehicle audits, custom cabling, onsite installation performed by experienced engineers and tailored through life support.

For more complex applications demanding a high level of customisation such as additional ruggedisation for uninterrupted operation in hostile conditions, Captec offer bespoke engineering and technical services. From the initial design concept through to testing and validation, Captec can make any necessary modifications quickly and effectively at its dedicated in-house engineering facilities.

Ian Langton, Product Manager, Captec, said: “We have partnered with leading technology providers in complete confidence that, when combined with our installation service, we can address the performance, reliability and longevity needs of today’s mobile workforce. Our aim is to create a one-stop-shop for fleet managers looking to equip their vehicles with rugged and reliable mobile computing.”

In addition to offering models from suppliers through strategic partnerships, Captec has recently designed, developed and introduced a brand new rugged tablet of its own.

The VT-681 tablet is a fully rugged device, powered by Windows 10 IoT, making it ideal for fleets requiring a cost-effective solution, without compromising on performance or features from other well-known suppliers.

Find out more about Captec’s in-vehicle computing solutions @ www.captec-group.com/in-vehicle

 

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Artificial Intelligence has increasingly become a key discussion in all industries and its impact in field service management is predicted to be hugely significant, but how should field service organisations leverage this powerful twenty-first-century technology? In the first of a two-part feature, Marne Martin, President Service Management IFS, offers her expert insight... 

 

 

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact every industry and every business discipline—including field service management. But how quickly will practical solutions be available that enable the typical medium to large field service organization to take advantage of AI? And by practical solutions, I mean AI that delivers knowledge efficiently, processes solutions to complex data sets, and automates repetitive activities to allow human workers to focus on personalized service, solving complex problems and escalations, i.e. what people do best.

In some cases, these easily applied solutions are still on their way to market. In three specific areas, however, practical AI applications for field service are already commercially available as proven, commercial off-the-shelf software delivering real business value.

 

AI For Customer Interaction

First impressions matter. And unfortunately, the first interaction a customer has with your service organization often involves several missteps. Chief among these are long wait times on hold due to high call volumes. And then, as a customer attempts to reach out through multiple channels including email, chat and phone, the resulting data stream goes into separate siloes that are disconnected from each other, resulting in disjointed communication.

 

"Today, AI solutions can solve both these problems, but it requires more than “just” chatbots..."

 

Today, AI solutions can solve both these problems, but it requires more than “just” chatbots. Commercially available AI software that ties into chatbots is capable of learning which answers posed in a chat are appropriate for each question and automating a significant majority of chat interactions. A chatbot can be taught to answer commonly encountered questions, like inquiries about when a technician is scheduled to arrive. Of course, at some point, the AI chatbot may get stuck when personalized service is required, and a human agent takes over the discussion thread without missing a beat. This should be seamless not only to the customer but for the internal customer service, ticketing and support systems as well. The chatbot—regardless of whether driven at a given moment by AI or a human agent—should update the same customer record as other channels including social media, phone and email.

And from interactions, the AI functionality learns from answers provided by human agents and gets better and better at answering questions through learning processes. A truly advanced AI chatbot will also seamlessly hand off the chat to a human agent when the extent of its learning is overtaken. Only then can the entire customer experience be unified and consistent, even with a static number of agents handling a rapidly growing fluctuating volume of customer interactions.

AI-based chatbots, for instance, can enable a good agent to handle up to five or more chats at a time. It can capture Facebook messages and tweets and direct them to an agent or to AI for intervention. AI alone can handle, typically, between 50 and 60 percent of requests, freeing up human capacity or lowering staffing levels required to handle a given volume of activity.

 

Enables Management By Exception

In the case of AI applications for the service organization, a primary driver for ROI is that it enables humans to manage by exception. A high volume of activity can be automated, and humans intervene primarily when a situation falls outside the business rules or logic built into service management software. AI doesn’t eliminate the need for human interaction—it makes the human interaction more focused on what humans do best—handle escalations and complex decision making for unique cases.

At one IFS customer, an AI chatbot handles about 50 percent of interactions— primarily those reaching out to cancel their service after a free three-month trial period. Interactions cancelling a free subscription are handled entirely through automation. But if a longer-standing customer is cancelling their service, the interaction gets routed to an agent dedicated to saving the account.

Some interactions are by default easily handled by AI. If 30 percent of inbound contacts are requesting information on the arrival time of a field service technician, it may be possible to automate 90 percent of that 30 percent of contacts. But it is also important to consider the demographics of the customer base. Millennials are more likely to communicate via chat or social media, so if a significant percentage of customers are under 40, heavier reliance on chatbots and AI may help you increase engagement by streamlining your customers’ preferred method of interaction.

 

"Management by exception is also more successful when an AI application has access to extensive information about each customer..."

 

Management by exception is also more successful when an AI application has access to extensive information about each customer. So full integration with enterprise resource planning, field service management and other enterprise tools is essential. AI tools can be more effective if they have more rather than less information on the status of the customer’s account, including their maintenance or service history and warranty or service level agreement entitlements.

Integration between an AI chatbot, email, voice, social and enterprise applications is important for another reason. It enables one version of the customer record. Lacking this, a customer can send an email, and get no response. They send a direct message through Twitter. Then call and sit on hold. Then initiate a chat. All these interactions may not appear in a central customer record, but there have been three attempts to contact the company. Right from the first contact by email, the clock started ticking on a service level agreement.

Full integration can also enable a customer service team, once a customer request is resolved, to close off all queuing activations at the same time for the various contact methods associated with a customer case. Failing this, a service organization may spend a significant amount of time chasing customer requests that have already been resolved.

 

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The number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in Europe was 7.7 million in Q4-2017, according to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.2 percent, this number is expected to reach 15.6 million by 2022. The top-15 vendors have today more than 100,000 active units in Europe. TomTom’s subscriber base has grown both organically and by acquisitions during the past years and the company is the clear market leader on the European market and reached an installed base of about 708,000 units at year-end 2017. Masternaut is still in second place and had achieved an installed base of an estimated 250,000 units.

Berg Insight ranks Verizon Connect as the third largest player in terms of active installed base with around 235,000 units. ABAX, Microlise, Gurtam, Viasat, Bornemann, Teletrac Navman, Trimble, Transics and OCEAN (Orange) also have more than 100,000 active devices in the field. The HCV manufacturers are now growing their subscriber bases considerably in Europe thanks to standard line fitment of fleet management solutions. Dynafleet by Volvo, FleetBoard by Daimler and Scania Fleet Management are the most successful with active subscriber bases of 117,000 units, 108,000 units and 219,000 units respectively as of Q4-2017.

The consolidation trend on this market continued in 2018. “Thirteen major mergers and acquisitions have taken place in the past twelve months among the vendors of fleet management systems in Europe”, said Johan Fagerberg, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight. ORBCOMM acquired Blue Tree Systems in October 2017. The acquisition of Blue Tree solidifies ORBCOMM’s transportation portfolio by adding truck in-cab and refrigerated fleet vehicle solutions to ORBCOMM’s cargo solutions. In December, ABAX acquired Danish Fleetfinder. The acquisition added approximately 7,000 vehicle subscriptions to ABAX Group’s existing subscription base.

Later in December, Viasat Group acquired a majority stake (51 percent) in Locster based in France. January of 2018 started with two acquisitions. EcoFleet was acquired by Fleet Complete and Verizon Connect moreover continued its European expansion with the acquisition of Movildata in Spain. Coyote acquired a 70 percent stake in Traqueur in February 2018. Later in April, Trackunit acquired UK-based telematics provider Satrak. GSGroup purchased Care4all based in Denmark in July 2018. Vehco was acquired by AddSecure in May 2018, which gave Vehco the structure and financial strength to further expand within fleet management. Vehco’s third acquisition followed in August 2018 when the company took over the ownership of Groeneveld ICT Solutions. AROBS Transilvania Software acquired SAS Grup in September.

The latest two transactions were done in September and October when Viasat Group acquired Detector in Spain as well as 60 percent of the shares in TrackIT Consulting in Portugal. Mr. Fagerberg anticipates that the market consolidation of the still overcrowded industry will continue in 2018–2019.

Download report brochure: Fleet Management in Europe

 

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In an age of servitization and advanced services, spare parts management has become something of a difficult beast to fully grasp for many companies who are offer aftermarket services.

For example, in a world of guaranteed up-times, the cost of failure to keep an asset running can often far outweigh the lost revenue from the sale of the replacement part needed to get the asset back up and running and fully functional again.

Yet, the path to servitization is not an easy one to tread - so is it worth cannibalising what for many service companies is a reliable, consistent and strong revenue stream in its pursuit?

Whichever route companies ultimately turn to, one thing is certain, spare parts management is going to be a crucial aspect within the service delivery sector and as with mobile workforce management, there are a number of technologies and innovations that are emerging that could change the way we approach parts management in the future.

Therefore it was with great interest that we took a look at the insights from a recent research project undertaken by Copperberg. The research was conducted online across the last month primarily to Copperberg’s own audience of conference delegates.

In total the there were 65 responses to the survey and these representatives were all professionals within the sector ranging in seniority from parts managers through to Managing Directors - although the main body of respondents were at the division head/director level on a national scale.

The majority of respondents were from Europe although other regions, including China, were represented. The respondents were largely from manufacturing verticals, which would be anticipated given Copperberg’s flagship event the Aftermarket Business Platform is also a manufacturing dominated event. However, there were a number verticals within the manufacturing sector represented including heavy machinery, medical and automotive.

So let us take a brief look at what trends the research revealed...

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Inventory Management:

Inventory Management sits at the heart of good parts management as without the ability to track components and parts at any given time as they move from depot to the field (and potentially back again depending on a companies approach to repair and reverse logistics) everything else within in the equation becomes open to inaccuracies and subject to guesswork.

Indeed, the importance of inventory management appears to be hugely important within the organisations represented within Copperberg’s research with 91% of the respondents ranking it as being either four, five or six on a scale on to six with six being very important. In fact, almost half of the respondents (43%) listed Inventory Management as very important (6) - further emphasising the significance of inventory management in the context of spare parts management.

So it is absolutely shown to be clear in the research that the focus on inventory management remains one of utmost importance for the vast majority of companies.

 

Parts Pricing and eCommerce:

Parts pricing is also another area that was unanimously outlined as being important to the survey respondents.

This is particularly interesting as the fact that so many companies still view parts pricing as being highly important to them could be viewed as an indicator that the revenue streams that come from spare parts sales is still very much a critical part of the aftermarket landscape.

In fact, 86% of respondents stated that they felt parts pricing was at least a four on the same scale as listed above, however, here it was just under a third of respondents (32%) that felt this issue was very important.

eCommerce is of course another area that is heavily linked with parts pricing and there are indeed some correlations between the two areas, yet in terms of responses, eCommerce remains somewhat less of a priority than pricing.

With regards to eCommerce, exactly two-thirds of the respondents (66%) listed it as a four, five or six with only 16% seeing it as being very important (6).

This is quite an interesting difference between the two as we might have anticipated these results being more closely aligned.

One assumption, however, may be that with regards to eCommerce the solutions have now matured and so most manufacturers in 2018 may have at least some form of eCommerce solution in place - perhaps this explains why it is viewed as less of a priority?

This is certainly though an area for further discussion - something that will be surely had at the Copperberg Spare Parts Business Platforms which are running in Q1 next year.

 

Digitalisation:

Digitalisation is the key buzzword of the last few years although given that it encompasses a number of important shifts within the current evolution of business processes this is perhaps to be expected and there is no denying the importance of digitalisation within the field service sector and it is also a major consideration within the closely related function of parts management as the research reveals.

Digitalisation was ranked was 71% of the respondents to the Copperberg survey as being listed as either a four, five or six on their scale of importance, with 22% of respondents listing it as a six i.e. very important.

This places digitalisation as being deemed to be not quite as important to the respondent base as Inventory Management and Parts Pricing but more important than eCommerce.

What is interesting to note here is that these two very specific niche challenges seem to be in some-ways the eternal, perennial headaches of the sector, whilst broader, business-wide concerns such as digitalisation are possibly more likely to appear as an issue to overcome in the short-term which in themselves could lead to improvements in other areas - such as improved inventory management for example.

Which leads us neatly into...

 

3D Printing & Artificial Intelligence:

Two perfect examples of exciting new technologies that are emerging would be 3D Printing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) - with one set to play a hugely significant role in the niche of spare parts management, whilst the other will play a broad role in almost all sectors, including spare parts management.

So how do the industry experts who made up the Copperberg respondent base see each of these exciting technologies impacting the spare parts management sector?

With regards to AI just over a third of respondents (35% ) thought it would be important to some degree (again listing it as either a four, five or six).

However, less than a tenth of the respondents (9%) felt that AI was currently very important for them.

In terms of 3D printing, surprisingly the numbers were even lower.

In fact, less than a third of companies listed 3D Printing at a four or higher and only 8% of respondents felt that 3D Printing was very important in the sector currently.

 

Parts Logistics:

One area, however, that was overwhelmingly listed as being important within the field of spare parts management across the next 12 months was that of parts logistics.

94% of respondents listed parts logistics as being at least a four in the scale of importance with over a third (35%) going on to state that they felt parts logistics was important enough to warrant being listed as a six.

This makes parts logistics one of the most important areas in the spare parts sector across the next twelve months according to this respondent base, although Inventory Management is very important to more companies.

 

Conclusions:

The results of the survey bring us some interesting conclusions - particularly when we stand them alongside the trends we are seeing from within the field service sector.

Of course, field service and parts management are two leaves on the same branch with deeply symbiotic relationships between the two.

Yet, from this research at least, it does seem that many of the forward-looking discussions we have been having within the field service sector, particularly around emerging technologies such as AI, IoT and Augmented Reality as well as the wider topic of servitization as a strategy for business growth - may be further down the line than their equivalent discussions with our spare parts colleagues - and in some companies that may be significantly so.

Perhaps, part of the reason for this is that parts management is a highly complex beast with a huge amount of moving parts (literally) and even if solutions such as inventory management systems have been put in place it may take time for the benefits there to be truly felt.

However, the simple fact is that no matter how efficient field service management is - it all falls out of the window if parts management is poor - and this is perhaps the greatest learning from the research - that the focus of professionals within the parts management sector currently remains on efficiencies - and for that, we in field service should be hugely grateful.

 

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City Technical Services, a leading provider of green energy servicing, maintenance and installation solutions, has adopted an advanced telematics system from Ctrack, an Inseego company. Ctrack Plug & Play, a self-installed tracking solution, will be used to monitor a fleet of 133 vans used by City Technical Services’ nationwide network of engineers. This will enable the company to make best use of mobile resources while ensuring vehicles are driven in a safe and efficient manner.

“As a green company, with over 10 years of experience in the renewables and energy efficiency industry, our focus is to cut emissions and save energy both for customers and within the business,” explained Kenny Henderson, Managing Director of City Technical Services. “Ctrack Plug & Play will help us operate responsibly and minimise our environmental impact by reducing mileage and fuel usage, as well as support our strong commitment to health and safety.”

Ctrack Plug & Play connects directly to the OBD II diagnostic port, so can be installed in a matter of seconds and quickly switched between vehicles when required. The tracking solution will provide City Technical Services with real-time visibility of its mobile assets, along with vehicle specific information from the on-board systems, driver behaviour monitoring and crash detection.

In addition to targeting efficiency and safety improvements, City Technical Services will use the tracking solution to enhance customer response times, especially for its emergency repairs service, by identifying the nearest, available engineer to an incoming job. The company will also take advantage of a comprehensive suite of reports to better understand fleet performance. It will use this added insight to address speeding and driving violations, identify excessive fuel usage and verify timesheets.

Steve Thomas, Managing Director of Ctrack commented: “The Ctrack Plug & Play solution is one of a wide range of telematics options we supply that also includes hardwired and long-life battery units.  All of these different unit types report back to a common interface allowing our customers to mix and match their hardware deployments to meet individual fleet and business requirements.”

 

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OnProcess Technology, a global pioneer in service value chain optimization, today announced OPtimize a digital transformation service leveraging predictive analytics to improve post-sale business outcomes.

Building upon OnProcess’ domain, AI and automation expertise, OPTimize enables businesses to drive unparalleled gains in service revenue, cost savings and customer experience.

“Post-sale service is vital to OEM and service provider success. Not only does it drive customer loyalty, it accounts for the vast majority of a business’ profitability. Many companies struggle with managing the fine balance between revenue, cost and customer experience, and more often than not, one or two get sacrificed for the other. When that happens, business suffers,” said Mike Wooden, CEO, OnProcess Technology. “OPTimize enables OEMs and service providers to streamline critical business processes and maximize those three service components. We make it possible for businesses to unlock new levels of post-sale value.”

“Service Council’s research has benchmarked thousands of service leaders over the years, highlighting how top-performing organizations (Service Champions) combine a holistic approach to out-performance; establishing a balance between operational and customer-facing commitments to yield commercial business success,” said John Carroll, CEO of Service Council. “OPTimize is positioned to solve service and executive leadership’s conundrum of finding an equilibrium between what has long been considered adversarial forces: profit, cost and customer experience. This is an exciting release and OnProcess is a vendor to watch.”

OPTimize provides the visibility, intelligence, automation and exception management required to improve the service value chain, from sales order management, remote triage and inventory management, to field service management, fraud prevention, warranty management, and even end-of-life services. Using OnProcess’ proprietary real-time control tower, predictive analytics and award-winning solutions, OPTimize ensures the precise balance of revenue growth and cost to serve reductions, with an optimal customer experience within your post-sale service value chain.

• Reduce Cost to Serve: Clients dramatically reduce capital expenditures, minimize operational costs and improve efficiencies throughout their post-sale services.
• Grow Revenue: OPTimize speeds time-to-revenue, reduces revenue leakage and boosts customer retention, all of which result in greater post-sale revenue.
• Enhance Customer Experience: Clients eliminate needless triage cycles, improve service quality and resolve customer issues quickly. Service events are transformed into productive, positive engagements that consistently meet and exceed customer expectations.

Click here or email sales@onprocess.com for more information about OPTimize.

 

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