As a mantra, fixing the customer first and the problem second, has served Martin Summerhayes well in his 30-plus years in service profession. Mark Glover, caught up with Fujitsu’s Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement to discuss what it...
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Feb 20, 2019 • Features • Fujitsu • management • Martin Summerhayes • Training • Customer Satisfaction and Expectations
As a mantra, fixing the customer first and the problem second, has served Martin Summerhayes well in his 30-plus years in service profession. Mark Glover, caught up with Fujitsu’s Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement to discuss what it really takes to deliver client satisfaction.
Let’s go back to the mid-80s, 1985 to be precise. The first of excellent Back to the Future films was released, Nintendo launched its first games console and music was being sold on small, shiny discs called CDs.
At the same time, Martin Summerhayes was taking his first step on the first rung of the service ladder. And what a tall ladder it turned out to be, for when we speak some 33 years later, Martin is still in the sector and just as wide-eyed and enthusiastic as he was when he stepped out of college with a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer Technology.
His course was sponsored by IT companies including IBM and Hewlett Packard who provided a route into employment for students following their graduation. Martin’s first role was to install and support a dealing room system for Morgan Stanley in the heart of London’s financial district; a fascinating first placement, however Martin fears those opportunities for young engineers just don’t exist anymore, making the industry’s skill-set gap widen further. “When I first started you went to college – not university – and you got a qualification that was equally respected, equally of value,” he says. “Then you got out there and then you went into the workplace. “Then about 10 or 15 years ago, the mindset changed. What we have now is a maturing population of engineers. Most of them are in their 40s or 50s, certainly some of the more experienced ones are in their 50s but then they retire and they leave. “But there isn’t an educational ground that backs this through. Most young people wouldn’t be interested in technology, around computer science or electronics, for example. At the end of the day, most people just don’t get into that,” he says.
It’s a damning verdict but one that carries weight. The work-place disparity between new technicians coming into the industry and those retiring is vast and has been well commented. But what, if anything, can be done? Martin suggests a re-positioning of what service is could help. “It goes back to when I first started out,” he says. “I think field engineering or field service is as much around customer service as it is technology. “You can bring people into the organisation, who might not have a technology background but have a customer service background but we give them those skills and we cross-train them into the different environment. “Effectively what we want to do is to give this training to the more senior and experienced engineers and you might get three or four juniors working with senior and the whole process can start to work. You start to build up a little network and can start to see results.”
Martin comes from a place where the customer sits at the heart of all service theory. “You should fix the customer first and the problem second,” he tells me; it’s a mantra he cultivated very early on in his career. Does it still carry weight today? “It is prevalent now as it was then,” he says confidently, “and in fact in some respects more so. “When you’re visiting the customer, how do you present yourself? You’re the face of the company you’re presenting, how do you talk to the customer? How do you actually let the customer know you’ll deal with the problem they have? Even if you don’t manage to fix the problem you have to give reassurance to the customer that they’re important. At the end of the day the problem will get resolved at some point, even if you don’t fix in on the first visit. “But if you send out someone who doesn’t talk to the customer, or doesn’t acknowledge the issue but goes out to fix the part, even if they fix it first time, the customer will end up with a negative experience of that service interaction,” he warns.
We now live in an age of ‘keyboard’ warriors, of negative social media reviews that can spread like wildfire across a company’s reputation. “When I first started, we talked about how it takes ten positive interactions to change one negative interaction,” Martin says. “These days, the amount of connections people have on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram could be up to 2,000 people. The fact that we’re more connected today, it means we’re more likely to share those negative experiences. “Customer service is even more critical today than it was 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.”
"If you send someone out who doesn't talk to the customer, or doesn't acknowledge the issue , even if they fix it first time, the customer will end up with a negative experience..."
Martin is currently Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement at Fujitsu, a firm he joined in 2008, prior to which he spent nearly 20 years at Hewlett Packard, his first role following his apprenticeship with Data Logic. At HP he sampled an array of various service and operational roles, working his way up to become its EMEA Customer Services Performance Director. Given his years in the industry Martin has witnessed enablers such as connectivity, mobility and the internet come to assist in the engineer’s role, almost as much as a screwdriver and notebook, but does the end-user, the customer care about new technologies such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence? “Not, really, no,” he says quickly. “When a function doesn’t occur the issue then becomes, how do you as my service provider resolve it as quickly as possible? Whether you use Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Reality or whatever technology platform people are talking about these days, they are enablers.”
He suggests a future when customers will pick up their i-pads, connect to a portal and are guided through the fixing-process interactively, perhaps live-streaming a remote-service technician for extra support, is on the horizon. As advanced as this sounds, Martin strips back it back to customer empowerment. “All you’re doing is enabling the customer to self-solve that event quicker and more effectively than what you would have done 20 years ago,” he says. “You’re moving the technology closer to the customer.”
And what about customer satisfaction? What can service professionals do to ensure this most important of factors? Martin outlines five things that every service professional needs to be asking themselves “How do you get the right engineer, with the right skills, with the right parts, to the right call? If you can guarantee those five things,” he says confidently, you’ll end up with really good customer satisfaction.”
A lot has changed in movies, music and computer since 1985, but Martin’s approach to achieving excellent customer service has not. It’s a career we should all take note of.
You can listen to the Field Service Podcast with guest Martin Summerhayes here.
Jan 15, 2018 • Features • Fujitsu • Future of FIeld Service • Rajat Kakar • digitalisation • Industrie4.0 • Servitization • Telco
One of the most important presentations at this year’s Field Service Europe Conference was delivered by Rajat Kakar, VP, Head of Product Related Services Business, Fujitsu as he tackled the question of what leadership will look like in the future....
One of the most important presentations at this year’s Field Service Europe Conference was delivered by Rajat Kakar, VP, Head of Product Related Services Business, Fujitsu as he tackled the question of what leadership will look like in the future. kris Oldland spoke to him about some of the key points...
The world in which we are living is changing and it is changing rapidly. Digitalisation and ever increasing connectivity is having an immeasurable impact upon the way businesses operate and the workplace of the future is going to be a vastly different environment to what it is today.
The question is how prepared are you and your business to adapt to these changes? It is almost a given that those organisations that can see the road ahead and are plotting a clear roadmap for their own evolution, are the ones that will thrive. Those who wait until the changes come, and try to react to them then... they may well find it is too little, too late.
As Leon Megginson, a Louisiana State University business professor stated in a speech some fifty years ago stated “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”
This is why Fujitsu’s Rajat Kakar’s presentation at this year’s Field Service Europe conference held in Amsterdam is one that had attendees fully engaged - as it focused on the changes coming to all corners of industry and importantly how businesses must adapt.
If you think about leadership it goes into multiple dimensionsAnd of course at the heart of all organisational change must sit strong leadership - but what exactly does strong leadership in this brave new world of Digitisation, Automation and Artificial Intelligence look like?
“If you think about leadership it goes into multiple dimensions,” explains Rajat.
“We need to be thinking about how can we engage with and harness the next generation of people who are going to be driving service businesses forward and to do this we must start to think about things from the perspective of where the market is going to be developing.”
“Ultimately, everything comes down to this understanding of where the market is going - that is the first step. From there, if we can see how the market will evolve, then we can ask ourselves what kind of people do we need in order to be able to drive our businesses forward?”
For Rajat, globalisation driven by more effective connectivity is one such significant consideration.
“This opens up a complete new area, one which a lot of people have not really dealt with before,” he comments.
The service delivery mechanism is no longer just around the corner, the delivery mechanisms of the future will be in the global delivery centres“The service delivery mechanism is no longer just around the corner, the delivery mechanisms of the future will be in the global delivery centres. The delivery mechanisms will be possibly even be sitting in multiple countries depending on how you’re able to find your experts for the service element you want to be delivered.”
“These are the things we need to start thinking about today. We need to consider how we as companies are going to be managing our businesses moving forward.”
Of course, even today we are seeing how technology is changing the shape of our businesses and this is undoubtedly only set to increase in pace. We have been hearing talk about the fourth industrial revolution and of new business paradigms for many years now and concepts such as Industrie4.0 and Servitization are rapidly taking hold. However, Rajat asserts that this is just one aspect of the evolution service organisations should be aware of.
The fast changing face of the workforce will also add far reaching cultural changes to the way we work.
“The next element we must consider is that the workforce is changing which means that we will have a lot more experts moving into the market - you will be bringing on experts rather than developing them via the traditional organisational structures,” he explains.
It is clear that across all verticals, business leaders can expect to see wholesale changes as the combined drivers of technology and cultural shift make their impact known. One upshot of such impact Rajat predicts is a much more competitive and level playing field - which will be largely driven by the maturation of Big Data tools.
The ability to assemble data and then draw information from that data will become increasingly easier.“What I think is fascinating is that the barriers to entry will continue to become smaller,” Rajat states. “The ability to assemble data and then draw information from that data will become increasingly easier. What used to take a long time to achieve will be done in a quicker and more efficient manner.”
“To take an example, let’s look at the traditional Telco market. What happened traditionally was that you would have an infrastructure which had an clearly identifiable cost.”
“However, off the back of such infrastructure we will see a lot of small companies that are coming up who will actually achieve on the base of that infrastructure - but they could achieve a lot more, in a lot quicker way whilst avoiding much of the potential costs which a traditionally structured company used to have.”
“If you take for example a company which has been the traditional provider of telecoms such as AT&T or Telefonica you will see that more and more these organisations are getting into areas like content management.”
“This is because they can see that the traditional means of delivering news or programmes etc which generally came via traditional broadcasters are quickly becoming less and less valid.” Rajat adds.
What is happening is that via such digital changes those who had traditionally been in the market suddenly gain a lot more competitors“So if these Telco’s are able to harness the information from their customers to be able to do more direct marketing and direct advertising, and do all these things effectively, what is happening is that via such digital changes those who had traditionally been in the market suddenly gain a lot more competitors - there are a lot more smaller companies that are now able to compete.”
“Once we get down to this, the question becomes what kind of a service mechanism are you going to need to support these type of companies moving forward - because they are not looking for the traditional services, everything can be turned completely upside down.”
These are all hugely important questions you absolutely must be working through today, in order to build a leadership team that will flourish tomorrow.
“You have to face up to the fact that the type of leadership you have in place today may not be the right type of team to take you forward. Because if this leadership is not in tune with the upcoming changes to the market,then they are not in tune with how to make your business elements strategic.”
“Their ideas will effectively become lost in translation. Remember, you’re going to be needing different types of people and your going to be needing different types of skill sets if you want to stay ahead of the pack”
To quote another American University lecturer, John Allen Paulos, a Mathematician from Temple University, Pennsylvania, “Uncertainty is the only certainty.” and no one can tell exactly where the future may lie.
However, one can make an educated guess based on fairly substantial evidence - and for those attending Field Service Europe, paying attention to Rajat’s shrewd assessment of the future is sure to give you a head-start.
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Sep 18, 2015 • video • Fujitsu • live at sme • Martin Summerhayes • IFS • Service Management Expo. Cubit Transportation Syst
The great and the good of the service management industry came together at this years Service Management Expo held in London's Exel and Field Service News was at the hear of the action hosting the Field Service Solutions Zone.
The great and the good of the service management industry came together at this years Service Management Expo held in London's Exel and Field Service News was at the hear of the action hosting the Field Service Solutions Zone.
Here we bring you a selection of the speakers from Day Two including: Daryl Dudey, IFS, Martin Summerhayes, Fujitsu and Mike Gosling of Cubic Transportation Systems
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Feb 19, 2015 • Features • aberdeen • Aly Pinder • FSN20 • Fujitsu • Future of FIeld Service • Hilbrand Rustema • Martin Summerhayes • Noventum • Bill Pollock • IBM • Steve Downton • Steve Street • Strategies for Growth
Across December and January we asked our readers to nominate candidates for the inaugural #FSN20, a list of the twenty most influential people in field service. We received nominations from across the globe through social media, email and even a...
Across December and January we asked our readers to nominate candidates for the inaugural #FSN20, a list of the twenty most influential people in field service. We received nominations from across the globe through social media, email and even a phone call or two directly into the news-desk.
Armed with a list of candidates, a Field Service News panel selected the final list of twenty based on the number of nominations, their impact on the industry (past, present and future) and their sphere of influence in both the physical and digital world.
After much long deliberation, heartful debate (read arguing) and enormous amounts of coffee we managed to whittle our list down to a final twenty which we pleased to present to you here the inaugural edition of the #FSN20. You may not agree with our selection and if you don’t tell us, tell your friends, tell your colleagues, hell tell the world – because at the heart of it that’s what this list is all about, getting people talking about excellence in field service and raising the profile of those leading us to a better future.
We are now announcing who made the list in alphabetical order in four sections across four days. So without further ado we are pleased to bring you the final five of the #FSN20
Aly Pinder, Senior Research Analyst, Aberdeen
One of the most prolific authors in the industry and also one of the nicest guys in Field Service to boot. Pinder had more nominations for this list than any other candidate, which speaks volumes.
Having written or co-authored over 50 research reports, and benchmarked more than 4,000 service executives across 5 years with Aberdeen, he writes and speaks with authority and understanding and is widely respected across the market.
Bill Pollock, President and Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies For Growth
Pollock is one of the industry’s most respected authors and commentators with a long and distinguished career focused on field service.
Having worked for Gartner, Aberdeen and been a founding partner of The Service Council, his analysis is highly sought after and he has authored some of the most detailed research available in the industry. His white papers, blogs and posts are widely read across the globe.
Hilbrand Rustema, Managing Director, Noventum Service Management
Co-author of seminal service book, “Service Economics” and managing director of one of Europe’s most prominent Service Management consultancies, Noventum Service Management, Rustema has been at the heart of evolving service thinking across the continent for many years and remains at the forefront of the sector today.
Steve Street, IT Security & Infrastructure Architect, IBM
Steve Street, IT Security/Infrastructure Architect, IBM – In a long industrious career with computing giants IBM Steve has been an excellent servant to service science. He has worked with many of the key leaders and thinkers in this area including Professors Irene Ng, Scott Sampson and fellow Cambridge University Alumni Andy Neely on a wide range of initiatives to unite academia, government and industry in the development and promotion of service science as a discipline.
He remains a key figure in the evolution of the area and his work is shaping the way leading organisations are seeking to deliver services.
Martin Summerhayes, Head of Strategy and Business Development, Fujitsu
One of a few on the list that started their a career as a service engineer, Summerhayes’ career has been quite remarkable.
He was the man who devised HP’s service strategy which became a billion dollar proposition, he has advised London’s Metropolitan police force working with local and national government, paramilitary and commercial companies, before taking on his current role as Head of Strategy for Fujitsu. And he still finds time to take a proactive role in promoting service excellence in the UK nonprofit group, The Service Community.
Follow Martin @martinsummerhay
Special Mention - Steve Downton, Downton Consulting
Whilst Downton sadly passed away in 2013 his long-standing legacy remains both in the approach he developed to service as outlined in the book, ”Service Economics”, which he co-authored with Hilbrand Rustema and Jan Van Veen, as well as in the non-profit organisation he created, ”The Service Community”, which continues to operate as a significant organisation dedicated to sharing best practices amongst service companies operating the UK.
Steve’s impact on the field service industries will be long felt.
See the rest of the list here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
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Aug 13, 2014 • Features • Management • Fujitsu • management • Martin Summerhayes
In part one of this exclusive interview we looked at Martin Summerhayes extraordinary career to date. Now in the concluding part Fujitsu's Head of Business Development talks about what drives him forward...
In part one of this exclusive interview we looked at Martin Summerhayes extraordinary career to date. Now in the concluding part Fujitsu's Head of Business Development talks about what drives him forward...
Focussing on his current role again the passion for consistently delivering and improving the service he and his team deliver to their clients is undeniable when questioned on what he takes pride in and what frustrates him on a day-to-day basis.
“The thing that makes me go home smiling at the end of the day is delivering great service to customers, and what makes me tear my hair out is the politics that you have in any organisation big or small” he comments before adding “what can make me really frustrated is speed, the inability of people and organisations to change when markets and situations change”
It is in these frustrations that another layer of what makes Summerhayes tick is perhaps revealed. Whilst he is certainly approachable, he is clearly exceptionally quick when it comes to assessing and understanding the markets he operates in and comes across as a man that perhaps has to sometimes wait for others to catch up to his way of thinking. This could require a great deal of patience, or result in a great deal of frustration. More than likely there is probably a healthy portion of both.
Indeed his standards are set exceptionally high. Looking at what defines exceptional service he explains “It is when you delight your customers. Not when you meet their expectations, not when you exceed their expectations, it’s when you delight them. When your customer becomes the best advocate there is for your business and services”
These are the standards that Summerhayes expects as a consumer and these are the standards that he demands his team at Fujitsu strive for also.
A key to such service excellence he explains is to make customer interaction as smooth and simple as possible.
“One thing that absolutely drives me nuts is when a company makes me as the customer deal with their own organisational complexity."
“We copied that structure right into the IDR, if it is a hardware problem press one etc… and I still see it today in companies. Are they designing from the customer experience in or from the organisational structure out?” He asks with a hint of irritation at how so many major service organisations miss the simple premise of putting the customer at the heart of the business.
“Whether it’s retail, hospitality, the medical profession, whatever we do we put our own organisational complexity in the face of our customers. Now, if you are a great company, an exceptional company, if you are there to delight your customers, you don’t do that.” He continues.
So how do we go about building our business to delight our customers? Do we need to look at our processes, our corporate culture or the technology that we use to deliver? Is it a blend of all three to get things right?
Summerhayes explains “The premise starts with thinking of the customer at the heart of everything. It starts with that. You have then got to put in place the culture, then the supporting processes and then finally the technology”
“You can’t turn around and say the technology will solve the problem. The technology is a reflection of your key business processes, your business processes are a reflection of your organisational construct, and your organisational construct drives your culture.”
Of course the importance of getting culture right first is a conversation that has been held many times before, and something we have explored in many an article on fieldservicenews.com yet it remains something that many companies end up getting wrong, and when they do so they can end up in a viscous circle with software that is either out-dated or worse that was never fit for purpose in the first place.
“Lets go right the way back to the point here” Summerhayes states “your engineer, the way he talks, the way he acts, the way he delivers the service is all a reflection of the culture of the organisation, the business processes that he has to follow and then the IT that enables him to do his job.”
With the trusted advisor status that the field engineer has, and his position on the frontline being one of your most powerful points of customer contact it is of course essential that he is as well prepared to succeed as is possible. Especially given that his success will be a direct reflection on your brand both in the short and long term.
As Summerhayes concludes ”having the customer at the heart of what you are doing is key because at the end of the day it is a service industry, you are there to serve”
Given his track record I’d suggest that taking Martin Summerhayes’ advice on this and focussing your service business from a ‘customer in’ perspective is very much the right thing to do.
Jul 30, 2014 • Features • Management • Fujitsu • management • Martin Summerhayes • Interview • Strategy
In part one of this exclusive two part interview Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland talks to Martin Summerhayes of Fujitsu, about his spending over two decades as a pioneer in the field service industry...
In part one of this exclusive two part interview Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland talks to Martin Summerhayes of Fujitsu, about his spending over two decades as a pioneer in the field service industry...
There are a number of key people who have been there and done it in field service. Professionals who have dedicated there lives to service, who have an inherent understanding of what it means to put the customer at the heart of the business strategy, and what it takes to develop a successful service division on an enterprise scale.
And then there is Martin Summerhayes.
A day before our interview I was able to witness Martin give a presentation at the recent Service Community event. In the half hour during which he spoke he gave the impression not only of a man that had a very firm understanding of the whole picture is in terms of service delivery, but also a man who had gained that understanding by paying attention to the minutiae of every aspect of the process.
However, after speaking to him one on one at some length a day later, it was clear that we had only just scratched the surface of Summerhayes’ depth of understanding of the industry in which he operates, as well as his passion for getting it right.
In terms of his entry into the world of field service Summerhayes, like many of his peers took a fairly straightforward path into the system. Having graduated from university in London in the late 80’s he joined HP as a field engineer on a graduate scheme working in their volume repair business. As he puts it himself “You started as a man with a van and progressed from there”
And perhaps here is a glimpse at what makes Summerhayes such a fascinating subject for interview or indeed just someone to have a conversation with. Whilst announcing what was a really quite an extraordinary achievement, he makes it sound as if it was essentially a logical development that anybody else could have made
“My boss asked me to come up with some ideas for generating service revenue” he began as I asked him to describe his path from service engineer to service manager
“I came up with what I called the ten million dollar opportunity, which was literally sold up front. We offered a multi year extended warranty on the HP printers and PCs that we were selling in the UK, this would provide HP with an incremental ten million dollars worth of revenue. It was called the HP support pack business and when I left HP was generating over a billion dollars of revenue per anum.”
And perhaps here is a glimpse at what makes Summerhayes such a fascinating subject for interview or indeed just someone to have a conversation with. Whilst announcing what was a really quite an extraordinary achievement, he makes it sound as if it was essentially a logical development that anybody else could have made
This of course isn’t true, to create a billion dollar business in any industry takes vision by the bucket load and to do it in a fledgling IT service industry even more so, but the touch of humility he shows when outlining his achievements, and an almost a blasé outlook on such a success, hints at an impression of a man who is almost certainly quite an inspiration to both his peers and his team alike.
In total Summerhayes spent nearly 20 years working with HP, having risen up the ranks from the “Man with a Van” to being at differing points responsible for 450 engineers, developing new programmes within the company to change their processes, to being heavily involved in overseeing the merger with Compaq (which actually also included absorbing Digital Equipment Corporation and Cabletron into the HP structure as well). Eventually he was asked to move to Texas as part of a management restructure, which Summerhayes declined and the HP chapter of his career came to an end.
He then took a decidedly left-field step in his career and took up a role with the Metropolitan Police Force. Spending two years with the ‘Met’ which he describes as “a mix of secret military, local government bureaucracy gone mad and IT” where the culture was one of “meetings, about meetings about meetings” Summerhayes eventually returned to the more familiar corporate environment with Fujitsu where he has been for the past six years.
Here in his roles as Head of Strategy and Business Development he now works directly with the firms fourteen largest accounts in the UK, working with them to establish margin and service improvement opportunities. (Last year alone he was able to deliver over two million pounds of margin improvements.)
Look out for part two of this feature coming soon where we look at Summerhayes' biggest frustrations in field service today as well as what makes him go home smiling after a long day...
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