ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘future-of-field-service-2’ CATEGORY

The global field service market is estimated to jump from $1.58 billion last year to more than $3.5 billion by 2019, according to research firm MarketsandMarkets. This three-part series will look at how cloud is an enabler for field service organisations, how technology is allowing central control and improving people management, rounding off with a look at how technology can improve customer service and the issue of privacy.

The series has emerged following a recent panel debate with experts and academics, hosted by ClickSoftware and chaired by Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller. The panel included: Tim Faulkner, Senior Vice President at ClickSoftware, Dr Carsten Sorensen, Associate Professor in Digital Innovation at London School of Economics, Katelyn Burrill, Product Marketing Manager at ClickSoftware, and Phil Wainewright, Chair at Euro Cloud UK.

The cloud as an enabler and the automation landscape

 Paul Miller opened the debate: “We're here to talk about cloud and field service. A lot of the visible manifestations are out in the field, for instance the device the engineer is holding when they walk into your house is probably accessing applications and data held in the cloud – but do we really need the cloud for all that? Why is the cloud important?”

“We all get excited about new technology,” Phil Wainewright responds. “What's changed now is the Internet and that's brought two things – digital connectedness and extremely powerful and not so powerful smart devices. There are more computers in the world today than there are people; cheap devices, with the ability to be connected to each other and to the computing power of the cloud, are falling right into the hands of individuals. The final ingredient is the hugely elastic scalable power of the cloud. You can pool it into a vast cauldron of big data and pop out analytics and use the information to develop more efficient processes.”

 

“For ClickSoftware it's a different model and it brings down barriers to adopting field service solutions that were there before,” said Tim Faulkner. “Any company with its own IT department probably had a traditional approach of evaluating a solution, looking at the integrations needed, buying the hardware, setting it up and making that capex investment – as an organisation, you bank on seeing returns as you ramp up and roll out.”

Faulkner continued, “That's not easy for a small organisation to do though. Cloud is a leveller and enables small organisations to adopt the same applications. For large corporations it helps them to deploy different methods. Maybe not the big waterfall approach, but a more agile incremental way in shorter timeframes. Cloud is definitely an enabler for that, opening new opportunities for business units within larger corporations. Last year, in Europe, the adoption of our cloud-based solutions surpassed my forecasts at the beginning of the year – we expected 25% of new customers and it ended up being closer to 50%!”

Miller interjects: “Allowing smaller companies to adopt the same solution as their biggest competitors?”

“Using cloud based field service technology allows flexibility and speed,” said Dr Carsten Sorensen.  “If you look at manufacturing, in the old days you'd have a siloed approach – by the time you got to the last person to sign for a new component, they'd realise it couldn't be made within the constraints and they'd have to go back and start again.

Dr Sorensen continued, “We need to understand all of the constraints straight away. One of the key things in business is to allow individuals to make rapid decisions while at the same time making sure they don’t make bad decisions for the company. In the past, these individuals had information in a handbook or on their computer back at the office or depot. In the 21^st century, individuals, wherever they are, need to make the right choices and the infrastructure needs to be in their hands to make those informed decisions. We haven’t really worked out how to utilise this yet.”

 

“Business infrastructure is an important angle,” said Wainewright. “The way businesses are organised needs to be changed to take advantage of the new technologies.”

Sorensen jumped in at this point: “They need to balance ERP systems that automate the process that tells people what to do at what stage. It makes it possible to have flexible communication. The challenge is for big companies to manage this to facilitate processes but also enable discussions and flexibility. The more lightweight infrastructure you have the better it is for flexibility. Cloud technology makes it more lightweight.”

Rounding off the first part of the debate Miller asked Katelyn Burrell how organisations are changing how they deal with their own customers, with cloud playing a big part of that. “When prospects come to ClickSoftware looking for a cloud solution from you, is that recognition part of the solution? Are they thinking about the broader strategic shift?”

“They are absolutely thinking about the broader strategic shift,” said Burrell. “We started nearly 20 years’ ago with on premise solutions only, we're experts at that. It has to be a transformative project where all stakeholders are involved up-front. What the cloud has done now is enabled more experimentation within the organisation, possibly without the involvement of IT. A business unit might come to us and say they want to make this transformation and need help selling to the executives. The cloud has enabled them to do a pilot project before going on a bigger scale.

What's really driving it for our customers is that their products and services are becoming more commoditised, and how they deliver their services is a key differentiator. They need to improve their customer experience, but also keep their operations and costs in check, servicing the needs of the business and the customer.”

Look out for Part Two of the debate, when the focus switches to central control and people management, and how development of the devices available allows greater oversight and communications with workers out in the field.

 

---

 

Be social and share this article

Wider access to custom-fit mobility tools is driving new efficiencies for field service workers, says  Alison Clark,  Product Manager  for RhoMobile Suite, the app development platform from Zebra Technologies.

The proliferation of more affordable and richly-featured mobile technologies is finally at the point of transforming field service practices for companies of all sizes. The degree of tool customisation essential for maximising the efficiency with which field service tasks are carried out has finally democratised, moving away from being something isolated to big businesses with the budget to match.

Enterprise-calibre field mobility applications customised to meet the highly specific needs of an individual business can now utilise specialised tools that include barcode scanners, GPS, sensor data capture, and more. This wider access to custom fit mobility tools is producing exciting new trends in field operations, which any business looking to improve their own practices in the field would do well to study for possible adoption. Here are three of the most significant ways that custom mobility app technologies are driving new efficiencies for workers in the field.

1.  Optimisation of field workers’ driving routes is slashing transit times.
   App-based GPS, traffic mapping, and routing technology in every service vehicle and carried in the pocket of every worker in the field is giving company dispatchers a more sophisticated, holistic overview of the field resources at their disposal. Field workers now have their routes for the day continuously optimised by intelligent software. The days of the repair truck coming within a “window” of 9am to 9pm are ending. Rather, precise computer-assisted planning allows field workers to tell customers how many minutes they are away.

   More streamlined and customised interfaces are benefitting today’s field workers by removing pain points and making data capture fast and error-proof.

   More specifically, we’ve seen a move toward apps where dispatchers can simply assign work orders to field technicians using a drag-and-drop calendar interface – where appointments and geographic routes are then easily recalculated and optimised for the fastest possible travel. Field workers are now experiencing the ease of simply following GPS directions from site to site. Dispatchers work from a dashboard that includes not just field workers’ locations but analytical insights as their work progresses. This allows dispatchers to modify assignments on the fly to further optimise work efficiency. The result of this efficiency is more site visits and jobs completed in a day, happier and better-served customers, and sizable savings in fuel costs.
2. Digitised and streamlined interfaces are revolutionising data capture.
   
   The pens and clipboards still used by some field workers are now (or soon to be) antiquated relics. And while technology solutions that are not custom fit to a company’s needs may assist somewhat by digitising information, workers using one-size-fits-all systems will still need to capture data in different apps and send multiple files to dispatchers. Thankfully, more streamlined and customised interfaces are benefitting today’s field workers by removing pain points and making data capture fast and error-proof. To complete a work order, field service workers may need to capture arrival and departure times, labor hours, work notes, part and material numbers, digital images, customer consultation time, customer signatures, etc. In the worst-case scenario of using less efficient and downright unwieldy solutions, field workers might even have to return to sites to recapture improperly recorded data.

   more streamlined and customised interfaces are benefitting today’s field workers by removing pain points and making data capture fast and error-proof.

   We’re seeing a decisive trend toward app solutions with thoughtfully designed user interfaces and smart use of data capture equipment. These apps also tend to include business rules and task segmentation customised for precise company needs. They can use Bluetooth scanners for errorless capture of complex parts numbers and integrate data within work orders themselves at the time of capture for seamless processing. Dispatchers can then receive and make use of those filled out work orders in real time, as their software is custom made for this purpose.
3. Field mobility apps work just as seamlessly offline.
   
   Even when work order data cannot be transmitted to dispatchers in real time, the trend in these apps is to make sure that locally capturing and later syncing recorded data is automatic and painless. Many field workers frequently travel to locations where their mobility devices will read “No Service.” Apps capable of offline data syncing enable workers to capture information without Internet connectivity and have that data sync up with the software used by dispatchers at the home office once they return to an area with a better wireless signal. This means that data is safe and available for use as soon as possible. Businesses using field mobility technologies have found that the more customised the application they use is to their needs, the more efficiently it will serve them. As highly tailored app customisation is now within the reach of businesses of all sizes, companies deploying employees in the field should look for those trends that support their productivity and help the business’ bottom line.

 

---

 

Be social and share this article

Leading  field service figures from the medical equipment world are heading to the Hotel Palace in Berlin from 7-9 March for Field Service Medical Europe.  The event promises to be an action-packed three days focusing on the field service challenges faced by medical equipment manufacturers.

Field Service Medical Europe is less of a conference, more of a three-day meeting, says Greg Ashton, Senior Director for the event, helping the leaders in the medical equipment sector transform their business in the digital age,   Alongside short, sharp 20-minute presentations , there will be 40-minute panel discussions, deep-dive workshops and small group round tables.  

Topics include the rise of the machine, gaining service insight through  M2M, how the IoT is changing field service for medical equipment manufacturers and  identifying the technicians of the future.  Speakers include Tom Buckley, director, Global Technical Service at Boston Scientific; Andrea Giradot, Care Fusion; John Ollerook, Head of Global Customer Service, Philips Healthcare; Stef Vanneste, Terumo-Europe; and Kari Klossner, Perkinelmer.

For more information and agenda click here:

 

---

 

Be social and share this news

In Part One of this Industry Leader interview, Dave Yarnold, CEO of ServiceMax, spoke about the company's rapid growth and the technology underpinning that rise to prominence. In Part Two, he talks to Marc Ambasna-Jones about the the changing world of field service and  the 4Ps he considers essential to success.

Service is not just considered a cost centre any longer, Yarnold points out. "Service people are getting involved in growth discussions. So you will have to know what is going with your customers and all these products will have to be calibrated and serviced and this means a field service tech is needed to go do it.

More of service will be on manufacturers now and they will want it because it’s an opportunity to evolve selling product into a service business model. Instead of just selling licenses and products up front, you now have powerful long term relationships because you offer upgrades and so on. There is more tie-in. It also gives manufacturers longer, recession-proof, financial models and you will see more field techs as a result.

The reality of course is that no one knows for sure how service will develop. All you can do is support the service teams with a set of tools that make them more central to the ongoing success of a business."

People, Products, Processes and Promise

FSN: While this sounds great, surely there are gaps in the ServiceMax arsenal?

DY: “All this stuff is deep. When you dive into the four Ps - People, Products, Processes and Promise - (ServiceMax’s key message), there’s just an incredible amount of depth that you can add into the platform. We built it with the 4 Ps in mind, so we can expand. I don’t see any huge gaps but the more we get into it, the more we peel back the onion and discover more about our customers’ needs, the more we can develop new features and pump out capabilities.”

FSN: Is Product IQ is an example of that?

DY: Yes, Product IQ enables companies to uncover, track and interact with their installed base and make it come alive.

How many companies have a handle on their installed base and their system of record for all their customer assets? Very few. It’s a big gap – all these companies growing through acquisitions with all these different sets of data in different systems. It’s not one of the first things that gets harmonised so we are hoping we can help.[quote float="left"]How many companies have a handle on their installed base and their system of record for all their customer assets? Very few.

 

Selling on Salesforce

FSN: Looking back, how important has Salesforce been to ServiceMax and what is the relationship now? They must look at you and think, ‘I wish we’d done that?’

“Well, yes, they have the platform on which to build but we have spent a lot of money and time to build ServiceMax. It’s taken years to understand the needs of a market, which is one of the reasons why it’s not been disrupted previously. From a system perspective it has all the complexities of an ERP system, multiple functions having to work together, multiple data sources, a lot of integration points.

Plus it has all the complexities of a CRM system in that you have to deliver a customer-facing app to enable customer-facing folks to do their jobs. So, it’s got to be simple, easy to use, easy to interact with and on top of that it has to be disconnected and mobile.

That of course means solving the problem of data synchronisation – you are talking about one of the most complex enterprise application domains ever – so it’s not trivial to go and build one of these.

“In terms of Salesforce, it has been an awesome enabling technology because we go into service organisations that are tasked with taking care of massive customer bases and they are not going to put that at risk. It’s reputation and a significant revenue stream, so organisations must be super conservative.

We are riding in on one of the best, well established cloud platforms and in many cases already tried and tested and used for sales and marketing, so building on the Salesforce platform has given us a tremendous head start. It’s allowed us to get over a lot of hurdles that we would have otherwise had to face in a very conservative target market.”[quote float="right"]Service people are in front of customers every day. They are generating revenue and performing this incredibly vital function. Why does nobody think about those guys?

 

FSN: ServiceMax growth has been impressive. Does it reflect the growing importance of the service industry?

“When we were a 40-50 person company I was having meetings with CIOs of $25bn Fortune 500 companies.
There were times when I was looking around thinking this is unbelievable. When we started the company we looked at the competitive landscape and realised nothing has really happened since the late 90s. No one had really cared about this market and that surprised me. Considering how much revenue comes out of service operations, it’s shocking.

I won’t share the logo but, when I spoke to the CIO and head of service one of the biggest companies in the world, I asked ‘why is it the case that when a new mobile device comes out everyone says, your sales people need these?’
Service people are in front of customers every day. They are generating revenue and performing this incredibly vital function. Why does nobody think about those guys? He shook his head and said, “I’m not sure.”

FSN: Do you see yourself as championing their cause? Is that what drives you and the business?

“It’s one of the drivers. Certainly for a long time service has been an afterthought. It goes back to the business model. If you generate a sale and from that sale, everything after cuts into that profit, so businesses want to minimise costs. Service has traditionally been viewed as a cost but times are changing fast and we believe we are a big part of that change.”

Yarnold talks a great game. He has enthusiasm and determination in abundance and that can only be applauded.
He has come a long way since his days with Clarify and there is a sense that he really does want to fly the flag for field service but it is the company’s land grab that is intriguing and also telling.

Offices in Europe and the Far East have been added to the roster. Although Salesforce may not be jockeying for position, the giants of Oracle and SAP are players yet to fully wake to the potential of the market. By the time they do ServiceMax could be an attractive acquisition target anyway. Certainly ServiceMax is not short on investors.

“There are a lot of service companies out there, millions of field technicians around the world who are trying to do their job but still don’t have great tools. They have clipboards, old Lotus Notes, applications that are simple and do not do a great job in terms of helping them do their job. There is a huge opportunity for us here. And as a place to invest technology dollars, that sentiment is starting to build.”

 

---

 

Miss Part One of this interview? Find it here

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Service management software specialist ServiceMax has launched  Connected Field Service,  a complete Internet of Things (IoT) solution for the field service industry. Connected Field Service (CFS) is said to be the first product to seamlessly integrate IoT machine data with a field service delivery system, providing service professionals and technicians with real-time proactive information about field assets, delivered via the cloud to their mobile devices.

As manufacturers and service providers continue to emphasize the need for proactivity in field service, the solution will be the essential framework for delivering more intelligent and agile service, transforming how technicians operate in the field while improving the quality of service they’re able to provide.

Connected Field Service leverages the PTC ThingWorx IoT platform, enables smart machines to initiate service requests, introduces new tools for remote service, and displays real-time machine data to service professionals and, when combined with additional PTC Service Lifecycle Management solutions, provides technicians with connected diagnostics and contextual repair procedures via mobile devices.

As part of the offering, ServiceMax is also announcing the availability of ProductIQ, a new feature in the ServiceMax Mobile suite for iPad and Laptops.  This provides users with a simple and clear mobile window into smart device details and records in-field activities. By transforming service delivery with real-time machine data and intelligent service tools, manufacturers can better guarantee asset performance and uptime, allowing them to sell services, and not products, in-line with the outcome-based model.

“We wanted to leverage the power of IoT to strengthen our platform for delivering flawless field service to our customers,” said Dave Yarnold, CEO of ServiceMax, “Connected Field Service lets you know immediately when something has failed or is about to fail, and automatically dispatches the necessary technician with the right knowledge and the right parts to repair the machine and eliminate unplanned downtime. The real-time window gives our customers the opportunity to drive higher customer satisfaction, opens up new opportunities for outcome-based service offerings, and ultimately drives profitable service.”

“Together, PTC and ServiceMax are enabling manufacturers and service organizations to create new value for their customers through enhanced service offerings and the sale of outcomes,” said Jim Heppelmann, President and CEO of PTC. “Connected Field Service leverages our complementary technology offerings and a shared vision for the transformation of service made possible by the Internet of Things, bringing an array of new capabilities to technicians in the field and powering increased efficiency and profitability at multiple stages of the service lifecycle.”

Connected Field Service recognizes that the trajectory of the field service industry needs to match that of the manufacturing industry. As manufacturers are more inclined to sell outcomes not products, the technicians delivering these outcomes need to move from a reactive servicing to a proactive and predictive model. The CFS solution offers service professionals and technicians predictive insights into the products they are servicing, underscoring ServiceMax’s ongoing commitment to deliver the most advanced capabilities to its customers.

“In our line of work, asset uptime is crucial. The ability to create real time reports straight from the machine and deliver to our technicians is very powerful,” said Daniel Kingham, Program Director at medical equipment company Elekta. “This feature alone will differentiate us from our competitors, delivering proactive and highly productive service to our customers around the globe. Ultimately, Connected Field Service allows us to transform our business and create loyal customers.”

"With so much new technology available in IoT point solutions, one of the main challenges our members are seeing is how to make sense of it all and put it to use," said John Ragsdale, VP of Technology Research, Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA). "The Connected Field Service solution from ServiceMax and PTC is the first solution we have seen that addresses this problem head-on. They have delivered the first pre-integrated suite that can provide a seamless view of real-time machine data, right in the context of where it is needed most -- the delivery of service in the field."

---

Be social and share this news

 In our continuing series on field service industry leaders, Dave Yarnold, CEO ServiceMax talks to Mark Ambasna Jones about the company's journey so far and the future of field service. 

When Dave Yarnold, ServiceMax CEO,  first ventured into Europe in search of business, ServiceMax were nothing more than a start up. Today it is one of the most successful field service management providers in the world. 

Still a relatively new kid on the block in software terms, ServiceMax is only eight years old. You get the feeling it’s still punching above its weight and Yarnold encapsulates the energy and excitement of the company that believes it is onto something.

ServiceMax has witnessed phenomenal growth (300% year on year with 150 new customers in 12 months, according to the company). Its inaugural ServiceMaxLive Europe customer event in Paris last year showed it has certainly arrived.

Yarnold was fresh back from Japan when we met. Was it easier to set-up in Japan than in Europe, I asked?

“Western Europe in particular and North America were clearly the top targets for us when we first started but then the next one in line terms of the number of manufacturers and the premium on service and quality was Japan. It’s always hard going into a new territory, a new country. No one wants to be the first to break a market but fortunately we have a number of companies that have done global roll outs and that has helped us and continues to do so.”

Did the company feel established in Europe now, I wondered, particularly in terms of business development and not just software sales?

 

“In our early days in Europe we were a small company with just a few use cases. To have people like Manish Gupta from Schneider Electric and John Cooper from Sony at ServiceMax Live was great and I think that says a lot about how far we have come. I have personally been working with Manish for five years, before we even had a team here, I was flying to Paris working on the details, looking at the installed base and helping find a solution. Schneider has over 20,000 field technicians.”

I asked why Yarnold had seemed particularly enamoured with Inspecta when its CCO Timo Okkonen spoke at the event.

“Timo has such a great story to tell. Inspecta is an interesting company and what it’s trying to do using ServiceMax is so interesting. It now has 1,600 users of  ServiceMax but it’s using the software for company transformation. The thing I love about his story is that it’s not just about service it’s a tool for collaboration, for employees to talk, to share important information. It’s really cool to see what different folks are doing with the platform.”

Service as a software

Transformation is a recurring theme. Yarnold’s suggestion that software as a service is becoming service as a software seems to fit with the Inspecta case study.  He believes ServiceMax has found itself at the heart of this changing landscape, partly by design but also partly as a result of being in the right place at the right time.

So does he see the company as a disruptor, ripping up the rule book?

“Ah yeah, certainly in making service a focal point in a technology world. No one else is doing that. Also catalysing this move towards a service model, we have a platform that allows companies to put these ideas and plans into place. We can take these grand ideas around IoT and make them usable, creating understandable user cases for IoT.”

 

What would that be, I asked?

“Quite simply it’s a machine talking to a machine, and when the machine says something is wrong, you take that data, dispatch a technician and fix the machine before the customer even knows there is a problem, eliminating unplanned downtime. We can help here and play a very disruptive role. We have the right tools to do that.” Banking on IoT makes sense and for service it’s an obvious fit.

ServiceMax had even rolled out Kevin Ashton, the guy credited for coining the term the Internet of Things to talk at the event and drive home the point. But isn’t everyone thinking along these lines?  And what makes ServiceMax so different?

“We’ve been looking at IoT for several years now, going back to when it was referred to as M2M – seemed like a good idea then but now it’s a better idea because it’s called IoT right? So we were always clear that we didn’t want to solve the data problem – all that data coming off of sensors, we didn’t want to get involved with sorting out the big data. We figured others would do that. We wanted to distil the data into something useful for service organisations. Our platform is geared to ultimately be agnostic, taking smart distilled data and to use in a service environment. This is where service becomes more strategic.”

ServiceMax has partnered with PTC to deliver the IoT bit, leaving it to focus on the service angle. Yarnold admits it’s still early days but you get the sense that this is a pivotal moment for the company and the industry as a whole.

Does Yarnold see a shifting role for field service technicians?

"There are two objectives here. One is to elevate the head of service so that service decisions are more strategic. We think that the Chief Service Officer  should be a C level position. The second objective is to determine the future role of the field service team.

 

We had 30 plus CSOs in a room and the liveliest discussion was on this – do your service people sell or serve and how best to generate revenues? Do you provide incentives to sell and potentially break the trust they have with customers?
Customers do trust their service techs. I’ve been in meeting s where customers have turned to the field service tech and asked, “should I buy this product?” There is a lot of power and trust here so you have to be careful.”

Are any companies doing this now?

“A lot of companies have armed the service teams with soft skills; they don’t call them sales skills. I think that some of the more forward thinking ServiceMax users have put some tools in place to coach field service people in what to look for, how to look for competitive equipment, for example, to identify a potential upsell opportunity and putting lead generation buttons in the system. It’s a delicate balance.”

Too delicate? Will it last?

“Service people are wary of pushing field teams towards selling too hard but they also seem excited by the fact they are relevant and generating revenue. Now service is not just considered a cost centre. Service people are getting involved in growth discussions.”

 

---

 

Look out for part two of this Industry Leader article when Yarnold talks about the 4 Ps he considers essential to service success.

 

---

 

Be  social and share this feature

Global energy management firm Schneider Electric is rolling out ServiceMax's service management solution to 6,000 engineers across the globe as part of its One Schneider customer support strategy in which IoT will also play a key role. Marc Ambasna- Jones caught up with both companies at MaxLive Europe.

As Manish Gupta, senior vice president of Schneider Electric took the stage in the Salon Opera in the 19th Century Le Grand Paris hotel, few of the 270 attendees at MaxLive Europe would have been aware that the company at which Gupta plies his trade is in fact older than the building in which they were sitting.

Le Grand Paris and its much celebrated Café de la Paix were opened in the 1860s and played host to local literary heavyweights Emile Zola, Victor Hugo and Maupassant. Thirty years earlier, and about 317km south in Le
Creusot, two brothers named Adolphe and Eugene Schneider acquired the local mines, forges and foundries. It was the start of what is today a $25bn business.

It is of course a very different business. Schneider Electric now defines itself as a specialist in energy management and automation.  Its client list spans the globe and covers a wide range of industries including utilities, manufacturing and distribution. This has led to rapid growth in its service teams which now numbers 20,000 tech support engineers. Understandably it has built up a complex service structure to manage its resources but not without a degree of pain.

According to Gupta, growth and acquisitions have led to the company having “lots of disparate systems from multiple vendors, including Excel spreadsheets.” Schneider Electric has, to be fair, been a very acquisitive company. It has bought and integrated 17 businesses in the last five years, including a £5 billion purchase of UK engineering firm Invensys earlier this year. This acquisition trail brings its own challenges and has been a contributor to the company’s service management conundrum.

“We had different solutions across different business units as well as different countries,” says Gupta. “As part of our global program for One Schneider,  our objective is to enable consistent and accessible visibility into our customers globally. This led us to purchasing Salesforce for CRM, and then we wanted to extend that single view of the customer to our field service. ServiceMax enables an end-to-end connected experience for our customers, techs and management and was on the Force.com platform.”

 

This fits with Gupta’s and Schneider Electric’s vision for the evolving role of the service engineer. “The installed base is key,” adds Gupta, “because we want to track how customers are using our products. We want to improve products and improve the experience.”

As well as the obvious potential for upselling, Gupta sees this ability to create a two-way conversation with customers an increasingly essential skill for service engineers. The premise is that retaining and upselling existing customers is easier than finding new customers.

Schneider Electric is currently in the process of rolling out ServiceMax for 6,000 of its service engineers and plans to review its contract when rollout is complete in 2017. Although still in mid-adoption, Gupta has identified a couple of pain points.

“Governance and training have probably been our biggest challenges,” he says. "It’s not unusual. Any large software deployment will have its sticking points and getting users up to speed quickly on new software tools is not easy. It’s time consuming and never moves as quickly as you want it to."

So what are the initial thoughts on dealing with ServiceMax?

“I like that fact that it aligns with our corporate strategy on standardisation, and the partnership we have with ServiceMax allows us to contribute to their roadmap. And ServiceMax’s functionality enables us to be more dynamic and support the business.”

What could be better?

“I’d like to see more systems integrators doing training as that will drive competitive pricing in PS resources. That will come in time as ServiceMax expands.”

It’s a fair point. It’s easy to forget that ServiceMax is still relatively new in software terms and new companies generally have a lot of energy and a willingness to go the extra mile to help customers. When Gupta was on the stage with ServiceMax CEO Dave Yarnold, it was clear from the outset that there was more to this arrangement than just a bit of back scratching.

 

So what does Schneider Electric get out of it beyond the original remit for buying software to manage its service teams? “The strength of partnership we have with them is enabling greater innovation in what we are doing with our service organisation. As a company, they think strategically about the software, which empowers us to do more strategic things with our service delivery.”

The industrial internet of things

One of the more strategic things is increased automation. Schneider Electric has been a massive advocate of the Internet of Things within its various customer industries, claiming that IoT is a driver for increased efficiency as well as increased sustainability.

Its own industrial IoT whitepaper talks about a “wrap and re-use approach” rather than a “rip and replace approach”, the idea being that this will enable greater business control through accurate machine intelligence.
This measured approach, it says, “will drive the evolution towards a smart manufacturing enterprise that is more efficient, safer, and sustainable.”

Gupta believes that IoT is a “fundamental strategy” that will significantly “change our service organisation.” In what way? “Technology is not the issue,” he says. “We can already do things quickly and efficiently. The biggest impact for us is the value we are able to give to the customer. This is where the biggest opportunity with IoT is for us – mitigating downtime, maintaining uptime and assets becoming predictive. IoT must become an operational strategy and not just be a vision. We are focused on scaling the innovation to an industrial level, not just pockets of visionaries doing isolated projects.”

As if to drive home the point, Schneider Electric also rolled out its VP of information process organisation, R&D and Innovation Efficiency. Twila Osborn, as well as having a long job title, is a mathematician. She worked on the space shuttle programme in the 1980s, using her problem solving skills on the well-publicised issues surrounding the shuttle’s heat-resistant tiles.

 

Today she works out of Boston in the US, designing processes across Schneider Electric’s data and technology platforms to ensure a lifecycle of data across the organisation. She has just finished with a proof of concept, she says, reaffirming that “R&D is relevant.”

Ground control

Her proof of concept is essentially about using automation to create a standard data flow across the organisation, “designing serviceability and scalability into the marketing attributes we need in the products from the very beginning,” she says.

“We can now look at the products and get metrics so we can develop competitive models now, looking at how we compare with rivals and plan accordingly. We can close the loop with our service team, so the engineer in the field can capture the data and look for upsell opportunities. It’s about service engineers getting the right product and parts while on site or maybe even like the Tesla, refresh the software without interrupting the user?”

She talks about value creation, not a standard phrase for a mathematician, and applies to the idea that the service technician has this increasingly important role in helping the company define its future.  “They are going to be critical in the chain,” she adds. “The speed of reaction will be huge and can alleviate customer problems quickly through the data telling you what is wrong – intelligence is becoming critical.”

So does she see service engineers selling or just good sources of raw ideas for R&D? “The automation will enable us to close the loop again with the service engineer who can see gaps in the market or problems and feed them back instantly to the product design people, so products will change based on real experiences in the field. So yes, the role of the service engineer will keep changing.” And selling?

 

ServiceMax’s Dave Hart, VP of global customer transformation steps in here. “It’s a fine line between serving and selling,” he says. “You don’t really want them to sell because they break the trusted adviser status. Empowering field service engineers to make more informed decisions thought, that’s different. A lot of companies don’t have direct sales forces anymore, so in many respects filed service is the touchpoint with the customer but not really a salesperson.”

Hart adds that if you speak to most field service leaders they will probably tell you that one of their biggest issues is data. They know it’s in there, they just can’t get it out the system in any meaningful way. “It’s usually in a bunch of disparate systems that don’t talk to each other,” he says.

And that is the problem Schneider Electric is trying to solve. It has a plan to coordinate the whole organisation; not a small task but if Osborn’s proof of concept flies you get the feeling it will be on that road relatively quickly.  She understands that you need meaningful data to glue a modern business together. It’s finding ways to make this data easily accessible and that makes Schneider, not for the first time, one to watch.

 

---

 

Be social and share this article

Are UK field service companies keeping pace with the rest of the world? In this exclusive four-part report for Field Service News,  Bill Pollock, President & Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies for Growth SM, explores how UK companies compare with their global counterparts.  

 

---

 

Download the full report! Click here to download it now!

---

Each year, Strategies For Growth  (SFGSM) conducts a series of Benchmark Surveys among its global outreach community.  The content of this report is derived exclusively from the UK/Europe responses to our 2015 Field Service Management (FSM) Benchmark Survey and, thereby, represents a geographically-specific universe base from which to identify key FSM usage patterns and trends. The research coverage was sponsored by Kirona.

For example UK/Europe survey respondents identify the following as the top factors, or challenges, currently driving their desire to optimise field service performance (compared to the overall global results):

• 56% Customer demand for quicker response time (up from 52% overall)
• 47% Need to improve workforce utilisation & productivity (up from 43% overall)
• 47% Need to improve service process efficiencies (up from 40% overall)
• 41% Customer demand for improved asset availability (up from 35% overall)

Thus, the data clearly reflects that UK/Europe Field Service Organisations (FSOs) appear to place somewhat more emphasis on each of these key market drivers, focusing on customer demand and workforce utilisation, productivity and efficiency, than their worldwide respondent counterparts.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that they are also planning to invest more in mobile tools in support of their respective field forces than other global geographies represented in the overall survey universe.

However, in order to effectively address these key challenges – and strive to attain Best Practices status – UK/Europe respondents then cite the following as the top strategic actions they are currently taking:

• 64% Develop / improve metrics, or KPIs, used to measure field service performance (up from 52% overall)
• 49% Invest in mobile tools to provide field technicians with real-time access to required data and information in the field (up from 42% overall)
• 35% Integrate new technologies into existing field service operations (i.e., iPads, Tablets or other devices, etc. (up from 34% overall)

The big difference reflected in the UK/Europe survey results is in the percentage of services organisations that are currently developing and/ or improving the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) they use to measure performance -  cited as a top strategic action by 64% of UK/ Europe respondents, compared to only 52% overall.

 

In fact, the percentage of UK/Europe FSOs currently developing/improving their respective KPIs, at 64%, is higher than the 62% cited by the survey’s Best Practices respondents (i.e., those attaining at least 90% Customer Satisfaction and 30% Services Profitability).

The remainder of this report provides insight into each of these and other related areas that may be influencing your organisation’s quest to attain Best Practices, as well as highlighting those resources that the leading UK/Europe organisations already have in place – or are planning to implement in the next 12 months.

Field service as profit centres

The survey results reveal that 65% of UK/Europe respondent organisations currently operate service as an independent profit centre (or as a pure, third-party service company), similar to the 66% reflected among the overall survey respondents, but far fewer than the 81% cited among Best Practices organisations.

Even so, there are still more than a third (35%) that operate as cost centres in support of product sales.

While there appears to be some consistency or continuity in these percentages from other surveys conducted by SFG℠ over the past few years, this nearly 2:1 ratio strongly validates the fact that profit centres now represent the dominant business model within the UK/Europe services community and, based on responses from other questions in the survey, this trend is likely to grow even stronger over time.

It is noted, however, that the percentage of organisations running service as an independent profit centre varies – sometimes significantly – by size of organisation (based on annual revenue or turnover).

The overall survey findings indicate that US$1 billion-plus organisations come in at 74%, while SMBs (i.e., Small and Medium-sized Businesses) report only 55%.

 

Not surprisingly, organisations reporting total annual service profits of greater than 30% come in at 76% – one of the highest levels charted among all of the segments covered in the survey.

As such, they are not only operating service as a profit centre – they’re actually making a significant profit by doing so!

Bespoke or out-of-the-box

More importantly, the UK/Europe respondent base clearly confirms that the predominant mode of Field Service Management (FSM) solutions currently being deployed is mainly off-the-shelf, either with some customisation (53%; compared with only 37% overall), or basically right out-of-the-box with no customisation (2%; compared with 6% overall), comprising more than half (55%) of the respondent base in total.

This figure is 9% higher than that cited by global Best Practices organisations (i.e., 46%)

Roughly one-quarter of UK/Europe respondents are either using home-grown, or internally-developed automated systems (15%), or bespoke solutions developed by a systems integrator (9%).

As such, UK/Europe organisations are far less likely to deploy a bespoke solution either internally, or by a systems integrator, compared with the overall survey respondents, but are far more likely to deploy an off-the-shelf solution and, then, have the specific types of customisation they require built-in to tailor it to their organisation’s requirements.

However, the most perplexing statistic may be the fact that nearly one-in-four UK/Europe organisations (22%) are still running their field service operations basically via a series of manual processes (and spreadsheets) – higher than the 18% attributable to the overall respondent base!

 

---

 

Download the full report! Click here to download it now!

 

---

 

Watch out for Part 2 , where Bill Pollock reveals the key drivers for European and UK field service organisations.

 

---

 

Be social and share this article

Marne Martin CEO of ServicePower explores how new challenges in field service are resulting in a delicate balance between digital innovation and industry pressures.

The field service industry is teetering on the edge of a precipice.

On one side are emerging technologies like mobile workforce management software, route optimisation, wearables, enterprise mobility software, operational analytics, IoT/M2M connected devices, and social collaboration. On the other is the shifting environment, including the changing workforce, the emergence of the millennials, legislative challenges and increasing competitive pressures.

Where the Age of Enlightenment that occurred from the 1600 to 1700’s was about cultural and intellectual change in Western Europe, based on new ideas around reasoning, analysis, and individualism, the ‘Age of Digital Enlightenment’ is very different.

It has created a digital effect on field service which requires that each organisation utilises technology, analysis and information together to enable new, better ways of delivering service, while meeting its business goals.

Emerging technologies, digital technologies, in particular can be transformational to field service. However, field service organisations must balance new technologies to meet compliance and productivity goals, and ultimately achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction and profit for the business.

Field Service Challenges

Field service organisations are continually challenged, by not only increasing competition, declining margin and changing customer expectations, but also a myriad of other issues, including:

• Evolving business strategy - Business strategy must be continuously adapted to address changes in the competitive environment, changes in customer’s communication preferences and changes in labor supply.
•   Legislation - Legislative changes absolutely impact how field service organisations operate. Legislation must be identified and business process designed or changed to accommodate them.
•   Emerging technologies - Social, mobile, analytics, cloud, wearables, and IoT/M2M are transformational and absolutely should be evaluated for impact to the business.
• Emerging millennial workforce - The workforce is aging. The millennials are increasing backfilling the ranks. They grew up with mobile and social technology. They are motivated differently than their more experienced peers.
• Competitive pressure - The competitive environment changes every day, with new entrants and early technology adopters, like Uber.

Impact on the sector

Field service doesn’t stand still. Established organisations continue to be threatened by new market players.

Meanwhile, the field service industry is reinventing itself, eliminating manual processes and schedules which are costly and inefficient. Field service recognises now the value of field based resources. People are our greatest opportunity and highest costs. We must fight for talent, especially as the labour pool shifts towards millennials.

There is confusion over which technologies to implement, in terms of legislation and productivity. In Europe, for instance, traveling to work is now considered part of reimbursable hours for employees. What workforce management software is best capable of handling accounting for this legislative change, and the new schedule complexity, while improving productivity and efficiency at the same time?

 

These challenges, these impacts on the industry, are the biggest threats to field service; they are also our biggest opportunity.

Navigating the Future of Field Service

All challenges that face field service organisations today can be addressed with emerging technology that transforms operations.

• Real time optimisation improves productivity and efficiency, while also reducing costs.
• Mobilised on-site processes improve first time fix rates and the customer experience.
• Operational and business analytics improve oversight and operational performance.
• IoT/M2M connected devices facilitate the evolution from reactive repair based models to proactive, less costly and more customer friendly models.
•  Social collaboration leverages the comfort of millennials workers to improve first time fix rates and reduce field based overhead.

Bridging the Divide

Bridging that precipice, between the digital effect and the industry challenges, requires quick and decisive action.

• Act strategically – Look at what technology delivers the greatest return on investment and prioritise your investment where it matters most.
• Recognise that field service (people, process, IT, parts, etc.) usually crosses multiple aspects of the organisation.
•  Be sure to gain alignment and recognise that every function has a vested interest in success.
• Don’t forget to build a business case and agree the metrics for success.
• Employ creative thinking to challenge the status quo and rethink how that strategy can be delivered.
•  Work with technology vendors that understand innovation and what’s possible.

Field Service is a critical part of most businesses today. Field based resources are often the only touch point with your customer post sale.

Take advantage of new technologies to build a platform for success which improves visibility and increases flexibility across the service value chain. Adapt faster and more efficiently to external change and new company strategies.

Productivity drives profits in your business!  Your competitors, and even businesses you don’t know about yet, are heading that way so Cross that bridge now before it is too late.