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Verisae CEO Jerry Dolinsky talks exclusively to Kris Oldland about why IoT is the future of field service.  However it is not something we can jump straight into  by just flipping a few switches he warns...

From within the opening salvo of my conversation with Verisae CEO, Jerry Dolinsky it is clear that the Verisae mission isn’t a humble one. His view of the world is of one that is changing, and one which is doing so rapidly - and he sees Verisae sitting firmly at the heart of much of that change.

“Our vision is that we want to connect up every facility and every asset and connect those assets to every service team around the world via IoT products,” he explains - without doubt that he and his team can in fact achieve this feat.

However, IoT is just one part of their overall strategy.

 In reality Verisae actually have three major solutions.

 

The first of these is a rich asset management and facility maintenance solution which boasts a particularly healthy client list including the likes of supermarket giants, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Tesco and  Co-Op within the UK alone.

On the back of this platform they then stepped into the IoT space, initially working alongside Sainsbury’s on an IoT suite that is to date monitoring over 70,000 pieces for equipment, checking units for condition - whether it be for food quality, food safety, or simply because a unit is consuming too much energy.

The final piece of the puzzle is mobile workforce management, which very much sits in the model of traditional scheduling, dispatch and mobile tools as well as optimisation from both product and resources perspective etc.

Given their broad range of offerings, Dolinsky is perfectly placed to share an opinion on how technology is driving service forward.

Is there a particular technology taking the lead in the evolution we are seeing, or is it more the coming together of many technologies developing at once that is the major driving factor in change?

“There are really four compelling things that are forcing change,” Dolinsky asserts.

“Firstly there is the lowering cost of mobile and BYOD, where I no longer need to go and spend $3000 dollars on a rugged mobile device for mobile field work.”

“Then there is big data - I just had our user conference in the UK three weeks ago where we brought all our customers together and the next day we brought a  number of their contractors and OEMs together. What we got back from the customers was they are continually looking to do things better, faster, cheaper.”

“That was the message they wanted us to take to the OEMs and contractors.”

“When we sat down with the contractors they said if the compelling event is to do it better, faster, cheaper then we need Big Data. We need to leverage IoT, we need to leverage mobile and finally Cloud based solutions are what are enabling us to do that.”

 

Of course in any sector there are early adopters and laggards. However, at least within the sectors that Verisae are primarily operating in (retail, utilities and telco) the need to embrace technology has become requisite believes Dolinsky.

“Lets focus on the grocery sector within the UK -    which is highly competitive with everybody across the corner from each other,” he begins.

“What do you need to do? You need to offer the highest level of customer service, you need to reduce food loss due to equipment failure, you need to ensure that the quality and safety of the food is of the highest standards and you need to get the longest life out of my equipment at the lowest operating costs.”

“So I think that everybody at least from that sector, has seen the implementation of automation technologies as imperative for a while but because of the competing capital costs it was just never affordable to do.”

 

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Of course in retail as with many other sectors there is a complicated service chain which can involve end users (the supermarkets themselves for instance) but also OEMs and third party contractors.

However, the same pressures exist for all three further driving the need for IoT and automation, although amongst the contractor and OEM communities take up for such technology appears to be somewhat slower.

“OEMs and contractors know it is a very competitive market. Supermarket giant can push back and say  ‘You’ve got to reduce costs’ - the only way the can make money is to reduce overall operating costs.” Dolinsky explains

“I had 90 of these service providers in a room who all did business with my customers and what they simply said was margins are getting tighter while our customers are expecting more. Yet when I asked them what tools they are using todaymany of them said they were still paper based. If you have 100 techs out there using paper - how are you going to get it better, faster cheaper?”

“The only way to do that is to automate things.”

Indeed, good implementation of technology can yield better service standards for the customer whilst reducing the cost of providing maintenance. Something Dolinsky was able to demonstrate with a real-life example.

“Refrigeration units within a Sainsbury’s grocery store need to hold a set temperature for different produce, in order to keep the food inside fresh across it’s shelf life. “

“So how we automate things here - for both sides the contractor and the owner of the equipment, is through a rules engine that is monitoring the temperature and basically says when that fridge goes above a defined threshold what do you want to do?” He explains.

“In the case of Sainsbury’s there is then an automated call which directs the store to a problem in one of their units.

 

“The local store receives that message and they can have a look at the unit and see if the door has been left open or they are restocking - both of which would cause the temperature to go up. If that’s the case an engineer doesn’t need to be sent out - they can resolve the issue right at the location.”

“Alternatively if the guys on site can’t see an obvious reason why the temperature is rising then the system will send it to an individual who can connect remotely to the unit.

“They can then frame up all the telemetry data, what’s happening with compressors and things that could be going wrong, and the person behind the screen could recommend a temporary fix or control change without the expense of an emergency site visit.”

“Just like you would change the temperature on the thermostat in your house for example.” The system would then continue to monitor the issue, but corrective action could be taken in a more planned way. Especially useful if the issue occurs overnight when the store is closed.”

So there is a clear benefit for contractors and OEMs turning to technology to help them not only meet their clients growing expectations but also reduce their own expenses. But it is not just a case of switching on an IoT button.

The technology must be introduced systematically if it is going to work.

Again Dolinsky has a real-life example to hand just to illustrate this point. This time it is from the other side of the Atlantic as we take trash compactor manufacturer, Bace as a case study.

“They came to us and said we want to move into IoT,” Dolinsky begins.

“I said great we have a solution for you where we can monitor your trash compactors, tell if it’s working or if it’s not, how full it is etc”

“The first question we asked them was ‘can you tell us where the units are?’ Can you tell us the physical location, how many are there, the model numbers and the  year they were manufactured?”

“They couldn’t so we explained that it would be tough for them to go to IoT at this stage because the first thing you need to do for IoT is to connect up to a piece of equipment and that’s hard if you don’t know exactly where it is.”

 

“So first off we got them working with our asset management solution, so they can track the overall life expectancy of that piece of equipment and the overall maintenance cost of it.”

“The next question we asked them was ‘what is your mobile workforce management solution?’  The response was that the engineers were still all on paper. So again advised them that we’d also need to get them automated before they could move to IoT.”

“We use a term that we make big data small. Having a report at the end of the week that tells you what’s wrong and why doesn’t provide a lot of value. It has to be real-time to change things and get the right technician with the right parts where they’re needed as effectively as possible.”

What is clear is that IoT is set to have a profound place in the future of field service and for those companies not already embracing it - the need to find time for putting together a development roadmap to enable you to an IoT enabled future is becoming more pressing with each passing day.

 

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The Internet of Things is set to continue to dominate conversations around technology and service delivery in the next few years as providers begin to standardise platforms - research from Berg Insight reveals...

According to a new research report from the M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the global third party Internet of Things (IoT) platform market increased 36 percent to €610 million in 2015.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.8 percent, revenues are forecasted to reach € 3.05 billion in 2021. There is a wide range of software platforms available, intended to reduce cost and development time for IoT solutions by offering standardised components that can be shared across many industry verticals to integrate devices, networks and applications.

Most IoT platforms available on the market today can be categorised as being a connectivity management platform, a device management platform or an application enablement platform, although there are many products that offer overlapping functionality or other unique features.

Many enterprises and organisations have already been involved in various machine-to-machine (M2M) deployments that have typically been characterised by customised solutions deployed within single industry verticals, or by one company, to improve existing business operations.

IoT puts more emphasis on integration of sensors, devices and information systems across industry verticals and organisations to transform operations and enable new business models. “IoT furthermore aims to facilitate a better understanding of complex systems through analytics based on data from diverse sources to assist decision making, improve products and enable entirely new services”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.

Whereas connectivity and device management platforms have already reached comparatively high adoption, the market for application enablement platforms (AEPs) is in an earlier phase. AEPs typically provide functionality such as data collection, data storage and analytics. Fully featured platforms also provide tools, frameworks and APIs for creating business applications featuring data management, event processing, automated tasks and data visualisation.

Many platforms also provide tools and ready-made libraries and UI frameworks that facilitate modelling and creation of interactive applications, workspaces and dashboards with little or no need for coding. “The AEP segment is seeing considerable activity in terms of acquisitions and new market entrants”, said Mr. Malm. After PTC acquired ThingWorx and Axeda, other major software and IT companies have followed.

Examples include Amazon that acquired 2lemetry, Autodesk that acquired SeeControl and Microsoft that acquired Solair.

Other leading IT companies that are extending their service offerings to include IoT platforms – often focusing on analytics and machine learning – include IBM, SAP and Oracle. “As a group, AEP vendors primarily face competition from system integrators and companies that develop similar functionality in-house”, concluded Mr. Malm.

 

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More than 33% of transport industry professionals do not believe autonomous vehicles will work, according to findings published recently in the Microlise Transport Conference post event report.  

The statistics, covered in full in the dossier which has been released today, were captured during interactive voting on questions at what is now the largest road transport conference in Europe, attended by more than 1,000 delegates.

The report goes further than last year, by providing an in depth view of the road transport industry in 2016 on a range of key issues, with responses broken down by sector, age, job position and gender.

“We compile this report each year with the aim of delivering the most accurate reflection of the sentiment in the transport industry right now, across the key issues,” said Nadeem Raza, Chief Executive Officer, Microlise.

 

“The findings tell us that the industry is still not sold on the potential of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles – despite many experts predicting them on our roads in the not too distant future. It’s also interesting to note that industry support for leaving the EU aligns with last week’s referendum result.”

Despite a majority giving their support for a leave vote, when questioned about the EU, 43% said that they felt leaving would have a negative effect on the haulage industry.

Alongside a lack of faith in the EU and autonomous vehicles, the statistics also show that 84% believe the Government’s support for the transport industry is unchanged since the Conservatives came to power. More than 58% of delegates feel the situation in Calais has gotten worse in the last year.

“Standing at the podium I was struck by an audience defined by its reasonable views, moderate politics, inclusive attitudes and tenacious work ethic,” Conference Chair Quentin Willson commented as part of his foreword which is published in full in the report.

The date of next year’s Microlise Transport Conference has been announced as 17 May and it will again be held at The Ricoh Arena in Coventry.

To download the 2016 post conference report, which includes a recap of each session; statistics from the answers to questions put to delegates and analysis on the trends behind the numbers go to www.microlise.com/mtc2016report.  

 

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Berg Insight estimates that global cellular M2M module shipments increased by 19.4 percent in 2015 to a new record level of 96.0 million. A somewhat higher growth rate is expected for 2016.

Until 2020, shipments of cellular M2M devices are forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.7 percent to reach 256.0 million units. East Asia, North America and Western Europe were the main geographical markets in 2015, accounting for around 75 percent of the total demand. The regions are similar in size measured by volume.

Berg Insight projects that the relationship in relative market shares between the three regions will remain relatively stable in the coming five years. The latest 3GPP standards for LTE – Cat 1, Cat M1, and Cat M2 – will contribute substantially to growth in the next coming five years.

 

These new standards are designed to be less complex to limit power consumption and are priced more favourably to address the mass market and make it viable to connect entirely new applications.

The results of Berg Insight’s latest cellular M2M module vendor market share assessment show that the three largest module vendors have 72 percent of the market in terms of revenues. “Annual module revenues for the three largest market players Sierra Wireless, Gemalto and Telit increased by 12.5 percent to US$ 1.12 billion, with the total market value reaching approximately US$ 1.6 billion,” says Johan Fagerberg, CEO at Sweden-based M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight.

Sierra Wireless leads M2M module revenues, followed by Telit and Gemalto. SIMCom Wireless leads in shipments for the first time in 2015, but is only in fourth place in terms of revenues.

 

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The shift from Boomers to Millennials represents one of the greatest cultural workforce shifts perhaps ever seen, but for field service companies the rise of the millennial is nothing to fear writes Kris Oldland...

As a card carrying member of Generation X I’ve always felt some empathy with both the Baby Boomer generation that preceded us and the Millennial generation that followed.

However, the two inhabit very, very separate worlds with very, very different ideals, beliefs and outlooks on life.

With the ageing workforce posing a potential crisis for many field service companies, they now face the unenviable task of migrating from Boomer to Millennial and somehow balancing a shift from two generations that contrast perhaps more than any other before.

However, the good news is that despite being famously labelled the ‘me, me, me generation’ actually Millennials could quite possibly be the perfect match for modern field service.

Here are nine reasons why...

Millennials are natural collaborators

One of the biggest challenges of an ageing workforce in the field service sector is that for many Baby Boomers knowledge and experience is a badge of honour and as such they are not natural sharers of that knowledge.

Whilst capturing that knowledge before it walks out your door is vital, distilling it and transmitting it to a new generation of workers is an even greater challenge.

However, that challenge can be lessened by encouraging the emerging Millennial workers to work collaboratively using a dedicated communication platform such as CoTap or even something simpler like Skype or iMessenger.

 

Millennials are digital natives and natural collaborators and as such any knowledge left behind from their Boomer predecessors could be more easily disseminated across the workforce provided they have the tools for collaboration.

Millennials are practical and results-oriented

As Tanya Korobka writes in an excellent article on Millennials on the website Lucky Attitude 'as a generation Millennials have grown up with an expectation for processes and service to work and speed up their interactions.' They are practical, and despite some claims to the contrary they are in fact generally a pretty hard working bunch.

In field service, where often the customer is dependent on the engineer to achieve their fix to get their business back operating at full capability as soon as possible, being practical and results orientated are absolutely critical traits. Fortunately, millennials tend to have this in abundance.

Millennials are confident

For more and more companies, often the only face to face contact they may have with their customers is when a field service engineer arrives on site.

This has led to an ever greater importance in the need for field service engineers to be positive brand ambassadors. Indeed, many field service companies now see strong customer service skills as equally as, if not more important than, technical skills.

 

Millennials, having been raised by their Boomer parents to believe they can accomplish anything are one of the most confident generations to have ever entered the workforce.

Such confidence focussed correctly can be harnessed to deliver a truly positive customer-centric approach to service.

Millennials are well educated

In fact, Millennials are on track to become the most educated generation in history.

Given the previous point about field service companies beginning to recruit based on softer, more customer centric skills the fact that Millennials are comfortable with learning is important as it allows companies to hire based on these soft skills, whilst training recruits in the more technical skills required.

Millennials are people pleasers.

Again a massively important factor when it comes to delivering great customer service.

Millennials tend to have a preference for merit based systems and as such have a common desire to gain approval. At the same time they are a more conscientious group than both Boomers who are often focussed on financial remuneration.

Therefore the often superhero like status of the field engineer who is able to fix the problem and get a clients business right back on track is going to appeal to many Millennials.

Millennials are tech savvy

As the art of field service management becomes more and more entwined with technology the more important it is that your field service workforce is technologically savvy.

Fortunately for the majority of Millennials using technology is as much of a natural skill-set as walking and talking. Whether it be digital collaboration, quick and easy adoption of apps or the ability to utilise emerging tools such as augmented reality and smart glasses, Millennials are far more likely to adapt to the new tools you introduce to the workforce to improve productivity than their Boomer predecessors were.

 

Similarly digital privacy is a much more foreign concept for many Millennials meaning less (if any) objections around the implementation of tracking technologies such as telematics where the ‘big brother is watching’ syndrome has often been a barrier to adoption amongst a Boomer workforce.

Basically Millennials are far more used to leaving a digital footprint and doing so in work via vehicle tracking for example, is just the way the world works for many a Millennial.

Millennials are multi-taskers

Ever get frustrated that, that Millennial in your life doesn’t seem to be listening to you when your talking to them as they are also simultaneously watching TV, updating their Twitter status and having an IM conversation all at the same time?

The truth is that Millennials have a both the ability to multi-task and also a relatively low boredom threshold so are often juggling five or more balls.

 

Yet the fact is that they are also able to keep those five balls in the air quite comfortably.

For field service companies, particularly those with a number of different products within their install base, this trait could be particularly useful as Millennials are far more likely to be engaged if they have multiple different challenges to keep them busy. For these guys variety really is the spice of life and a key to keeping them on site is to give them that variety within the workplace.

One potential danger is that a company could end up with an entire workforce that are ‘jacks of all trades but masters of none.’

However, with Millennial’s natural tendency to work in a more open and collaborative manner than the Boomers they are replacing, there is less need for the Millennial field service engineer to be an expert in all areas - essentially knowledge and experience can be shared across a team rather than trapped in the silos of individual Boomer engineers.

Millennials are natural travellers

Dubbed by some as ‘generation rent’ Millennials are showing a different mindset to that of their Boomer parents. The concept of getting onto the property ladder is far less attractive to the more nomadic and adventurous spirit of the Millennial.

Indeed far more Millennials than Non-Millennials report a desire to visit every continent and travel abroad as much as possible, according to Boston Consulting Group.

So what better working environment for this generation than field service, where they are not trapped by the confines of an office cubicle?

Add to this that Millennials, whilst having a strong work ethic, also highly value a positive work-life balance, then a working role that provides them with the opportunity to travel could be the key to a happy (and therefore loyal) Millennial workforce.

Millennials are everywhere

Finally, Millennials are the largest generation in Western history. It has been estimated that there are 80 million Millennials in the US and 14.6 million UK Millennials.

Korobka reports that according to Pew Research Centre analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, last year Millennials surpassed Generation X to become the largest share of the American workforce so reality fact is they are already dominating the workforce.

The simple fact is that for field service, as with all of business sectors Millennials are the future workforce as well as the future leaders.

 

However, as service continues to take centre stage and as technology continues to become ever more embedded with the improvement of field service delivery, it does indeed appear that the future of field service is safe in Millenial hands.

The challenge however, remains to ensure that the knowledge embedded within the ageing Baby Boomer workforce is captured and retained in order to allow the transition from the past to the future to remain as seamless as possible.

 

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Want to know more about the general traits of the Millennial generation? We recommended visiting Luckyattitude.co.uk/millennial-characteristics for a deep and regularly updated overview of what makes this important generation tick...

 

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Powerful, flexible and scalable cloud computing technology is opening up multiple new opportunities for businesses to improve customer service, develop better ways for customers to -serve themselves and introduce new technologies more quickly and easily.  However, the ready availability of business applications via the cloud has also raised the issue of data security and how to keep information about people and the businesses they work in, secure and private at every level.

In Part One  we looked at how cloud is an enabler for field service organisations and in Part Two how technology is facilitating enhanced centralised control and better people management and communications.

In this third and final instalment of our coverage of the recent debate on “Cloud and Mobility: The next frontier for Field Service Management”  which was organised by ClickSoftware, we’ll consider in more detail the most important ways in which technology can improve overall customer service and how organisations should deal with the issues of security and privacy.

The debate was chaired by Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller, with a panel including: Tim Faulkner, Senior Vice President at ClickSoftware; Dr Carsten Sorensen, Associate Professor in Digital Innovation at the London School of Economics; Katelyn Burrill, Product Marketing Manager at ClickSoftware; and Phil Wainewright, Chair at Euro Cloud UK.

Self-serving customers

One popular trend for improving overall levels of customer service, is to offer new technologies to customers that allow them to “self-serve”, the idea being that customers have a faster and more tailored experience which costs the business less to deliver.  But where is the competitive advantage and business vale of providing customer service in this way, if everything is being done by the customer themselves and the suppliers have no opportunities to engage directly with their customers?

One particularly interesting example to consider here is the case of energy smart meters.  Smart meters monitor energy consumption in real-time and automatically send electronic meter readings to providers. While the devices improve operations for utilities companies, providing real-time usage data that helps them to forecast demand and also help their customers to minimise energy usage and save money, once smart meters are installed, the suppliers never need to visit houses and offices to take meter readings.

“In the smart meter world, the biggest challenge that utilities suppliers worry about is how to roll out the smart meters,” says Tim Faulkner. “But finding new ways to maintain customer loyalty and revenue should also be looked at as a high priority activity because technicians are going to be in the customers’ homes far less frequently. The energy vendors will install the smart meter and not be back for maybe five years. Their opportunity to impress the brand upon the customer and sell more services or products is much less reduced.”

 

“You have to find things people want and talk to them about it when you’re there,” explains the LSE's Dr Carsten Sorensen. “We go to fix or install stuff. If you look at utilities companies, they’re not silly. Once they do arrive, it’s all about upselling.”

However, Phil Wainwright, of Euro Cloud UK, argues that physical presence is only a very small aspect of the opportunities available to business to interact with customers.

“A huge part of a good brand experience and competitive advantage in the modern world is minimising the amount of frustrating interaction the customer has with individuals not equipped to deal with their problems. It’s all about delivering competitive advantage by delivering good quality customer service through any medium.”

Human interaction

So what happens when we reach that stage where, in many or most cases, the customer is in charge of managing the services themselves, through mobile apps, smart meters and similar associated technologies?  In a situation where devices pass information directly back to a central location, there is less interaction. If most of the information that vendors have comes from customers, where does the competitive advantage come from and where do suppliers offer value if everything is done by the users or their devices?

“Why do you need people?” asks Sorensen. “You need them to build the services and interact. We are social animals. We need to find clever ways to interact with each other. Plus, once we have smart things embedded in our walls, in our shower heads and everywhere, we’ll need more help to understand and maintain them!”

 

The other clear opportunity for field services organisations rolling out smart devices and mobile apps is from utilisation of the considerable amounts of highly valuable data being generated. So how might they start do to clever things with this data? One obviously practical and impactful use of data is in getting a better understanding of each individual customer’s behaviour – what they are using, how they use it, when they use it for example.

“The other is being able to predict what kind of approach you’ll need to take to address any issue based on job type and history of that job with that customer,” Faulkner explains. “Building in this kind of predictive analysis for parts is a direction that ClickSoftware is taking now in our R&D team. There’s a mix there. You can automate it and/or provide decision-making capability. And you also need to use human beings who have personal experience and can understand the context and add value. Because an automated decision can sometimes be a wrong one.”

Data privacy

Finally, when dealing with apps or smart devices in homes that are collecting a lot of data, there is the issue of privacy and data security to be addressed. What happens, for example, with the data being collected by companies that can effectively tell where you are and where you’ve been, when you are in or out, what you are doing and what you might like to do?

As Paul Miller, Senior Analyst at Forrester, points out, even while the likelihood of that data being abused is very low, “the customer has a nagging doubt that bad people or Big Brother will do something with the data. How will a field service organisation respond to that?”

Gauging the best response is largely down to having a good understanding of the trade-off customers are willing to make between privacy and convenience. “Companies need to work out their push-pull line,” says Sorensen, “as it becomes increasingly complex and risky to manage all that data.”

The bottom line is that data privacy is a huge focus, for governments, legislators and brands alike. Plus, in addition to looking at privacy from a consumer perspective, it’s also insightful to consider the ways in which field service software providers deal with issues of data privacy from the point of view of their business customers.

“Until the advent of the cloud, vendors always provided systems in a company’s premises and the data is therefore only accessible within that company” says Faulkner. When the project is in live operation, we’ll get insight into how it’s being used. The cloud gives us the opportunity to see and share best practice across many customers, and look at what value there is in providing an additional service or function as well as to advise customers on what they should do to become best in class.”

 

Many of ClickSoftware’s customers are household brand names and they take issues of data security and customer privacy very seriously and work through it diligently as Faulkner explains. “They have specialist teams that work on security topics, and they have big legal teams. It’s about education, about trust that the brand has transparency.”

It really matters to consumers and to businesses what data people have on them and what they use it for.  Companies need to work out their push-pull approach.  No-one wants to be called at four in the morning with an upsell proposition when they are on holiday on the other side of the world!

What's often discussed in the media is that everyone should have a social contract with their suppliers.  It's not just 'we give you X and you pay us Y', it's a back and forth negotiation which should be based on situation and context.  As individuals we can be hypocritical in terms of data privacy, when it works for us and we get a reward, we're all for it but when something goes wrong, we claim that we didn’t agree to the terms.

The field service professionals can be a key part of the evolution.  They are there, speaking to the customer and can provide real feedback on what the customer does and doesn’t need, what went well and what topics of discussion, goods and services the customer liked and engaged with.  Empowering the people on the ground to decide how they interact and feedback will go a long way towards assuaging any concerns about how personal and business data is being used.

Training engineers to use personal interactions as an opportunity to be brand ambassadors, looking for upsell and feedback opportunities is what all field service companies should be aiming for.

Through discussions with both academic and industry experts, this debate looked at how cloud and mobility will impact the field service industry and help businesses achieve their goals both now and in the future. The three-part series covered why cloud is an enabler for field service businesses, how technology is allowing central control and improving employee management and, with this final part of the series, looking at how technology can improve customer service and the issue of privacy.

 

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems provides key points that small and mediums size businesses should consider to help them move towards real-time field service...

Exceeding customer expectations is not just for enterprise-level companies. Customers are demanding the same level of service performance whether their service provider is a large multinational corporation, or a small, local field service company.

But how can SMB service teams compete with their enterprise counterparts in this era of increased competition and empowered customers demanding perfect service?

Recent research from the Aberdeen Group found that trends were emerging among SMBs that have put a roadmap in place to ensure better service.

These are their top strategies for driving service:

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• Increase the availability of service knowledge in order to diagnose and resolve service issues faster (51%).

• Develop real-time visibility into field assets (i.e. people, parts, vehicles) (48%).
• Improve forecasting of and planning for future service demand (41%).
• Invest in mobile tools to provide technicians with better access to information in the field (38%).
• Develop standardised scheduling processes. (35%).
• Increase frequency of training for field technicians (32%).

Diagnose and deliver

One of the most important metrics for customers is how long a repair will take - or “mean time-to-repair.” This metric shows just how effective the service team is at resolving customer issues.

But to fix an issue quickly, engineers must be able to diagnose what’s wrong; determine what they need to fix the problem, including knowledge, the right tools and parts; and figure out the correct procedure to follow. As equipment grows more complex, not every engineer will have the ability to do this “on the fly.” It’s important then to give engineers the tools to quickly identify a problem and understand how to fix it.

Provide real-time visibility of service activities If there is one top driver for sustained revenue growth in service, it’s executive visibility.

Aberdeen’s research has found that having a view into the field helps management, the back office, and the service team react quickly and deliver service at the speed necessary to excel.

Predict demand

No matter how top-notch your engineers, without real-time insights, the field team will still have to scramble to meet fluctuating demands. However, the increase of IoT technology is aiding service teams, by helping them identify problems quickly.

But IoT is not yet a widespread reality. Aberdeen found that even in top organisations, only 53% of machinery is IoT-enabled for asset management, tracking, service, and maintenance.

 

Invest in the right tools and team

As machines and equipment become increasingly complex, service teams need the correct technology to help them solve more difficult issues.

The last piece of the field service puzzle comes down to the engineers themselves. As Aberdeen points out, an SMB can make the leap from paper to mobile, and put the right tech tools in their engineers’ hands, but service teams themselves must be engaged, skilled, and most importantly, incentivised to perform.

What are some concrete steps SMBs can take to ensure a better performing service team?

Put a CSO in charge of your SMB field team

Haven’t heard of the term Chief Service Officer? Most SMBs are not yet familiar with this C-Level title that’s only recently started to infiltrate enterprise-level organisations.

To ensure service excellence spreads throughout the entire firm, large enterprises are hiring CSOs to ensure that a strategic service vision is carried out, with accountability and incentives put in place across the entire organisation.

 

Train your entire company to value service

Typically, most companies focus on equipment sales. But service should not be an afterthought.

At best, customers expect equipment to work flawlessly; at worst, they expect service to know when the machinery or part will fail and solve the issue effortlessly.

Service can be an opportunity to drive new revenue opportunities, but only if every team from marketing to sales to service can communicate the value they deliver to customers.

Make real-time visibility your goal

Small field service organisations are investing in technology because they see the benefit of increasing their efficiency and want to understand where they can add further value.

However, the goal of investing in technology should be to give your entire firm real-time visibility into field service performance and the customer experience.

As customer expectations increase, only companies - both big and small - that provide preemptive service can expect to survive.

 

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Field service management is a key part of the customer experience. Meeting the engineers or technicians despatched to their house is often the end-user’s first and only human engagement with the company. Cloud and mobility technology is helping to improve the flexibility and collaboration between central control systems and individual fieldworkers, ensuring customers experience the best possible service and field service professionals become brand ambassadors, as well as technical problem solvers.

In Part One of this three part series on  the next Frontier for Field Service Management, our panel considered the fundamental importance of the power and scalability of cloud computing and the ways in which it is revolutionising field service management. In Part Two they  discuss the importance of striking a balance between central control and individual initiative.

The debate was hosted by ClickSoftware and chaired by Forrester’s senior analyst, Paul Miller. Joining him were 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.

Central control and individual collaboration

In order to provide the quality and consistent levels of service that today’s customers demand, businesses still need to retain a degree of control centrally.

“You need to deliver on promises and provide a consistent level of service and quality that the customer wants,” explained Tim Faulkner.  “You also need to allow for improvisation and tools that allow the technician to make decisions on whether or not to replace a part there and then or call a buddy to help.”

The cloud is both an enabler and a leveller, according to Faulkner. “It’s bringing down barriers to adopting field service solutions that were there before, enabling large corporations to deploy different methods and enabling smaller companies to adopt the same applications.”

 

Faulkner explains how ingenious adoptions of new cloud and mobile technologies allows FSM companies to better utilise their existing workforce, putting both technology and a greater decision-making autonomy in the hands of individuals.

It is exactly this enabling ability of cloud technology that helps networks or companies co-ordinate more widely distributed, flexible and fast-response supply chains, according to the LSE's Dr. Carsten Sorensen.

“The 21^st century is about helping individuals and companies alike to adapt to emerging needs, to react immediately when something goes wrong or identify where there is room for improvement,” says Sorensen. He thinks that the cloud is fundamentally transforming the way organisations do business.

The reality for FSM businesses is that workers out in the field are becoming increasingly digitally enabled with mobile devices of their own (and supplied by their employers) of various kinds. And those organisations that are able to capitalise on this new way of communicating, swiftly and wisely, are set to benefit.

The UK police -  how the operate like Uber

Perhaps one of the best examples of advanced users of field service technology in the UK to date is the police service.[quote float="right"]One of the best examples of advanced users of field service technology in the UK to date is the police service.

 

“The police don’t talk about mobile technology,” Sorensen explains. “For decades they’ve talked about mobile data. The whole point is instead of having a very localised arrangement – where somebody calls a police station and they dispatch on a two-way radio system that somebody should go somewhere -  now they operate, in principle, like Uber. They did ten years ago and they still do now.

“Ordinary police officers have a queue of incidents and they choose one like a customer in a taxi rank. Whenever you try to solve one problem, you may have other problems and you need to balance what everyone is aware of. Fundamentally, you can transfer the way work is done.”

So are there lessons to be drawn from this police model for businesses to learn from?

“With most large companies, you have to spend hours on the phone to get in touch with a human being,” adds Sorensen. “For a lot of companies, their competitive advantage will come from having a civilised human being to talk to you.”

The police case study is particularly interesting to ClickSoftware's Katelyn Burrill, because issues around automating, picking and choosing jobs are things that she deals with a lot with her customers.

“Automating that process is one of the huge benefits that companies achieve,” says Burrill. “It’s managing the change that these field workers go through when a new technology is implemented. If they don’t understand the benefits and just see it as Big Brother managing their day all of a sudden, they won’t manage the technology to the best of its ability.”

The lesson here is that field workers often have their own ways of operating that have worked well enough for them for many years, so it's vital that they don’t think that their own discretion and autonomy is somehow being removed from them.

“That’s how projects fail,” says Burrill. “When organisations don’t sell it into them in a strategic manner. They [the field workers] need to be part of the process to organise how you’ll go about changing and what’s acceptable to change.”

After all, the people out there in the field are often a lot smarter about what’s really happening and what needs to happen than the people in head office, who might not understand the bigger picture and certainly can’t see it in real-time.

“Let’s not forget that the field service workforce is already using smart technologies, already sending photos and videos on their smartphones to ask: how do we get this done?” notes Phil Wainewright, Chair of Euro Cloud UK.

“You need to build a more collaborative infrastructure that takes advantage of how things really work on the ground.”

In part three of the debate we move on to consider ways in which technology can improve customer service and we address issues like privacy and security.

 

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Both virtual reality and augmented reality could have an important place to play in the future of field service writes Manuel Grenacher, CEO of Coresystems...

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest mobile device conference and show, virtual reality and augmented reality were everywhere.

Aside from a photo of Mark Zuckerberg walking amidst a sea of oblivious audience members strapped into VR headsets, companies like Samsung, LG, and HTC were all keen to show off their latest VR gear.

Virtual reality isn’t just for video games. There’s been growing interest in the field service industry on how companies might take advantage of it.

Virtual vs. Augmented Reality

First, however, it’s important to step back and clarify the distinction between virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

As their names suggest, virtual reality immerses the user in a completely virtual environment, while augmented reality keeps users in their existing world and simply enhances it.

Deloitte Consulting expects to see VR technologies rapidly adopted by enterprises in the next 18-22 months. And the company specifically cited field service as an industry that stands to benefit from them.

ABI Research makes the case for AR, noting that while virtual reality tends to grab the headlines, AR has one foot that remains in the “real world” and will allow more practical enterprise applications.

The research firm sees 2016 as a turning point for AR smart glasses, predicting that 21 million units of AR smart glasses will be shipped in 2020, with sales expected to reach $100 billion.

Both technologies could have serious benefits for the industry by improving the two key metrics that are important to all field service managers: first time fix rates and average repair time.

They can also benefit staff training and skills shortages.

The Case for VR and AR in Field Service

Field service engineers, wearing a special headset, for example, could be dispatched to a job where they could see the instructions or information about the product directly overlaid on it.

There would be no fumbling for a laptop or tablet; the information they need would be accessible with a flick of their head.

With such detailed information available, this could even mean that field service companies could dispatch less skilled technicians into the field, while the more experienced engineers could stay at the main headquarters supervising and troubleshooting more difficult issues.

 

In a pilot project with KSP Steel, a steel mill that produces steel pipelines in Kazakhstan, workers used a smart hardhat to safely access information when they needed it, without having to leave the production line and go back to the control room.

The control room data was projected onto the helmet’s visor, leading to a 40% increase in worker productivity and 50% reduction in factory downtime.

Managing Brain Drain

In an interview first published in Field Service News, Professor Howard Lightfoot of Cranfield University School of Management outlined what he saw as the biggest benefits to augmented and virtual reality tools in field service:

Said Lightfoot, “It could de-skill field service activity. There [are] parts of the world where you can’t get the right people. With augmented reality you can link them to a skilled technician back at the base who can take them through the process. Not with a manual and not on the phone, but he can actually see what they are doing."

"He can overlay information for them and digitally point at things, like: That’s the nut, this is the one you turn. Don’t torque that one anymore than this."

"Torque that one to this level. Undo that cabinet first, and make sure you disconnect this before you do that.”

Moreover, that skilled technician could be “back at base” thousands of kilometers away, reducing the cost of flying specialists out to every complex job.

NTT DATA, the Japan-headquartered telecommunications and IT services company, now uses the Vusix M100 smart glasses to allow continuous, remote monitoring of technicians in the field.

Senior engineers can share the point of view of a technician wearing the M100 Smart Glasses working on-site and can provide immediate instruction in real-time using an overlaid augmented reality marker.

Before using the smart glasses, NTT DATA needed at least two engineers at the work site to ensure quality control, resulting in higher operating costs, a heavier burden for senior engineer staff, and reduced productivity.

Training Techs

The other benefit of augmented or virtual reality is its potential as a highly detailed, highly visual training tool. Just as children’s educators get excited at the idea of breathing life into history or science lessons that put students right into the environment they are learning about, field service managers are seeing how AR or VR could be used to train technicians or engineers on complex tasks or fixes.

 

Automobile maker, Ford, has recently added the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to its virtual reality platforms. It’s used with a shell of a car, where the parts such as the steering wheel and seats can be repositioned to match those of a prototype car. Other field service uses are for training technicians.

By giving engineers the tools to fix problems thoroughly and quickly, you can increase first-time fix rates and lower the average time it takes to fix a product.

 

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