ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘gary-brooks’ CATEGORY

In November this year top-tier after-sales service solution provider Syncron will be hosting the inaugural edition of a new two day forum Innovate2019. Designed to be a first-of-its kind global leadership summit focused on facilitating conversations and providing insights for manufacturers exploring the inevitable shift to servitization: selling products-as-a-service.

To find out more Kris Oldland , Caught up with Syncron CMO Gary Brooks...

Gary Brooks, CMO, Syncron talks to Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News about how the discussion around uptime has shifted from how to why...

“Time is something that is incredibly perishable, it’s finite, we never seem to have enough of it and we always wish for more of it in dire times.”

This eternal maxim, that translates across all cultures in all corners of the world, was at the heart of an excellent keynote presentation given by Gary Brooks, CMO at Syncron at the Field Service USA Conference in Palm Springs earlier this year.

Time is something that is incredibly perishable, it’s finite, we never seem to have enough of it and we always wish for more of it in dire times“It is interesting to apply that thinking to our business of field service,” Brooks explained when I sat down with him to catch up over a coffee a little later in the day.

“Let's look at it through the lens of time being a cruel mistress and then imagine you're a farmer. Not just any farmer but a very excited farmer because it is the first day of the harvest season. You’re deploying your new half a million dollar combine to go out and harvest at a fantastic new rate - but then it fails.” “It is a Sunday morning and your 200 miles from the dealer and can’t get someone out to fix it - then shift your thinking from that scenario to a question around uptime.”

It is an important shift in thinking and one in which the manufacturer bears more of the burden of failure in return for greater profit and a stickier relationship with the customer.

“At Syncron we’re obsessed with coming up with solutions that help manufacturers improve their uptime levels,” Brooks continues.

“We recently worked with WBR to launch a research project that is looking into uptime. How important is it for the OEM? Do they consider it a strategic advantage? How important is it for the customer of the OEM? 

Do they consider it something that can make their business more competitive? How much are the end users willing to pay for maximised uptime? Are they even willing to pay at all for maximised up time?”

An overwhelming majority of OEMs believe that maximising uptime is a strategic advantage for them“The preliminary research findings have identified that an overwhelming majority of OEMs believe that maximising uptime is a strategic advantage for them. An overwhelming majority of the customers of the OEMs believe it would be a competitive advantage for them. Executives are demanding it from the OEM side. End customers are even willing to pay more for it but the OEM is not ready to maximise uptime.”

It seems clear that the conversation has moved somewhat beyond whether the shift towards uptime was the right path to follow - the question many organisations are now facing is how they make that shift. Although case studies are beginning to surface as Brooks alludes to himself.

“I came to my first field service event three years ago, there was very little mention of the product becoming service, of servitization. Last year there was a tiny bit, but this year we are seeing companies that have now gone out and done it. We’re seeing companies who have now fully evolved to that model.”

Just how important a factor within the move towards servitization is the industry that an organisation operates withinHowever, one consideration I have recently been discussing with the likes of Prof. Baines at Aston University and Ross Townsend of Ishida Europe is just how important a factor within the move towards servitization is the industry that an organisation operates within?

“I think you're absolutely right that it is industry specific,” replies Brooks when I put this to him.

“For example, there are lots of articles on how the automotive industry is transitioning to a new norm where rather than buy a vehicle customers now want to buy access to a vehicle - the end result of which is that the customers no longer become the end-user but a fleet owner whether that be an internal or external operator.”

“And of course a fleet manager will be far more demanding in terms of uptime, than a single end user, so the market disruption really is felt on numerous levels,” Brookes concludes.

Whilst this is a specific example of a vertical being disrupted there could be wider learnings for other industries in how a shift to servitization could impact there own sectors as some business models evolve and other new models that have yet to be considered emerging.

What is holding some sectors back, whilst others drive forwards to embrace advanced services?But what is holding some sectors back, whilst others drive forwards to embrace advanced services?

“Part of the reason for the lack of full adoption could be a mindset, the preliminary response that we are getting from the research suggest that an overwhelming majority of the OEMs view their ability to deliver maximum product uptime or a type of service that guarantees maximum uptime - it was almost 80% that said they would view that as a competitive advantage,” Brookes muses.

“So when things have words like competitive advantage and revenue maximisation tied with it you would think that it would be accelerated implementation - so there is some barrier. The desire exists both on the OEM and the customer side, the opportunity to differentiate your product exists, the technology exists so what are the other variables?”

It is an important question that many companies in many sectors are trying to grapple with and when whoever discovers the answer will hold the keys to the future of field service.

Be social and share

The management of parts has been for a long time a little unloved in terms of field service technology. Kris Oldland talks to Gary Brooks, CMO, Syncron to find out how and why that is changing...

KO: There finally seems to have been a quite perceptible shift in the number of companies beginning to pay attention to the importance of good parts and inventory management. Are you feeling this?

For example every-time I come across your team at various different events I see you having a lots and lots of conversations at busy, busy booths.

Are you finding that whereas, perhaps a few years ago you were having to evangelise the importance of tools like yours, today people are actively looking for them?

GB: You’re absolutely right. There are so many things going on socially, politically, demographically, economically that are really putting pressure on the field service organisation to not only deliver maximum uptime - we are really moving away from the traditional break/fix aftermarket model, towards moving towards being much more proactive and preventative, and technologies are enabling us to do that.

Manufacturers around the world are waking up to the fact that the market has changes - from the volatility in the orders of durable goods, to millennials taking over the workforce, to the movement to ‘power by the hour’, so a lot of them are looking for low hanging fruit.

They’re asking “what can I do to my service organisation to increase revenue” because a lot of companies now view the product that they sell as something that can they can put in the field to leverage high margin service revenue for an extended period of time - in heavy equipment we’re talking 25 years.

 

So they are looking at this, they’re saying how can I improve revenue? How can I improve margin? How can I have a more predictable service business and then how can I deliver a wow level of service - or prevent that service call from having to actually take place over time because of the use IOT, machine learning and smart parts.

Our friends at The Service Council established that 50% of service attempts fail because of not having the right part, and even if the right part is available then companies are not maximising the revenue correctly because they are not pricing correctly. 

So, for a lot of organisations they are saying lets get the parts side of the business right - because the financial gain that can be harvested is significant. 

When you look at the inventory side, we see companies increase service parts revenue by up to fifteen percent, increase gross profit margins up by as much as forty percent and taking forty percent of inventory whilst taking their fill rate up above ninety percent.

So, mathematically, the financial value creation really works and then if those parts are priced appropriately- we are seeing companies take up their service parts revenue by as much as five percent and gross profit margins by as much as seven percent.

If you have several hundreds of millions of dollars, or even close to a billion dollars if you’re in a sector like Aerospace, five percent here and seven percent there suddenly becomes a very sizeable figure.

So in Answer to your initial question, yes we are now seeing a much bigger customer pull, and I think whilst it may be partly due to the Syncron being much more visible in the sector, but it is also a matter of demand from the market - increasingly companies are now coming to us.

KO: You mention outcome based services as a significant shift that is happening within field service across multiple regions and verticals.

What impact is that having on the spare parts/aftermarket and consumables markets - is there a direct adverse impact on this?

GB: Yes, I would think that it is very much having an adverse impact on this side of the market.

Manufacturers will increasingly sell service level agreements much like you would see in high tech.

In high tech there is not a lot of sales of parts. If your servicing a piece of high tech equipment whether it be in medical or whether it be in the IT space, you have a service level agreement and you have certain requirements whereby it needs to be back on line within an hour or two - so there is no buying of parts.

I think as more industries begin to adopt the service level agreement approach rather than buying a part it will have an impact on parts revenue as having that part available to perform that repair or maintenance in advance of the asset failing becomes even more critical.

 

In my car for example, I have an app that tells me when there is something going wrong with my car.

Today, it doesn’t tell me when a part is about to fail but in the future I imagine that it will and so when I do have to bring the car in for service it will say well this part, this part and this part are all close to failing so why don’t we replace these all now?

It becomes preventative maintenance, we prevent the failure from ever happening. This is changing the way businesses approach the value of parts and indeed service. It is certainly an exciting time to be in the field service business because of all these economic, social and political changes that are driving the attention on the service business but also the emergence of all these new technologies.

KO: Given this new wave of interest in Field Service as a something more than mission critical, but also fundamental to revenue streams - are you seeing more companies you work with getting involved with such conversations from board level?

GB: Yes, I absolutely think field service is really garnering executive level attention now.

I think a lot of that is driven by the demand and the shift that we are seeing amongst the customers. Customer-centricity has always been a bit of a buzz word in the industry but I think it is becoming hot again and I think that’s because by 2030 around 75% of the workforce will be comprised of Millennials.

Their service expectations have been informed by the likes of Amazon, Uber and TaskRabbit. Their mindset is “What do you mean I can’t have it fixed now?” And that is definitely driving the demand side.

[quote]Service expectations have been informed by the likes of Amazon, Uber and TaskRabbit. Their mindset is “What do you mean I can’t have it fixed now?” And that is definitely driving the demand side.

But then also when you look at the margin side and at the revenue side, I think a lot of executives that are in the C-Suite came up from the manufacturing or sales side - so they sometimes have a biased view of their business. I call this the street light effect - they can only see what is in the light and that for them is looking at the product side of the business.

 

But for many of them, they’re starting to look beyond the street light and are saying wow - this service business is pretty darn exciting.

And in a lot of cases it’s often just held together with bubble gum and banding wire. So the thinking goes “if we make some upstream investments, we can deliver some pretty healthy downstream dividends.”

So I think that executives are just beginning to expand there point of view. For many years it’s been a case of “it’s [service] kicking up great margins, it’s not broke, let’s not fix it.”

But now companies are seeing with declining lures on the product base side of a business. They’re faced with dwindling margins and if they put even more effort on this side of the business they can only get a limited return.

I think companies are starting to see that similar investment in time and resources on the service side now is going to deliver a lot better returns.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Gary Brooks, CMO, Syncron outlines some of the key technologies set to have a significant impact on field service in the not so distant future... 

Regardless of industry, emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles, wearable devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and drones, will have a significant impact on how after-sales service, the service delivered after the initial sale of a product, is performed. For manufacturers of long lasting durable goods specifically, these new and evolving technologies will enable them to respond to the increasing demands of today’s consumers.

After-sales service is now one of the biggest opportunities for manufacturers to generate revenue, increase margins and improve customer loyalty. For field service repairs, emerging technology used correctly could become a huge source of competitive differentiation and improved service levels.

 Below, I outline five emerging technologies and how manufacturers can use them to positively impact their field service organisations.

Driverless cars:

According to Juniper Research, by 2025 there will be 20 million driverless cars on roads around the world, with them becoming most popular in North America and Western Europe by 2021. For manufacturers, this emerging technology could be especially beneficial to field service. Driverless vehicles mean technicians can multitask – something that they can’t (or at least shouldn’t) do behind the wheel today.

Multitasking allows technicians to use their field service app to ensure the upcoming appointment is as efficient as possible while en-route to the call – reading up on customer history, service part inventory and equipment data – so that the technician walks into the appointment ready to make the repair quickly and successfully. The possibilities are endless – if a vehicle is not stocked with a needed service part, it could self-drive to a warehouse to retrieve it while the technician is working on other aspects of the repair. This emerging technology could provide new and easy ways for technicians to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and for manufacturers to create that competitive edge with their service organisation.

 

Wearables:

Gartner anticipates smartglasses, like Google Glass, could impact the field service industry by $1 billion in 2017. The biggest impact wearables could make is in efficiency – if technicians can diagnose and fix problems more quickly without bringing in additional experts, both the cost savings and improved customer experiences could be monumental.

The augmented reality associated with smartglasses provides on-the-job training to technicians, and enables them to more easily repair goods, especially those they have less experience repairing. Additionally, the hands-free nature of smartglasses allows technicians to complete tasks without having to start and stop to read or view instructions. Video collaboration with remote experts could also add to efficiency.

While adoption of wearable technology has been slow due to the dependence on apps and services targeted to field service, companies like KPIT have already deployed smart glass technologies for field service specifically. As barriers to entry become lower, brands will be forced to adopt ‘smart’ devices to meet demanding customer expectations.

Internet of Things (IoT) 

Forrester foresees IoT as a means to create more valuable customer interactions and improve the customer experience. And, this holds true for field service, which oftentimes serves as the ‘face’ of manufacturing brands.

The intertwined network of physical goods with sensors and software allows manufacturers to freely exchange data between the products they sell and their internal systems in place. This helps both the manufacturer and end-customer – products built with ‘smart parts’ can send a signal to both the manufacturer and customer to alert them a repair is needed and to schedule a service appointment soon. With the appropriate service parts management technology in place, the manufacturer proactively ensures the needed part is available and sends a technician to repair the product quickly, alleviating any downtime, and delivering the amazing experience customers expect.

3D Printing

3D printing has long been used in manufacturing to create part prototypes. Now, with the advances made to the technology, they can print parts in metal, which means 3D printing can be used to create actual replacement parts.

As the technology continues to advance, the impact 3D printing could have on parts inventory levels, warehouse needs and the logistics of moving parts from one location to another could be monumental. These factors will lead to reduced cost and faster repair times – meaning more revenue for the manufacturer and better experiences for the end-user. And, it might not be in the too-distant future that driverless vehicles could be equipped with printers that can print parts on the spot!

 

Drones

Drones are becoming increasingly common for personal use. You’ll oftentimes see them at high school sporting events, outdoor concerts or being used for personal photography. For field service specifically, there are both immediate and long-term benefits of drone technology.

More immediately, drones can be used as a means of diagnosing issues on large-scale equipment like oil rigs. This means less risk for the field service technician, as drones can help them survey large or hard-to-reach areas without putting themselves in dangerous situations. Or, they can be used in warehouses to retrieve parts, making the process much more efficient.

In the future, drones could even be used to deliver a part in the field. If a technician is on-site making a repair but doesn’t have the necessary part, a drone could bring it to him or her, eliminating the need to make an additional service call.

 These emerging technologies are beginning to impact businesses today, and manufacturers must consider adopting them to meet the needs of today’s customers, while simultaneously driving revenue. Soon, everyone will be able to say they’ve received exceptional customer service, as long as manufacturers embrace these new tools.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature