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IFS’ new ownership private equity firm EQT are standing true to their promise to accelerate the growth of the Swedish firm as they make to key UK acquisitions...

ERP provider IFS have further enhanced their offering into the field service management sector this month with two key UK acquisitions.

Both announced on the same day the Swedish organisation took ownership of both field service management system provider mplsystems and also implementation specialists Field Service Management (FSM).

Whilst the latter acquisition perhaps had an air of inevitability about it as FSM have been working as resellers and system integrators for IFS for some time now, it was the acquisition of mplsystems that will have raised eyebrows within the industry perhaps the most.

However, the acquisition also makes perfect sense from a technology point of view as mplsystems, who have only just launched a new genetic algorithm based scheduling engine themselves, (see page 8), are more widely acknowledged for their omni-channel contact centre technology which has earned them recognition from Gartner as a visionary within the CRM Customer Engagement Magic Quadrant.

Indeed, IFS’ move to bring this technology into their own, gives them a truly end-to-end service lifecycle solution, following a similar path to Microsoft in terms of how they have brought CRM and Field Service together under one platform.

 

“It’s quite specific why we’ve acquired mplsystems” Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, Service Management told Field Service News as the announcement went to press. “It is very directly a recognition on IFS’ part that we have a gap in our end-to-end offering in the customer engagement area.”

“We were looking to acquire some IP, and in the case of mplsystems, some very strong IP, to plug that gap in the customer engagement piece, at the centre of which is their omni-channel contact centre capabilities.”

In fact, the acquisition of mplsystems and the integration of their contact centre technology within the IFS solution, is in perfect line with the roadmap that IFS appear to be continuing down, and sits perfectly alongside the introduction of the embedded CRM within their ERP solution that was introduced at their last significant roll out (IFS Applications 9).

“There has been a lot of conversation recently around the convergence of CRM and FSM and when speaking at Field Service Management Expo a couple of months back I alluded to this then also.” Brewer commented.

“We see now both technologies sitting under the customer experience space, and there will be three prongs to our offering in this area moving forward.”

 

“Firstly, we will continue doing what mplsystems have done very successfully across the last few years which is to offer a Contact Centre as a Service (CCaS) capability to many organisations with large contacts centres - people like Aviva and ALDI. The two other prongs to the offering then are that it will integrate with our IFS FSM solution so it will form the customer engagement capability of that offering. It will then also form the customer engagement capability of IFS Apps.”

“So whether you are taking down a service request, whether you are taking a return material authorisation, whether your taking a feed from an IoT connected device or even if you are utilising social or chat-bot technology, whatever the medium of engagement you choose we will go through the mplsystems customer engagement solution.”

So how do IFS see this new ability to manage the entire customer experience lifecycle? Is this something they feel gives them an advantage over competitors or are they getting themselves back on a level playing field? Is the inclusion of this technology a USP that they can push as vendors, or is it something their customers have been demanding for some time now?

“I think there are two points to that question,” Brewer replies.

“I think there is definitely a customer pull because we are seeing the focus that is evolving from productivity improvement and operational excellence to a model that is more focussed on revenue enhancement. In its most simplistic terms people are seeing service as a growing opportunity from a profitability perspective.”

 

“However, we do also see this as a USP as we believe we have best-of-breed capabilities in a number of our separate offerings and in our standalone FSM solution now we have the capability to run a world class contact centre, we have the capability to do world class optimisation and scheduling. We have the capabilities to deliver a full return material/reverse logistics operation and we have the capability to do very strong contract and warranty claims management as well.”

“All of those elements are what we perceive to be best-in-class, and by filling in the gap with the customer engagement capability, via the acquisition of mplsystems, we now genuinely have a unique offering as it is not just a broad set of capabilities, it is a number of complimentary best-in-class solutions that can feed into and off of each other.”

Finally, with the acquisition of FSM Ltd it appears to essentially be a case of bringing a very successful outsourced operation into the IFS fold.

“FSM has been a very successful in the UK and Ireland in securing some very big customers for us, they’ve got a great track record and ultimately with the new ownership of EQT we now have a much more aggressive growth strategy and in key geographies including Europe West (which includes UK) the investment is there to bring companies like FSM on board to support our capability to grow our market-share further."

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?"  whilst the second answered was "Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?" and last week the questions was "What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

And now the final question on this topic

 

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Question Four: Are field service companies who are not adopting IoT at risk of becoming non- competitive?

The urgency around IoT adoption varies from one vertical industry to the next, but the cost of service delivery and need for greater visibility are universal concerns. The old business adage “you manage what you measure” certainly applies.

If your competitors have a level of insight that enables them to increase the number of jobs per technician per day or reduce critical failures by 90% thanks to preventative measure, the business benefits are powerful and quantifiable.

Increased efficiency and productivity, and slashing the cost of missed SLA penalties, that has direct impact on customer satisfaction and profitability. IoT can deliver exactly these types of insights and business outcomes, and only service organisations that invest in IoT capabilities will reap these rewards.

 

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In a word, yes. This is much more than just a ‘nice to have’ scenario. In most industries, margins are too thin and competition is too fierce to simply guesstimate how much capacity a piece of equipment can cope with, and it seems positively archaic to run a reactive break/fix service mentality in today’s connected age.

Industrial downtime is no joke. Unplanned downtime in just about every industry has a significant impact.

The Aberdeen Group last year reported that the cost of downtime across industries went up to $260,000 per hour on average between 2014 and 2016. That’s a huge jump with a considerable hit on any business.

On top of that, most companies don’t know how best to optimise uptime availability in different conditions, such as managing volatility, meeting peak demand or managing performance in extreme conditions. If your competitors are addressing this problem and you’re not, you’re surrendering market share. Digital disruption is set to wipe out 40% of the Fortune 500 companies in the next 10 years and the Industrial Internet will play a big part in that disruption, as well as the survival and success of companies.

The question isn’t why would you, but rather why wouldn’t you?

 

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Definitely!

The potential gains in cost efficiency and improved service offerings are tremendous. IoT has the potential to disrupt entire industries. Organisations that aren’t educating themselves on the potential, road mapping an IoT strategy, or structuring their organisation to be IoT-ready may not see the risk now but they will definitely be laggards in 5-10 years.

IDC predicts that the installed base of IoT endpoints will grow to more than 30 billion by the end of the decade from just less than 13 billion units in 2015.

As a consequence, machine-generated data will comprise an increasing share of stored data: by 2020, 10 percent of the 44 zettabyte digital universe will originate from IoT devices.

In five years, there will be seven times more IoT data than there is today.

 

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Look out of the next topic in our Big Discussion series coming soon... 

 

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There has been considerable Mergers and Acquisitions activity amongst field service management solution providers across the last eighteen months. At the same time we have seen a rapid rise in the adoption of servitization based business models, which has driven a move away from traditional break-fix SLA based maintenance contracts to contracts based around guarantees of uptime and availability.

Does this provide both the opportunity and the need for the development of new breed of field based platforms - the Service ERP? Kris Oldland, FSN Editor-in-Chief, reports...

For as long as there has been Field Service Management (FSM) Solutions there has always been a conversation around how well a solution integrates with other key business systems in the B2B world it has largely been about connecting through an ERP system, in B2C the same conversation was centred around bolting on a field service solution onto a CRM.

Indeed for many years use of a dedicated FSM system could be avoided entirely either by some clever and hugely laborious recoding of the functionality of an existing tool such as SAP or Oracle for example, or alternatively some equally ingenious means of reworking existing processes and relabelling existing form fields to find a semi-workable solution.

Something a bit W Heath-Robinson that could involved going from 'a' to 'j' via 'e' all just to get to 'b', but something that kind of did the job.

 

However, with the advent of Cloud computing and the democratising impact of the emergence of the SaaS revenue model we have seen a far greater and more widespread adoption of FSM systems from companies of all sizes in all sectors.

In turn, this increased use of FSM systems has driven further product development and feature enhancements in what is a relatively small but Undoubtedly fiercely competitive sector.

Meanwhile, we have also seen service, and in particular field service rise in importance amongst the executive boards in all areas as the world begins to adapt to the twenty first century and it’s service centric, on-demand driven business models. Uber and Amazon are thrown around constantly as examples of best practice (even though the former have yet to break even apparently) in today’s data driven world, and are very much tools of their time.

Closer to home within FSM systems, indeed the gig-economy is one of a number of new twenty first century additions to the field service equation - as are challenges of an ageing workforce, dealing with a customer base more empowered and more vocal (via the joy of social media) than ever before, plus the emergence of game changing technology such as IoT and Augmented Reality.

With the investment in solutions at an all time high, we are seeing an emerging race to become the dominate platform for the increasingly lucrative and important field service sector begin to heat up with a series of FSM providers including IFS, ServicePower, ServiceMax, ClickSoftware and Telogis all being acquired - and the story in the large part is very much the same from each of them - the investment is intended to help them get to their technology (and sales and marketing) ready to take a podium finish.

This of course is driving development in terms of technology, further and faster than ever before.

Indeed, functionality within FSM systems has now become widespread and diverse that the standard terminology is shifting to a full ‘end-to-end’ platforms. Solutions that not only include field service management elements such as scheduling and job reporting but also incorporate wider spectrums such as parts and inventory management, asset management and reverse logistics Have we finally reached a point where we can see the solutions that are essentially today’s FSM systems ready to step out of the shadows of their business software cousins CRM and ERP and stand shoulder to shoulder with them as an equally valid business system?

 

With all the investment in the FSM sector are we reaching a point where FSM systems will no longer be just a humble add on for ERP but a mission critical service and business delivery platform within it’s own right. You use your ERP for product-based activities you FSM system for all service and aftermarket related activities with a CRM, and financial package sitting across the perhaps? Of course, the likes of Gartner and other such important acronym makers would argue (and they’d have a point to be fair) that such a system would be probably a bit more than FSM so we would need a new bunch of letters to put together.

My humble suggestion would be Service ERP (sERP) but this may cause confusion with those pesky marketeer types and their Search Engine Results Pages (hence why I went with a small s at the front), but quite frankly other than needing something to refer to in this article, I’ll let the real industry makers work that one out.

The important thing is the concept - which I genuinely think is the logical conclusion of all this talk around FSM platforms.

We are at a level now with integration and cloud technology, where things just talk to each other naturally, or at least they are supposed to and that is definitely the path we’re heading down.

 

With this in mind, I believe the route we are heading down will lead us to a point where companies will look at their mix of business systems and say OK my ERP is SAP (for example) and that handles my production and manufacturing side of a business.

And then my sERP/FSM system - which includes scheduling, a mobile piece (including Augmented Reality), customer management (including CSAT and other customer engagement pieces), parts management, reverse logistics, asset management (including IoT connectivity) and anything and everything else required for running the service and aftermarket side of the business - is in place to run that part of our operations.

Essentially, for a company that only offers third party service, the sERP platform could be all they need as long as it included a light CRM embedded in there as well.

From a field service management perspective there has always been a feeling that FSM has always been the bridesmaid and would never be the bride, that we would always be the slightly poorer relations feeding off the table crumbs of our close, yet infinitely more important cousins in the ERP and CRM world.

But given the rising growth in importance of service in the global business ecosystem, given the amount of Tier A companies shifting their business models, at least in part, to a servitized business model where delivery of uptime replaces traditional break-fix SLAs and sloppy service will result in direct loss of revenue – it is of little surprise that those companies offering the tools to ensure that service is delivered as efficiently and productively as possible have become a major focus for investment of late.

As mentioned above FSM is rapidly gaining in recognition as an important tool within the business software ecosystem, the question is just where will that rise to prominence end – so is the prospect of FSM ultimately being the opposite side of the coin to ERP likely?

Or is it just a short-term bubble as the world realigns itself to a more service orientated future and the major ERP players re-interpret their platforms to add more attention and focus to service related activities and how to optimise those into their own mix?

 

I recently discussed this conversation at length with Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower, one of the key organisations within the FSM sector that have recently attracted significant Private Equity investment.

It is interesting to note that as with the private equity investment in both ClickSoftware and IFS, the intention does not appear to either asset strip the technology and look for a quick buck or prime the business for a bigger sale in the near future - which is so often the case of such investments. In fact, in all three cases it seems that the goal is to plough further resources into R&D and marketing to help each respective company flourish. In the case of ServicePower it is very much a case of a boost in resources to help meet what Martin sees as their own longer term vision a lot quicker than they could have done so organically.

Indeed, Martin’s comments on the matter are almost an exact echo of what Paul Massey Managing Director, IFS and Dave Yarnold, CEO, ServiceMax told me when I spoke to them both about the recent investments within their own businesses.

Yes, the cynic in me might see the similar sound bites as nothing more than holding up a business-as-normal-here flag to allay any customer fears and perhaps even more importantly those of prospective customers. Yet, I don’t think that is the case. At the last IFS world conference, Massey (and indeed CEO Alastair Sorbie) made a big point about Field Service being one of the top three priorities for the business in the wake of investment from EQT, given they are an ERP provider with a lot of other areas of focus within their business, this in itself was a significant endorsement of the vibrancy of the sector.

Similarly, when speaking with Yarnold about why GE Digital was the right home for ServiceMax, the conversation was very much focussed around how having access to both the technology of the Predix platform but also importantly the brand power of GE to open doors at the C-Suite level of enterprise, was a significant factor.

Close to a Billion $USD will certainly be part of the reason GE Digital were able to bring the market leader of an increasingly important technology market into their fold, but one also suspects that the opportunity for Yarnold to further expand his vision and ambition for the system he and two others launched in California just over a decade ago was another fundamental element to why GE Digital was the right destination.

Indeed he even commented at the “I didn’t just want to see us end up as part of another CRM/ERP system”.

So did Martin agree with my assertions that FSM would become equally as powerful and important as CRM and ERP in the future?

“I believe so, but with a few caveats” she replied

“If you think about what a CRM does, in it’s most basic, a lot of CRMs are structured around loading in your customer data, their buying patterns, and their contacts – so if you have sales people that churn then you have all that data still. At it’s most simplistic that is what a CRM covers at the basic level. That is pretty straight forward. And if they want all of the other functionalities of a more robust CRM provider then they can pay for it from one of the million and one CRM providers.”

“It’s the same as when you think of a typical ERP - a lot of that is built around finance and accounting packages there’s a million good finance and accounting packages out there and we’re not trying to become a finance - what we are interested in is the use cases around a mobile worker.”

“Give the mobile worker the tools to do everything they need to do in their business. So that they can access what they need to know about the customer, about the asset, where parts are, what they need to do on the  service contracts and so on.”

“The potential for a lot of this to be completed within a standalone FSM platform – that incorporates the spare parts management, warranty management, service sales CRM alongside the more traditional aspects of FSM such as scheduling and parts management etc is certainly there.”

 

Of course, one of the big shifts that we have seen in recent years is the power of data to transform the way we operationalise our business as Business Intelligence platforms powered by the Cloud, IoT and Big Data give field service organisations greater visibility into both their customers and their own operations more than ever before.

At large we are seeing a seismic shift in how field service is measured, both in terms of operational and success metrics.

“That’s very true.” Martin agreed when I put this point to her.

“The field service industry really is in a state of evolution. It’s on the verge of transforming itself into both a customer centric focus looking to bring the power of customer relationship management into the field, while also incorporating technology around machine learning, Internet of Things, and more actionable insights from data.”

“That’s also what is attracting so much acquisition activity. To get to the next level, any business with field based resources must invest in technology and business process consulting to move forward. Mobile workforce management is key to any organisation performing activities away from a plant or office.”

“We are still seeing companies at differing levels of business or use case complexity, some still moving from paper or less sophisticated platforms and others ready to move beyond their current technology to the next level technology in order to incorporate actionable insights and efficiencies from emerging technologies like wearables and IoT, the power of big data, and machine learning are also now realities. Whereas in the past they were nebulous concepts, their ability to be incorporated into mobile workforce software is reality today.”

Perhaps at the heart of the current spate of rapid development within our sector is the fact that all of these emerging technologies can be combined to solve traditional challenges. Whilst they can bring value to service operations by themselves it is when harnessed together alongside existing technologies that we are seeing true leaps forward.

“Each [technology] can be used in conjunction with products like ours to improve productivity, and reduce schedule costs, improving the overall operational metrics, and of course the power of cloud computing is what enables all this to be provided with greater flexibility and value to the customer,” adds Martin.

 

But as we mentioned earlier there is a whiff of chicken and egg in the question as to whether business models are driving a need for improved technology or vice versa. Martin also recognises this fact.

“It is key to recognise that the shift isn’t only about technology adoption, the industry is moving quickly towards a more consumer-centric model where the customer experience is the overriding measure of success,” she explains.

“KPIs like schedule adherence and mean time to schedule continue to be indicative of customer satisfaction, however, up-time, customer value, and propensity to purchase additional services are emerging as more dominant, and are increasingly where focus and resources are applied, to improve profitability.”

“Customer relationship management is about more than getting your sales people to sell to your accounts. It has to be about how you delight the customer after the purchase of the equipment or service contract so that they stay with you, and come back for more.”

“We have also seen so much investment into call centre technology, but in reality, customers don’t want to talk to a call centre if they don’t have to. So technologies which improve the experience, like self-service customer portals which offer the ability to book real time appointments, monitor status, and interact with scheduled mobile workers before and during the visit, integrated knowledge management, machine learning, and actionable insights are what drive additional or longer term revenue, driving profitability. Customer satisfaction and profitability are the new reality for field service organisations.”

So the billion dollar question for Martin and her peers in the industry is has FSM become about more than just field service now? So where does she see the industry moving now?

Indeed, where are ServicePower heading now?

“As I said, to get to the next level, any business with resources that travel beyond a given plant or office must invest in technology to move towards improved profitability and efficiency. An integrated platform is also necessary in order to not run a business in silos, but actually with the greatest intelligence related to maximising the overall performance,” she replied.

As Adam Smith said, it is about labour, capital – and now technology. Staff, parts (if applicable), and technology all need to work together for a common goal. This is also why mobile workforce technology should be on top of mind for the C-suite. CRM and ERP technology isn’t enough to have a great performing organisation if you have workers in the field”

“Mobile workforce management technology therefore isn’t only for organisations which offer field service, traditionally thought of as repair or maintenance. Any mobile worker’s productivity can be improved, the customer experience can be improved, while those traditional metrics like cost and mean time to schedule can be improved at the same time.”

“What I see often is that not only does technology have a role to play, but also equally critically, companies must be looking at business and field processes, and how to use the data within an organisation to agree actionable insights.”

“By that definition, the addressable market for mobile workforce technology expands exponentially, including any organisation with feet on the street. Consider the Salesforce ecosystem. Salesforce users range from traditional wrench turners, to home healthcare, sale forces offered by big box home retailers, pharmaceutical reps, to financial planners, government, and housing and facilities. The list of businesses which rely on people delivering ‘services’ in the field is enormous and expanding.”

 

“Mobile workforce management can be used in every one of those verticals to improve the service delivery process, improve operational metrics and delight the customer, which in turn drives additional revenue. It also when applied with the customer facing technologies as well, can bring the power of the CRM to the customer you want to retain and make another investment in your equipment or services after the point of sale. Only mobile workforce management takes your brand and your people to your current customers in a way that CRM and ERP does not.”

In conclusion she adds the final statement “The opportunity for our market is exponential.”

And I wholeheartedly concur with her on this.

We may see a few new acronyms pop up in the next few years but the future of FSM, in whatever new guise it may take, looks to be in a good place.

 

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IFS, the global enterprise applications company, today announces it has completed the acquisition of mplsystems Limited and Field Service Management Limited.

mplsystems Limited is a provider of omni-channel contact center and customer engagement software that, together with IFS’s leading Service Management offering, provides a complete end-to-end customer engagement solution. Field Service Management Limited, an implementation specialist of Field Service Management solutions in the UK and Ireland will bolster IFS’s Service Management sales, consulting, and support organisation in the region.

UK-based mplsystems Limited develops and implements omni-channel contact center and field service management solutions at some of the UK’s most well respected brands, including: Babcock International, HomeServe, Ecomaster, ENGIE, and Iceland. The company is recognised as a Visionary by Gartner in its Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service for Western Europe (published 24 October 2016) and a Niche Player in its Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center (published 8 May 2017), primarily thanks to its investment in innovation that has resulted in a flexible, integrated and easy-to-use contact center management platform.

Field Service Management Limited is a UK based implementation partner of IFS in the UK and Ireland. Its expert team of Service Management consultants will join IFS’s UK operation in order to drive further growth in the region. To date, Field Service Management Limited has supported IFS with some of the largest service management implementations in the UK.

 

Commenting on the acquisitions, Fredrik vom Hofe, Group Senior Vice President for Business Development at IFS said “IFS is already recognised as a global leader in the Service Management sector, which we are extending further with these two acquisitions. The opportunity resulting from the acquisition of mplsystems will mean that businesses around the world who want to deliver the best customer service from the moment a customer makes an enquiry through to an issue being resolved, now have the most complete and connected service management proposition available on the market’.

Paul White, CEO of mplsystems Limited, stated “The team at mplsystems is delighted to be joining forces with IFS. We now have a great opportunity to take our award winning omni-channel and customer engagement solutions onto the world stage”.

Alex Stratis, research analyst at IDC, commented: “IFS is not only extending but also strengthening its Service Management proposition with the acquisition of mplsystems. The combination of IFS’s existing capabilities in managing field service with mplsystems’ ability to connect to service recipients via contact center, web, text, and mobile interfaces means customer engagement can be managed in a more integrated way. Both companies share similar values in innovation and a customer centric mindset which is important for the businesses to effectively integrate.”

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?"  whilst the second answered was "Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?"

So let's move onto the third question of the topic...

 

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Question Three: What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

One of the biggest challenges of marrying IoT and field service is developing the technological infrastructure to capture, process, and respond to the data collected by IoT-enabled assets. Turning voluminous data into business intelligence will require service organisations to completely rethink their operations.

If a machine can tell you an uncomplicated part needs replacement, will you be able to dispatch a junior (and therefore less expensive) resource to provide maintenance; or simply deliver the part to the customer by drone? Will you be able to do so without human intervention? Will you be able to use IoT data to optimise scheduling preventive maintenance while reserving capacity for emergency work?

In order to fully realise the benefits of IoT, field service organisations will need to incorporate artificial intelligence driven service automation solutions that integrate with their other systems. IT support will be increasingly important, as well as expertise in data science.

 

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There are still some hurdles to overcome in the wider context, such as security, data storage, infrastructure demands, and the knock-on effects across a company’s wider IT systems. But many of the data protection issues and cyber threats have been addressed by the development of more sophisticated edge computing devices and edge to Cloud technologies, as well as putting some of intelligence and logic (AI) power and computing next to the critical asset. Very few companies have the expertise in-house required to protect industrial data, so you should engage data science cyber security specialists where it makes sense.

There’s also the question of who in a company can best lead the digital charge. Companies need a person or team that can bridge the gap between IT, service and operations so that all competing priorities are met. It’s an easier issue for larger companies to address as they have a greater breadth of talent pool and a wider range of skills.

I also think mindset can be an inhibitor or an accelerator. Most people can think big, but the potential of the Industrial Internet means you can think bigger. You’ve got to sit down and look of the art of the possible and then map a digital strategy to it. There’s lots of help available in this area, such as dedicated foundries, maturity assessments et al, but people don’t know they exist.

 

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Like many things, it depends:

If equipment is high-value and expected to have a long life, you need to retrofit them with sensors.

Those sensors may be 3rd-party.

Many facilities, even today, have limited bandwidth available to them. This can make transmitting data from many sources challenging.

For third-party service providers there’s the question of data ownership. Who owns information collected about how equipment is being used and is performing? The service provider? The OEM? The customer?

Fundamentally, the biggest challenge with adopting and implementing IoT is having the right structure and systems in place to maximise its value. It doesn’t serves an organisation to have the ability to collect data from assets if that data is not processed and actioned in real-time.

Organisations need business process intelligence, optimised field service management, and real-time visibility to truly maximise the potential of IoT.

 

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Next weeks the final question of this topic: Are field service companies who are not adopting IoT at risk of becoming non- competitive?

 

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Mark Brewer, Global Industry Director, IFS discusses how leadership and management guru Covey’s approach can be easily adapted for field service management...

I recently had the pleasure of conversing with a Boeing executive at dinner during an event and the topic of effective leadership in regards to current organisational challenges came up.

We talked about Dr. Stephen Covey’s leadership training and how it had helped him evolve as a leader and ultimately equipped him to manage an effective, productive IT team.

The discussion made me think about the pressures on the field service industry and the demand for rapid transformation.

When faced with change, organisations need strong leadership and change management skills to be effective. In fact, Dr. Covey’s leadership steps can easily be applied to help a field service organisation on its digital transformation journey. Let’s explore a few of his recommendations in the context of field service transformation.

Focus on what matters most 

What matters most are your customers. They are the bread and butter of your business, and they should be driving any change that happens in your organisation. This is the very makeup of field service. Close the loop with the customer, providing them with better feedback opportunities to apply within your business, whether it comes to product innovation or service delivery.

 

Any plans for digital transformation should keep this in mind. If you prioritise change based on how it improves your relationship with your customers, everything else falls into place, from service margin to cost reduction to operational efficiency.

Seek first to understand those you lead 

Digital transformation means adopting new technologies and new mindsets. It means a lot of out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new. Whether you are applying optimisation to your processes, adding new technologies such as robotics or IoT, or adopting entirely new methodologies such as “uberization,” you need to be sure that your people not only understand the rationale but are also equipped to handle and embrace the change.

This may mean that you need to explore options such as re-education of your work force, hiring for skill gaps, creation of incentive programs and different recruitment tactics to ensure that your people will help you to drive change, rather than hinder it.

Sharpen the saw

Complacency is the enemy of digital transformation. Are you driving personal growth from the top level down at your organisation?

Have you thought about the future of technology and change, as much as what needs to happen now? How are you driving current and future innovation?

 

Take steps such as attending training classes, tracking and mapping field service innovation in a five year plan, and creating futuristic opportunities such as a think tank at your organisation to ensure that you are constantly pushing the horizon when it comes to innovation, and subsequently, a unique competitive edge.

Begin with the end in mind

The value of KPIs and company goals is no foreign concept in field service but as simple as this advice may seem, it is imperative. The end doesn’t have to be a permanent fixture but an extensible one.

There may be multiple ends.

You may be focused on company numbers for this year, growth for next year, and market share in five years. Whatever the goals and KPIs may be, make sure they are attainable, accessible, and apparent. Whatever new technologies you plan to adopt or methodologies you plan to change, ensure that they are helping you to reach the end you have in mind. Navigate the minefield that is the multitude of recommendations on achieving digital transformation success by ensuring that any digital transformation journey directly contributes to the goals you have set.

Too often organisations underestimate the need for effective leadership and change management when it comes to transforming the business.

 

Digital transformation in the industry is driven by the consumer and often in a hurry to keep up, organisations adopt new technologies without a larger more encompassing understanding of the long-term ramifications and alternatively the value.

As Dr. Stephen Covey identified for the individual, the same concept can apply to an organisation as an entity. Strong leadership will propel an organisation through digital transformation effectively. The journey requires communication, collaboration, and leadership.

Dr. Stephen Covey’s seventh habit (of highly effective people) is to be proactive. Think ahead of your customer.

Think ahead of your board. Think ahead of your people.

The more forward facing your organisation is, the better equipped it will be to deal with rapid change in the market. When we live in a world of driverless cars, flying drones, robotics and more, your field service delivery will still be relevant, and that’s what matters most.

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

The first question of this topic was "Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?" 

And onto this week's question...

 

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Question Two: Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?

Although IoT in field service is still relatively new, early adopters like manufacturers of capital equipment are approaching greater maturity. They’re leapfrogging other industries in terms of first-time fix rates and overall operational efficiency.

Other industries are beginning to recognise the potential benefits, and we’re seeing conversations around IoT shift from wide-eyed wonder to practical next steps. Utility and telecommunications providers are well positioned to benefit by making the infrastructure they maintain smarter and better connected. Consumer-facing organisations can better empower customers to participate in diagnosing and repairing problems.

The Smart Meter initiative in the UK is a perfect example where mass adoption by consumers will force manufacturers to advance. A couple years ago IoT in service was largely seen as tomorrow’s problem.

Today service providers are eager to take the next step.

 

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IoT hasn’t reached mass adoption in any market just yet, but certainly field service is seen as the ‘killer app’ for businesses. And it’s making fast progress.

Senior management are realising that service is the hidden gem within their organisations, largely due to the untapped potential of the Industrial Internet, and it’s something we’re seeing in our own global customer base.

Fuelled by the shift to outcome-based service models, shrinking product margins, and globalisation, and the Industrial Internet, industry watchers have been predicting that service revenue will eventually eclipse product revenue. Smart, connected, optimised equipment assets are accelerating that shift.

As companies begin to properly monetise service with sensors at the edge, they have the opportunity to increase service revenues and margins further, providing an effective hedge in a downturn economy.

That’s why we’re seeing greater adoption and acceleration in this space.

 

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Yes. The concept of IoT and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) isn’t a new one.

It has been around for more than 20 years. But now, thanks to advances in technology and digital transformation, it is at the forefront of business opportunity. There are many field service sectors that have already been working with sensors and IoT technology for a few years now, such as the medical industry (like the IFS customer Sysmex).

Over the next five years we will no doubt see the number of IoT implementations rise among field service organisations as the industry becomes regulated and more best-practice cases are publicised.

 

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Next weeks question: What are the challenges of implementing an IoT strategy within field service operation?

 

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In the Big Discussion we take one topic, bring together three leading experts on that topic and put four key questions to them across four weeks to help us better understand its potential impact on the field service sector...

This time around we turn to a brand new topic which is the Internet of Things and our experts are Paul Whitelam, ClickSoftware, Mark Homer, ServiceMax from GE Digital and Mark Brewer, IFS...

And so onto the first question on the topic...

 

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Question One: Just how big is the potential impact of IoT on Field Service?

The Internet of Things is already transforming field service. Service has traditionally been a reactive practice. Something breaks, a technician is dispatched to fix it, and sometimes the repair is successful the first time. IoT enabled devices provide ongoing visibility into the status of a piece of equipment, as well as a richer view of the severity and source of any issues, and the ability to make predictions based on this information.

The service organisation no longer waits for a panicked phone call from a customer. They can proactively maintain equipment, replace components before they break, and use an understanding of asset lifecycle and usage patterns to inform future product design.

Customers increasingly expect to pay for uptime instead of equipment, and define SLAs based on their business targets. Eventually, all service organisations will have to live up the expectation of seamless  service and minimised  disruptions.

 

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The potential of IoT – and more importantly IIoT (the Industrial Internet of Things) – is immense. So much so, that it’s making service a game changer, fundamentally changing how we optimise equipment and capital assets, and predict their maintenance and service requirements.

By harvesting and applying intelligence that previously would have been impossible to obtain, companies are seeing a major step change this area - that’s why more forward thinking companies are combining IoT-enabled field service management with asset performance management.

This is emerging as the real disruptor because for the first time, customers have meaningful performance and service intelligence at their fingertips to understand potential equipment issues, and pre-empt them or act upon them quickly and efficiently with the correct tools and parts.

It’s important to remember that prescription is equally as valuable as prediction - prescription to make adjustments or refine parameters to improve productivity or throughout, or keep something running to the next planned service outage. That’s one of the things that makes the Industrial Internet so powerful – you can do load balancing, and share the flow and volume across multiple appliances or machines using condition-based monitoring to switch machines in high volume usage areas when required.

 

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IoT has huge potential to transform field service organisations. The concept and technologies allows organisations to take data collected from remote sites and equipment to:

Gain better insights into the usage of equipment.

This will help determine when to perform optimal service. Rather than send technicians to sites on a schedule, you can send them only when you need to. For example, say you service a solar park. One of the main things that can lead to damage solar modules is wind. By remotely tracking the wind speeds, you can better estimate when to perform service.

Run a leaner service organisation.

One challenge service organisations encounter is that they’re reactive in nature. They respond to equipment failing. And without real-time information of equipment, when the equipment fails is unpredictable. This requires the organisations to maintain a fair amount of slack. Both within the inventory they manage, and the people that they’re made up of. Knowing when equipment will likely need service or when it will reach its end of life allows you to better plan.

Improve the competitiveness of your service offerings.

IoT, combined with machine learning, allows you to address problems before they occur. This results in higher availability of your equipment and lower service costs. You can pass this to your customers by improving your service terms and conditions. Higher SLA targets and compliance delivered at lower cost is a win-win all around.

 

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Next weeks question: Is IoT now making the shift from early adoption to mass adoption amongst field service companies?

 

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Kris Oldland deliver's his editorial leader in issue 17 of Field Service News where our theme was the ever changing nature of field service...

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Field Service News subscribers are entitled to our bi-monthly magazine in both print and digital versions. Subscription is free for field service professionals click here to apply for a complimentary industry professional subscription now and get a digital copy of issue 17 sent straight to your inbox instantly

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Now any regular readers of this column will know that I’m a big fan of change.

Not that I think change needs to be wholesale and sweeping. No I subscribe much more to the journey of continuous improvement method of change. I like the concept of constant refinement, of being in constant Beta.

As a result of such an outlook I do tend to focus on innovation quite closely, which is a happy coincidence that there seems to be constant innovation within the field service sector too.

So I often talk about changes in our industry. Changes in business processes such as the shift towards servitization or the concept of crowd service

Changes in technology such as the emergence of Augmented Reality and IOT as two highly credible emerging technologies that the field service industry must embrace.

Even, the changing skill-profile of the field engineer as an incoming generation replaces an ageing outgoing one.

But the change referred to in this edition of Field Service News is actually a completely different type of change and for once I found myself wondering if such seismic change within our industry is good for us.

That change is amongst the solution providers, the pioneers and innovators that helped usher in so much of the revolution we are currently experiencing.

 

In the last 18 months we have seen most of the big names in field service  management solutions being acquired. Tesseract, IFS, ServiceMax, ClickSoftware, Telogis, and most recently ServicePower have all been bought up and that’s just a few from the top of my head.

There are many, many more.

The thing is that all of these companies had a common thread that allowed them to thrive in our industry. They were all independent companies who truly understood and cared about field service.

If I recall correctly the redesign of Solarvista a few years back took 3 MILLION lines of code, more than it takes to send a shuttle up to the space station, there are far easier sectors to enter, far easier places to make money as a software provider.

But it was the passion to help drive service forwards that was at the heart of many of these companies’ success.

Colin Brown former MD and founder at Tesseract for example came from an engineer background himself, so he got the challenges that companies were facing and was able to tailor that into a series of industry first solutions (i.e. first windows based solution, first browser based solution, first SaaS solution).

Similarly, Dave Yarnold, CEO at ServiceMax has spoken at great length about the importance of service - even going as far as to described ServiceMax once as a Field Service Enablement company who happen to use technology to do so.

And while Yarnold, remains on board in ServiceMax’s new guise as part of the GE Brand one just hopes that is infectious enthusiasm for great service delivery isn’t diluted by being in a bigger pond.

Indeed, the message from almost all camps is that it is business as usual just with bigger expectations, and quicker developments. On the surface it all sounds great and I must admit that it is fantastic to see the field service sector become such hot property globally - it’s just when so many great independent companies are bought within quick succession of each other it does make me a little nervous.

All Change maybe fine, just not at once, is all I’m asking.

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Field Service News subscribers are entitled to our bi-monthly magazine in both print and digital versions. Subscription is free for field service professionals click here to apply for a complimentary industry professional subscription now and get a digital copy of issue 17 sent straight to your inbox instantly

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