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For five years UK based field service software provider Oneserve have been quietly going about their way, winning significant clients yet flying under the radar. Now with a young, dynamic new CEO at the helm they are ready to stop being the industry’s best kept secret and step into the limelight...

The story of Oneserve is not that of your average field service software provider.

For a start the company actually began life as an in-house field service management tool developed for Connaught PLC - a company that focussed on repair work in the social housing sector. After an employee buy-out in 2010 Oneserve emerged as a fully fledged solution with the advantage of being unencumbered by the initial costs of R&D that many start-up software companies may have faced when entering what is both a complex and busy market.

However, perhaps more importantly they already had an intimate understanding of what good service, and the tools to enable that, looked like.

After a few quick wins on ‘home turf’ within the social housing sector, the team at Oneserve have quietly yet steadily expanded their footprint across a number of different verticals picking up some top tier customers such as Lovell, Islington Borough Council and Sky along the way.

Yet when compared to some of their competitors such as ClickSoftware, ServiceMax and IFS to name a few, it is fair to say that such success has largely remained under the radar for many in the field service industry.

However, with the appointment of a new, young and dynamic CEO Chris Proctor in February earlier this year, it seems that Oneserve are now ready to step out into the limelight alongside their more established peers and start shouting about just why it is that they feel they are ready to become a disruptive force within the sector.

Indeed, Proctor, who was promoted from Sales and Marketing Director to CEO after just eight months with the Exeter based company, has already made an significant impact in the market with a blistering attack on his peers, accusing field service software providers of ‘holding innovation hostage’ in a press release issued shortly before he took over as CEO.

 

And whilst his background as a marketeer would suggest that he is certainly savvy enough to understand the power of such an assertion in terms of getting people to sit up and pay attention to Oneserve and what they have to say, when speaking to him it is clear that this was not just a simple marketing ploy. Proctor, is a passionate guy who truly seems to get the importance of service in today’s modern world.

And in his eyes technology providers should be simply making it easier for companies to deliver the levels of service excellence that twenty first century customers both expect and demand.

“One of the key things for us was that we really felt we wanted the system to be as intuitive and easy to use as possible,” Proctor explains.

“One of our core tenets is that we are always focused on the end user – always focused on how do we make life for that client better?”

It is not only a noble sentiment but also an approach that is ultimately winning them business, although Proctor himself admits that it is now time for Oneserve to step out of the shadows and kick on, building upon their success to date.

“We’ve been working incredibly hard and diligently for the last five years but we’ve been pretty quiet about it,” he comments.

“I don’t have a quarter of a million pound marketing budget, I can’t attend all the shows we don’t get involved in a lot of that stuff and as a result we’ve kind of kept under the radar of a lot of people. I know it was a surprise not so long ago when we won the Islington contract with a lot of people saying who are these guys?”

“Today we are powering about three and a half million working hours, I’ve lost count of how many engineers, we are working across multiple sectors and now we are being pragmatic in that we are now starting to talk a lot more about what we do.”

 

In fact there are two key facets to the Oneserve approach that appear to resonate with the needs of field service companies today.

Firstly it is a model based on licences rather than professional services which will appeal to those more cost conscious Finance Directors (are there any other kind?). And it is also a fully deployable self service product which will be of interest to both Operations folks and IT alike as it means more control of things like reporting and configurations, without having to go back to the vendor every-time a change is necessary.

This is a big plus in Proctor’s eyes and he uses a neat metaphor to explain his thinking.

“If you buy a car and you drive off the forecourt you turn left – why should you have to call an engineer out to configure your car to be able to turn left, and then right and then left again?”

“Whilst that may make your journey really efficient, it makes it very efficient for a snapshot in time but if you need to diversify, if you need to take a detour or a change in direction you have to go through the same process again.”

“Our principal is exactly the opposite in that if we give you the car, really the emphasis should be on the strength of the car, the strength of the support, the strength of the training and really the overall proposition to allow you get in and drive.”

Given their background as an in-house field service solution which previously had a 360 degree role for enabling service delivery at Connaught, is it a fair assumption to say that the understanding of good service delivery remains closely entwined in the DNA of both the Oneserve product and indeed the team itself?

“Absolutely,” Proctor concurs. “For me it’s really simple. The vast majority of service calls start with a negative. For example ‘my boiler has just blown up’ or this has gone wrong or that has gone wrong. Yes there are other more planned things but by and large it always focuses on a negative,” he explains.

“And we’ve all been on the end of those experiences, those times we’ve waited for an engineer that doesn’t turn up or turns up late, but we’ve also all had those really good experiences.

 

Where they’ve told you they are going to be with you around this time and then an hour or so before they are due they call you and tell you actually I’m going to be with you at exactly this time.”

“Where the engineer has come in, they’ve be really nice, they’ve been really efficient and professional, they’ve had all the tools they’ve needed, they’ve fixed the problem and they’ve been on their way really quickly. And the difference between those two experiences is palpable.”

“It’s the same in the logistics world. We all groan into our hands when we see our parcel is being delivered by Yodel instead of DHL -it’s that differentiation in service,” He adds

“We want to turn the paradigm on its head, we want to turn every negative into a positive. We can’t control the negatives, things will always go wrong and things will always break. But if we can enhance the interactions we can control, if we can make those better, we can improve the end experience and it comes back up the chain and makes everything work much more effectively.”

“And that really is our prevailing thought, that is what we are striving for.”

And whilst empowering their clients through a self-service based product is core to the ethos at Oneserve, Proctor also outlines how closely they continue to work with their clients in order to make sure that those tools they are providing allow companies to ensure they can deliver a positive service experience.

“It remains something very important to us so we do spend time with our clients, we do spend time with them understanding how they are using the system,” he comments.

 

“In the same way we do that digitally in terms of heat mapping and workshops and understanding really what that UX means to the end user - that is very key to us. Understanding how we can make those interactions more effective, more streamlined and more engaging is very important,” he concludes.

It is this commitment to understanding exactly how their clients are using their system that will keep Oneserve close to their roots as part of a service orientated organisation themselves, which in turn allows them to develop their product in line with the needs of their customers.

Hopefully this outlook won’t change as the company continues to grow, but one change that seems inevitable is Oneserve will not be a best kept secret for too much longer.

 

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Optimised scheduling remains an absolutely crucial tool for many field service companies and one that could improve many other companies’ efficiency and productivity levels if they were to adopt such a system. On a recent Field Service News webinar based on this topic, Kris Oldland interviewed scheduling expert Daryl Dudey from IFS to find out more…

KO: What is a typical timeframe from modelling a scheduling solution through to actual implementation?

DD: There are several things that affect that.

Firstly how driven a company is but also how large the organisation is. If we are dealing with smaller teams we can roll out a bit quicker, so we could even be talking weeks moving from pilot to live, if we are talking about a larger organisation with a couple of thousand people out in the field generally speaking we’d like to take a little longer with that to make sure we are considering all the factors.

Really we try to go for a timescale of six months from start of project through to live, that’s the goal if possible. Also the nature of the business the more the senior management is driving the project the more likely it is we are going to get to live quicker, that’d very important.

A lot of the time these implementations can be viewed as IT projects but they’re not they’re business projects and businesses need to understand there is a lot of change involved in this, employees are involved, customers are involved and everybody really needs to be concentrating on it and focussing on it to get the result everybody wants.

KO: In your experience is it a case that those companies that have the full management buy in get more from these types of implementation?

DD: Absolutely. The ones that have that buy-in, that have that drive, they’re the ones that see the significant improvements to their business. They’re the ones that see the big numbers in improvement in terms of cost of travel and increasing jobs per day. They’re the ones that see the most success.

[quote float="left"]A lot of the time these implementations can be viewed as IT projects but they’re not they’re business projects and businesses need to understand there is a lot of change involved

Also in a company that decides they’re not over ride the system manually they’re not diluting the benefits. By the management setting those sorts of rules down the project works just that much better. From experience I’ve also seen that those companies that drive an implementation better, those people out in the field and in the dispatch office end up liking the system more anyway. Because they get the benefits out of it that they were expecting.

 

KO: So as well as there being a need to be driven by the top level, is there also a strong case for involving the end users, the field engineers and dispatchers throughout the implementation process?

DD: Involving the technicians, their team leaders and the dispatchers is absolutely key. At the end of the day this could be seen as a bit of an invasive system, coming in and changing working practices and taking responsibilities away from people. So we need to manage it in the right way to keep those people on-board.

[quote float="right"]Involving the technicians, their team leaders and the dispatchers is absolutely key. At the end of the day this could be seen as a bit of an invasive system, coming in and changing working practices and taking responsibilities away from people.

However, in the end people end up doing what they are better at. So with dispatchers for example, instead of having to decide which job to do in which order, they have more time to do what they are better at which is contact customers and dealing with the technicians and making sure everything is running smoothly.

 

It’s the same with the technicians. They are able to do what they are best at, which is being on-site, fixing equipment, interacting with customers etc. Basically not deciding which route is the optimum etc. So in my opinion, everyone benefits.

KO: What is the typical R.o.I following an implementation?

DD: It can vary but scheduling as a project is very much a return on investment project.

Most companies can expect to see five to fifteen per cent increase in productivity in SLA hit rates so that will hit the bottom line. Every organisation of course has different priorities so they tend to tune things in a different way.

Fuel savings are a particularly direct way of measuring cost savings. PHS in the UK for example made fuel savings of around 7 or 8% a year, which for them equates to around £2 million. So they made some significant savings – quite a lot more than they paid for the solution I might add, so the solution paid for itself pretty quickly.

We are currently running a free field service health check, which is a great way of getting a picture of this, and a great way of putting the business case together. We can take customer data if they are unsure and we can run that through and we can give you some predictive numbers which is a great way of seeing what that R.o.I specifically in line with your business.

KO: All too often we hear that service doesn’t perhaps get the voice it should in the boardroom, what do you recommend a service director should do when building the case for investment in a scheduling solution?

DD: To be honest the numbers make a pretty good case for themselves. Increasing jobs per day, reducing fuel costs etc there are all pretty big numbers and there aren’t many projects you can implement that are going to get you big savings like that.

But there are some more intangible benefits as well such as customer satisfaction. A lot of organisation using manual systems can end up sending the wrong technician out, or maybe a technician is missing parts and that just causes frustration at the customer end really.

[quote float="left"]There are some more intangible benefits as well such as customer satisfaction. A lot of organisation using manual systems can end up sending the wrong technician out, or maybe a technician is missing parts and that just causes frustration at the customer end really.

So sending the right engineer, with the right skills and the right parts, in the agreed allotted time window is pretty important when it comes to customer satisfaction.

 

Also a possibility given the increased efficiency is maybe offering shorter time windows, which can be a big competitive benefit. If you customers are all offering AM or PM slots and you can offer one hour or two hour slots that’s another pretty compelling case for scheduling optimisation I think.

The reality is from my experience is that companies may have these SLAs in place but they may not necessarily be meeting them and it’s interesting that when we do the initial phase and we take some historical data we discover some often huge discrepancies between what a company thinks they are delivering and what they are actually doing.

The reason being is that when you are using a manual system or a semi-manual system then it’s pretty hard to consider all these variables.

You’ve got to consider where the technicians are, what jobs are nearby, what parts and skills are required on those jobs, when you need to get there etc. It’s just to much for a person to deal with in reality. So sometimes things slip.

Whereas in an organisation not only are they to hit the SLAs they’ve already guaranteed to their customers, they also have the opportunity to offer shorter SLAs. If your peers and competitors are using manual systems and offering a four hour delay you could offer a two SLA and they simply wouldn’t be able to achieve that.

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In the first part of this exclusive interview with Paul Massey, IFS, Managing Director we looked at where he felt the recent announcement of IFS Applications 9 sat against previous milestones within the Scandinavian company’s history.

Now in the second part of this interview we look at Massey’s thoughts on the Cloud and IoT, plus whether he was ready for the reception to the most talked about new tool in Applications 9 – the lobby function…

Head in the Cloud

One of the big announcements at the recent IFS World Conference was the launch of a fully managed cloud. However, many of IFS’s existing clients have already invested significantly within the infrastructure to run previous iterations of the ERP solution so is this a platform that is geared towards winning new business I asked Massey.

“From a marketing perspective of course the managed cloud is going to be aimed at winning new business. It’s a good coherent and deliverable Cloud story.” He began

“But in terms of the uptake I think it’s going to be out to our customer base quicker. Obviously there is a big customer base to shoot at and we only bring in so many customers each quarter.”

“So whilst an increasing proportion of those will be on cloud the bigger potential market for us is obviously the existing customer base. As part of an upgrade proposal we can try to convince them to go to the managed cloud and I think actually some of the benefits and return on investments are actually more tangible for the existing customer base than they are for new customers because they understand whats involved in running IFS, deploying new releases, managing the application, managing the database. They already know the importance of resilience and uptime so potentially it’s a very easy sell for us.”

“So I think in terms of the uptake the momentum will be generated from the existing customer base. But that in itself will obviously provide us with more references for the business.”

The managed Cloud solution is a direct result of the IFS’s close partnership with Microsoft. Which of course leads to questions around yet another disruptive technology on the horizon namely The Internet of Things. Whilst there has been a lot of discussion around IoT and Field Service it’s not really been as embraced as fully as some may have thought by now. Perhaps partnerships such as IFS and Microsoft could be the next stone to that wider spread adoption?

“I think so” Massey replies when I put the question to him “Its certainly ticking a few more boxes that actually facilitates some of the benefits of IoT because with a hosting platform like Azure behind it that provides a lot things from the reliability and scalability, the security of data, and all those things that people are sometimes a bit frightened of when people talk about automating”

 

“Having data moving around between machines and the cloud, those are real life concerns that classical ERP and companies using ERP in that classical way are very frightened of.” He adds

“It’s not just to do with the IoT but the whole security of Cloud computing is approached the same. But just the fact that it’s Microsoft if you engage with them they’ve got a really good story about security which does take a lot of the potential concerns off the table I think it’s another facilitator effectively in terms of IoT meaning something tangible to people.”

The killer app?

As we return our focus to the Announcement of Apps 9 I reflect that the biggest buzz in the break after the initial sessions was all around a new solution called Lobby which allows individual users to have all of the data they need for their own specific roll or project in one easy place. It’s easily configurable, and a first initial look suggests it could be a powerful tool.

So what were Massey’s thoughts when he first encountered the idea, was it always a case of knowing that this would be the ‘killer app’ that would resonate so well with his customers or was he taken back by the overwhelmingly positive response?

“I think to some extent we’ve had similar technology in the past and through portal technology but because its’ now much more embedded in the application and it’s easier to set up and quickly show some real practical use of it” he explains.

 

“Yes I do think it will be the sort of headline feature that we are pitching it to be as one of the perennial challenges in selling ERP applications is presenting to the prospect the potential of all the information being at their fingertips. There is always a myriad of data in an ERP system it’s just a matter of getting at it in a useful way. So I think it’s a really graphical and hopefully relatively simple way of demonstrating that there is so much data that you can choose what data you want and how you present it .” he expands

“As a way of attracting attention to the depth of functionality beneath it in the ERP application I think it is really good and hopefully the technology in how to deploy it and customise it is straightforward enough for people to understand that it is easy to get it up and running.”

Look out for the third part of this exclusive interview as we turn our attention to the impact of consumerisation on enterprise applications…

 

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Servitization is a key trend in that is rapidly on the rise in manufacturing realm and it's impact on Field Service could be game changing. But what exactly is servitization, how can it change the way we work and will it live up to the hype?

To find out more Field Service News Editor, Kris Oldland spoke to Professor Tim Baines one of the leading proponents of the servitization movement

 

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Earlier this year Field Service News reported that Germany's leading pay TV company Sky Deutschland had been able to double their field service engineer productivity after implementing Fast Lean Smart's (FLS) FLS VISITOUR scheduling and FLS Mobile solutions.

Now in this exclusive interview with Lydia Otto, Director Field Service and Supply Chain, Sky Deutschland we look at this success story further including what attracted her to working with FLS in the first place and how the project has played out... 

Ms Otto, Sky is incredibly popular and, without doubt, the synonym for pay TV. How do you explain its huge popularity?

LO: Sky offers its customers first class entertainment whenever and wherever they want it. This includes award-winning series very soon after US transmission and only on Sky, access to the latest blockbuster films, high-quality kids channels and exclusive sports coverage, for instance all games in the Bundesliga and Champions League.

The multiple functions of the Sky+ hard drive receiver and the mobile service Sky Go allow our subscribers to become their own TV directors – both at home and when out. Moreover, as a leading innovation integrator we are always good for a surprise; tweaking and inventing products, online services and formats. Needless to say, our customer service also plays a key role.

In 2011, you decided to introduce a central scheduling system for your service engineers and, within this context, to implement the scheduling software FLS VISITOUR and the mobile solution FLS MOBILE. What were the actual reasons for this decision?

LO: While redefining the field service strategy in 2011 it became clear that we would have to expect an increase of orders in the short term. We wished to receive the “right” orders. In other words, to only be called out when the in-home service actually creates a real added value, prevents further calls to the customer service centre or stops customers from possibly terminating their contracts.

The expected increase in volume also meant that we needed an IT system for our scheduling activities. The key objectives were to standardise route planning, enhance productivity, increase back office efficiency, cut the time to process orders and reduce the amount of time engineers spend on the road.

 

What were the criteria used to select FLS VISITOUR, i.e. FLS as your software-partner of choice?

LO: Besides our demands for increased field service efficiency, the licence model appealed to us, since it ensures the scalability of our intentions for the coming years. Moreover, the tool was fully compatible with our corporate hardware, which meant no hardware had to be purchased and the software was implemented with very little effort on our part.

From your point of view, which demands had to be met by the appointment and route scheduling software? Have these demands changed over the past three years? If yes, how has FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE helped you?

LO: The demands that had to be met were: Simultaneous use by various end users, optional interface to the customer management system, presentation of various order types (problem solving vs. installation), consideration of different working time models, output of a route plan with graphical representation and connection to mobile end devices.

[quote float="right"]The demands placed on scheduling software have not changed fundamentally, but they have become more detailed, e.g. adherence to the prioritisation of orders in the graphical representation or the mapping of service partners with available time

As a company, Sky continues to grow and this brings new challenges in terms of efficiency and productivity for our field service and customer service department. As such, the demands placed on scheduling software have not changed fundamentally, but they have become more detailed, e.g. adherence to the prioritisation of orders in the graphical representation or the mapping of service partners with available time. Transferring orders to service partners at the click of a mouse is also desired. The next two or three years will present us with a whole host of other interesting topics, e.g. real-time or GPS planning or interconnecting further partner networks.

 

How has Sky profited specifically by using FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE? And which corporate figures illustrate this benefit most effectively?

LO: Since the beginning of 2011 all the relevant key figures for Sky’s field service have improved. We have seen a 72% increase in productivity, while reducing the processing time and journey times by 42% and 41% respectively. By the way, since introducing FLS, we have been able to process three times as many orders with the same number of back office staff.

According to a number of independent surveys, Sky delivers the best service. This is definitely something you can be proud of, while at the same time acting as an incentive to maintain this high level and to drive up customer satisfaction even further. What are the cornerstones of this excellent service and which goals need to be achieved in order for you to improve your service?

[quote float="left"]We must offer an exceptional service that goes beyond simple installation where subscribers receive real added value

LO:Sky has been continuously investing in customer service staff, technologies and processes for many years. Our aim, particularly in the area of in-home service, is not just to install receivers and to solve technical problems, but to seize the moment and turn it into a ‘wow’ effect. We must offer an exceptional service that goes beyond simple installation where subscribers receive real added value and discover everything they wish to know about the world of Sky from the comfort of their own living rooms. We carry out regular quality calls to seek direct feedback from customers. Satisfaction > 92% (Top 1&2) with the technical customer service shows we are on the right track to ensuring Sky customers have the best possible experience.

 

Meeting the individual needs of your customers and their service demands is a particular challenge you face in the battle to attract further subscribers and to reinforce your position in the market. How does Sky go about satisfying these needs and wants?

LO: Five years of Sky mean five years of continuous growth and 3.813 million subscribers by the end of the second quarter of 2014. As we see it, there is no such thing as ‘one big reason’ why someone should choose Sky. There are most probably hundreds of small considerations to take into account. But at the end of the day it boils down to three things: Provide your customers with the best and most exclusive programme and let them decide when and where they wish to view it. Invest in innovation and surprise the viewers and, of course, offer exceptional customer service.

How did your scheduling and in-home service staff react to the implementation of FLS VISITOUR and FLS MOBILE? How much convincing and change management did it take? Has introduction of the software led to greater staff satisfaction?

LO: In the long run, the introduction of the software delivers significant improvements for our field service division both office based dispatchers and field service engineers. [quote float="right"]as with all changes, a certain amount of convincing and change management was needed

However, as with all changes, a certain amount of convincing and change management was needed. Whereas previously it was in the hands of the field service engineers to schedule their own daily appointments, this is now the responsibility of the dispatchers. Initial obstacles were quickly overcome and all the other challenges, such as mobile device training or preparing the basic scheduling parameters, were dealt with relatively easily.

 

Adopting new corporate software usually involves an implementation project, which is often met with a fair amount of scepticism by companies and staff alike. How did you experience working with FLS as the project partner during the implementation phase? What are your expectations with regard to the level of support provided by a software developer after implementation?

LO: FLS is a partner that not only underpins the way we operate our business on a daily basis, but also with whom we can discuss individual development steps and continuously adapt the system to our needs. Furthermore, we perceive FLS as a project partner who, whenever necessary, provides us with support that actually goes beyond the contractual terms of service. We are extremely happy with the direct personal advice and support, as there is always a dedicated point of contact available.

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In part one of this exclusive interview with Telogis' Sergio Barata we learnt both about his personal background and the background of the company. In this second part of this three part series we discuss the growth of Telogis and the technology that makes Sergio tick.

FSN: With the launch of progression a few years ago Telogis stepped much more firmly into the field service software arena rather than solely fleet management. We have seen similar moves from other companies with a fleet technology background such as Trimble and TomTom, are the lines blurring between mobile workforce management and fleet management technologies?

SB:There is no doubt that telematics on its own is a pretty competitive space with a low barrier to entry. I think Trimble, TomTom, Telogis, companies like this, have taken that next step of investment in terms of R&D in trying to develop a more holistic approach. I do think that the companies that win will be those that offer true value to any organisation.

FSN: Since 2009 Telogis has been on the acquisitions trail with the purchase of Darby, Remote Dynamics, Integris, Onboard Advisor, Maptuit and Navtrak across just three years. How have the acquisitions of these companies shaped Telogis’ own development both as a company and also in terms of your product lines?

SB: We have been fairly aggressive in our acquisitions, having secured companies for either market share or for more depth in a particular segment of the market place. For instance we acquired Maptuit as a very dynamic navigation technology that we have integrated into the rest of our offering. We are always monitoring the UK market to see what makes sense.

FSN: One of these acquisitions, Onboard Advisor was a risk reduction product and you subsequently partnered with Travelers Insurance on their IntelliDrive fleet safety program. How important is technology in improving driver safety?

SB: The telematics driver-profiling element is essentially a tool for our largest customers, the enterprise fleets, to help bring in behavioural change that will increase opportunities to save on fuel and insurance costs.

We look for technology that allows us to engage the drivers directly in an innovative way to help manage and improve their driving behaviour; the idling, how they drive - sudden braking, acceleration, their speed. We then needed tools and dashboards to take that underlying data and the driver profiles to help large organisations change business practices to make improvements.

Certainly Onboard Advisor and the tie up with insurance telematics has been very important for us and our largest accounts, which have global fleets that deal with these issues and can now take advantage of this approach.

FSN: What was the first piece of technology that made a huge impression on you both personally and in a work environment?

SB: I think the biggest impression on me personally as well as the workplace, has been my iPhone.

Working in a technology led industry I got into smart phones and the Internet early. I’ve always been an early adopter but I don’t think anything has changed the way I think as when first picked up my iPhone. I had Nokia N70s, Blackberrys and so on, but nothing has been as complete, as easy to use and as seamless as the iPhone. 

 

Read part one of this interview here

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Having become a regular member of the Deloitte Fast Track 500 Telogis have become a firmly established leading provider in the US. Field Service News caught up with Sergio Barata, the man tasked with leading the charge into the United Kingdom.

FSN: You have been involved with Telogis since they launched in the UK. Firstly could you tell us a bit about your own background and also the approach you took when introducing what was a successful US product to the UK market?

SB: I moved to the UK just over ten years ago when first working for a mobile start-up and have worked in the LBS (location based services) space ever since. 

Initially starting in pure Geo Spatial technology, I find myself now immersed in the sector. I joined Telogis back in 2008, having just come from another US based software company where I had spent time localising and refocusing their key capabilities for the UK.  On joining Telogis, I had some specific views on how we should launch the company here – the leadership team understood and bought into the fact that we would have to localise correctly if we were to launch in such a competitive environment.

We initially started with our GeoBase product, thinking that if we could correctly localise and licence this within the UK as we have done in the US, we would have a strong platform to build upon. Once the underlying technology was in place, we could introduce the rest of our SaaS solution which is all built around this.

Since the early days Telogis has grown rapidly both in the UK and wider.  When I started at Telogis we had around 120 people in the whole organisation, now we have nearly 500. In the UK we have just moved into our new facility, which will allow us to continue to grow substantially.

FSN: With Telogis only being founded in 2001, you are in relative terms still a young company within the field service industry. Do you think this gives you an advantage in being able to build a cloud based solution from the ground up rather than having to adapt a legacy solution?

SB: We launched as a SaaS company, which in 2001 was quite a brave thing to do. Browser adoption, both as a way of working and technologically still wasn’t quite there - but that quickly shifted. The vision our founders had clearly worked. Around 2005/6 all our competitors had essentially become organisations supporting their customers in the field - not black boxes but servers with their software running on them, so their ability to innovate was hampered. Being cloud-based has meant we didn’t have these issues.

The other critical decision we made was not to develop our own hardware and to remain hardware agnostic. This has meant that our R&D budgets have been focused on the data, the software and our platform, which we are now selling as a strategic approach.

I think not having an incumbent legacy, adopting the hardware agnostic approach and choosing to be SaaS from day one has allowed us to remain innovative and scalable, which has been a key part of our success to date.

FSN: You recently wrote an article for Field Service News in which you talked about the platform approach, something we are hearing more and more of within the industry. Do you think this model, i.e. working with one provider for multiple solutions is likely to be the future for field service software?

SB: We certainly see the benefits of it!

When we meet customers we find many burdened with costly overheads and challenges of integration, even to the extent that they are not meeting the ROIs and initial business case. The costs that it takes to get systems to talk to each other can be significant.

There are also other elements: different companies have different commercial models - our telematics is a subscription model, making it straightforward to cost and manage. Other systems often have capital expenditure costs upfront and deploying different systems and suppliers efficiently can be very challenging.

We think starting with one part of a solution and then integrating other elements is the right approach. We never advocate the ‘big bang’ approach to implementing a complete solution - it’s not commercially or even technically feasible to embrace a whole system at once. Our strategy is based around ‘lets put one piece of the solution in and then work with you on building a longer term strategy and at the end you will come out with a holistic approach.’

The other question we address is the integration of our systems - the telematics, the routing and scheduling - with the customers’ systems that they have already deployed. We have some interesting platform tools, middleware/application programme interfaces that are essentially self-help modules that we can offer our customers to help this integration.

 These may be scripted alerting, customised reporting on driver stats or just workflow management that actually allows them to translate data between our solutions and their other systems. Integration can become seamless – there are even situations where they don’t even need to log into our system, they are just communicating with the cloud and getting the data straight out of it.

Look out for the next part of this exclusive interview coming soon...

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