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According to a new report from the leading IoT market research provider Berg Insight, the number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in North America was 8.0 million in Q4-2017.

Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.6 percent, this number is expected to reach 16.4 million by 2022. In Latin America, the number of active fleet management systems is expected to increase from 3.0 million in Q4-2017, growing at a CAGR of 13.1 percent to reach 5.5 million in 2022. The top-25 vendors in the Americas together have a combined installed base of more than 7 million active units in the region today. Notably, all of the top-15 players each had more than 100,000 active units in the Americas at the end of 2017.

More than 40 percent of the total number of units deployed in the region is represented by the five largest fleet management vendors alone.

Verizon has in 2018 launched Verizon Connect which represents the culmination of more than US$ 5 billion in investments including high-profile acquisitions such as Fleetmatics and Telogis.

“Verizon Connect is the clear leader in the fleet telematics space both from a global perspective and in the Americas specifically”, said Rickard Anderson, Principal Analyst, Berg Insight. Verizon’s closest competitor in the Americas is Geotab which has grown considerably in the past year, followed by Omnitracs and Trimble which have both surpassed 0.5 million active fleet management subscribers in the region. “Zonar Systems rounds off the top-5, just ahead of Michelin which has established a strong position in the Americas through multiple acquisitions”, continued Mr. Andersson.

He adds that the ongoing consolidation trend in the fleet management space is expected to continue in the coming years. Numerous vendors today have more than half a million active FM subscribers worldwide and the milestone of one million subscriptions has now been surpassed by three leading players, driven by growth strategies based on M&A activity and high-pace organic growth.

“Berg Insight anticipates a future scenario where the global fleet management market is dominated by a handful of solution providers with installed bases measured in the millions”, concluded Mr Andersson.

Download report brochure: Fleet Management in the Americas

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In this episode of The Field Service Podcast, Field Service News Editor-in-Chief talks to Kevin McNally, Sales Director for Asolvi about how technologies such as Cloud, Mobile, Artificial Intelligence and IoT have enabled smaller companies to not only meet the service standards of their larger peers but in some instances exceed those standards...

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Want to know more? Field Service News have published a white paper sponsored by Asolvi that explores this topic in further detail. This white paper is available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

If you are not yet a subscriber and are a field service professional you can apply for a complimentary subscription below (after reading our T&Cs here first) and we will send you a copy of the white paper as soon as we receive your application.

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Scott Berg, CEO at ServiceMax about why IoT has so far failed to hit the heights it really is capable of and what we more should be expecting from connected assets in the near future...

When I sit down with Berg, he has just given a highly well-received presentation at Field Service USA, perhaps the biggest event in the global field service calendar. He managed to hit the two big topics that dominated conversation over the four days of the conference, namely preventative maintenance and IoT.

However, whilst many of his peers have spent the time still talking about why these are essential topics for field service companies today, Berg is already looking towards tomorrow.

“There is a big move towards predictive service, which a lot of us have talked about wanting to do. I think IoT has arrived on the scene and that might be what finally enables it. One of the things I’ve seen as we’ve come deeper into GE and seen what some of the other assets are around us from a technology standpoint is that the asset performance management concept is really unique,” he opens.

“As a field service guy I didn’t even know that this stuff was out there- I didn’t know that it was possible. That, of course, makes sense as it was used in process manufacturing, chemicals, oil and gas so it just wouldn’t occur to bring that over to field service, but this linking of the predictive analytics fed by IoT allows us to create a closed-loop process.”

“Frankly, now that I know these APM guys better within the GE company, it was one of the first epiphanies we had last year where we said you send that work to me, I’ll send you this back, arm the technician with the predictives that say ‘here’s why your here today.’”

“Another theme is also that this whole IoT thing is making me scratch my head a little bit and I’ve been talking to more and more people lately about this.,” Berg admits.

For me as a technology salesperson by trade it really gets good when someone can see real obvious value articulated, experience it and it becomes a bit of a no-brainer, I don’t think IoT has reached tha“$2.9Trillion dollars is going to get spent on IoT by 2020. Now this is not to say that many companies including a number of our customers haven’t experienced value, but it it’s still not quite fulfilling the full potential that it had - so what is the problem? For me as a technology salesperson by trade it really gets good when someone can see real obvious value articulated, experience it and it becomes a bit of a no-brainer, I don’t think IoT has reached that.”

It is a question I have raised myself in these pages. So what does Berg think is holding everyone back from seeing the true potential of IoT?

“I think it’s a combination of things,” he replies, considering the question. “Firstly, people are still drowning in data - and I do think that is still a problem. We see it even in GE businesses, there is so much more data by our own creation that it just gets harder and harder, and so now you’ve got things like Edge computing as opposed to sensors feeding data to Clouds, which is way to slow and far away, so that’s one thing that is changing rapidly.”

“And yes, there are people who have got the benefit but so far I see it as just a one and done benefit. We’ve had good examples of our customers, where they’ve identified a failure pattern, in one case a company were able to identify that they were fixing something too early, they could’ve gotten two more weeks out of it, so that leads to a modification of a service protocol or procedure, but it is still a one-off benefit.”

“It’s big don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t do anything for you next year and it didn’t uncover the next problem. In fact, it may be even pushing a problem further downstream and so then another one surfaces.”

“That’s what is so exciting about the whole conversation around AI and Machine Learning - in that it offers continuous learning. The ability to model risk and put that into a plan - maybe that is the final way to bring IoT to its full potential in terms of service management and to create a pretty cool closed-loop process really.”

“I don’t mean to push IoT to a back seat, don’t get me wrong, there are so many side benefits that are game changing but it is a bit like you’ve planted something and then your like when is it going to come out of the ground, when am I going to see a flower and then to continue that analogy when that fruit first comes out, you don’t want to pick it and then that’s if you want it to be a constant crop."

It is interesting to hear Berg’s view that there is so much more to come how we implement IoT in a field service context. Particularly given ServiceMax’s role as an earlier pioneer within the space. When he speaks on the topic he invokes a clear belief in the scientific method - i.e. that each hypothesis is subject to continuous testing and re-evaluation.

“We were early partners and integrators with things like PTC and the ThingWorx products, launched connected field service and we’ve had some customers who have seen some real benefit - but why didn’t it sustain, why didn’t it evolve, why didn’t it grow - why wasn’t it everywhere?” He asks.

“I think it is because people were just a bit stalled looking for that extra piece of the puzzle,’ he continues answering his own questions.

One of the reasons we didn’t call Connected Field Service our IoT API is because the notion of connecting field service was not only getting the device to give up its data but also in the mobile device then arming the technician with why are you here“In fact, one of the reasons we didn’t call Connected Field Service our IoT API is because the notion of connecting field service was not only getting the device to give up its data but also in the mobile device then arming the technician with why are you here.”

“What was the reading that led to this? But let’s take that further, let’s get an understanding of what the is device doing right now so they know what it was doing yesterday when they were summoned, but also me what it's doing now, how has that changed.”

“I think that’s that notion of equipment centricity. The cool thing about GE is that it is the world’s largest field service company and it is also at it’s core a completely asset-centric group of engineers, the machine is everything they worship the machines - there are pictures of machines all over our office.”

When I last spoke to Berg, ServiceMax had only recently become part of the GE family, but even then he spoke of an early affinity between the companies and of a kindred spirit at each companies core. Fast forward some 18 months and it is clear that the relationship is proving to be even more symbiotic with benefits flowing both ways.

“I was in a meeting recently where one of the innovations another team was pushing in APM was maximising the performance and predicting the health of a set of assets. By that I mean not just one isolated machine but for example think of a wind-farm, maybe there are a thousand of assets within that fleet. We were trying to establish how we can comprehend the collective health of those assets and how they work together.”

This is just another example of how Berg, ServiceMax and now the wider team within GE are not satisfied with pushing the envelope today but are dedicated to understanding how they can continue to stay at the vanguard of innovation for many, many years to come.

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Kevin McNally, Sales Director, Asolvi takes a look at how technologies such as Cloud and IoT are levelling the playing field and giving small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to deliver service standards that meet and exceed those of the traditionally dominant enterprise-sized organisations...

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by Asolvi

One thing is certain in today’s field service sector, that never before has service delivery been so empowered by the technology that now underpins field service management.

Cloud is, of course, one such technology and the introduction of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model that it gave life to has undoubtedly changed the way that smaller field service organisations can operate.

Cloud has given them access to SaaS-based Field Service Management (FSM) solutions that in the previous CAPEX world of the late twentieth and an early twenty-first century would have been simply too cost-prohibitive for them to access.

IoT, has the potential to go even further and not just enhance the way field service operations are undertaken, as Cloud and Mobile have done, but entirely revolutionise the fundamental ways in which we approach field service delivery.This is one very clear example of how technology has very much levelled the playing field for smaller field service companies.

Another key technology, IoT, has the potential to go even further and not just enhance the way field service operations are undertaken, as Cloud and Mobile have done, but entirely revolutionise the fundamental ways in which we approach field service delivery.

The long-standing break-fix methodology, which has been at the core of field service operations by necessity since the inception of field service itself, can be circumvented and replaced by proactive preventative maintenance.

In a world of IoT, the service provider is no longer dependent upon the customer to report a fault, the asset itself can identify that it needs maintenance and the service call can be arranged in advance of the failure.

IoT absolutely offers the keys to a far better future for field service - for both service provider and customer alike, but for smaller to medium-sized companies are we entering once again into an era of cost-prohibitive technology?

Has the playing field so neatly levelled off by the introduction of the Cloud, once again become skewed in favour of the enterprise-sized organisations?

The importance of Cloud:

As I alluded to in the introduction there is no denying that the emergence of Cloud computing has been a core driver in the ability for smaller field service companies to be able to compete with their larger competitors.

This development is mostly the result of the introduction of SaaS-based subscription-style licensing which makes access to such systems possible.

It seems like a long, long time ago that Tesseract, an Asolvi product became the first company in the world to offer their full FSM solution in the Cloud and on a SaaS model. Indeed, today almost all FSM providers now offer their solution in such a manner.

Many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation isThis means that the smaller companies can have access to tools like scheduling, stock and parts management and mobile work management applications for their field-based staff to access via a mobile device.

Yet, they also have the advantage of being more agile, more streamlined and less weighed down by legacy systems and processes that their larger peers undoubtedly face.

In fact, many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation is. For example, optimised scheduling engines need to be ‘taught’ the rules under which they are to operate – the larger the workforce and the more diverse the skill-sets within that workforce, the more ‘lessons’ that need to be fed into the scheduling system for it to operate as intended.

In terms of FSM solutions, the shift to the Cloud has absolutely changed the competitive dynamics within various industries in favour of those smaller companies who are savvy enough to embrace cloud-based FSM and unencumbered by challenges such as the above which larger companies may face.

Can IoT work for SMBs?

Earlier, I outlined the potential seismic disruption that IoT is set to have on field service delivery as a whole.

Yet, when we hear about those companies that are harnessing the power of IoT, invariably we often tend to look at examples of companies who all tend to sit within the largest bracket of organisations.

Rolls Royce, GE, Sony et al have often dominated the headlines in terms of the successful application of IoT platforms that have radically changed their approach to field service. So one could be forgiven for thinking that IoT is perhaps something only the largest organisations are capable of implementing – but is this necessarily the case?

The reality is that there are a growing number of SMB-sized field service organisation who have embraced IoT to become a truly disruptive force within their respective sectors.The reality is that there are a growing number of SMB-sized field service organisation who have embraced IoT to become a truly disruptive force within their respective sectors.

Take for example regional German IT and document management services provider IBS Bürosysteme (IBS).

By utilising a machine-to-machine solution called Evatic Consumable and Meter Management (ECMM) they have been able to boost productivity, dramatically eliminate washed toner and streamline their processing. They have done this by integrating ECMM with their fleet management solution and directly processing data from all of the printers within their fleet, generating consumable replacements and subsequent invoices automatically.

This provides a clear win-win scenario in that their customers’ are receiving an improved service and massively reduced downtime, whilst IBS are able to improve their own efficiencies both within the field service and consumables areas of their business.

However, for those companies that embrace IoT, the rewards can be even greater than mere efficiency and cost savings.

As an example of a smaller company truly utilising the power of IoT let’s take the example of Espresso Service – a third party service provider operating within the coffee sector.

They have taken an active approach to utilising IoT data from across the fleet of coffee machines that they service and in doing so have not only been able to improve their own service delivery but have subsequently been able to develop additional advanced services based on their ability to translate the data from the assets they serve into truly meaningful insights that help their customers better understand how the assets are being utilised.

This allows them to tailor their own marketing and business strategies to be closer in line to how their own customers wish to be served.

It is in examples such as this where we see the true impact that IoT can and will have on industries of all sorts.

IoT naturally paves the path towards preventative maintenance, thereby simultaneously reducing the cost of each truck roll whilst improving customer satisfactionFor whilst as we’ve discussed IoT naturally paves the path towards preventative maintenance, thereby simultaneously reducing the cost of each truck roll whilst improving customer satisfaction, it is within the data generated by connected assets that we will find the most valuable new revenue streams.

As seen with Espresso Service, being able to offer customers advanced services that are based around the insight from data collected within their assets, can open up potential new revenue streams while firmly embedding an organisation within their customer’s business ecosystem.

Yet, while the data is the tool that underpins such advanced services, it is an organisation’s ability to think beyond the bounds of the currently accepted status quo of what good service within their sector is, and to seek what the new normal should be and bring that forward to their client base, that is the critical genetic component of almost all disruptive companies.

This is certainly not a trait that belongs exclusively to enterprise companies.

Indeed, a strong argument could be made that it is the entrepreneurial environment that exists within many smaller organisations that can allow such ideas and concepts to be nurtured and ultimately flourish.

Another factor for consideration here is also that examples such as that of Espresso Service are largely reflective of an organisations ability to truly understand the market they serve and their customers needs within that market.

In today’s world where service has become a core differentiator, this can allow the SMBs to flourish should they embrace the current technology available to them.Again, here we see an advantage that many smaller companies may have over their larger peers in that the relationships they often have with their client base are that much more intimate – giving them perhaps better opportunity to really get under the skin of what their customers’ most challenging issues are and making them better placed to develop strategies and solutions that can solve the issues at hand.

The rapid development of technology we are seeing today means that smaller organisations are now able to access technology that can push their service standards on par and above those of the larger, traditionally dominant companies within their competitive sphere.

In today’s world where service has become a core differentiator, this can allow the SMBs to flourish should they embrace the current technology available to them.

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by Asolvi

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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News talks to Deputy CEO and COO of Polygon a company with over 3,500 field service engineers, about how his organisation has evolved over the last decade, the shift towards advanced services that has come from that evolution and how a close working relationship with Enterprise Service Management solution provider IFS has empowered their ability to develop and advanced services approach to field service delivery.

 

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Samir Gulati, Chief Marketing Officer, ServicePower explains why savvy service organisations understand that building an excellent customer experience must begin from the first interaction, but must continue through every service touch point onwards - and how IoT data can be a key tool in achieving that...

Customers purchase products and don’t interact with the OEM or retailer again until something fails. Thus, your next contact with the consumer is one in which your product has become their problem. You are behind the eight ball right out of the gate. 

While the industry has focused on metrics important for operational improvements, such as first-time fix rates, productivity, efficiency of field technicians and fuel utilization, all of which are critical to any business, we now must recognize that customer experience must be the driving force behind our strategies, the top priority for our operators, for sales and marketing and for our service teams.   

Considering the customer experience from the very beginning is the surest way to drive downstream revenue.  

Start at the Beginning 

Customer experience must be considered from the point a product is manufactured or sold, not simply from the perspective of field service downstream. 

Customer experience must be considered from the point a product is manufactured or sold, not simply from the perspective of field service downstream. Ensure that your product includes features which makes your customers’ experience with your product easy and helpful, that it meets expectations. Don’t stop there though. Make sure the product exceeds expectations. With the ease at which IoT sensors can be embedded in products and used to provide proactive new accessories and services, makes tapping into this technology a no-brainer.

IoT isn’t reserved for heavy industry. Consumers, both residential and commercial, are using IoT in their lives every. Use it to your advantage, and theirs. 

Take the Next Step 

Your responsibility to your customer doesn’t stop at the point you ship or sell a product or service. Once the product is in hand, make sure you’ve made it easy to connect with your organization in real time.

If a customer has questions about usage or features and functions, needs accessories or complementary products, or in the event, there is an issue with a product, omnichannel connectivity gives them the ability to connect with you in ways that are convenient for them.

Use web portals and mobile apps, use Smart Speakers. Image how much better a repair experience could be if Siri could schedule an appointment for your customer.  

Go Beyond Service Delivery 

Enabling field teams with technology with the information, part and tools required to fix a problem in the field is the minimum expectation of field service organizations now.

If you’re not there, and recent data suggests that almost 50% of field service teams are not, get there fast. Look to configurable, cross-platform mobile applications that you can deploy quickly, on any device, with the process and forms needed- by your employed or contracted field technicians- to get onsite and problem solve in real time.

But don’t stop there.

Tap into the data you’ve collected from manufacturing, the point of sale, IoT and service history to offer your customers more.Tap into the data you’ve collected from manufacturing, the point of sale, IoT and service history to offer your customers more. The data at your fingertips makes it possible for you to offer new services using that data, directly from your field technicians.

Make the customer happy with a single visit fix. Make them happier with maintenance contract offers that keep their products up and running longer. Delight your customers with proactive service and seamless communication with every member of the product lifecycle ecosystem.

Use the data and the technology available to both your organization and your customer, to seamlessly drive positive, profitable post-sale interactions with every customer.  

 

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Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief Editor, Kris Oldland's latest white paper, sponsored by eBECS, explores why field service organisations should be ensuring their field service technicians are collecting data from assets whilst on service calls even if they aren't ready to implement an IoT based approach to service delivery yet as by doing so they can reap some of the benefits and more importantly build the processes for a future world in which connectivity and data will be at the heart of customer service operations...

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by eBECS

In today’s field service sector companies are facing an increasingly complex set of challenges and the collation and analysis of data paradoxically seem to often be found at both ends of the spectrum.

Data can be at the heart of many problems for a field service organisation as they struggle to find useful insight amongst ever-increasing banks of data locked away in differing business silos. Yet the rewards for breaking down those silos and also being able to identify where the insight is within your data can lead to better service levels than have ever been possible previously.

The vast amount of data that we have access to today can potentially give us a much more intimate understanding of our customer base than ever before, giving us the ability to understand and even predict their needs, far more accurately than we have ever been able to manage previously.

The vast amount of data that we have access to today can potentially give us a much more intimate understanding of our customer base than ever beforeHowever, the flip side of this benefit is that companies are now finding themselves drowning in data - which becomes meaningless without insight, a challenge which can be magnified further if data is locked away behind walls within an organisation.

It can be a daunting challenge to not only establish processes that allow the collection of data but also to ensure that when collected, data can move seamlessly across an organisation to fulfil its maximum potential. Yet in today’s business climate where service has become a core differentiator, there has perhaps never been a more urgent need to ensure you are harnessing every tool available to you in the most efficient manner in order to stay just one step ahead of the competition - and data certainly holds many of the keys to service excellence when it’s collected, processed and analysed correctly.

An interesting symptom of operating in a world of technological advancements, is that when we talk about data collection within a field service context the topic immediately turns to IoT - but in doing so are we overlooking one of the most important resource in a service organisation already at our disposal - the field service engineers themselves?

The importance of data collection in an increasingly connected world

The question of whether the Internet of Things will play a part in field service has been and gone. The answer was a resounding ‘yes it will.’

Research from Field Service News showed that 86% of companies were actively either developing plans to implement IoT or had already done so. Indeed, in terms of IoT and field service, the question for the overwhelming majority of companies has moved from why to how.

However, the impact of IoT in field service is set to be so revolutionary that it cannot just be viewed as a new technology to be rolled out, it is a decision which must be grounded with a firm understanding of your business strategies, your future goals and a rock solid foundation of both processes and technologies that can allow an organisation to fully reap the benefits of an IoT based service strategy.

But the revolution isn’t really an IoT revolution, it is a data revolution.

Asset performance data and even component performance data can open the doors towards moving towards both a more preventative maintenance focused approach as well as empowering your service engineers to be able to find a first-time-fix on a more regular basis.

Asset performance data and even component performance data can open the doors towards moving towards both a more preventative maintenance focused approach as well as empowering your service engineersYet, for many service organisations, the sheer volume of data that a fleet of connected assets will produce will cause a series of problems and pain points in and of itself.

With companies facing unprecedented levels of data coming into their service operation not only from IoT connected assets but also various digital customer touch points whether that be via contact agents, self-service portals or even sentiment analysis of relevant social media, finding meaning and value within such a deep data lakes can be a daunting task.

In addition to this, there is the further question of retrofitting assets that a discussion on IoT necessarily brings with it.

For organisations with a large install base there are a number of considerations that must be given thought including:

• Which assets are worth retrofitting with IoT connected sensors?
• Is it worth waiting for some assets in the field to reach their natural obsolescence and then replace them with newer connected models?
• Should you prioritise retrofitting assets for those clients that are the most profitable or will having multiple levels of service contract be a hindrance to service delivery?
• What data is it important to track from retro-fitted assets? What is essential and what is merely nice to have?
• What processes will you need to develop or adjust in order to facilitate this data within the workflow of your service delivery teams?

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by eBECS

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems discusses the big three technologies that are driving field service productivity to ever greater heights...

More than 85 percent of field service professionals say that the strategic use of technology is a key driver of overall productivity.

Moreover, within the next two years, 70 percent of organizations will reference customer satisfaction as a primary benefit obtained from implementing modern field service management technology, according to Gartner.

Unfortunately, many organizations are resisting from updating systems due to a need to accommodate legacy systems, and are therefore missing out on the increased workforce efficiency and productivity that updated systems deliver.

[quote float="left"]Unfortunately, many organizations are resisting from updating systems due to a need to accommodate legacy systems[/quote]Recent technological progressions have made a significant impact on many industries - and field service is no exception. Keep in mind, it’s often quite difficult for businesses to ‘bolt on’ additional technology to legacy systems, and many these should be considering new projects aimed at reducing cost and improving agility. So, what is there to gain?

Big Data and Data Analytics

Big data and analytics functionalities present a digestible, clear view of relevant data, which allow staff to make real-time decisions.

Each step is visible and transparent, and companies can start offering customers more proactive service, such as more finely tuned maintenance schedule alerts or alerts on peripherals that need replacement, consistently.

Cloud and Connectivity

Many field service applications are anchored in the cloud, and this pay-on-demand nature allows businesses to reduce spend on software and hardware costs. The cloud provides an accessible, shared environment where, for example, call centre staff can access records pulled from phone, email, IM and social media – leading to quicker and improved customer service.

Technicians can also stream video, capture photos, surf the internet and communicate with connected networks and wearable technologies.

Mobility

Mobility has an impressive impact on field service workers’ productivity and efficiency. Field service workers can access real-time data and information about customer issues, machine conditions and operating environments.

What’s more, field service organizations that implement mobility solutions improve their first-time fix rates, SLA compliance levels, cash flow and field engineer utilization levels.

[quote float="right"]Companies that still use paper-based systems often have difficulty efficiently scheduling resources and tracking employee performance. [/quote]Companies that still use paper-based systems often have difficulty efficiently scheduling resources and tracking employee performance.

It also slows down invoicing, and even affects the company culture. While upgrading can be costly, legacy systems tend to be more expensive to maintain on almost every level. Software licensing models have changed, as have the nature of service agreements, and the cloud offers a cost-effective means to have an entire IT setup without the need for huge premises.

Employees who can perform their jobs without the administrative or operational baggage are happier and more efficient.

This is a positive result for companies as it translates into a proactive state-of-mind (employees critically thinking about what more can they do), rather than a reactive one (how can it be done).

The above summaries illustrate why enterprises should switch to current FSM solutions, rather than remaining with their legacy systems. We look forward to seeing (and experiencing) the results of these and future technological innovations in the service industry.

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Manuel Grenacher, CEO, Coresystems discusses the big three technologies that are driving field service productivity to ever greater heights...

More than 85 percent of field service professionals say that the strategic use of technology is a key driver of overall productivity.

Moreover, within the next two years, 70 percent of organizations will reference customer satisfaction as a primary benefit obtained from implementing modern field service management technology, according to Gartner.

Unfortunately, many organizations are resisting from updating systems due to a need to accommodate legacy systems, and are therefore missing out on the increased workforce efficiency and productivity that updated systems deliver.

Unfortunately, many organizations are resisting from updating systems due to a need to accommodate legacy systemsRecent technological progressions have made a significant impact on many industries - and field service is no exception. Keep in mind, it’s often quite difficult for businesses to ‘bolt on’ additional technology to legacy systems, and many these should be considering new projects aimed at reducing cost and improving agility. So, what is there to gain?

Big Data and Data Analytics

Big data and analytics functionalities present a digestible, clear view of relevant data, which allow staff to make real-time decisions.

Each step is visible and transparent, and companies can start offering customers more proactive service, such as more finely tuned maintenance schedule alerts or alerts on peripherals that need replacement, consistently.

Cloud and Connectivity

Many field service applications are anchored in the cloud, and this pay-on-demand nature allows businesses to reduce spend on software and hardware costs. The cloud provides an accessible, shared environment where, for example, call centre staff can access records pulled from phone, email, IM and social media – leading to quicker and improved customer service.

Technicians can also stream video, capture photos, surf the internet and communicate with connected networks and wearable technologies.

Mobility

Mobility has an impressive impact on field service workers’ productivity and efficiency. Field service workers can access real-time data and information about customer issues, machine conditions and operating environments.

What’s more, field service organizations that implement mobility solutions improve their first-time fix rates, SLA compliance levels, cash flow and field engineer utilization levels.

Companies that still use paper-based systems often have difficulty efficiently scheduling resources and tracking employee performance. Companies that still use paper-based systems often have difficulty efficiently scheduling resources and tracking employee performance.

It also slows down invoicing, and even affects the company culture. While upgrading can be costly, legacy systems tend to be more expensive to maintain on almost every level. Software licensing models have changed, as have the nature of service agreements, and the cloud offers a cost-effective means to have an entire IT setup without the need for huge premises.

Employees who can perform their jobs without the administrative or operational baggage are happier and more efficient.

This is a positive result for companies as it translates into a proactive state-of-mind (employees critically thinking about what more can they do), rather than a reactive one (how can it be done).

The above summaries illustrate why enterprises should switch to current FSM solutions, rather than remaining with their legacy systems. We look forward to seeing (and experiencing) the results of these and future technological innovations in the service industry.

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