ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘jan-van-veen’ CATEGORY

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

This issue our topic is the what to expect in 2018 and our experts are Michael Blumberg, Blumberg Advisory, Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM and Jan Van Veen, moreMomentum

The first question we tackled was What is the biggest challenge facing field service companies in the next 12 months?

Now let's turn to the second question in the discussion...

What is the biggest opportunity facing field service companies in the next 12 months?

Bill Pollock: The biggest opportunity facing field service companies today is the ability to compete head-to-head with any of their main competitors – however large or small – through the implementation and/or upgrade to a Cloud-based Field Service Management (FSM) solution. Over the past several years, Cloud technology has normalized the playing field for both FSM solution providers and their customers, who are no longer encumbered by the cost and complexity of their legacy premise-based solutions and applications.

Advances in technology are also giving a boost to those field service companies that have embraced these new technologies. For example, the greatest opportunities over the next 12 months will most likely be realised by those companies that will have already implemented Augmented Reality (AR) and/or Merged Reality (MR) into their field service operations. However, the most likely dominant field service organisations will be the ones that have also taken steps to explore the benefits of moving to an Artificial Intelligence- (AI) and Machine Learning- (ML) driven field service solution.

The technology is already there for every field service company; however, only those that embrace – and implement – these technologies will actually be able to reap the benefits.

 

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Jan Van Veen:  When talking about the biggest opportunities, I think we need to look beyond 12 months. It is mission critical to act now on future success.

Most industries are somewhere around the top of the life cycle and are facing (first signs of) commoditization.

The big opportunity for them is to go through the next life cycle where the added value is about enhancing the use of technology. The new value propositions will be heavily driven by data, algorithms and intelligence. The value will be far beyond predictive maintenance and uptime of technology.

This is a domain in which young, rapidly growing data-driven companies are in their comfort zone. So, the opportunity here is moving up the food chain and increase relevance for clients. By failing to pursue these opportunities, the threat is being forced down in the food chain and seeing other players deliver the high value, whilst seeing your role being limited to manufacturing equipment, spare parts and, to some extent, delivering low skilled hands-on machines for maintenance.

For those companies who are not ready to focus on these opportunities, I think your top priority should be to build the missing foundation and make sure you are ready to pursue the opportunities soon.

 

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Michael Blumberg: The biggest opportunity facing field service companies in the next 12 months lies in pursuing strategies that will advance their journey along the path toward servitization.

The specific strategies vary from company to company based on where they are on their journey. For some companies, 2018 will be the year when they finally transition their field service operation from a cost centre to a profit centre. For others, the opportunity lies in monetizing service offerings and effectively marketing and selling service outcomes.

Still, others will have the opportunity to invest in digital technologies that enhance service quality, boost productivity, and create an uber-like experience for their customers.

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

This issue our topic is the what to expect in 2018 and our experts are Michael Blumberg, Blumberg Advisory, Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM and Jan Van Veen, moreMomentum

So let's tackle the first question...

What is the biggest challenge facing field service companies in the next 12 months?

Bill Pollock: The biggest challenge facing field service companies in the next 12 months will be keeping up with customer expectations for service delivery as they continually raise the bar with respect to performance. This is not necessarily a “new” challenge – it actually has been one of the main challenges for field service companies year-after-year. However, the current environment of constantly improving technology and its availability through both the traditional, “tried-and-true” FSM solution providers plus the introduction of several new technology-based solution vendors makes this challenge particularly daunting for many field service managers.

Selecting which technology to implement is not the only challenge, however; field service companies must also be able to choose the right solution vendor to help them design, implement and support their newly acquired technology. Some of the most challenging questions may be, “If we’re already using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for our CRM solution, should we also use Microsoft Field Service?”; similarly, “If we’re already using Salesforce for our sales and marketing management, should we also use their Field Service Lightning solution?” Other questions may include, “Should we use one of the traditional FSM solution providers, such as Astea, ClickSoftware, IFS/Metrix, ServicePower, etc., or one of the newer providers?”; or “Should we use a UK-based solution provider, such as Fast Lean Smart, or Kirona, etc., rather than an off-shore-based provider?”

The choices are many – and no less challenging than they have been in the past!

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Jan Van Veen:  Most manufacturing companies and their service units struggle to innovate and change quick enough.

Technology is developing at an increasing pace; adoption of new technology has never been so rapid. In the digital era, we can expect competition from new entrants like innovative data- and algorithm-driven businesses.

So, the name of the game now is ‘Adapt and Thrive’ (or ‘Stagnate and Die’). The winners of the next decades will be those who can maintain a high speed of business innovation and change, and can cope with a high level of uncertainty and unpredictability.

What is holding most manufacturing companies back is;

• Slow change, whether it’s small change or bigger change
• Stuck in business-as-usual: innovations are predominantly incremental improvements of the status quo
• Lack of influence: individuals at all levels and in various departments see the threats, opportunities and the lack of progress, which frustrates them

I believe that one of the biggest challenges right now is to increase momentum for rapid and fluent change from the inside, and empowering employees at all levels to take ownership.

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Michael Blumberg:  In the short term, field service companies must also find ways to balance service quality and productivity with their financial goals and objectives (think costs and profits), all while striving to maintain exceptional levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This objective holds true for any 12-month period under consideration whether the year is 2018, 2008, or 2028.

The challenge lies in developing and implementing a winning strategy based on current financial and operating constraints that each company faces.

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Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum interviews Seva Gavrilov, Market Unit Director, Russian of Volvo Penta

Volvo Penta is a global, world-leading supplier of engines and complete power solutions for marine and industrial applications. Their comprehensive, reliable solutions have helped customers all over the world increase productivity and performance – in every detail. By continuously improving their offer, through innovative, sustainable power solutions and the strengths and expertise of the entire Volvo Group, they have redefined premium for the modern market, operating entirely through their independent dealership network.

Seva Gavrilov joined Volvo Penta 22 years ago and took over leadership of the Russian business in 2007. He has always had a passion for nautical engineering, having graduated from the Marine Technology University in St Petersberg as a Naval engineer but also as a visionary with a head for business. Now, he is leading Volvo Penta through a programme of initiatives that are giving their dealerships a competitive edge, more momentum and increasing the company’s market share.

moreMomentum believes, as a result of our research, that successful long-term managers and companies have established ‘Momentum’, starting with 4 Winning Habits – Direction, Dialogue, Decision-making and Discovery. In this series of Momentum Case Studies, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, interviews proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.

Challenges facing Volvo Penta Services in Russia

In the early 2010’s Volvo Penta decided its route to increased growth was through the large corporate fleet owners such as the shipping and oil companies who controlled significant purchasing budgets. A major obstacle to this goal however was the dealer network that had created Volvo Penta’s success to date. At that time, the dealers saw each other as competitors and lacked trust. When it comes to corporate customers, many dealers are smaller local companies which do not have the resources, skills or confidence to respond to large-scale bids and service contracts. They lacked expertise in areas such as advanced corporate financing, project management, HR, etc. On the other hand, the larger dealers needed access to local markets for customer relationships, delivery and customer service. Seva needed a new approach to dealerships.

The Strategy

An obvious solution would have been to consolidate the dealers into a smaller number of large companies that could cope with the large deals, but in a large country like Russia that was impractical – they needed to keep access to small local areas. Instead, Seva created a strategy that would do two things: reverse the company’s focus so it put customers/fleet owners first and also encourage collaboration between the dealers instead of competition. All this could only be achieved by influence, to change how the dealers worked with each other, so a new environment of trust and co-operation could be built. The strategy was planned out over several years and introduced step-by-step so as not to scare people, but take them along on the journey.

Here we will show how Volvo Penta in Russia demonstrated each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its plan, creating momentum for long-term sustainable success. The strategy shows that momentum can start in highly competitive environments or even in other companies, elsewhere in the value chain, when the 4 Winning Habits are employed.

Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind

Seva needed the dealers in the network to see the value in each other instead of just competition. Each had different strengths and skills that could be of use to the rest and enable them to reach and respond to more varied customers. This goal of collaboration was the direction driving the programme, although the dealers didn’t necessarily know it in the beginning. They soon realised however that along with collaboration come happier customers and a reduction in stress levels.

Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas

The Volvo Penta annual dealer conference had always focussed mainly on reporting and products, so it was attended by dealers’ more junior managers. Starting in 2012 however, the agenda was changed to focus more on communication. It started with simple steps such as roundtable discussions that let the dealers identify common opportunities and solve common problems by themselves instead of with Volvo Penta’s intervention. Whereas before they would often blame each other, open discussion now started even on contentious subjects such as price wars. In the second year, Seva provoked discussions to create a realisation that collaboration was possible and even desirable. He made them think for themselves how it could work and what the benefits would be, and they produced 30 benefits of sharing resources (e.g. specialised mechanics, financial experts, parts, knowledge, etc).

The focus of the conference shifted to strategy, and with added training on subjects such as finance, communications, leadership and finding solutions from conflicts, it attracted more senior delegates as it was seen as a decision-making forum. From the third year, the dealers created their own agenda which has gone on to strengthen trust and collaboration.

It shows that once people start to talk they also start to trust and then solve issues which were critical but difficult to solve before - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta

To support the new collaborative approach, Seva improved the bonus scheme to reward dealers who contributed to the success of the group. Now, only 30% of bonuses are sales driven, the rest being based on competencies, skills and as a reward for sharing resources. There is even an extra bonus that dealers can award to each other as thanks for assistance. Since bonus levels also define the next year’s discount they are extremely valuable and sought after.

Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment

As a result of the new open environment, the dealers have taken it upon themselves to support each other. The smaller dealers, that used to rely on discounting, are now being ‘lifted up’ and actively supported by the larger ones. They’re not only a source of leads but can keep local customer relationships going and provide local provisioning in regions that would otherwise be too costly. Dealers are now regularly sharing mechanics, knowledge, financial expertise, etc.

In order to reinforce the new culture, the top six dealers voluntarily withdrew themselves from the annual ‘Best Dealer’ competition for four years, making the rest more motivated to win. Now, the competition is much tougher and the winners are more representative of the whole dealer network.

In addition, the four largest dealers joined forces to mutually fund and develop new management reporting software, connected to the accounting systems, to measure daily performance against targets. It provides a report on sales, customer satisfaction, parts, etc. Soon it will be rolled out across the entire dealer network, meaning common standards and quality for the big fleet customers.

If Volvo Penta had developed the software it would have been more expensive and created resistance. Because they did it themselves they made it in the way they wanted and paid for it themselves. I expect the roll-out to be quicker than if Volvo Penta had done it - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta

Discovery – Looking for new external trends, opportunities and threats

The conversation with customers has changed. Dealers are less and less seeing themselves as just parts suppliers and breakage fixers. They are looking for other values such as budgeting, parts supply forecast, telematics and other service solutions.

Having in mind shared resources, dealers now know they can provide better service to customers than before. This also opens up opportunities which dealers were not able to afford before such as better payment terms to customers, quicker service, etc. Some dealers have also started to open branches in remote areas as they see them as opportunities rather than cost.

Next Steps

The next step in the programme is to develop higher levels of customer service, to create such a good feeling about the brand that the people in customers and dealers feel proud to use Volvo Penta products. Their relationships will grow into trusted partnerships where the smallest to largest customers can be open to changing market conditions and challenges they see approaching.

The group HQ in Gothenburg, Sweden has been watching Seva’s programme carefully and has already implemented some similar ideas internationally. Since the company is in a transition period from being largely product and dealer focussed to Customer focused,  Russia’s key message is to enforce the shift to end-user benefits. Improvements in change processes, complaint handling and collaboration between groups such as sales and service can make huge improvements.

Beyond that, Seva wants the dealers to think about why they are in business in the first place. He wants them to make so much money that they spend more on their life, to make a better world for themselves and the people around them. - Seva Gavrilov, Volvo Penta

It’s important to make the connection between profits and common social values and that will be the subject of the next conference. Money and profits are only the intermediate result, there are more objectives behind it.

What will they do with their profit? What is the bigger game? What is their direction?

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Jan Van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum, continues his exclusive series for Field Service News exploring the ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ and looks at the importance of the third winning habit: Decision-making.

Common mistake: Dismissing employees to take ownership

During the last decades, if not centuries, it became a habit to have all important decisions in companies made at top management levels. The assumption traditionally is that this is where the skills, expertise and overview are to make the right decisions. The aim was to increase control, predictability and stability. This used to work fine in most sectors as they were fairly predictable and stable.

However, a lot has changed. Lifecycles of products, services and markets are shorter, changes are quicker, new trends and the future are less predictable, and the complexity of running a business has increased dramatically.

In more industries, companies are suffering from lack of adaptability and agility and falling behind the competition.

Here are a few symptoms we see from the traditional top-down management habits:

• Someone in the lower ranks who sees a threat or opportunity and wants to act on it first needs to discuss this with higher rank management to get their approval and buy-in/decision. There is a challenge that many initiatives face for the attention and favourable decisions from top management. These politics can be frustrating for employees.
• The time of decision-making by higher management is becoming scarce in the critical path for most initiatives. Necessary decisions are being delayed or being made without the attention required.
• The quality of decision-making suffers from inadequate information. Observations and information about threats and opportunities do not flow through the organisation quickly and accurately enough.[/unordered_list]

The solution: Unlock the huge decision-making power throughout the organisation

Leading companies have tremendous power, speed and responsiveness due to the following effective habits on decision-making:

• Top-down and bottom-up strategies and roadmaps
• Effective and efficient decision-making
• Full transparency

1.     Top-down and bottom-up strategies and roadmaps

Maintain an overall strategy and roadmap

The overall strategy and roadmap defines the changes required in different phases to achieve the envisioned future. It clarifies the focus and ballpark figures on key metrics towards the envisioned future. This provides a clear picture of the direction required for all entities of the business to shape their own role, contribution and strategy.

Typically, the leading companies have competence centres for various topics which provide best practices, frameworks, benchmarks and advice to the entities in order to develop and execute their strategies.

Each entity has its own strategy and roadmap

Based on the overall strategy and roadmap, each division, subsidiary and department maintains and executes its own specific strategy and roadmap. They own their plan and are fully accountable for the progress and results.

Larger organisations have a cascade of several levels of sub-strategies, which can contain dozens or many more sub-strategies.

Focus on “new”

Within most successful companies, the strategy and roadmap is about moving towards the future. It’s about doing new things and doing things differently in order to achieve new performance levels and future success. An excel-sheet with numbers, for example, does not achieve this purpose on its own.

2.     Effective and efficient decision making

Many business leaders fear that decentralized decision-making leads to chaos and that control mechanisms are needed to prevent this. Most companies still use traditional “plan & control” mechanisms which require complex, expensive and time-consuming coordination systems.

The following practices ensure that decentralized decision-making is powerful and secures performance;

Structure of decision making units

Every team fits in an overall structure of roles and responsibilities with clear objectives. Each team develops, maintains and follows their own strategy which contributes to the overall strategy and roadmap.

This provides clarity to everyone who decides on what, and how, decisions relate to each other.

Decision-making protocol

Every team follows a decision-making protocol which provides guiding principles and rules on;

• How autonomous the team is for the different domains that make decisions
• How to align with other stakeholders
• How to handle objections from stakeholders, depending on the impact this might have for other stakeholders and/or the organisation as a whole
• When decisions have to be handed over to other decision making units[/unordered_list]

Some decisions hardly have an impact on other teams and can therefore be made autonomously.

Other decisions have a minor impact on the work of other teams. These other teams are informed about the decision, how this will impact them and how they are expected to adjust. The other teams provide feedback and suggestions, however it remains up to the deciding team how they incorporate the feedback and suggestions.

Some decisions could have a major impact on other teams or the organisation as a whole. For these decisions, there is a protocol in which other stakeholders can raise objections that need to be processed adequately. In some cases the decision has to be handed over to another team who has the responsibility of the bigger picture.

3.     Full transparency on performance and financials trigger crucial initiatives

In many organisations, the flow of information is limited because of lack of information systems, defensive behaviour, limited willingness to openly share and too little interest in the overall picture. As a result, people miss opportunities and make wrong decisions. This reduces collaboration and initiatives throughout the organisation and increases resistance.

Constructive and well informed dialogue, strategy development and decision-making require that everyone has the same, and adequate, information about results, failures, progress, opportunities, threats, trends and practices.

Leading companies are transparent about the following:

• Financial figures of the entire business, as well as the different entities
• Progress of projects and initiatives
• Challenges or issues they are facing, including failures
• Customer feedback
• Decisions
• Practices or processes[/unordered_list]

Benefits

The benefit of encouraging decision-making throughout the entire organisation is that, on all levels in the organisation, teams and employees have engagement and ownership. They aim higher, pursue more opportunities and achieve more. Decision-making is faster, more responsive, has higher quality and is executed quicker.

The result is that the business is more adaptable to changes and therefore performs better today and will also perform better tomorrow and further in the future.

The Essence

If we think that it’s about control, stability and predictability, then we’ve missed the point! It is about thriving in a changing and unpredictable world, full of opportunities that we need to discover. It’s about passionately exploring, developing, learning and discovering what works, and what doesn’t work.

‘Magic’ happens when you bring together business innovation and employee development and empowerment.

How well has your business adopted the 4 Winning Habits?
Discover your momentum for innovation and change with the online Momentum Scorecard find out more @ http://fs-ne.ws/mpKJ30ibWsb

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Jan van Veen, Managing Director, moreMomentum continues his exclusive series of articles for Field Service News on ‘4 Winning Habits of Long-Lasting Achievers in Service’ this time turning his attention to the second winning habit: Dialogue...

A Common Mistake: Paralysis By Control

Recently I had an interesting conversation with a Service Leader from one of the leading printer and copier manufacturers about how to empower co-workers to drive change from the bottom up. They had already abandoned their outcome-oriented performance review system but nevertheless, their teams still find it difficult to drive change at a high pace.

An important reason is that dialogue between different management levels and operational specialists is rather infrequent and even then, most conversations are still about outcomes and targets. Even this informal pressure for results preserves feelings of insecurity and low confidence which blocks attempts to adopt and drive change.

Traditionally, many business leaders assumed that they needed strong control mechanisms to manage performance, a dated belief that is still common today. During the last few decades of relentlessly growing markets, the name of the game was rationalising processes and keeping the ability to scale up quickly enough. One of the challenges was control and predictability.

In today’s world, these traditional planning and control mechanisms do not work anymore. They limit teams’ ability to think and act collectively, to innovate their business and drive change. Planning & control mechanisms punish poor performance and setbacks. Employees sense a default unsafe environment and are pushed into a defensive, survival mode. It is safer to keep aspirations low, externalise challenges, blame others and limit ownership.

This results in a strong force to do more of the same and stick to the status-quo.

The solution: A forward-looking and constructive dialogue across all levels and functions

Our recent research clearly shows that winning and dynamic manufacturers have embedded practices and habits which empower employees to drive continuous, easy change from the inside. These modern mechanisms for dialogue across all levels and function are:

• Forward-looking objectives and priorities which drive change and collaboration
• Constructive reviews
• Forward-looking interventions

1. Promote change and collaboration with the right objectives and priorities

Continuous alignment of objectives and priorities: Winning companies focus on strategic objectives that build strong organisational capabilities for performance and continuous business innovation. Building and maintaining a fit and healthy organisation is the focus of (top) management. The most important objectives and targets are about the organisational capabilities, small changes and bigger innovations.

Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.Aspirations, objectives, strategies, limitations, opportunities and pre-requisites are frequently discussed and adjusted when needed to ensure coherent and aligned actions and initiatives across all individuals, teams and departments.

Shared outcome targets: Teams and individuals share the same common objectives for results in operational performance and innovation. Their bonus schemes are based on the same indicators. They are all in the same boat, trying to achieve the same objectives. Each team and individual will be open and looking for ways to contribute to the overall targets. Instead of resisting or getting complacent, they all collaborate where needed.

Individual contribution targets: Each team and individual has full clarity on how they are expected to contribute to achieving the outcome. Think about maintaining and developing organisational capabilities, building personal competencies, collaborating with other teams and the level of effort required. For example, the financial department could contribute to the customer experience by improving invoicing (speed, accuracy, transparency, responsiveness to inquiries).

2. Build confidence & safety with constructive and forward-looking reviews

Positive feedback: Colleagues are open to candid feedback and provide constructive feedback to each other. Feedback is not about performance, but approach, activities, priorities, opportunities and threats and is intended to encourage them to adapt and improve. It is related to aspirations, the vision, the strategy.

Forward-looking: The focus is not on the fact that something went wrong, but on how to get it right. What can be learned from setbacks or issues, how can the approach be adjusted? What are new ideas and approaches? It doesn’t make sense to argue about the past.

Multiple stakeholders: Best practice is to include other stakeholders and experts in the reviews, by collecting their feedback, sharing feedback and asking for their view on the problem. This prevents unnecessary bias, reveals many more opportunities for improvement and will get more active support to easily and rapidly implement the interventions.

3. Solve from 1st principle

Root Cause Analysis: Leading companies make it a critical organisational habit to perform a root analysis for pretty much every issue or set-back. As many issues or opportunities affect more than one team or department, it is a good habit to follow through with a diverse group of people and teams who can contribute to the analysis as well as the solution.

What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions.What we see is that the winning companies have developed a routine and structure to document, communicate and decide on root cause analyses and interventions. Root causes and the success of new interventions are standard topics of meetings and conversations. “No time” is not seen a valid reason to skip the root cause analysis.

Structural solutions: Based on the root cause analysis, managers create long-term interventions that define the fundamental solutions and sustainable decision-criteria. They do not step into the trap of short-term, cost-oriented decisions that would let them fall back from fundamental solutions to symptom fighting.

Phased implementation: For complex and time-consuming solutions they define a phased implementation, where first steps can be low-hanging fruit or quick workarounds when the criticality is high. In such cases they ensure that the phased implementation continues after the first steps, to prevent falling back into symptom fighting.

Benefits

The big benefit of this ongoing and forward-looking dialogue across the entire organisation and all levels is to build an environment where everybody feels confident and safe. They feel they can take the initiative to solve issues and pursue opportunities, to come up with interventions when things go differently than expected and ensure coherence between all initiatives.

In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.Employees are open and transparent about their successes and struggles, raise risks and problems, ask for help, provide help and simply do what is needed to perform and move forward for future success. Not because there is pressure from a burning platform, but because they want to.

In psychology, it’s a well-known phenomenon that too much pressure on outcomes and performance kills learning and change.

The Essence

We believe that this is not about better articulating the burning platform and creating a sense of urgency. It is about creating a constructive and forward-thinking environment where your colleagues want to, can and do take the right initiatives and bring them into practice.

Magic happens when you bring together business innovation on one hand and employee development and empowerment on the other.

Are you interested in these 4 winning habits and how to implement them?

Follow our articles and case studies over the coming months and join us for one of our Momentum Impulse Sessions through Europe. Reserve your seat @ http://fs-ne.ws/WQih30gRcev

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moreMomentum organises several Momentum Impulse Sessions in Europe and the USA. Executive peers from various manufacturing industries exchange practices, challenges and ideas how to accelerate the business innovation and change and drive success into the digital service economy...

Rapid changes

It has never been a better time to be in the manufacturing industry than nowadays. New technology like big data, algorithms, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and many more are rapidly being adopted by people and organisations.

How to thrive in such a disruptive world

No doubt there exciting opportunities for manufacturing companies. With the new intelligence from the massive amount of data from connected devices and equipment they can create new value for their customers. They can enhance their value propositions and adopt new business models.

However, it’s not only the manufacturing companies that pursue these opportunities. New business are entering the into the market. These new entrants do not have metal, electronics and mechanics in their DNA, but data, algorithms and turning this into value. Besides the well-known companies like Amazon and Google there are many smaller companies moving rapidly. This is changing the competitive arena big time.

When we look at how manufacturers innovate their business and drive change, we see that many encounter 3 key problems which cause them to fall behind competition.

• Change is slow, whether it is small change or more radical changes, there seems to be a lot of energy getting lost in resistance and fighting resistance
• They are stuck in “business-as-usual”. Most innovations are about incremental improvement of current products, services and capabilities.
• Leaders and employees who see the opportunities, threats and lack of progress in their company experience they have no influence to accelerate change.

4 winning habits for momentum

It is mission-critical for manufacturing companies to accelerate business innovation and change for future success. Our research in 89 companies in 2016 identified 4 winning habits for momentum.

• Direction: Everyone shares a clear and succinct picture of changes in the industry, where the company is heading and what needs to change over the coming years. They all understand how they can contribute to the change, and ultimately, fit in.
• Dialogue: Across all teams and levels there is a constructive and forward-looking dialogue on performance, progress, priorities and aligned actions. Everyone feels secure and confident to adapt and try new approaches.
• Decision-making: Everyone has the power to make decisions within their role, to adjust, perform and improve. There are adequate guiding principles to ensure coherence and alignment of all decisions.
• Discovery: Everyone is aware of (potential) trends, opportunities and threats and the best practices available. They spend time in exploring, testing and learning. There is more focus on new things which go beyond the current core business, which is imperative for future success.

Interactive Momentum Impulse Session

moreMomentum organises a series of Momentum Impulse Sessions throughout Europe and USA. During these full day sessions, executives will discuss the 4 winning habits for momentum, their practices and challenges with business innovation and change and will identify opportunities how to accelerate change in their business.

Key-topics:

• Winning habits and strategies which make a (continuous) business innovation easy and quick
• Key obstacles and typical pitfalls for rapid business innovation and change
• Strategic priorities to accelerate business innovation and change and maximise chances for success

You will get valuable input for further developing the right innovation and change strategy and boosting your service innovation!

Upcoming sessions are:

• January 24 in Birmingham (UK) - £375
• March 21 in Munich (Germany) - €425
• May 14 in New York (USA) - $595
• May 23 in Eindhoven (The Netherlands - €425

 

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Field Service News readers receive 30% discount. Enter FSN as promotional code to secure your discount.

Book your seat for your preferred session now.

 

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About moreMomentum:

moreMomentum is an international consulting, training and coaching company which works with manufacturing companies to get more momentum into their ongoing business innovation and change. They exists to accelerate the transition of industrial manufacturing into the digital service economy.

 

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As part of his ongoing research what makes successful companies tick, Jan van Veen, co-founder of moreMomentum, has begun a series of interviews with proven managers across the globe who are successfully implementing the 4 Winning Habits to lead innovative, energised and engaged teams.

This time around he talks to Ashley Weller, UK Service Director, Mars Drinks...

Mars Drinks is one of the world’s biggest and most successful vending machine companies and a part of Mars Incorporated. It operates globally, supplying and maintaining machines in workplaces such as offices and manufacturing sites in North America, Europe and a growing business in China and Japan. Although the sector is in decline in the UK, Mars Drinks is beating the market trends by knowing their customers and playing to their strengths, and has now been keeping us all going with our favourite hot drinks for 45 years.

Ashley Weller took over as UK Service Director in 2015, with 20 years experience in the service industry, a degree in History of Art and a passionate but empathetic leadership style.

He came in as the business was starting to see intense competition from coffee shop chains embedded in offices as well as on the high street. Ashley took the visionary decision to challenge his people to elevate their role, transforming themselves into Brand Ambassadors and adding even more value to great customer relationships.

Now, the staff are energised, their customer satisfaction is way up and the company is supplying a much wider range of products than ever before.

The challenges facing Mars Drinks UK Customer Service

Apart from the general food industry trend to coffee shops, the UK Service Department also had its own challenges for Ashley.

After many years, the service engineers had become somewhat disengaged with the role they were playing within the company, and although they were highly engaged with their regular clients and maintained great relationships there, their role was solely to fix broken machines.

Furthermore, the company had been focusing its investment on sales and marketing, leaving the service department, with its good customer feedback, to continue operating with minimal investment. There was a feeling that that their impact wasn’t as valued as other departments and that the great work they’d been doing wasn’t getting the recognition it should.

The Strategy

Ashley wanted to bring the Service division back into the fold of the company and use the engineers’ knowledge and excellent client relationships as a USP to build more business. To do this, in a 3-year plan, he created a supportive, safe environment free from blame that enabled the engineers to be the drivers of that change, supporting them all the way along their journey to become Brand Ambassadors.

The service leadership team would be vital to the process, being the first to experience the new environment, supporting it from day one and learning first-hand how the new dialogue would work, so they could pass on their experiences to the teams.

 

Here we will show how Mars Drinks demonstrated each of the 4 Winning Habits in the implementation of its plan, creating Momentum for long-term sustainable success in its UK Service division. The strategy shows that Momentum can start anywhere when the 4 Winning Habits are employed. They soon spread to other departments when they see the positive impact.

 
 

Direction – the common cause that everyone can get behind

The main aim was to build the engineers up to be brand ambassadors, strengthening their strong client relationships even more but in a way that added value. Up to that point, the engineers were the customers’ white knights, fixing problems but not always recognised for the full value they could bring to the company.

The engineers feared they were being asked to sell and that this might harm their existing, genuine relationships, but in fact found customers love it when they talk to them and tell them about new products, and also then provide more feedback. It’s a win/win when the customer feels valued and provides information that improves the business.

Weller explains: “At the kick off conference, named ‘Stepping Out of the Shadows’, we created a platform of 3-S’s for our future vision: Service, Strengthen and Stimulate. They were built upon leveraging our service strengths by improving and standardising our operating practices, learning from the best in class to strengthen all aspects of our customer relationships, and then using these relationships built on trust and performance to then stimulate the conversation to create the ‘wow’ for our customers by being able to help them gain more from Mars Drinks.”

 

Now, it’s very important that new joiners are brought into the service culture so it can continue. The level of success achieved can only be maintained by ensuring new people can work in this type of environment so the onboarding process is very thorough.

Dialogue – open discussion at and between all levels to encourage new ideas

The team began by recognising they had to remove the fear of failure for suggesting or trying ideas and then include the engineers in the solution planning process. The message was “You want to be part of business and the business wants you”. It takes years to earn this level of trust however.

Ashley started by playing a video which the engineers had made about their work at a company conference. Suddenly, the engineers were given a stage – people around the company started talking about service and the engineers felt pride that the business was noticing them and their contribution.

The next step was to ask them their opinions. Throughout the 3-year plan, it was anticipated that there would be mistakes and course corrections needed, so the engineers were encouraged to say what was working and what wasn’t. The senior management team also bought in to the process and gave their support.

The engineers had great relationships with their clients, but how could they add more value to the customer and the company? This led to a long series of suggestions, one of which resulted in the creation of an iPad app to enable easier maintenance. The feedback was “You’ve given me IT that I can use!” while also enabling them to provide better service.

 

Of course, there were early adopters and laggards. With support and attention from the company comes accountability, meaning some couldn’t hide any more. Strong people managers helped staff on that journey and some became exemplars for the new role. The proof is in the practice: “people need to see it delivered to understand that this is now the norm.”

Personal objectives are an effective way to include people, and in Mars Drinks they waterfall down from higher company goals, helping people to see why they matter. People aren’t only measured on targets, but also on trying new ideas, adding value and learning from other colleagues or learning from failure. Of course, this also means you can’t give bad reviews if an experiment fails.

Decision-making – local decision-making empowerment

Engineers saw things on a day to day basis that they wanted to improve and many, it turns out, had already started working on small improvement projects in their own time. These hadn’t been shared due to a fear of failure. Once more trust had been established, implementing some of these ideas across the UK saved thousands of pounds and many hundreds of working hours. Now, the engineers are keen to make more suggestions and so far, 30% have been implemented.

Another approach was to get the engineers to compare working methods between teams and analyse the differences. As a result, standardising some processes has led to improved machine reliability. They also moved from 30 to 90-day reliability targets and started seeing new trends in the data about certain parts that then enabled new processes and product improvements.

The company is supporting the engineers in their new role, including training them to spot opportunities for new machines on site. Customers are more likely to engage with them as they have a high level of trust, and the conversion rates for leads originating this way is higher than from the sales team.

Discovery – Looking for new external trends, opportunities and threats

Everyone in the Service Department is now keenly involved in looking for new innovation opportunities that will benefit customers, but more than that, they are open to new ideas and ways of working, because very often they have been suggested by one of their own.

Weller comments; “If we kept the customer at the very heart of what we were trying to achieve, the person the engineers wanted to serve the best, then we’d always have a central pivot point to navigate by. That’s been critical”

Business Outcomes

As a result of the team’s work over several years, the new processes are now a living, breathing animal and are running smoothly under the control of the regional managers. The new brand ambassadors are a true USP for the company and are loved by their customers. The engineers are proud that they’ve achieved all this – it’s what their customers wanted.

The new culture has translated into more machine orders and wider ranges of drinks being supplied that customers want to consume. Comparing 2016 to 2017, there’s been a 33% increase in new products added to machines and a 150% increase in leads for new machines compared to inbound or outbound sales, with higher conversion rates too.

 

Next Steps

Next, there is going to be a stronger focus on building discovery capabilities to enable the service team to connect more with customers and back with the business, putting them in control of demand, not the other way around.

Learning from other industries, technology such as Internet of Things and cashless payments generate rich streams of data to provide much deeper understanding and help predict requirements. The engineers will be highly involved too, being given the ability, for instance, to offer contract renewals on site within their trusted relationship.

The future is looking bright for the Mars Drinks Service team.

 

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In a new feature series Jan Van Veen explores what are the common factors in an organisations DNA that makes them stand head and shoulders above the rest of the competition...

We have discovered 4 winning habits of long-lasting achievers in service, which sets them apart from competition. These long-lasting achievers see that change and innovation in their organisations is energising and easy and that their people pursue opportunities that go beyond business-as-usual.

Everyone in their organisations has the opportunity to be highly influential In every manufacturing industry, there are exciting – but challenging- changes taking place; involving Servitization, Internet of Things, Big Data, and so on. Customer needs and expectations are shifting, as is the competitive landscape. The speed of change will only continue to increase.

And this will offer huge opportunities for existing manufacturers, and new entrants into the sector.

Many people in manufacturing companies have identified the changes, their impact, and the potential opportunities.

They also see their companies stagnating and dropping behind, despite many attempts to increase a sense of urgency and get buy-in. This often leaves them feeling disappointed and frustrated, yet they are still eager to make a difference.

The 3 Dominant Problems

Most leaders in manufacturing face 3 problems relating to their ability to adapt for more success today, and in the future. One of the concrete consequences, is slower growth of their service business.

Slow change: Whether it is regarding small changes or larger change, it seems to be that many forces repel against it. A lot of energy is wasted in resisting change and in turn, fighting resistance.

There is limited clarity in direction, limited collaboration between departments, a conflict of objectives, too much uncertainty and fear, and a lack of passion and engagement from employees.

As a result, performance issues continue without adequate and timely interventions. Projects and strategies slow down or at worst, fail during execution. Consequently, employees show signs of being worn-out of yet another change initiative.

[quote float="left"]The ‘4 winning habits’ are in fact, the missing link to increase and sustain momentum, to continuously adapt, drive change and innovate their business- including driving a strong service business

Being stuck in “business as usual”: There are very few ideas and initiatives beyond small, incremental improvements, if any at all. Whether it is about product innovation, new services, sales approaches or delivery processes, most changes are focussed on incremental improvements of the status-quo. Of course, this is important, but not sufficient to be successful in our changing world.

 

Lack of influence: Most people within a company, from the operation specialists, to the CEOs, feel disappointed or even frustrated due to having limited influence to make a real difference.

What makes matters worse, is when they see good ideas and concerns failing to resonate with their organisation.

The 4 Winning Habits

The long-lasting achievers experience the same challenges and opportunities as those who stagnate. They have access to the same market for clients, same technology, same market for talents, and the same knowledge and expertise within the industry.

We can also point out that they have similar visions and strategies, change management, communication strategies and budgets for the change initiatives.

It appears that the ‘4 winning habits’ are in fact, the missing link to increase and sustain momentum, to continuously adapt, drive change and innovate their business- including driving a strong service business

The 4 habits are:

• Direction: Everyone shares a clear and succinct picture of changes in the industry, where the company is heading and what needs to change over the coming years. They all understand how they can contribute to the change, and ultimately, fit in.
• Dialogue: Across all teams and levels there is a constructive and forward-looking dialogue on performance, progress, priorities and aligned actions. Everyone feels secure and confident to adapt and try new approaches.
• Decision-making: Everyone has the power to make decisions within their role, to adjust, perform and improve. There are adequate guiding principles to ensure coherence and alignment of all decisions.
• Discovery: Everyone is aware of (potential) trends, opportunities and threats and the best practices available. They spend time in exploring, testing and learning. There is more focus on new things which go beyond the current core business, which is imperative for future success.

Over the following months, we will elaborate upon each of these habits and support our content with real-life examples.

The Result

The results long-lasting achievers obtain with these 4 winning habits is deep-rooted.

Fluid change: Everyone is passionate and keen to make a difference. They all recognise the need to change and adapt. They collectively think and act to achieve greatness. Change energises!

Pursuing opportunities beyond “business as usual”. Everyone is sensitive to threats, opportunities and obstacles, and behave in a coherent and forward-looking way.

Highly influential: The CEO, operational specialists, and anyone in between have influence to drive change and innovation, and make a positive difference.

They therefore discover:

• More real value innovation, like service innovation.
• Higher growth rates and margins
• Better customer loyalty
• Higher employee engagement
• Better retention and attraction of talents[/unordered_list]

The Essence

If you assume that the focus is about change management and buy-in, then you have missed the point:

It is about making change management obsolete.

There is no need to cope with resistance against change, because the changes come from the ‘bottom-up’.

I believe this is the power of combining business innovation on one hand, and talent development and empowerment on the other.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

In a new feature series Jan Van Veen explores what are the common factors in an organisations DNA that makes them stand head and shoulders above the rest of the competition...

We have discovered 4 winning habits of long-lasting achievers in service, which sets them apart from competition. These long-lasting achievers see that change and innovation in their organisations is energising and easy and that their people pursue opportunities that go beyond business-as-usual.

Everyone in their organisations has the opportunity to be highly influential In every manufacturing industry, there are exciting – but challenging- changes taking place; involving Servitization, Internet of Things, big data, and so on. Customer needs and expectations are shifting, as is the competitive landscape. The speed of change will only continue to increase.

And this will offer huge opportunities for existing manufacturers, and new entrants into the sector.

Many people in manufacturing companies have identified the changes, their impact, and the potential opportunities.

They also see their companies stagnating and dropping behind, despite many attempts to increase a sense of urgency and get buy-in. This often leaves them feeling disappointed and frustrated, yet they are still eager to make a difference.

The 3 Dominant Problems

Most leaders in manufacturing face 3 problems relating to their ability to adapt for more success today, and in the future. One of the concrete consequences, is slower growth of their service business.

Slow change: Whether it is regarding small changes or larger change, it seems to be that many forces repel against it. A lot of energy is wasted in resisting change and in turn, fighting resistance.

There is limited clarity in direction, limited collaboration between departments, a conflict of objectives, too much uncertainty and fear, and a lack of passion and engagement from employees.

As a result, performance issues continue without adequate and timely interventions. Projects and strategies slow down or at worst, fail during execution. Consequently, employees show signs of being worn-out of yet another change initiative.

 

Being stuck in “business as usual”: There are very few ideas and initiatives beyond small, incremental improvements, if any at all. Whether it is about product innovation, new services, sales approaches or delivery processes, most changes are focussed on incremental improvements of the status-quo. Of course, this is important, but not sufficient to be successful in our changing world.

Lack of influence: Most people within a company, from the operation specialists, to the CEOs, feel disappointed or even frustrated due to having limited influence to make a real difference.

What makes matters worse, is when they see good ideas and concerns failing to resonate with their organisation.

The 4 Winning Habits

The long-lasting achievers experience the same challenges and opportunities as those who stagnate. They have access to the same market for clients, same technology, same market for talents, and the same knowledge and expertise within the industry.

We can also point out that they have similar visions and strategies, change management, communication strategies and budgets for the change initiatives.

It appears that the ‘4 winning habits’ are in fact, the missing link to increase and sustain momentum, to continuously adapt, drive change and innovate their business- including driving a strong service business

The 4 habits are:

• Direction: Everyone shares a clear and succinct picture of changes in the industry, where the company is heading and what needs to change over the coming years. They all understand how they can contribute to the change, and ultimately, fit in.
• Dialogue: Across all teams and levels there is a constructive and forward-looking dialogue on performance, progress, priorities and aligned actions. Everyone feels secure and confident to adapt and try new approaches.
• Decision-making: Everyone has the power to make decisions within their role, to adjust, perform and improve. There are adequate guiding principles to ensure coherence and alignment of all decisions.
• Discovery: Everyone is aware of (potential) trends, opportunities and threats and the best practices available. They spend time in exploring, testing and learning. There is more focus on new things which go beyond the current core business, which is imperative for future success.

Over the following months, we will elaborate upon each of these habits and support our content with real-life examples.

The Result

The results long-lasting achievers obtain with these 4 winning habits is deep-rooted.

Fluid change: Everyone is passionate and keen to make a difference. They all recognise the need to change and adapt. They collectively think and act to achieve greatness. Change energises!

Pursuing opportunities beyond “business as usual”. Everyone is sensitive to threats, opportunities and obstacles, and behave in a coherent and forward-looking way.

Highly influential: The CEO, operational specialists, and anyone in between have influence to drive change and innovation, and make a positive difference.

They therefore discover:

• More real value innovation, like service innovation.
• Higher growth rates and margins
• Better customer loyalty
• Higher employee engagement
• Better retention and attraction of talents

The Essence

If you assume that the focus is about change management and buy-in, then you have missed the point: It is about making change management obsolete.

There is no need to cope with resistance against change, because the changes come from the ‘bottom-up’.

I believe this is the power of combining business innovation on one hand, and talent development and empowerment on the other.

 

---

 

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