Ahmed Gharbaoui is a Global Subject Matter Expert in Business Growing by Service approach. Here he puts forward a three step plan for field service organisations to build recovery from the colossal impact of Covid-19...

Organizations in your industry have reported that their business is heavily impacted by the COVID19 outbreak, predicting it will take two more years to reach their Q1 2019 P&L levels again.

Long-term loss of market share or even disappearing from the marketplace are real concerns. In that context, a swift influx of cash Is often needed to stay afloat, but external sources of cash may not even be enough to survive the fierce competition.

If you are wondering what step to take to bring swift influx of cash AND address the quick changes in the market place, you may want to tap into Aftersales services and digital resources which proven to be one of the fastest ways to uplift profitability besides strengthening the relationship with your supplied assets end-users through increased customer satisfaction.

Being capital equipment driven for years can make that shift challenging, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right strategy and support, remarkable results can be achieved faster then expected.

Here below highlights of 100 days survival and lasting growth via the 3 pillars approach:

 

Increase Business Resilience :

It is about evaluating and increasing ratio of reoccurring stable profitable revenue.

• Assess Aftermarket/Service share/ratio from total Business
• Assess reoccurring business contribution from Aftermarket Revenue.
• Example ratio of Service Agreements
• Recommend priority focus and define road map taking into account digital support solutions, planning and operational processing.

 

Bring Aftermarket Operations Transparency:

Service Operations usually is considered as space where errors and quality issues are hidden.

By understanding space and setting improving plan. This would be a fast way to improve cash and profit to the bottom line.

• • For example, Check existence and viability of returns/redos tracking
• • Assess your improvement processes
• • Set based on the findings and benchmark with best in class immediate quick-fixes and mid-long term sustainable improvement roadmap.

 

Boost Sales Efficiency by:

The level of understanding of an organisation’s aftersales people resources is an important step towards survival and sustainable growth. In following, quick highlight of priority actions.

• For example, assess current aftermarket organization and level of importance in the leadership team.
• Assess the profile and ratio of salesforce versus execution teams
• Then, immediate and targeted actions can be set in terms of sales capacity planning and transformational strategy.

Here are a few short, mid and long-term success stories you may relate to by thanks to the 3 pillars approah:

North American Global leader of Compressed Air Systems OEM:

In order to improve business resilience and boost overall P&L, after first unsuccessful attempt to merge Capital Equipment Sales team with Aftermarket Sales representatives one Account Managers team, + 40% experienced sales team members left for competition. By practicing sales assessment tools the entity could increase its Service Sales share by +30% from first quarter of its implementation. And importantly transforming equipment sales team to solutions Sales organization, dealing with and users challenges and ready to face new future!

US Global engine and powergen OEM: Declining Engines & Powergen:

Aftersales Business Unit of +100 M USD due to heavy dependency on parts, swiftly grew their service business by +60%. Additionally Executive team were convinced to aggressively expand dedicated sales team from 3 to 10 headcounts in very tight P&L context. Bringing additionally + $1 M USD by extra headcount profitably.

European Global Compressed Air System market leader:

Despite declining economy due, they achieved notable uplift in Compressors aftersales revenue from $17M USD to $26M USD with enhanced Operational Efficiency and EBITA across multiple Countries. Additionally launched new digital service offering after connecting +1200 units which boosted Service Agreements revenue and profit reoccurrence.

If you’re an industrial goods manufacturer looking for cash oxygen in a less than 100 days and you’d like to set the foundations for sustainable growth beyond mere survival, we should talk. My email ID is growbyservice@gmail.com

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about Covid 19 and Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read more about Managing the mobile workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Read more about Field Service Leadership and Strategy @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy

In the first of our new quarterly Field Service News Think Tank Debrief Sessions, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was joined by Kieran Notter, Coen Jeukens and Daniel Brabec as they reflected on the key points raised in the last three Think Tank sessions. In this first excerpt from the debrief session, Jeukens reflects on the conversations around the growing need for service companies to listen to the voice of their customers...

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An Emerging Need for Multiple Layers of Service Offerings: 

One of the things that makes the Field Service Think Tank Sessions is that when you bring together a small group of senior service leaders together to discuss the key issues our industry faces in an informal setting, often the conversation can evolve beyond the original agenda very quickly. 

That's exactly what happened on this first session of the series held in partnership with the team at ServiceMax and the conversation turned towards really digging deeper into where the the true value of data sits within the field service sector.

During the session we saw a real need for different levels of service offerings. This is an aspect of service delivery that appears to be rapidly evolving as service organisations become more aware that their customers have many differing needs.

As Patrick Jansen, Manager Field Service, VBR Turbine Partners commented during the session:

“If you look at our call-out services, some customers don’t even want people to pick up the phone immediately - they are happy to just accept a longer response time. 

“Other customers really have an essential piece of machinery that, for them, is critical to their production. So if they have a problem they want you to pick up the phone immediately. It is quite a broad service level that we offer for our clients and it is really custom made. But the thing is we don’t work with a huge amount of companies, and we serve a niche market. We are not a Samsung serving a million mobile phones, we serve smaller industry vertical within a complex niche sector, so our service towards them is also quite different from having to serve a lot of volume.”

Similarly Eddie Storan, Head of Global Services, Domino Printing Sciences commented: 

“As we operate across 5 different industries, we provide a range of different services and offerings based upon the complexity of our customers. For example, from large global customers to the other end of spectrum of smaller organisations where their production is seasonal with short production runs and high variation.

"These customers may not have the same infrastructure and maintenance teams as the larger organisations. However, like all customers 'uptime' is critical, and if there is an issue, they want it resolved instantaneously. That is where we see remote connectivity being utilised through our cloud-based connected services. These types of customers generally tend to be more focused on support.

"Our larger customers, in addition to remote support, look for data insights into their production lines across the different technologies we have installed in their plants.”

Coen Jeukens, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax was co-chair during this Think Tank discussion and during the debrief session he was able to reflect further on the importance of differing levels of service offerings, but also how the conversations had evolved throughout the backdrop of a global lockdown during the pandemic. 

"What I really find interesting, maybe as a general common for all the Think Tank sessions we held, was that this was the first session we held which was on March 22 - so I think that for most of the participants, it's was either the first or the second week of a lockdown. Many of us were still in denial of COVID. And if we go through all the different think tanks sessions, I saw them the opinions and the perspectives of the participants changing over time." Jeukens reflected

"To a certain extent, these think tanks sessions are also a timepiece. Now, if I look at the remarks on this particular slide itself, different service needs of different customers, the phrase which comes to mind for me that very much that sat behind this part of the conversation is 'the voice of the customer', This is at the heart of these two statements made by Patrick and Eddie." 

"In terms of the voice of the customer in the context of COVID, we really start to see that the voice of the customer is not a static thing, it changes over time and COVID really has shown us that the voice of the customer can change rapidly or in a very short period of time," Jeukens continued.

 

"The most important thing to understand here is the importance of listening to the voice of the customer..."

- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax

 

"The most important thing to understand here is the importance of listening to the voice of the customer. This allows you to know if the products and services you are offering are critical for the customer - because you can imagine if you sell a product to a customer, and that product isn't critical at all, then how are you going to sell services for that piece of equipment? The more you know about the usage of your pieces of equipment out in the field, the more you know, the more you can use the voice of the customer to really tailor your service offerings."

"If we look at the statement of Patrick, he explains how they don't really have a huge install base, but many of those customers in their install base have a very different use patterns. Equally, as we see in the statement from Eddie, you could say arguably that a printer is just a printer, but in his business, it's not about the printer. It's about the context in which the printer is used and that context is different for every customer."

"Again, we see here that there is an important context brought about by listening to the voice of the customer. This allows for the criticality of moving from fixing the downtime to better understanding the uptime. Additionally, in that understanding, uptime focus can change, this is why I think we saw the voice of the customer really driving many of the conversations we had."

 

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 In this first article in a series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Aquant, Edwin Pahk, VP Product Marketing and Business Development, Aquant explained why now more than ever what we measures matters. Now in the next feature in this series we look at the first two of five crucial KPIs that field service organisations must monitor

 

Would You Like to Know More? www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can access the full white paper on the button below. If you are yet to subscribe join 30K of your field service management peers and subscribe now by clicking the button below...

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You can’t manage what you don’t measure. It is an oft repeated phrases amongst management professionals of all sectors. As we establish the way out of the toughest crisis our industry has ever seen, good management is crucial and that means the metrics we measure are more vital than ever. In this first article in a series of excerpts from a recent white paper published by Aquant, Edwin Pahk, VP Product Marketing and Business Development, Aquant explains more... 

 

 

Would You Like to Know More? www.fieldservicenews.com subscribers can access the full white paper on the button below. If you are yet to subscribe join 30K of your field service management peers and subscribe now by clicking the button below...

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ServiceMax, the leader in asset-centric field service management, today announced that Gartner has positioned the company as a Leader in the Gartner 2020 Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management among 14 other field service software providers. Gartner based its analysis on each company’s ability to execute and completeness of vision.

“We are pleased to be recognized by Gartner as a Leader in the field service management market,” said Neil Barua, CEO of ServiceMax. “ServiceMax continues to expand its field service management capabilities for asset-centric industries with its market-leading product innovation, customer success and retention, and unmatched market expertise. As a provider solely focused on field service, we’re proud to be seen as an industry thought leader as we continue to deliver product innovations that help our customers run more profitable, efficient service operations in complex, asset-intensive industries.

innovation in FIELD SERVICE management is key for organiSations

Gartner Inc. analysts, Jim Robinson and Naved Rashid write, “Equipment operators and owners have come to expect that their service providers will use the latest technologies to provide the most efficient and highest quality service. It is increasingly difficult for analog FSPs to compete with those that use multiple digital technologies in their field service operations.”

To remain an industry leader, ServiceMax continues to build on its history of innovation and thought leadership, most recently rolling out new product features and content designed to further empower field service organizations. Enhancements include improved scheduling solutions with Service Board, additional mobile capabilities such as satellite layers on maps and improved route views, and increased collaboration with interactive hotline bots and photo annotation. The company has also delivered transformative thought leadership for the field service industry including the 2020 CSO Report, featuring insights gathered from ServiceMax’s global service leader community and the newly launched Field Service Finder, a job board designed to help customers reach qualified workers for open roles.

 

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Further Reading:

• View a complimentary copy of Digital Transformation Investment in 2020 and Beyond here
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about ServiceMax on Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/servicemax
• Learn more about ServiceMax @ www.servicemax.com
• Follow ServiceMax on Twitter @ twitter.com/ServiceMax

 

Now is absolutely the time we need to start treating our Business to Business Accounts the same as our Business to Customers accounts writes Strategies for Growth^SM Bill Pollock...

Until only recently, the services purchase/acquisition cycle was a fairly closed-loop, highly structured, and oftentimes formal process. Potential clients obtained most of their decision-making data and informational input directly from the vendors, sought the top-level recommendations of published hardware and software buyer’s guides and directories, and picked up on the latest “buzz” at industry trade shows or via services trade publications – all were and still are powerful and rich resources (albeit, virtual trade shows will just have to do until the end of the current pandemic) .

This was the way services decisions had been supported and made for decades. But then, the Internet and social media changed everything – including the means by which information is gathered, reviewed, and analysed, the criteria by which potential vendors are evaluated and selected, and even the way in which customers position themselves as potential buyers in a largely buyer’s market.

The White House Office of Consumer Affairs has reported that dissatisfied customers will tell between nine and 15 people about their negative experience, with about 13 percent telling more than 20 people. Satisfied customers, on the other hand, will only tell about four to six people about their positive experience. Therefore, according to the report, customer service failures are likely to be communicated two-and-a-half times more often than customer service successes. As a result, services organisations will need to maintain a ratio of roughly 2.5:1 satisfied vs. dissatisfied customers just to break even in terms of word-of-mouth customer service feedback (i.e., 71 percent customer satisfaction). 

In all likelihood, customers will become even more critical – and communicative – about their service experiences in the future, based on the widespread usage of social media tools and technology devices. This presents a new front for services organisations to address in an increasingly social media-influenced marketplace; however, there are many other challenges that also must be addressed.

 

The Three Most Daunting Challenges to Field Service Organisations

The three most uniquely daunting challenges faced by services organisations over the past few decades include the following:

• Transforming themselves from manufacturer/OEM cost centers to strategic lines of business (i.e., with their own executive-level management and P&L responsibility).
• Shifting their operational focus from company-centric to customer-centric, whereby the customer represents the focal point of their universe.
• Learning how to treat their business-to-business (B2B) accounts with the same high level of service and support that other vendors use to treat their business-to-consumer (B2C) customers.

Surely there have also been other equally daunting challenges facing the services industry throughout this period, such as:

• The globalization of business operations
• A volatile cycle of economic upturns and downturns
• The proliferation of new technologies and applications
• The continuing shakeout of marginal performers, and the resultant consolidation within market sectors
• The widespread growth of social media for business purposes

However, while all of these business game-changers ultimately impact all business segments, the three challenges in the op list above focus uniquely on the services sector.

 

The Industry’s Success in Dealing with These Challenges

The main distinction between these two sets of challenges is that while the general influences of the economy, technology, market consolidation, and social media continue to impact all businesses from the outside in, the three challenges unique to the services industry are serving to transform services organizations from the inside out. As a result, the entire complexion of the services sector continues to morph on a virtually constant basis.

Let’s examine each of our three challenges with respect to their impact on the services industry.

Over the past 25 years or so, most services organisations have come to recognise that the “service as a cost center” business model is essentially outdated. Myriad books have been read – and conferences, seminars, and workshops attended – by enough managers to assure that the vast majority of services organisations have been able to successfully make the move from an historical manufacturer/OEM cost center to a more state-of-the-art profit center. All it took for this transformation to take place was for some of the larger and more progressive organisations to successfully bridge the chasm, coupled with the creation of third- and fourth-party organisations with no other line of business aside from service, and the ultimate introduction of a whole new genre of technology-driven, leaner operating upstart companies that did not carry the cost-center mindset of their predecessors. 

"Many of the service executives, managers, technicians, and general services staffs have never looked previously at their business accounts as “consumers” in the past..."

Shifting from a company-centric to a customer-centric focus was the next most daunting challenge to be addressed by services organisations on a wide-scale basis – though not always voluntarily. Some objection came from those steeped in a long-term R&D tradition where technology, manufacturing, production, and processes took precedence over customer service and support. Nonetheless, the need to focus on the customer has been satisfactorily addressed by the vast majority of today’s services organisations. 

The third challenge, however, is perhaps the most daunting of all, because it flies in the face of every marketing and promotional primer ever published, read, or taught. That is, the importance of treating your B2B accounts as if they were B2C customers. Many of the service executives, managers, technicians, and general services staffs have never looked previously at their business accounts as “consumers” in the past. But that’s what they really are – and that’s how they act when they collect information to support their buying decisions when they evaluate alternative vendors and products, narrow their “long lists” down to “short lists,” and make their final purchase decisions and/or recommendations.

In the past, businesses typically employed an entirely different process than consumers did to make their business-related product and service decisions. There was generally an elongated evaluation process, followed by an equally elongated negotiation process, ultimately leading to an acquisition decision that was approved by a committee or purchasing department. Business managers generally utilized resources such as comparative product/service reviews produced by research analyst firms to compare alternative offerings, then they typically would dissolve into committees and groups chartered to make the final purchase recommendations. Sales calls and marketing collateral provided by each of the short-listed manufacturer/OEMs and services organisations were also relied on heavily (as they still are today). 

However, the overall process was oftentimes slow, repetitive, incomplete, and short of the full complement of information it should have taken to support the decision-making process. Further, many of the short-listed vendors would typically only compare their products and services to those offered by their closest “like” competitors, oftentimes ignoring some of the otherwise applicable “new technology” solutions providers. But, as they say, times have changed. 

 

The Convergence of B2B and B2C:

The primary reason why the “like-company comparison” no longer holds up can be explained in just a few words and selected brand names, e.g., the Internet, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Amazon, QVC, Federal Express, UPS. Of course, there are many other paradigms that may be just as illustrative, but these are representative examples of what has helped transform the “B” aspect of the B2B equation into a “C.”

The Internet has become the great equalizer, i.e., the means by which businesses (the B’s) and consumers (the C’s) have been afforded equal data and information access, availability, and use. Prior to the introduction of the Internet, businesses and consumers operated in two entirely different worlds; but now, businesses and consumers have an equally powerful tool to support their product and service decision-making processes.

Further, search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and others can equally empower both types of customers in their ability to search out the best products and services available to them. No longer would businesses need to rely primarily on printed or electronic buyer’s guides, directories, and product/service overviews published by research analyst firms. Nor would consumers need to focus exclusively on Consumer Reports, newspaper articles, and television advertising to obtain their purchasing information. Not that these sources aren’t rich and resourceful – they entirely are. But today, there are numerous websites, blogs, trade associations, and general e-mail communications, posts and tweets that are powerful additional sources of comparative information that is helpful in making a final decision.

"The question arises: Wouldn’t it be nice if all of the B2B business vendors offered the same capabilities as the B2C vendors?"

Then there are the companies that have taken the functionality of these Web-based tools to the highest levels. Companies such as Amazon that, every time you log in, tell you what you’ve bought in the past; what others who have bought the same items as you have also bought; what new items similar to the ones you have bought in the past are now available, and so on. They can even provide you with time-related reminders for purchasing (e.g., birthdays, holidays, anniversaries) and alternative shipping options for the items you have purchased.

The question arises: Wouldn’t it be nice if all of the B2B business vendors offered the same capabilities as the B2C vendors? For example, letting their customers know what comparable businesses have ordered in terms of related items, bundled product/consumables packages, extended service coverage agreements. Or reminding them that they may need to renew or extend their service agreement, stock up on consumables, or consider migrating to a newer model or version. Some companies already provide these services, but certainly it would be great if there were more businesses that did. 

Companies like QVC and the Home Shopping Network have also maximized their use of the Internet’s communications capabilities by making not only the buying process easy – but the returns process as well. For example, you might purchase an item from QVC via telephone, computer, or electronic device. Once you obtain a customer number, it’s all very easy to place an order. The overall customer experience is then heightened even further by the high level of communications provided to the consumer, receipt of a near-instant e-mail confirmation of the order, subsequent follow-up e-mails when the item is shipped, if it is on backorder, etc. Even the return process is easy with companies like QVC. If it doesn’t work out, one can simply return the item in the same packaging along with the supplied mailing label, with return-receipt and credit notification sent in a timely manner. 

Again, an equivalent B2B experience here would be an outstanding way to focus on your business customers. 

 

The Permanent Emergence of the “C” Account

It is no longer good enough to tell your accounts that your organisation is no worse than any of your similar competitors (the “like-company comparison). If you do, you will risk hearing something in return such as, “I understand that. But what I don’t understand is why you can’t provide me with as much past, present, and future order information as Amazon or process my return – and return credit – as quickly as American Express!” 

By simply delivering the same-old, same-old treatment to your accounts, you are guaranteed to continue treating them as B’s. However, your accounts have become accustomed to being treated as C’s. Your customers – empowered by the Internet, its evolving technology, and the explosion of related apps, devices, and social media tools – have already crossed that bridge; now’s the perfect time for your services organisation to do the same!

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Further Reading:

• Read more exclusive FSN features from Bill Pollock @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/bill-pollock
• Read more about Service Innovation and Design @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/service-innovation-and-design
• Read more about Leadership and Strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Connect with Bill Pollock on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/bill-pollock-b74874/
• Follow Bill Pillock on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/sfgonservice
• Follow Bill Pollock's Personal Blog @ pollockonservice.com/

Koenig and Bauer were an organisation who showed excellent agility, innovation and leadership during the pandemic. Here, Lukas Fahnroth explains how the embedded culture within the organisation helped them pivot and adapt so quickly.

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Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

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Field Service Management, Driven By Customer service, Empowered by Digital Transformation

The story of Koenig and Bauer and how their early adoption of a digital transformation strategy allowed them to ride the troubling times brought on by the Covid-19 lockdowns, makes an excellent case study for what best practice can look like in field service. In a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast, Lucas Fahnroth discussed exactly what the culture was within the organisation and how they had been able to pivot during the crisis so effectively. Indeed, companies like Koenig and Bauer have led the way by showing how having an agile mindset within an organisation can be an essential component in success both in times of plenty and in times of famine.

But just how did Koenig and Bauer develop such an internal skill-set and what are the key attributes that empower them to be able to adapt so swiftly when presented with a seemingly insurmountable challenge? 

Koenig and Bauer is the oldest manufacturer of printing presses in the world," Fanroth begins.

"That means we've got a 200 plus year history of constant innovation and constant pivoting, which from my standpoint has only been possible because Koenig and Bauer has constantly looked after our customers and put the customer in the centre of everything we do. The Covid-19 crisis really hit us obviously across our worldwide service operation.  So it took a lot of care to work out how to deal with this in order to continue our 200 plus year success story of constant innovation and constant development.

"The way we at Koenig and Bauer see this crisis is actually as a sort of litmus test of our leadership where it really takes a clear vision in terms of not only how we see the crisis but also how we see our own role in these times of adversity and uncertainty. One thing is for certain - and that is that we will be judged by our response for years to come," Fahnroth adds. 

 

"We've produced 100,000 face shields and are donating them as we speak. That's something internally we've done in order to give back to our community..."

- Lucas Fahnroth, Koenig and Bauer

 

"On the one hand we will be judged internally by our employees and also internal stakeholders, but also externally by our customers. Customer centricity means that we as a company need to be a good partner to our customers, and especially during those difficult times it's necessary to be a good partner and what we've done is to communicate this very early on to the stakeholders involved.

One of the things that shines through in the wider discussion with Fahnroth and Salesforce's Michael Kuebel who was also part of the discussion, is the importance of communication. As Fahnroth explains; "We've talked a lot to our customers. We've compiled a package of Covid-19 response actions to help our customers and to really fulfil that role of a good partner in these challenging times.

"We've made special offers to our customers, we've given free access to our analytics tools and our customer community. We have stayed in constant contact with our customers, and we really try to deliver those individual responses and those individual aids that our customers need in such times. We've extended our hotline services and we've brought in more subject matter experts."

While the focus on customer-centricity is important, even crucial, the truth remains however, that such an approach is far more easily facilitated by a modern digitalised approach to field service delivery.

"We have also digitalised the process," Fanhroth explains. "A lot of those actions have been developed or were being developed before the crisis - we actually had a couple of them already in place. But what Covid-19 did for us was really supercharge this development and the market launch for some of those features. For example, our hotline services have been extended and we've been working with video support for our customers for quite some time. However, we've really seen the spike in demand for those actions and we are really seeing adoption grow and further develop with those actions.

"So facing our customers, we've really seen a lot of those products, a lot of those features and services we've sometimes already had in place, be supercharged," he adds.

There is certainly a sense of community leadership that appears to also underpin much of the thinking within Koenig and Bauer.

"Coming back to our general strategy, as I said, we have to also keep in mind all our internal stakeholders," Fahnroth comments. 

"So in order to fill this role of a real leadership, we've also thought a lot about our communities. Koenig and Bauer has used a lot of production and demo facilities and free capacities we've had to produce face shields for example. We've produced 100,000 face shields and are donating them as we speak. That's something internally we've done in order to give back to our community."

The very way in which Koenig and Bauer operate is also underpinned by a 200 year history of innovation, exactly as Fahnroth asserts and it is within that ingenuity that it would appear the secrets of success might lie.

"We've seen the way work looks like now at Koenig and Bauer," Fahnroth states. "We adopted G-Suite at the end of last year and we've seen a huge change in how people at Koenig and Bauer work now. It really is a change towards a more mobile way of working and a lot more collaborative. It's really changed a lot of the way communication and work at Koenig and Bauer looks and we're really glad to see that change of mindset," he adds. 

 

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Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer

In the first of our series of features looking towards building a new normal that was better than what we had before,  with the insights collated from the many panel sessions hosted by Kris Oldland throughout the pandemic, we begin with establishing an understanding of what leadership looks like in a post-pandemic world... 

The challenges of coping with the sudden on rush of a series of global lockdowns as governments across the globe reacted to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic meant that many organisations who were in the midst of planning how they could evolve their service offerings were suddenly faced with a much more pressing concern – how could they stay operational.

One man who was involved in a number of such situations was Harald Wasserman, Co-Managing Director Si2 Partners.

 

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Field Service News has produced an eBook '10 Thoughts for Service Leaders Planning Recovery' for our subscribers based on the many hours of live streams we hosted to support field service organisations.

 

If you are already on either our Access All Areas or VIP subscription tiers you can access this on the button below now. If you have yet to subscribe or are on our complimentary subscription tier then click the button to upgrade or subscribe now

 

 

 

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The FIeld Service Centre is a Key Asset in Today's new world

“Only a few weeks ago I was working with a number of companies and we were talking about how to transform the company into a pro-active service organisation. Then as the onset of the coronavirus and the global lockdowns arrived, the situation changed rapidly and totally. We were no longer talking about high level strategies, but instead our focus was now centred on immediate challenges. Where do we get the workload for our service technicians tomorrow?” Wasserman explained.

“It soon became clear that the service centre was one of our key assets in this discussion, as they are in contact with the customers and so were fundamental in establishing where the work could be for our service technicians. What we discovered very rapidly was that having this customer contact would be key to our survival and that the service centre would be instrumental in establishing that contact.

Another early discovery that was crucial that Wasserman believes played a pivotal role in companies being able to adapt to the new world that we all suddenly found ourselves in as the pandemic spread was the importance of an orderly approach to initiating customer contact.

“I noticed that it was important that we have a structure which is effective and allowed for fast contact with our customers,” he recounts “it was absolutely this customer communication that has allowed us to continue with a workload that has remained at 80% to 100% of our capacity - which was excellent at such a challenging time.

 

"We have also started an initiative to contact customers who we may not have been in contact with for a number of years, and this proactive approach has been very much welcomed by these customers..."

 - Harald Wasserman, Si2 Partners. 

 

“We have been able to adapt our organisation to a more customer focused organisation now,” he says reflecting on the work that has been put in place since the onset of the lockdowns. “Instead of waiting for the customer to make contact with us we have pivoted to become much, much more proactive in reaching out to them and this has meant that we are still able to generate the work required to keep our business operational.

“We have also started an initiative to contact customers who we may not have been in contact with for a number of years, and this proactive approach has been very much welcomed by these customers. So, we have implemented both new engagements with our lapsed customers and also a more proactive approach to our existing customer base and this has been the positive approach we have taken to guide us through this crisis.

It has meant getting some of our people out of their comfort zones - we have changed the status quo in that whereas before we would have waited for the customer to initiate the conversation, now our team are contacting the customers themselves and kicking off the conversation. It is not easy, in some cases it is like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, however, it has been an endeavour that has been essential.”

Another aspect that has changed radically as a result of the crisis is how the role of management has changed and this is another area that Wasserman feels has been under increasing scrutiny.

“The management role within field service has become increasingly important during this time. Perhaps at the top of their responsibilities is the ongoing communications with their team. This is vital because our field service engineers and technicians, those in the front line are often operating more or less alone at the moment and they of course have many questions at this time.

“For example, what are the guidelines for them if the customer isn’t taking the necessary precautions that can ensure that our engineers are working within a safe environment given the current conditions? Our approach has been to issue clear advice to give our field workers firm support in their decision making. In this situation for example, if the customer is not willing to provide an environment in which our people can work safely then they must respect that the importance of our staff is our most fundamental priority. This had to be a management decision and had to be communicated strongly to give our staff the confidence to act when they are isolated in the field, and to know that they had our full backing.

‘Day by day we have to make a lot of these types of decisions to support our field workers, but also we have to ensure we are able to adapt our working processes to be able to be more flexible to fulfil the workload we have. 

 

"We see that the companies that are probably dealing with the situation the best are those who have a built-in resilience. It is those companies who have a built-in adaptability and flexibility embedded within their DNA already..."

 - Nick Frank, Si2 Partners

 

“The very way we in which we work has changed fundamentally both in the field but also the way we as management are working. For example, I would normally have four or five meetings a day, now I am having ten or more which are all remotely hosted. The meetings we have now are quicker and more intense, which is of course a part of the current situation, but also, they are more direct."

It is clear that much of the areas which Wasserman outlines as crucial elements shared amongst those companies he has seen adapt best to the challenges of Covid-19 have centred around strong and decisive leadership. This he believes is no coincidence. “There has absolutely been a correlation between those organisations that were able to make quick decisions and show strong leadership and those who were able to adapt easiest to the shifting sands of the operational environment of the pandemic,” he comments.

“The people on the working level they need guidance. They need clear rules. If you don’t give them this, they will struggle. There simply isn’t time for them to be thinking about ‘am I doing the right work?’ ‘Should I do X or Y in this situation?’ or even ‘what do I do?’.

Such questions will have a direct impact on the productivity of your field workers. Therefore, strong leadership and providing strong support for your team is absolutely critical in maintaining efficiency in crisis situations.

“We saw this very early and the importance of ensuring that we were communicating important decisions very quickly to our people and continuing this level of clear, consistent communication with our workforce on an ongoing basis is essential, “ he added.

However, one of the that has arisen as we work under the confines of the current lockdowns, is finding the time for communications that are discussions rather than announcements. For many of us now is a time of action as we continue to constantly adapt and fight to hold onto to the business we have and meet the needs of the customers we serve.

“We are all dealing with a critical situation and it is hard to find time for anything else when we are in the midst of the challenge,” comments Nick Frank, Wasserman’s Co-Managing Director at Si2 Partners.

“However, when we are able to bring our key personnel together there are so many lessons to be learnt. This is because it is so extreme, everything has happened so quickly, and we haven’t really had time to think about it. We see that the companies that are probably dealing with the situation the best are those who have a built-in resilience. It is those companies who have a built-in adaptability and flexibility embedded within their DNA already.

“Those are the companies that we are seeing emerge as those who are ‘most comfortable’, certainly as comfortable as it is possible to be at such a time. They are making decisions; they are showing strong leadership and I think if there is one lesson to be learnt it is the value of strong leadership,” Frank concludes.

 

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Field Service News has produced an eBook '10 Thoughts for Service Leaders Planning Recovery' for our subscribers based on the many hours of live streams we hosted to support field service organisations.

 

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Micheal Kuebel of Salesforce has been working with a number of companies to help them overcome the challenges of the global lockdowns. In this excerpt of the Field Service Podcast Kuebel identifies four key traits that he has seen emerge as common success factors amongst those companies he has seen adapt quickest and most successfully to the Covid-19 challenge.

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Want to hear more? Head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode Three 'Adaptability, Customer-Centricity and Recovery ft. Lukas Fahnroth & Michael Kuebel'

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Leadership, Customer-Centricity, Empowerment, Agility

There has been a lot of innovation on show of late. Of course, much of it has been born out of necessity as companies have frantically tried to adapt to the realities of a global lockdown as we deal as a planet with the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Yet, undoubtedly some companies have taken the challenges of the pandemic far more comfortably in their stride than others. Have there been some shared fundamental tenets of how those who adapted best were able to do so?

Michael Kuebel, Senior Director of Product Management, Salesforce has been working closely with many companies including Koenig and Bauer who were an excellent example of a company that was able to show agility and ingenuity in equal measure as they pivoted and adapted to the new scenario of a Covid-19 infested world. He certainly believes there are some shared attributes amongst those companies who showed the same levels of resilience that Koenig and Bauer did. 

"We see basically four kinds of success factors when we talk to customers and see how they master this most turbulent of markets," Kuebel explained on the Field Service Podcast.

"Number one is strong leadership. We saw that when we talk to our customers and ask, 'how did you cope with the crisis?' We saw a common thread of companies establishing a clear understanding of customers and safety first. It was a time to come up with a complex strategy, it was a time for these simple clear directives.

"For all of the companies that we worked with, there was a focus on making sure their customers remained operational, and making sure that their employees, customers, their families and the society stayed safe. They execute this latest shift through a much more focused visibility. When in the past, they were looking at reporting cycles of a month, now it's more once a day or even intra-daily visibility. They need those KPIs right now, because it's such a volatile situation.

"Also, we saw that strong leadership must also lift the company through being a role model, creating trust and of course, making fact based decisions," Kuebel added. 

 

"You need to make sure that your people are enabled, that they have the tools and they have the knowledge to make decisions when in the field..."

- Michael Kuebel, Salesforce

 

Indeed, this has been echoed through much of the reporting Field Service News has done on the topic and it does appear that there is a strong correlation between those organisations who were able to act swiftly but from a position of data-driven insight and those organisations that coped best with the lockdown scenario. Another strong link amongst such companies is also the willingness to have open and ongoing customer dialogue. 

"The second aspect I mentioned, customer centricity," concurs Kuebel.

"We see customer engagement very much in focus. For practicality reasons at this time, we all need to enable our customers to help themselves better. That way they were creating a digital journey that the customer actually said, well, that's actually even effortless for me, it works and it's helping me stay productive. That is only possible if you have a 360 degree view on the customer and that you have processes that are centred around the customer.

"Then there is empowerment," Kuebel continues. "You need to make sure that your people are enabled, that they have the tools and they have the knowledge to make decisions when in the field. I think especially this factor of empowerment has been something that I think has received an enormous boost within the last couple of weeks during the crisis, just look at the amount of companies that suddenly have home office as the new normal - that was never a plan and now it works and it will be very difficult to turn this back.

"Once you create that level of trust, and you see that people are effective, even when they are not in the office, this is something that is there to stay. However, you need to have the right tools to enable people to work with them. You need to know if you have an on-premise solution, you have no chance in virtualising a call centre overnight, but with a cloud solution, the right tools, the right knowledge and the right information, it's no big deal to do that. We have a couple of customers that were virtualising their dispatching calls and jobs literally within hours."

The final factor that Kuebel lists is perhaps the secret sauce that separates those companies who are best-in class and the rest of the pack.

"Last but not least, you need this agile mindset and an agile platform that allows you to easily adapt to basically go into these MVP (minimum viable product) situations and roll it out with the view that it's good enough to stay afloat - and then, we see we can develop from there. When I look at Koenig and Bauer for example, when I talk to them, when I talk to their management, there's a very, very clear leadership. The way that they communicate with their customers, the predominant mindset is around customer centricity, agility and empowerment. It was therefore, no surprise to me that Koenig and Bauer were one of the companies that are able to manage through the crisis relatively well."

 

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Further Reading:

• Find the full episode of this interview and the entire back catalogue of The Field Service Podcast @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/digital-transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Michael Kuebel on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuebel-fieldservice/
• Follow Michael Kuebel on Twitter @ twitter.com/michaelkuebel
• Find out more about Salesforce Field Service Solutions @ www.salesforce.com/uk/campaign/sem/service-cloud/
• Follow Salesforce on twitter @ twitter.com/salesforce
• Find out more about Koenig & Bauer @ www.koenig-bauer.com
• Follow Koenig and Bauer @ twitter.com/koenigandbauer