While the hope of a V-shaped dip in the economy is still a possibility, we cannot underestimate the sheer magnitude of the economic impact of the global lockdowns as Kevin Green explained in a episode of the Field Service Podcast...

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Want to hear more head over to our podcast library @ www.fieldservicenews.com/podcasts and look for Series Five, Episode One 'Kevin Green on Leadership, Strategy and the Economic Impact of Lockdown' for the full episode...

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Understanding the True Economic Impact of Covid-19

Talking to Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News during episode one of season five of the Field Service Podcast, Kevin Green outlined just why the challenge we face now is different from anything that has come before.

"I suppose the starting point, is recognising the difference from an economic perspective the Covid-19 health crisis has created in comparison to previous recessions," Green began.

Going on to draw on his own experience both as Chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Federation, as well as former HR Director for the UK's Royal Mail, Green continued "the recruitment industry always rises to the economic waves quite well. In that, it goes into recession early, but it also comes out early.

"I can remember in 2008, and that was a pretty unprecedented economic downturn, six quarters of contraction where our industry lost 30% of its revenue. However, in 2008 there was a period before we went into that recession. There was a debate going on, as to whether a recession was coming or not. So, most businesses had six to nine months to prepare for the downturn. The difference with COVID-19 is it happened within a week.

"The government first decided it was going to start asking people to self-isolate and close down parts of the economy. But actually, when we then entered lockdown, in reality with like an asteroid hit the planet, effectively we were switching off 70% of the economic activity of the country. What that has done to our economy is created a huge shock. We've not got any preparation. People weren't prepared at all, and we've just gone headlong into a recession, which will be pretty significant."

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side..."

The point Green makes is crucial for how we are to make the necessary adjustments as we prepare a road towards recovery. We cannot under-estimate the sheer magnitude of the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy and how that will have an ongoing effect on the business chains our organisations exist within.

As Green continues; "So [this recession] is clearly more severe than previous recessions and much faster. I suppose the obvious way to compare is if you think about unemployment. Within the first two weeks of the this crisis, we have had a million people [within the UK] register for Universal Credit. In the last recession, it took us nearly three years to get a million more people unemployed. So that gives you an indication of how rapid the changes be."

This is an eye-opening statistic. It does well to outline how the current scenario is not comparable to the global economic downturn in 2008, where we had a more generic, slower build into a recession. Something that allowed companies to make advance decisions around not hiring and cutting back on investment.

Green went on to describe the situation in 2020 as one where "businesses were, all of a sudden on a precipice, deciding whether they could survive. [They were] taking costs out having to make very draconian and hard decisions very, very quickly, just to survive.

"Liquidity has become everything. It's not so much about profitability, or your P&L and your balance sheet. Now, it's more about how I got the cash to get the business and as many people as possible to the other side."

It has been a period of testing times for all of us, and those in leadership roles have had hard, hard decisions to make. Green is closely connected to many involved in such conversations in his role as a serial entrepreneur.

"It's been a time of crisis, and it's been incredibly difficult for leaders and leadership teams," Green explains. "it's taken its toll in terms of stress, anxiety, and lots of sleepless nights as businesses have had to take really tough decisions."

Yet, despite being in the heat of 'battle' on many fronts and having a comprehensive viewpoint on how the challenges we face today are genuinely unprecedented, Green still sees a glimmer of optimism in the future.

"Hopefully there is some good news in that we can come out of recessions as quickly as we entered it. As soon as soon the government starts lifting some of the self-isolating and people having to work from home, then parts of the economy can and will switch back on again. I think what we all have to hope is that, while we've gone into recession very, very quickly, we will come out pretty fast on the other side as 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 Leadership and strategy @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/tag/leadership-and-strategy
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Connect with Kevin Green on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-green-221a7522
• Follow Kevin Green on Twitter @ twitter.com/kevingreenwnc
• Buy Competitive People Strategy @ Competitive People Strategy: How to Attract, Develop and Retain the Staff You Need for Business Success

How you define success when it comes to your managed print services (MPS) program will vary depending on your strategic plan and your overall objectives. Here, Laryssa Alexander, president field service division, ECI Solutions, runs through the must-track KPIs and how they should be used.

For any business, an increase in revenue and a growing workforce or operation, are all key indicators of success. But how do you measure how you got there, what did you do right and of course what can you improve going forward to gain a better outcome and move the bar higher?

Success in Field Service Management

How you define success when it comes to your managed print services (MPS) program will vary depending on your strategic plan and the overall objectives of your business. The metrics you track and measure to indicate your success, will also differ based on your business priorities.

Having clear key performance indicators (KPIs) set right across your team, from your helpdesk and customer support, to financial sales and marketing, gives you a benchmark to hit. Even if KPIs are just words and numbers on paper, in reality they offer data-driven insights about the day-to-day operation of your business. This can make planning more effective and help you create a well-defined strategy that helps your business grow.

So where do you start when thinking about what KPIs to set your business? Here are five KPIs you should be tracking to measure success.

Machines in field (MIF)

For any field service business, having a fix on the number of devices you’re monitoring is integral to your operation - and there are a number of ways to track them.

For an overview of your print program, you can track how many devices you are monitoring across all customers. If you want to know how many print devices you are monitoring on a customer level, you can find out the average MIF per customer. You can even take it a step further and look at what percentage of customer’s total devices you have under contract. Every layer adds extra detail and with having access to this level of data, it can help you to determine your marketing, sales and other business processes.

Delving into your MIF data will give you an insight into your customer habits and show you where you can grow. Are your customers using your devices more often, is there room to upsell or should you be focusing on acquiring new business? By tracking device data you are able to show the real time usability of your devices.

Early Toner Cartridge Replacements

For any business, cutting costs, while increasing revenue is a win win. So your customers are always looking at ways they can streamline any business expense. Your MPS business can help them do just that. You can save them up to 30 percent on print-related expenses, making it an ideal solution for customers looking to reduce spend.

One of the metrics you can measure to increase your customers’ profitability are toner levels. Many businesses will often order new toner cartridges when they think they’re low, wasting ink that's left in their current cartridge.

"SaaS solutions are typically more scalable and affordable than their enterprise counterparts because they are subscription-based..."

Regularly tracking and mitigating early toner cartridge replacements for your customers can help reduce unnecessary shipping and distribution costs, increase revenue yield on pages printed, and save your customers money on supplies.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

As more and more data moves to the cloud, businesses are adding software-as-a-service (SaaS) options to their offerings to provide customers with greater flexibility. SaaS solutions are typically more scalable and affordable than their enterprise counterparts because they are subscription-based.

Many MPS businesses offer both. SaaS services arm providers with the ability to forecast revenue on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. MRR is the focal point of a SaaS business model and a key KPI that you can monitor to identify growth opportunities. This helps your finance team to create more accurate forecasts and budgets for the next fiscal year. 

Support Ticket Close Rate

Once you have built a quality product or solution, the next step is to support your customers when they begin using it. It is a standard practice to have customers sign a service level agreement so both the provider and the user are aware of their roles and responsibilities, and these expectations are clearly communicated. A good measure of how successful your team is executing your service level agreement is your support ticket close rate.

How many tickets are you closing on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis? This metric will help you determine how responsive your technical support team is, address any internal process or communication issues, and help you craft SLAs that better reflect your business capabilities. Another KPI to keep in mind if your offering is service-orientated is your resolution time. Like your ticket close rate, this will tell you how effective your support team is at responding to and resolving customer challenges.

Customer Satisfaction

Regardless of what industry you work in, customer satisfaction is a good benchmark to use when trying to gauge your success. It’s a truth universally acknowledged in the world of business that a happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer and to recommend your products and services to others.

Regularly conducting customer satisfaction surveys provides you with valuable insights into what customers think of your business, your team, and your product or service. If done correctly, you can also data mine customer satisfaction surveys for ideas on your product roadmap, the features and functionality of your offerings, and potential competitive advantages. If you listen to your customers and take their feedback under consideration, you are more likely to drive future customer satisfaction and, in turn, future growth.

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about MPS in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/mps
• REad more about KPI strategies in service @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/hs-search-results?term=KPIs
• Follow Laryssa Alexander on LinkedIn here. 
• Find out more about ECI here. 

Technology use in service is about attaining business needs, says Rohit Agarwal. In a world impacted by Corona Virus ensuring your tech fulfils its business case will become more prominent.
While technology is the walls, ceilings and decorations of the cathedral; the foundations that the cathedral stands on are the strategy, the people and the processes of the organisation. These three decide the entire stability of the cathedral and how well it can withstand the external forces. In this article, let’s take a dive at why understanding business needs and creating the right strategy around it is the first important milestone in any technology implementation.

How the Pandemic Drove Digital Transformation in Field Service

Covid-19 hit us hard, and by us I refer to humanity, a disruption of our daily life, economies, governmental policies and the rate of medical research. What has been one common theme of being able to the contain this deadly virus if one asks? ‘Technology’ would be one prompt answer that comes to our minds. Technology has helped us detect the virus, learn how it spreads and has allowed everyone globally to communicate about it. Technological progress and prowess seem to the definite answer to our biggest threats and challenges, but then, if I may ask, why is the country with the most technological prowess hit the hardest? The strategy to use the technology to attain defined goals or mitigate disasters is what separates a successful technology implementation from an arrow shot in the dark.

Let’s take the simplest example of Video Calling. The technology allows a grandmother and her grandchild to communicate in two distant continents seamlessly but there are thousands of video calling platforms such as messenger, WhatsApp and Skype to name a few. The reason these names come to our mind over the rest is simply because the way the technology has been implemented keeping the business needs of creating a simple intuitive platform that make it simple enough for an 8-year-old to an 80-year-old to use. The value of a Video Calling platform increases with the number of users or in technical terms ‘the installed base’. Whatsapp’s strategy has been to provide the platform free of charge to users to lure them to the platform and get them hooked on. The dozen employees of Whatsapp worked relentlessly on improving the simple platform to build users rather than trying to complicate the technology leading to an evaluation in billions when it was sold to Facebook.

 

"The failure for new technologies isn’t innovation in product or services, rather it is a missing business model in a space where customer needs are uncertain..."

 

If we narrow down to the modern corporate scenario, over the last five years we have seen technology evolve faster than our minds can keep up with it. IoT, Augmented and Virtual Reality, AI has been some of the biggest differentiators for corporations. The difference between one trying to use these technologies versus one that has been able to reap benefits out of it has been understanding the business needs, prioritising it and creating a formidable strategy around it without being blinded by all the great things that the technology could achieve. According to an article on Forbes, the failure for new technologies isn’t innovation in product or services, rather it is a missing business model in a space where customer needs are uncertain.

Let’s take Augmented Reality (AR) and see how a company could use it to improve their value proposition or just try to force the technology into practise. Acme(fictitious) is a small company in existence over the past 5 years and has been providing field service as a contractor with specialisation in packaging machines. Acme’s current business strategy is to expand its service base but cannot afford to hire very experienced technicians and the CTO believes in talent farming. Acme does a technology review to identify what kind of digital tools it can implement to upgrade its customer’s experience. The technology research shows that Augmented Reality could be used as a digital tool that would help new technicians get expert advice from the office. Instead of jumping straight into purchasing expensive AR glasses and software, the CEO, a big fan of the lean start-up methodology starts looking into building a strategy to slowly implement the technology in short loops involving the technicians and have the possibility to persevere if things go well or pivot if things go haywire. 

The CTO does an audit of the knowledge management of the company to see if relevant materials are available in easily accessible form for the back-office expert and the on-field technicians to use and it appears enough to run trials. Acme promotes its most experienced technician who is about to retire to a back-office expert role to guide the other technicians on the field. They use simple video calling with their smart phones and a tripod to keep the technicians’ hands free. Based on input from the usage, the knowledge repository is enhanced, and the feedback is taken from the technicians.

 

"The strategy, process and people are the bridge that connects the use of new technology to the upgrade in customer experience."

 

After the first 3 months, the depositories of knowledge are updated sufficiently, and the processes are set in place to allow for optimal use of the back-office experts time. After analysing the results from this time, the CTO and the CEO decide to hire 3 new technicians and assigns them to the back-office expert to oversee and guide. In parallel Acme partners up with an Augmented Services Solutions company to try the usage of Augmented glasses to run experiments on how the efficiency of the system can be further improved.

Acme manages to expand its service base, not waste money on technology without proof of value and attains its business goal. The key to Acme’s success is not the mere use of technology, but the focus on understanding business needs, creating a strategy towards these and incorporating technology along the way to attain these goals. The strategy, process and people are the bridge that connects the use of new technology to the upgrade in customer experience. In the digitalisation phase today, the ability to apply incremental changes, have a strategy that is flexible and possibility to get quick feedback has become the major differentiator for businesses. To be able to jump the chasm between new technology implementation and upgrading customer experience, organisations must build a solid bridge of strategy, processes and people.

 

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Further Reading: 

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital_transformation
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on Field Service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/en-gb/covid-19
• Read more articles by Rohit @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/rohit-agarwal
• Connect with Rohit on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/rohitag1/

In a turbulent automotive market Japanese manufacturing giant Nissan have had to take the hard path to find success writes Laura Anne Danaraj...

The automotive industry has been going through a state of disruption in recent years challenged by consumer-centric approaches, driving transformational changes and adopting new technologies.

With so many options available in the market, automakers need to stand out amidst economic, environmental, and emotional preferences. But how? At Field Service Asia, organized by WBR Singapore, we had the privilege to interview Jamie Morais, Head of Aftersales Dealer Operations, APAC, Nissan to learn more.

Full Cycle Service Management Across OEM, Dealer and Customer

Well, apart from doing what they do best - designing and manufacturing cars, automakers have realized the importance of giving a full spectrum of services to build brand loyalty. In the case of Nissan, the Japanese automaker is working hand-in-hand with an authorized network of dealers from different countries as their partners, seeing them as an integral part of their ecosystem.

“They (dealers) are the ones who take care of the cars for the customer," Morais explained. "Therefore, what we do from our side is to come up with policies and strategies that focus on enhancing customer experience and customer’s journey. We then work with the dealers to ensure that the kind of service delivered to the customer is accomplished.”

As such, when automakers and dealers form a collaborative partnership, customer retention improves, brand loyalty is achieved and customer engagement process is standardized. This in turn influences the overall market share gained.

However, some relationships have often been fraught with friction, as automakers appear to be occupying the passenger seat, with dealers engaging with the customers directly. How then does Nissan manage expectations and delight customers in this situation?

“Well, it’s only a challenge if you don’t put yourself in your customer’s shoes." Morais continued, "If you do put yourself in your customer’s shoes, thinking from a customer’s point of view, it becomes a delight. If you can achieve or exceed you customer’s expectation, you are already building loyalty. Our focus now is customer retention, in order to build what we call a ‘family’ of Nissan owners.”

"To minimize disruption, predictive maintenance can be performed while equipment is operating..."

Since dealers manage customer relationships, they are in the best position to build trust and personalize experience, thus, seen as enabler rather than a hindrance, a partner rather than a competitor. For Nissan, getting the buy-in of the dealers to deploy their strategies is a priority. When both manufacturer and dealer have the same goal, training and development is next to ensure that what the frontliner is saying and acting are according to the designed strategy.

And one of the strategies include embracing technology to satisfy customers, which as we all know influences the customer’s perception of the brand, and decision to buy. What kind of projects involving technology did Nissan have in place for their customers then?

“We are working on this project for ‘last mile, first mile’." Morais responded. "After you buy a car, you would then need servicing. The question is when. So instead of waiting for the customer to call you for servicing, why not call the customer instead. You are predicting when the car is going to need servicing. And, this requires technology. For us (Nissan) to be able to communicate with the car – like an indication when it needs servicing, the car should inform us of its problem first.”

To minimize disruption, predictive maintenance can be performed while equipment is operating. The transition from a reactive to a predictive mindset enables automakers to respond to the warning indication the moment it is received. Going the extra mile to provide high quality aftersales, enables manufacturers to reinforce their ties with their customers through a satisfying experience.

"Automakers should adapt to their customer’s preferred communication channel..."

Nissan is also going digital when it comes to customer interaction. With the prevalence and ease of mobile phones and tablets, Morais believes customers are after non-verbal communication these days. Looking at how customers currently interact with them, service appointment and engagement process are done without opening their mouth, but all in the palm of their hand. And with this, automakers should adapt to their customer’s preferred communication channel to make information readily available through these commonly used platforms.

“When they come in for a service, actually coming in and bringing the car to us, we try to make the process more convenient, making sure that the time that they come in to the time they go out is the shortest possible, with least disruption to their regular routine,” he said.

Convenience is key in fueling high quality aftersales; and should be infused into every single customer experience. Automotive industry is no exception when it comes to dealing with the ramifications of customer’s expectations. These expectations have a profound effect on brand loyalty, and are crucial in firming up purchasing decisions. No longer separated by dealers, automakers have to collaborate with them in bringing the brand closer to their customers. 

Finishing, Morais shared the benefits of attending Field Service Asia, how it gives him the chance to not only discover the latest technology in the market at present, especially when it comes to aftersales service, but also engage with like-minded people.

 

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If you want to learn more about digital transformation in your business or on how to engage with your customers, then make sure you attend Field Service & B2B CX Asia . 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about digital transformation in field service @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital_transformation
• Read more about Customer Satisfaction @ www.fieldservicenews.com/Customer_Satisfaction
• Read more articles from Laura @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/laura-danaraj
• Find out more about Field Service Asia @ fieldserviceasia.wbresearch.com
• Follow Laura and the Field Service Asia TeaM on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/fieldserviceap

The chaos that we all found ourselves thrown into during the global pandemic has meant a lot of introspection from both a personal and corporate perspective for all of us. Yet as we move forwards into the new realities of a post-Covid-19 world Nick Frank outlines where we can find the resilience to not only rebuild, but improve...

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Organisational Resilience: "The ability to survive a crisis and thrive in a world of uncertainty. Resilience is a strategic capability. It isn't just about getting through crises. A truly resilient organisation has two other important capabilities - the foresight and situation awareness to prevent potential crises emerging, and an ability to turn crises into a source of strategic opportunity."

Source: www.resorgs.org.nz

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If there is one thing that we will learn from the current Coronavirus chaos, is that it is resilient people and organisations who survive and thrive! Technology, infrastructure and education can help. But it is the determination of people to do the right thing and not be afraid of adversity that sees families, companies and nations through tough times.

After the fire fighting will come the rebuilding, where Service Leaders will have to decide the future shape of their organisations in a challenging world. Not only will they have to contend with meeting pent-up demand with depleted resources, the challenges of digital disruption and climate change will not have gone away. Companies' survival will depend on how well they can adapt and evolve in a world even more economically constrained. I believe developing personal and organisational resilience will be the key to developing processes, technologies and ways of working that will enable us to overcome the significant obstacles in our path. As I sit in ‘home isolation’ with my family, I can feel a mix of emotions. On one hand fear and confusion. On the other determination and love. These are amplified by the news, social media and radio reports where we see memes on toilet role or rants on social distancing, as well as the odd grand patriotic political speech.

Service Management's GREATEST Challenge

I find myself asking, what do I need to do to move through this? It is certainly not to give in to fear, which is there in some shape or form in all of us. It is more to focus on the what we can do, what we can control, what we can influence. The good news is that these are all aspects of our personality and the mindset we nurture for ourselves. Indeed, this ‘growth’ mindset comes way before we think about technology, processes or even organisation.

Maybe test this assertion for yourself by thinking back to a challenging time you have faced. What got you through it and most importantly what did you learn? For myself this was the birth of our second child. My wife had a very complicated pregnancy with early contractions, which resulted in us going to A&E on multiple occasions, driving to hospital, not knowing whether our baby was alive or dead.

"I would suggest that now is the perfect time to build resilience in ourselves and our organisations..."

My biggest learnings were to be able to live in the moment, acknowledge the fear then move forward, take one step at a time, to focus on what we could control, and not all the other stuff. We were lucky that it was a happy ending, that on reflection helped us to become more resilient and able to handle adversity.

Back to the present days question, “Where do we go from here?”

I would suggest that now is the perfect time to build resilience in ourselves and our organisations, as we move into what hopefully will be more fruitful times. It starts with leaders who recognise that their people are key to current and future profitability. Those who have let fear enter their hearts and pre-maturely downsized their teams to fit the perceived economic reality, will lose the trust of their employees. Their road to resilience will probably be longer and harder than those that retain the goodwill. Indeed, research shows that organisations that survive and flourish after hardship are those that have a committed and motivated staff.

"Build resilience in your people, and the resilience of your technology, processes and organisation will evolve as well..."

The benefits are not just people and organisations who are faster to adapt to changing circumstances, there is a solid economic rational as well. Studies such as this one from PWC in 2014 show “initiatives and programs that fostered a resilient and mentally healthy workplace returned $2.30 for every dollar spent — with the return coming in the form of lower health care costs, higher productivity, lower absenteeism and decreased turnover”. So, resilience does pay!

As we live through the COVID crisis and start to come out the other end, we have a great opportunity to build resilience into ourselves and our organisations. There are many models for individual & organisational resilience, but from a Service Leaders perspective, there are three key messages I would recommend to focus on:

• Self-Belief
• Focusing on solutions
• Always Learning
  
  

Self-Belief

If you or your organisation do not have a strong sense of purpose, then whatever models or philosophies you choose to follow are unlikely to succeed. At a leadership level this means being able to truly role model the values that most modern organisations espouse such as respect, integrity and accountability. Teams respond to how they see their leaders communicate and demonstrate these values and behaviours. But good values are only part of the story.

People need to understand that the organisation has a clear direction so that they can readily identify with its “Purpose” and “Culture”. If all these messages are coherent, then self-belief will grow and flourish. Perhaps one of the simplest actions you can take is to practice the art of delegation. The more people can influence the what and how of their jobs, the more they are engaged, own and believe in what they can do.

Focusing on Solutions

People and companies who can focus on solutions are constantly moving forward. These are people who can recognise and articulate problems, but do not dwell on who to blame for a situation, but rather how to move forward and solve the challenges. Build this into all your communications.

"The huge customer problems that your teams have faced means that they must have focused on finding new ways to operate and deliver to customers..."

Emphasising this step by step approach towards the goal, encourage appropriate risk taking and reward teams for finding solutions. Encourage collective responsibility but hold individuals to account. You will know your organisation is moving in the right direction when you hear your people using the phrase “Yes, And….” rather than, “Yes, But”.

Always Learning 

The organisations most likely to adopt new ways of doing things or those where learning and change is embedded into the way of life. These are the organisations where people seem to have new roles every 3-4 years. Although too much change can be disruptive, it is a very good indicator of how good an organisation is at taking on and running with new ideas. We have heard many service managers talking about how they have had crash courses in remote diagnostics or augmented reality technologies.

What an opportunity to learn! To build on these experiences, make sure you re-iterate the importance of always reviewing lessons learned? Indeed, the recurring themes from companies that demonstrate resilience are: Communicate, Communicate, Talk, Listen, Take Action and Communicate again!

These three behaviours allow us to face reality in the present, pulling on past experiences and others to find the best solutions. Whether they are applied in personal situations such as a difficult pregnancy, or in our professional lives, there is always an opportunity to grow. In the current crisis, all business people I have spoken to have had these three fundamental beliefs well a truly shaken. Just surviving should show the importance of self-belief in overcoming adversity.

The huge customer problems that your teams have faced means that they must have focused on finding new ways to operate and deliver to customers. I would be very surprised if your people have not got some learnings and ideas out of these experiences. If you can now build on these three behaviours, then the challenges of digital disruption and global warming may be transformed from threat to opportunity!

 

If you would like to know more about how to take your team on this journey, then contact Nick at nick.frank@si2partners.com 

 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about resilient organisations @ www.resorgs.org.nz/about-resorgs/what-is-organisational-resilience/
• Read more about building personal resilience in the workplace @ hbr.org/2016/06/627-building-resilience-ic-5-ways-to-build-your-personal-resilience-at-work
• Read more about the The Ken Ginsberg's 7 Cs @ - www.portlandpediatric.com/console//page-images/files/building-resilience/All%20Ages/Seven%20Cs.pdf
• Read more about the impact of Covid-19 on the field service sector @ www.fieldservicenews.com/covid-19
• Read more of Nick's articles for Field Service News @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/author/nick-frank
• Read more about Nick's work with Si2 Partners @ si2partners.com
• Follow Nick's work on Twitter @ twitter.com/si2partners
• Connect with Nick on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/nick-frank-2756a51

Organisation create online interactive safety courses for remote workers.

The British Safety Council have developed and launched a series of interactive online courses for remote workers looking to continue their health, safety and environmental learning during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Same Tutors

'Live-Online' allows students to connect remotely to the courses using a PC, laptop or tablet and interact with the same tutors who deliver the British Safety Council's face-to-face teaching.

The enhanced modules were developed following student feedback to an original suite of learning delivered at the start of the pandemic. Mike Robinson, the British Safety Council's Chief Executive explained how the comments influenced their decision to make the modules interactive with real-time tutor assistance.

“At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis the British Safety Council launched a series of free online resources to help employers and employees adapt to new ways of working and the feedback we received has been very positive." he said. "Live Online now takes that one step further, for people that want structured support from a tutor without having to be in a classroom."

Professor Tim Baines of Aston University, looks back across his personal 30 year journey with servitization whilst looking forward to an industry defining event in the servitization space taking place in Birmingham later this year…

My first article on servitization was published in the late 1990s. Of course, we didn’t call it servitization then, rather the article talked about something called Total Service Manufacture. I didn’t think of it as anything special, I was simply trying to understand different competitive strategies that manufacturers might adopt - at that time Western manufacturers were being bombarded with outsourcing and offshoring ‘no brainer’ advice. ‘Do services’ was my reaction!

Focus on Services

Reflecting on the past 20 years, it is interesting to see how this focus on services has grown. Take the term servitization; first it was a case of ‘what is this word’, then ‘how do you spell it’, moving to ‘we do it already’, and now ‘this could help, tell me more’. Each stage in our evolution of understanding servitization brought with it its own challenges, and bizarrely we are now perhaps in the most dangerous phase. 

Manufacturing businesses are recognising that servitization is a valuable phenomenon, and those that sell technologies and services to this industry are asking how they can get on the bandwagon. We now see re-branding and re-styling everywhere. Companies that used to sell technology and systems that enable efficient spare part delivery to field service engineers, are now promoting themselves as ‘partners on your servitization journey’. Yet in practice, nothing has changed in what they offer. It happened with Lean and it’s happening now with servitization. Pollution is all around us! 

So where do you look now for real thought leadership? Well, I am biased, but I’ve dedicated my working life to what I believe in, and that is the university system. You see, a fundamental role of a Business School is to educate business.

This education is based on research, evidence and logic, and a translation of the broad body of science into digestible and reliable chunks of knowledge. This is what we do at Aston for servitization and advanced services, and we have a duty to be custodians of these concepts. What we need to do right now, is to overcome the pollution and ensure that industry is set on a reliable and informed understanding of servitization.

 

"The World Servitization Convention has been designed to raise awareness and the adoption of servitization and advanced services..."

 

This is why we have created the World Servitization Convention. This convention will be different to every field service conference or trade show you might consider attending this year. Firstly, it is coupled with the Spring Servitization Conference – the established research conference for the international academic community. Secondly, it has a series of industry keynotes and panel sessions from true industry leaders in this space – Thales, Rolls-Royce, Baxi, Goodyear, Alstom, Legrand, Domino, Mazak, etc. And we have an equally impressive range of small businesses – KoolMill, AE Aerospace, UV Light, CHH ConeX. 

Thirdly, the is the exhibition where over 20 manufacturers are sharing (not selling!) what they do in this space: Heat-as-a-service, Health-as-a-service, Mobility-as-a-service. Not just talking about servitization, but demonstrating what this looks like in practice. Finally, the convention is covering a comprehensive range of topics: from service strategy to finance, and digital technologies to business model innovation. A true one-stop-shop.

The World Servitization Convention has been designed to raise awareness and the adoption of servitization and advanced services. It is targeted at the owners, executives and senior management of manufacturing, engineering and technology businesses. This is a not-for-profit event hosted by the Advanced Services Group (ASG) at the Aston Business School.

This event is funded in part by a carefully selected group of four partners; IFS, DLL, Blueprint AMS and Servitly. Just like our manufacturing exhibitors, these sponsors are genuine thought leaders in this space and have worked closely with the Aston team to ensure the event fulfils its objective.

So, all you need to know about servitization will be in one place in September.

The World Servitization Convention brings together the global community of leading servitization researchers and business executives to advance their servitization strategies, experience demonstrations of the technologies enabling advanced services and transform the future of manufacturing. This three day convention in Birmingham, UK really is intended to move you forwards on your servitization journey; delivering a true outcome rather than just selling you things!

 

To find out more about the event  and to register, please visit www.advancedservicesgroup.co.uk/wsc2020

Jan Van Veen, founder of moreMomentum, outlines a crucial approach he has been developing within his peer-sharing community to help service organisations grow through innovation and diversification...

Manufacturers with a narrow innovation focus miss many opportunities, see more innovations fail, often see that competitors do exactly the same thing and struggle to turn their innovations into growing revenues and margins.

Leading and successful manufacturers cover a much wider scope of innovations than those that stagnate and fall behind competition. They actively search for opportunities to improve the value they promise their clients, how they deliver the value and how they capture part of the value. 

They find and launch more innovations for growth. Sounds like a good recipe, doesn’t it?

The problem: Too narrow innovation

Many manufacturers have a too narrow focus on their innovations. Their dominant focus is on improving features and functionality of the products they sell. An increasing portion of the manufacturers also improve their services, but are still focusing on break-fix and maintenance services.

There are major disadvantages of the narrow innovation focus:

• Companies miss many opportunities to better serve their clients and grow their business;
• Most innovations are not a complete solution, miss crucial aspects and therefore fail;
• If clients do appreciate the new value, they often have the buying power to benefit from this new value without paying more for it;
• For competitors it is easy to recognise the innovations and do exactly the same (or better), hence, commoditise the new capabilities and value even before the investment is earned back.

As a result, they not only fall behind competition. In today’s rapidly changing industries, they ultimately run the risk of be pushed down the “food chain”, stagnate or even become obsolete. This is pretty frustrating, but does not have to be like that.

How Many Manufacturers Struggle to Grow with IoT

A common struggle is to drive growth and monetise new remote capabilities.  Most manufacturers focus predominately on predictive maintenance, remote diagnostics and remote resolution. The aim is to increase the value they offer to clients by improving uptime of their equipment and the resolution time if a failure occurs.

They encounter the following typical challenges:

• Uptime is already quite high, so there is not much room for improving the value for clients. If uptime is already 95%, how much value will it bring your client to increase uptime to 96-97%?
• Clients recognize that you will be able to deliver maintenance services at a lower cost, so they may actually expect to pay less, not more. 
• Competitors are working on exactly the same, so there is no opportunity to differentiate
• Clients fear a myriad of IoT networks, platforms and having their data flow to external parties. Every brand and manufacturer they work with is asking for the same.
• Clients start looking for a common infrastructure and services from neutral service providers.

As a result, manufacturers invest a lot, see little value coming in return and see a declining interest for business innovation from senior stakeholders in their company.

Solution: Search along 21 innovation tracks

Leading and innovative manufacturers have a pretty broad range of areas in which they innovate for growth. They are more open to new domains, new business models and new perspectives which enables them to adapt and thrive in rapidly changing industries.

In our research, we have identified 21 innovation tracks for growth, spread over 3 clusters. You can thrive in today’s disruptive world and achieve sustainable growth by widening your scope of innovation along these 21 tracks and by making strong and coherent combinations in each innovation.

Just like the leading innovators, make it a habit to embed these 21 tracks firmly in your innovation strategy:

• Actively search for growth opportunities
• Along 21 innovation tracks
• And enrich each innovation idea by combining a few innovation tracks.
  
  

If you want a more in-depth description of the 21 innovation tracks, you can download the Job-aid 21 innovation tracks to thrive during disruption. This includes a description of the innovation tracks and a template assessment sheet to assess your current portfolio of innovation projects and ideas.

The three clusters of the 21 tracks are;

1. The value you promise to clients

Which problems or needs do you solve for which customer segments? Your growth opportunities are in solving more or other problems of your existing clients and expanding the market you serve. Alternatively, instead of expanding on scope and market, you could also specialise more in a specific niche of customer segments and needs and become the market leader in that niche. This cluster of innovation tracks also includes developing your brand to better articulate and expose the value you provide.  

2. How you deliver the value

Which activities and capabilities do you need to deliver the promised value to your clients? Your growth opportunities are in building and improving the capabilities to deliver the value in an effective, efficient and consistent way, so clients get and see the value.

3. How you capture part of the value

Which portion of the value you create and deliver do you capture? So how and how much are you being paid for the value you deliver? This involves your pricing model, earnings model and your position in the value chain. Successful and innovative companies always have these three clusters – value.

A few examples of how the various tracks are embedded in their strategy;

• There was a latent need of easy availability of tools and information and easy access to music (track 1). A lot was already available for the techies, but not for the mass market until Apple made this easy and readily available (track 2).
• Various manufacturers have offered something similar before, but Apple made it a commercial success by learning from the previous attempts of others what was needed for success (track 8)
• Apple developed an ecosystem of products and services with seamless integration as well as the Appstore (track 7). Other app-developers can offer their apps in the Appstore as well (track 15), but have to comply with Apple’s requirements. They also need to pay part of their license fees to Apple (track 19). As the app-builders are replaceable and the Apple eco-system is not, Apple can afford to ask pretty significant fees (track 21 and 18).
• Apple’s brands is far beyond “great products”. It is much more about lifestyle, ease, fashion and desire (track 11 and 12).

Back To Iot – The Opportunity

Once you have the sensors in your equipment, the infrastructure for connectivity and data and the capabilities to turn data into valuable insights, there are many opportunities to enrich your innovations and business model and hence dramatically improve the potential for your clients and your own business. To mention only a few:

• Your clients are on a journey of becoming more digital and data driven in many of their processes. This is a challenge with many unknown domains, unanswered questions and uncertainties.
• How can you identify these new needs (track 1) and reduce the complexity and uncertainty for your clients (track 2)?
• With the data and intelligence you develop on the back of these data, you can help your clients to reduce usage of energy and materials, improve efficiency and productivity, develop their products and shift their core business (track 6).
• This could start with assessment and benchmarking services, evolve in consulting and training services and further grow into business outsourcing services.
• For example, Fresenius does not only sell the instruments for kidney dialyses, but also runs entire kidney dialyses departments in hospitals, including the staff treating the patients.
• Part of this journey is also advancing your brand from being a product manufacturer to a solutions provider and being known for what problems you solve. (track 11 and 12).
• For example, Caterpillar helps clients achieve operational excellence through advanced services covering asset management, project planning, fuel consumption etcetera.
• Particularly for component manufacturers, you have the opportunity to develop unique intellectual property with which you can improve the overall performance of bigger systems of OEM’s. This will make you less replaceable and increase your ability to secure your margins from the OEM (track 21 and 18) – like Intel Inside. 
• Maybe you can even do business with the end-client buying assets from the OEM (track 19). An example is how Rolls Royce does not sell its airplane engines to the airplane builders (OEMs) but to the users of the airplanes.
• For most innovations, you will need to develop new capabilities, processes, competencies and tools to deliver these new values in an efficient way (track 14).
• As your business becomes more focussed on outcome and starts building more recurring revenues, you will need to develop your sales model as well (track 20), with more emphasis on onboarding, driving and demonstrating customer success, improving customer life time value and step-by-step growing the business with your clients by upselling and cross-selling.

 

Conclusion

For sustainable success in today’s rapidly changing world, there is no single silver bullet. A great product or great service will not bring much value. To thrive in these disruptive times, you need diversity in your business innovation with initiatives in different innovation tracks as well as initiatives with a rich and coherent set of innovation tracks. That way, you will launch innovations which:

• Provide clients a complete, remarkable and desirable solution
• Are hard to replace by other actors in the value chain, like OEM’s or system integrators
• Cannot be easily copied by competitors
• Your clients will love to pay for

If you want to take your business innovation to the next level, I would like to recommend you and your team to;

1. Assess your portfolio of innovation projects along the 21 innovation tracks. How well are the 21 tracks covered?
2. Enrich each innovation idea and project by adding a few more innovation tracks to it.

Feel free to use our job-aid “21 innovation tracks to thrive during disruption”. You can download it here. 

It contains:

• A description of each innovation track with some examples
• An excel sheet to map each innovation to the 21 innovation tracks and get an insightful graphical picture of how diverse your innovation is
• Slides you can use to brainstorm with your teams to enrich your innovation projects.

Good Luck!

 

 

 

Jim Baston, Principal Consultant at BBA Consulting asks if there really is a difference between selling to and serving out customers if the approach taken is both moral and methodical?

How do you view the efforts of your field service team when they make proactive recommendations to your customers to purchase products or services?  Do you view these activities as “selling” or “serving”?  How you answer this question will have a significant impact on the results of their efforts.

 

Perspective

Most service managers that I talk to tend to speak about the product and service recommendations by their field service teams in selling terms.  It is interesting to note that most of these service managers say they are disappointed with the results of their initiative. I suggest that a major cause of their lack of success is because of the self-limiting nature of their perspective.  Here are the five reasons why a “selling” perspective can significantly limit our success.

Opportunistic/Short-term Focus. 

When the proactive recommendations made by our field service team are seen as selling they become “add-on” activities and we tend to see them from an opportunistic perspective.  “While you’re there have a look for other things that we can sell to that customer.”  We miss the opportunity to see the service value in the activity and include it into our overall service strategy.

Skills Development is Focused on Selling. 

When we view the activity by our field team as selling in nature, then it is natural to look to sales training to upgrade their skills to handle the new expectations.  Although these are important skills and can be helpful in many cases, they aren’t the only skills or even the most important.  The field service professional’s ability to build trust and maintain credibility is more important. 

Our customers will not act on a recommendation if they don’t trust the field engineer, regardless of how skilled the field engineer is in selling.  And, unfortunately, if we simply teach our field service team to sell, they may come across more like salespeople and actually diminish the amount of trust they have with their customers.

The Field Team Does Not See Themselves as “Salespeople”

Most field service professionals that I have met do not see themselves as salespeople.  Many actually resent the term being applied to them.  If they do not see themselves as salespeople, how do they react when we ask them to “sell”?  Chances are they will feel that the request is outside of their core responsibilities and will either fail to act as requested or only do so “if they have time”.

Measurement is Limited to Selling Activities. 

When we regard the field team’s role as selling, then we will tend to limit our measurement of the success of the initiative to factors such as overall revenues, small project work vs. contract base, number of proposals by field engineer, etc. Although it is prudent to measure these things, this limited focus may cause us to miss key measures that will impact our long-term success – for example, customer satisfaction and customer attitudes.  Measuring only sales related activities may also cause us to reward behaviours that encourage unnecessary “selling” activities that may also erode trust.

Difficult to Promote as a Differentiating Service. 

Many service companies that view the field service team’s proactive efforts as “selling” fail to capture and communicate the value of this activity to their customers. These firms typically don’t mention to their customers that they are encouraging their field team to look for more opportunities. After all, how do you communicate the value from the customers’ perspective of the fact that your field engineers are actively looking for more ways to make more money from them?

Let’s go back to the question I asked earlier: How do you view the efforts of your field service team when they make proactive recommendations to your customers to purchase products or services? Here are some questions to help you evaluate your own perspective. Do you:

• Replace the words “selling” and “sales” with the words “serving” and “service” in your discussion of the proactive efforts of your field service team?
• Position your field team’s proactive efforts as a service and ensure that each member clearly understand that their efforts are an integral part of the service that they provide and why?
• Use your tools and employ processes and systems to support the field team’s proactive efforts in the same way that you have tools and systems to support the other services that they provide?
• Talk about work generated by the field on how it serves the needs of the customer (rather than how much revenue it has generated for the company)?
• Talk to your customers about the proactive efforts of your field service professionals and how it benefits them?
• Ask your customers about their level of satisfaction about the value of the recommendations they have been provided by your field service team?
• If you answered “no” to two or more of the questions, perhaps a little more self-reflection is in order.

Engaging the field service team in promoting products and services can provide a valuable service for our customers and create a significant and sustainable competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive service market.  We may be limiting our own success however, if we perceive these activities as selling rather than serving.