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Lucy Davies, a field service recruitment specialist with Concept Resourcing explores the challenges of attracting talent in the field service industry...

If you’ve ever been tasked to recruit experienced engineers, you’ll know how difficult it can be to find the perfect candidate.

Experience, remuneration and loyalty are all barriers that businesses encounter time and time again in the hiring process.

Companies are constantly struggling to strike the right balance between sourcing an experienced candidate with specific qualifications, versus hiring a younger engineer with less experience; but with huge potential to learn their trade and mould to the business needs.

With demand for field engineers at a constant high, what should businesses be doing to attract an effective team?

Working together

There’s obviously pros and cons to hiring from each candidate pool, a lot of companies want employees who’re fully skilled and can hit the ground running.

Unfortunately, for some industries this does rule out a lot of the younger workforce.

 

Take commercial catering, a lot of roles now require individuals to hold valid COMCAT tickets; unfortunately, the majority of candidates in the industry progress to catering after serving anything between 10-20 years servicing white goods.

Therefore, by the time a candidate has sufficient knowledge and experience in the catering sector, they’re often approaching the latter end of their career.

So what’s the answer?

There’s no reason why businesses can’t look at creating a balanced workforce with a mix of experienced and younger employees.

On-the-job training is where a lot of engineers hone their skills, therefore creating an environment for candidates from both ends of the spectrum to work together and learn from one another is a great way to get a diverse and effective team.

Brand and benefits

In recent years the trend to ‘job-hop’ has emerged amongst younger generations and millennials.

While 30 years ago a lot of employees would find themselves in a role with a company that they stayed with for the majority of their careers; these days once training is complete it’s not unheard of for people to move businesses every 2-3 years.

Whether it’s due to working environment, pay or career progression, it’s a trend that’s increasingly frustrating for businesses who’re investing time and money into training their team.

To combat this trend, it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to create an enjoyable and sustainable working environment with great employee benefits to not only attract talent but retain it too.

 

Courting a candidate

The drop in apprenticeships in recent years has meant that there’s a real shortage of skilled field, therefore attracting quality candidates is paramount to any business.

Without a steady flow of trained engineers, recruiters have two candidate pools to target, those experienced candidates who’ve been in work for many years and those relatively new to the industry.

 

Attracting both pools of talent requires two completely different strategies.

With the advent of social media and 24/7 online access, a lot of younger engineers are looking to internet to search for work and will actively seek new opportunities through LinkedIn and Twitter as well as uploading their CVs to a wide range of job boards.

For the more experienced candidates, recruiters can’t rely on internet applications alone and need to run head-hunt campaigns while building relationships with candidates to attract the best talent to their businesses.

Strategic support

There’s no doubt that the challenges facing recruiters in the market will continue for many years.

As a result, businesses need to consider the commitment and training they provide to their employees to ensure they remain within their business and help keep the industry alive with experienced, quality engineers.

If more companies can continue to invest in cross-training engineers from similar sectors and buddy less experienced individuals with knowledgeable mentors then it’ll not only mean that there’s more quality engineers in the market, but it’ll allow businesses to shape their teams, ensuring they breed the right skills, attitude and work ethic into its workforce, ultimately delivering a better service to its clients.

 

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Field service engineers are the unsung heroes that keep our world moving writes Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM...

In most cases, the customer relies heavily on its business systems and equipment and, in turn, your customer contact will rely heavily on your field technicians – personally – to make sure that the equipment is always up-and-running as expected.

In fact, you can safely assume that the customer is not nearly as interested in the technical nature of the equipment as it is in the solution it provides for his or her tasks-at-hand – that is, namely, performing the tasks, functions and operations that it is relied upon to keep the business up-and-running – with as little downtime as possible, and with no disruption to ongoing business processes.

As such, it is important to recognise that, in the customer’s mind, if the equipment is not working optimally – regardless of the technology that may have been built into it – it is “worthless”.

There is just so much that the customer itself will either be inclined – or permitted – to do in order to get the equipment back in working order following a failure. In most cases, the field technician will be the sole entity that the customer will be able to count on to make that happen – and this should deservedly carry along with it a great deal of responsibility and accountability. Just to put things in perspective, think of the case where a customer uses an ATM machine to withdraw cash – virtually anywhere, or anytime of day.

When the machine is down, they generally do not care whether it is due to a hardware failure, a software glitch, a network problem, or simply that it’s out of cash or paper tape for the receipt. All they know is that they needed cash, and the machine couldn’t deliver. Regardless of the specific reason, there was a failure, and the failure was duly noted in their minds. The same situation also occurs in the office environment, where the customer is also a “consumer” of your company’s products and services.

 

Customers will typically not care whether the reason their copy machine went down was due to a hardware or software failure, a paper jam, or anything else – or whether the cause was the machine’s fault, their fault, or nobody’s fault in particular. Again, all they know is that they needed to make a copy, and the machine didn’t work. That’s where the services provider comes into the picture.

And, based on how your field technicians enter the frame, you can either be perceived as a “knight in shining armour” – or as a part of the problem – depending on how you have been able to position yourself in the minds of your customers throughout the course of your relationship – i.e., Customer Relationship Management, or  CRM.

For example, if you have continually shown your customers that they can depend on your technicians to support both them and their equipment – and that you always have their best interests in mind – then, you will have established a type of bond that suggests that you are working as their “partner” to keep their systems up and running.

However, if you have consistently given them the impression that you do not have their best interests in mind – because your technicians have been repeatedly arriving late at their site, at the last minute, or that they always have a “lame” excuse for why the equipment failed again – then you will have positioned yourself outside of any real partner relationship, and have staked out, instead, a position on the “them” side of the “us vs. them” equation.

 

Remember, in the customer’s mind, it is generally the totality of the value that the equipment provides that is most important – not just the technology, nor the reliability of the equipment, nor the service level agreement that provides ongoing support coverage.

Customers continually look at any and all aspects relating to the systems and equipment they use, and their respective applications and functionality.

And your organisation’s field technicians typically represent the only “real” physical manifestations of the service and support that keeps it up and running.

Customers may rely heavily on their systems and equipment to support their day-to-day business operations – but they rely on you even more to ensure that the equipment can continually do what it is supposed to do.

 

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Marina Stedman, ClickSoftware begins a two part feature in which she looks at the multi-faceted challenges field service managers and supervisors face and a key philosophy in how to best serve customers...

Field service managers and supervisors do not have easy jobs.

They’re trainers, mentors, time keepers, and job shufflers. They must have stellar communication, interpersonal and operational skills – all on top of being the first point of call for many escalations.

Basically – field service companies demand a lot from their field managers.

Of all the demands made on them, the trickiest obstacle they face in performing their jobs well is balancing the ever present tensions between their in-office tasks and field work.

How do they get both aspects of their complicated job done without consuming huge amounts of time and energy, while still giving their roles due attention?

Mobile technology seems to be answer. Yet we don’t see the introduction of mobile technology reducing the obstacles that field supervisors face in meeting traditional expectations of operational efficiency.

 

Instead, use of mobile devices has increased everyone’s expectations and standards of quality customer service and how much value a well-run field technician team adds to the bottom line.

The client SLAs are becoming more demanding and internal stakeholders require more aggressive cost management of field technician labour.

The fact is – arming field supervisors and their technicians with mobile devices that connect them to each other whilst in the field, as well as back to the home office, does offer the potential for field supervisors to manage their teams more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The key words here are “offer the potential.”

Without the right approach in implementing the mobile tools and work processes, providing mobile communication will only add another layer of complexity and frustration to field operations. Field supervisors work too hard to deserve that.

Using mobile to make field supervisors’ lives better – not more complicated Our philosophy centres on helping service organisations answer five questions – the Five Ws of Field Service, in order to best serve their customers.

This approach can help field supervisors to use mobile to excel at their jobs and give their field technicians the full support they need to serve your company’s customers.

Think of it as trickle-down customer service.

W#1: Who does What?

In the traditional customer service framework, this first question serves to clarify exactly which field technicians are qualified to do which tasks.

Scheduling a service appointment for a customer that can and sending a field technician who doesn’t have the technical qualifications to complete the work needed makes everyone unhappy.

The field technician can’t do the job and the customer doesn’t have their problem resolved.

Everything’s come to a standstill.

For field supervisors, the volume of office and field tasks they need to master and execute can create a similar bottleneck to getting things done.

 

In addition to the tension between back-office and field tasks, the field supervisor also has to allocate attention between big picture tasks and minutiae.

Correctly prioritising tasks determines the “What” they should be doing in any given moment. Their scheduling system needs to easily and accurately serve up the information they need – no matter where they are – to make the right decisions in prioritising attention.

This is where the real-time, mobile updates are so critical.

For example: Mobile helps the field supervisor conduct back-end tasks while in the field. They get a holiday request from a field technician while sitting in the car, just as they have finished updating another field technician’s performance record (while parked, of course!).

They can look through that technician’s holiday usage and upcoming volume of demand to decide if they should approve the request.

But before they begin that review, the mobile alert system pushes out a notification that a customer service appointment scheduled for later that day is in jeopardy because the field technician currently assigned to has spent more time than scheduled at his current appointment.

With mobile technology, none of these new actions need to be postponed until the field supervisor is back in the office.

Supervisors can easily prioritise resolving the risk to today’s service appointment from a ‘phone by finding another field technician who’s qualified and available to take care of the upcoming appointment on schedule.

They can then follow up with the delayed field technician to find out what’s going on. Once all is resolved, they can turn their attention back to the holiday request all while out in the field.

 

In short, an effective mobile system gives field supervisors the freedom and flexibility to complete all of their responsibilities.

In the concluding part of this feature I’ll explain what the remaining 4 W’s are and their importance in field service.

 

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The field service industry is changing rapidly, Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Frank Partners looks at how we can benefit most from the rapidly developing tools and strategies becoming available...

If 2015 was the year that IoT & Analytics became mainstream business terminology, then perhaps in 2016 leaders will focus more on how to use these capabilities to gain competitive advantage and growth.

Although some serious use cases are now emerging from industrial companies, most CEO’s and directors I meet are still asking the question:

‘How do we develop the opportunity?’

Perhaps one reason that most companies are struggling with this question is that despite what business leaders say about being ‘customer focused’, the sad fact is that often they only concentrate on ‘customer needs’.

This is generally what the customer tells them about their requirements at the interface between the product and the customer; in other words quite superficial.

 

Customer insight goes much deeper and explores how customers and potentially their customer make money.

By applying Service Thinking, companies can understand where the profit pools and opportunities lie within the ecosystem of stakeholders that make up the Industry Supply Chain.

With this insight, they can develop product, services and technologies that can drive growth.

So as you ponder how to move forward in what are unsettling times, you might consider these six strategies to maximise the value of your businesses knowhow:

1. Understand the Value Iceberg

If you look at the total cost of offering an industrial solution, you will find that the product element only directly makes up between 5% and 30%.

It is a bit like an iceberg.

Above the waterline it is possible to clearly identify the costs that are directly associated with the product itself. Below the waterline there will be hidden costs associated with the solution. Some can be allocated to the production process such as maintenance, people raw material, energy, assembly, down time, warranty etc.

Moving deeper into the iceberg there are costs that can be allocated as ‘production overhead’ such as purchasing, logistics, engineering, quality, implementation support, legal compliance and management overhead. Here are also found costs that are associated with the lifecycle of the solution such as field & technical service, parts, account management and financing. Then in the depths there are far more intangible costs of risk & uncertainty that significantly influence the decision making process of managers.

This Value Iceberg concept applies to nearly all product and technology based businesses, but its composition is very specific to the industry and customer context. Understanding it can help answer the question; ‘Where do my customers capture value and how can we use our know-how to help them grow revenue and profit?’ The most profitable companies in the world know what is below the waterline and target these areas of value for their products and services.

2. Where and what influence does a business have on the industry value chain

Understanding where value is created in the industry supply chain can help companies capture profitable growth. This can be illustrated through two examples:

Selling further up the value chain:

There are many companies who appear to be a supplier of a commodity product, but realise that if they sell further up the industry value chain to the OEM or even the end customer, that they can design themselves into the product such that even though they are on the end of the supply chain, they are specified as the supplier and avoid price erosion.

Frequently component suppliers will offer Application Engineering Services that engage with the OEM design engineers in order to be specified on the production drawing.

Consolidating elements of the supply chain into a service:

Frequently one sees suppliers of commodity products changing their position in the industry chain by offering services that consolidate and replace some key elements. A good example would be providing logistics services.

Some companies will provide their products on a just-in-time basis to line-side, taking cost off the balance sheet and simplifying their customers internal logistics processes. Others will not only support their own products, but supply spare parts or even maintenance services for their competitors. Both services affect the profit pools within the industry chain.

3. Access value through the product

Having understood the ‘Value Iceberg’ and the industry chain, companies can design their product to target specific elements of hidden value under the waterline. For example, niche fastener manufacturers who can generate an EBITDA over 30% by focusing on saving assembly costs with their ‘simple’ fastening solutions.

Or the tyre manufacturer who understands that 50% of the haulage industry costs is fuel, and that they can design products that can significantly impact their customers' profitability.

4. Access value through services and solutions

There is a growing awareness that adding services to products can help access even more of the value that lies below the water line. This has led to companies offering asset management type solutions that include remote, preventive and predictive maintenance as well as guaranteeing equipment availability in order to maximise raw material throughput. But this is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak.

Some industry leaders see so much hidden value under the waterline, they are creating new service based business models to tap into this growth opportunity. For example, in the fleet transportation market, Michelin no longer just focus on the tyre technology. They have developed a service business where tyres are charged by the kilometre, which given the importance of fuel economy and the tight margins have had a significant impact on reducing costs and making them more predictable.

 

These new ‘Servitization’ or outcome based business models require a much deeper understanding of the available profit pools that can be accessed by companies, if they are to be successful. Many of these services rely on data and analytics. By understanding where a company can make a real difference to their customer’s profitability, prioritisation of new technologies such as the IoT, big data analytics and mobility, becomes far more targeted than it is today.

5. Product Design / Service value Trade off

As outcome based services become more popular, it forces alignment between the customers' and suppliers' objectives. If a tyre is sold by the kilometre, then the design and service must deliver the lowest overall cost of performance over the life of the product. Even in more traditional business models, there is a realisation that the installed base represents a significant revenue opportunity versus new build.

There are many businesses who for every new machine sold, might have anywhere between 10 and 100 pieces of equipment already in the field. The installed base represents a large revenue opportunity!

In both these cases the trade-off in the product design between product cost and service value could have significant financial consequences. For example, with the manufacture selling tyres by the kilometre, a saving in the tyre cost which creates higher service costs will impact the profitability.

Designing services into the product such as remote connectivity, could enable a growth in service revenues that is far larger than the increase in the product cost.

This more holistic approach to value over the products life is a change in mind-set for most product-orientated companies.

This has significant implication on culture, KPIs and organisational design if a company is to maximise it profit over the assets life.

6. Managing Risk & Uncertainty

As companies take on more responsibility in their customers’ business processes, so their perspective on business risk must adjust.

While they have the opportunity to earn more margin, they also have to become better at managing risk and safeguard the value they have won.

Indeed, many companies will often unnecessarily shy away from profitable opportunities because of this lack of understanding.

It is a complex trade-off, but it is important to first be clear about the difference between uncertainty and risk.

Uncertainty is when there is variability in the outcome of an event caused by the environment, human error or lack of knowledge.

Uncertainty is a fact of life and so we must develop solutions/ processes to dynamically manage these unknowns.

For large contracts this is a highly complex challenge, but there are three good pointers that can help all businesses:

[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Identify areas of uncertainty
2. Develop processes that actively manage uncertainty in the product service delivery
3. Ensure transparency of data through the life cycle requirements to aid fast decision making

[/ordered_list]

Risk is a special uncertainty where negative consequences affect the overall performance.

This means ensuring your business can cover a worst case scenario, however unpleasant.

Managing uncertainty well, decreases but does not eliminate risk.

These six strategies can help all businesses create and safeguard value.

If incorporated into a company's thinking, they can help companies manage the value they already deliver more effectively.

More importantly it can help them to clearly identify the opportunities where they can grow their business through products service solutions.

 

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Whilst technology drives innovation within our industry, we must not forget the basic fundamentals of field service, namely putting the customer at the heart of everything we do writes Aberdeen Group’s Aly Pinder...

How should service define success?

Is it good enough to meet SLAs? Should service leaders primarily focus on cutting costs by reducing truck rolls? Do they need to prioritise field productivity; turn as many wrenches in a given day as possible?

These are all noble endeavours, but in 2016 the customer must come first. Internal efficiencies and meeting basic levels of service will keep the lights on, but it won’t grow the business. “Good enough” service is no longer good enough. This evolution demands that service leaders change the metrics they use to define success. As seen in Aberdeen Group’s State of Service research, the top metric which determines success is actually customer satisfaction.

 

The emergence of customer facing metrics such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, and first-time fix rates, has highlighted the fact that the customer is king

 

The emergence of customer facing metrics such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, and first-time fix rates, has highlighted the fact that the customer is king. Service, more so now than in the past, has to deal with empowered customers and competition. No longer can the field team solely be reactive or leave a customer site without resolving the issue. Customers are more knowledgeable and can amplify a bad service experience to a global network of peers.

Top performers understand that happy customers renew service contracts, buy more offerings, and refer new business. For this reason, service organisations have to juggle efficiency goals with customer focused metrics to hit at both at the same time. And with so much technology and analytics at the fingertips of the service executive, it is imperative that they don’t get paralysed looking at too much.

The Best-in-Class focus on the right metrics which drive differentiation and value to the end customer. The rest is great for a spreadsheet. But strategy and innovation needs to focus on the customer. Service leaders that want to excel in 2016 cannot afford to focus on KPI from a bygone era of service. Your customers want you to be successful because that means you can help them grow. But they don’t care if your bottom line is as trim as possible or that your technicians are taking the most optimised route. The customer wants the right technician with the right tools to solve their problem when they get on site to avoid extended (or any) downtime.

This changes the way service must view the metrics that matter both for them and for their customers. Happy customers result in a happy service business.

Don’t lose sight of what matters.

 

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Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Frank Partners explores the importance of having a road map for harnessing the power that lies within a field service organisation...

As businesses begin to embrace the opportunities offered by the IoT, digitilisation and analytics, many are unsure what they are going to do with all that information.

Within Field Service most of the thinking is centred on driving out cost through remote diagnostics and services. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The digitalisation of products provides an even bigger revenue opportunity, often in ways not initially foreseen.

Many companies are turning to Service Thinking to identify the profit pools that they can exploit within their customer and industry value chains.

[quote float="left"]Many companies are turning to Service Thinking to identify the profit pools that they can exploit within their customer and industry value chains.[/quote]For example in the haulage industry, the truck itself only represents perhaps 8% of the running costs. 50% is the fuel bill and 25% the driver. Truck manufacturers such as MAN have developed servitized business models based on Telematics technologies that improve fuel consumption and turn the Truck into an operating expense.

This data driven business model has enabled early adopters such as MAN UK to grow their business by a factor 10 over the past 20 years against a declining market.

Although ‘Service Thinking’ will help identify the areas of priority, how do companies go on to figure out how to develop data driven solutions.

For example take SAVortex, a UK SME who have developed a SMART connected hand dryer with remote diagnostics.

The idea was to use connectivity to dramatically reduce maintenance costs for hand dryers in large office complexes. This they achieved, but in addition found that the data they had on the usage of the toilets was even more valuable to their customers.

Nearly everyone who goes uses a toilet also washes and dries their hands. By monitoring the usage of the hand dryers, large facility managers could infer the footfall in different areas of the building, so optimising heating, light and cleaning costs. These savings could in certain cases far outweigh those achieved within the original business model.

The question is how can we help companies make this type of leap in imagination.

A framework originally developed by IBM and reported in the Harvard Business review, can help companies explore the value of their digitalised assets. 5 patterns of innovation were identified that could be used to monetize data;

1. Add new value to existing Products:

This comes from understanding the data being produced by products and whether it is possible to generate insights from it. In particular whether these insights could add new value to us, our customers, our suppliers our competitors or players in another industry. The SAVortex hand dryer is a good example of this.

2. Combining Data within and across industries:

Is it possible to combine the product data with another data set to create new value? In the truck example the driving habits of the driver could be analysed by MAN through the telematics.

When combined with the drivers names held by the haulage company, training could be recommended to improve the capability of drivers to optimise fuel efficiency enabling profitability to be doubled!

3. Digitalising Assets:

Which assets are digital in nature and how can this feature be used to increase their value? Is it possible to turn physical assets into digital assets? An example from the field service world is that some spare parts will not be held as physical stock, but as a digital drawing. When the part is required, the drawing is down loaded to a 3D printer at the point of need for the part to be produced. This has significant implications on the business model for spare parts and where value is created.

4. Trading Data:

Can data be structured and  analysed to yield higher value information?

Again the Savortex example is a good example where the usage information of the dryer is can be sold to the facilities company due to the inherent value.

5. Codifying a Capability:

Does a company have a significant capability that can be digitalised and which others value? Many industrial companies have a huge amount of intellectual property which if put on a digital platform can yield immense value to various stakeholders. For example the bearing manufacturer SKF has many industrial apps which their customers and channel partners can download to help make their equipment more effective.

Key to success is to embark on this process with a cross functional team, adequate resources and senior management support.

With these in place, the next step is to know what data you have from your products and operations.

What data can you access but are not capturing? Do others have data that would be helpful to you and how might you collaborate with them. Then, by examining each of the five patterns, ideas begin to emerge and develop.

The creative process is greatly facilitated by two further actions;

 

1. Having a strong technology presence within the team who can understand how data can be extracted, exchanged and mashed up.
2. Having input from external parties who can bring an Out-Side in perspective to the technology and business challenges What is clear is that opportunities are growing for product companies to find new value from the data they generate.

 

With an open mind-set, some determination and a structured approach, this provides industrial companies with a significant opportunity to grow through embracing the digital economy.

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An executive summary of Noventum’s new publication, co-created with the participants of Noventum’s Service Innovation Programme and the Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice...

Looking at the industry trends, it appears that IoT, Industry 4.0 and product digitalisation will substantially affect competition, profitability, and the structure in many industries - as did the previous wave of Internet-enabled IT.

To be prepared and to define their strategy, companies must understand how smart, connected products impact industry and their service organisations, as well as the way companies do business. Service business is an essential part of most new business models that companies are implementing. Within the service business, it appears that Customer Business Related Services are driving the growth, while Product Related Services will shrink, if not managed very differently than today.

The major trends that appear to drive the development of advanced services are the;

1. Growing demand for Customer Business Related Services
2. Customers wanting to ‘’consume’’ technology, instead of ‘’owning’’ it
3. Increasing importance of Brands
4. Growing need for Customer Experience Design
5. Increasing globalisation
6. Implications of the Internet of Things (IoT)
7. Companies recognizing the need to capitalize on Industry 4.0; and
8. Companies requiring to develop Big Data Analytics capabilities

These industry trends are affecting the way manufacturers have to compete, it will impact their profitability, and it will change the structure in many industries.

In order to increase revenue from advanced services, companies face (amongst many) four top challenges:

1. How to manage the consistency of service delivery across regions and geographies in order to deliver a consistent customer experience, increase productivity and optimise the service delivery.
2. How to adapt sales skills, methodologies, systems, measurements and incentives to move from a product selling to a consultative sales approach and so support the sales of advanced services.
3. How to manage the development of a new services offering so that the value proposition to customers is improved and new services are brought to market faster than the competition can do it.
4. A model was developed that shows how most companies follow a similar path of evolutionary steps to reach a state in which the most valuable, fast growing and most profitable services are being sold and delivered. It is very difficult for companies to skip a step, as the capabilities of any of the previous steps are needed to be successful in the next. 

Noventum’s new book elaborates in detail on the required changes and the capabilities that a service business must develop in order to go from a reactive to a pro-active service business. As the maturity of your service organisation develops, the type of services you offer evolves.

And by differentiating yourself based on your brand, you can provide more value to your customers, while allowing for bigger margins.

The main areas to address for running a successful business are:

• Customer Journey
• Customer Value Perception
• Business model
• Company Value Management
• Service Propositions
• Marketing & Sales Model
• Delivery Model
• Knowledge Management
• Technology Management
• People Management
• Customer experience management

Generally, the participating companies felt they had a reasonable understanding about the mega-trend of manufacturing digitalisation and the service opportunities it represents, but had not yet transformed this into a sound strategy, roadmap and execution. If they had, they had actually just started.

At the end of one of Noventum’s Service Innovation Projects, titled “From a Reactive to a Proactive Service Business”, a workshop was facilitated, titled ‘Challenges and barriers of implementing advanced services’.

All participants were asked to indicate their main challenges in moving forward to a more service centric (or even customer centric) company value proposition.

Then challenges were categorised by themes. The three biggest themes were:

• Skills, in particular sales skills
• Company culture and
• Organisational buy in, in particular winning the support of the corporate executive board

Participants felt that the market and customers are (or seem to be) able to accept the service transformation. Most of the challenges to overcome are internal. Many companies have begun to make real progress, accelerating their pace of change, while slow-moving competitors fall further behind.

 

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Field service is going through a period of incredible change currently with service taking centre stage in industry, driven on by innovations in technology and strategy. However, at it’s heart field service remains and always will remain fundamentally a people industry. In keeping with this ethos Field Service News is pleased to present the second edition of the FSN20 celebrating those who are leading our industry forwards.

Put together by a committee of industry experts, the #FSN20 is based on those we believe will have a significant impact on the industry in the coming year. Some are analysts, some are vendors and some are service directors but all are pushing the industry forward.

So in no particular order, ladies and gentleman,  Field Service News proudly presents...

Bill Pollock, President and Principal, Consulting Analyst, Strategies for GrowthSM

Pollock not only has a long and distinguished career as an analyst specialising within field service, but continues to be one of the most prolific authors in the industry today.

With a resume that takes in Aberdeen, The Service Council and his current organisation Strategies for GrowthSM Pollock has provided consulting services to over 250 clients across a career spanning over 30 years which as taken him all across the globe.

These engagements have involved strategic services planning, market research/surveys, customer satisfaction measurement and tracking, competitive market analyses and business intelligence gathering, vertical market assessments, operations assessments, business process evaluation/re-engineering, and the development of strategic recommendations for improving service performance and customer satisfaction.

 

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Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director & Market Analyst Field Service, WBR

As producers of Field Service USA, Field Service Medical and Field Service Europe and their sister events, WBR are a key provider of information within the field service industry on both sides of the Atlantic. In his role as Divisional Director Massoud is directly involved with each of the events and responsible for delivering industry leading content to keep field service professionals up to date with the key trends with in the industry.

Massoud is also responsible for overseeing WBR’s research and a respected analyst within the sector.

 

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Martin Summerhayes, Head of Delivery Strategy and Service Improvement, Fujitsu.

When it comes to field service, there are very few with a record and career to match Summerhayes. Having worked his way up from service engineer to overseeing service delivery for technology giant Fujitsu, Summerhayes’ background also includes developing the service offering for Hewlett Packard which would go on to be a billion dollar revenue stream.

Summerhayes is also a well respected industry speaker as well as an integral member of the Service Community, a UK group which acts a knowledge sharing hub for field service professionals within the UK.

 

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Sumair Dutta, Customer Satisfaction Officer, The Service Council™

Sumair Dutta is the Chief Customer Officer for  The Service Council™ (TSC). In his role at TSC, Sumair is responsible for new member acquisition, member engagement, community expansion, as well as the development and expansion of TSC’s Smarter Services oriented research agenda and portfolio.

These research tools provide service executives the ability to benchmark their operations and also provide guided insight to improve service organisation performance.

Dutta also plays a key role in building out TSC’s community platform focused on becoming the single source of information and networking for service executives globally and is a prolific author on the matter of field service.

 

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Tom Bowe, Director for Enterprise Service Management, IFS

With the launch of IFS Applications 9 last year, the Swedish ERP provider became a major alternative option for enterprise level organisations and with key partnerships with the likes of Accenture and Microsoft announced they are primed to increase their market share beyond their core strength of mid-sized organisations and challenge the dominance of the likes of Oracle and SAP at the top table.

With a suite of well respected service management tools further enhanced with the roll out of Apps 9, field service remains a prime sector for IFS and in his role of Director for Enterprise Service Management, Bowe has a crucial role within both IFS and the wider industry as a whole.

 

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Professor Tim Baines, Director at The Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice 

The trend of Servitization is gaining more and more momentum each passing year and its potential impact on how companies approach field service could be absolutely massive. The increase in awareness is in no small part down to Baines and his team at the Aston Centre for Servitization Research and Practice, part of Aston University.

A regular speaker in the global field service calender, as well as hosting the annual Aston Spring Servitization Conference which brings industry and academia together, Baines is widely regarded to being one of the most forthright authorities on the subject of Servitization.

 

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Laurent Othacéhé, CEO, CognitoiQ

Othacéhé has been dubbed the Godfather of scheduling for his work with pioneering scheduling company 360 Scheduling, who developed what was widely perceived to be the leading scheduling engine of its time.

After spending time with Swedish ERP and Service Management software provider IFS following their acquisition of 360 Othacéhé joined CognitoiQ as Sales and Marketing director, before being promoted to CEO.

Given his track record and standing in the industry Othacéhé is certainly more than just a figurehead and is a an incredibly hands on CEO with an in-depth knowledge of both products and strategies making CognitoiQ a company set to thrive under his highly focused leadership.

 

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Thomas Igou, Content Director, Copperburg

With a strong heritage in producing conferences within the manufacturing industry, Copperburg were able to build upon this base and have firmly established themselves and their events as key highlights within the European event calender for the field service industries.

Igou has played a key role in this success having headed up Copperberg’s portfolio of manufacturing events for the past 5 years, developing it from a Nordic Aftermarket event to a series of conferences across Europe within the world of Services. Events like the Aftermarket Business Platform or the Field Service Forum have become a true gathering of the most brilliant minds in the field service industry and continuously pushing the boundaries of the traditional events.

Thomas also has a keen interest in technologies and how they can positively disrupt and impact rigid business models in the industrial sector.

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Hilbrand Rustema, Managing Director, Noventum Service Management

 

From small beginnings in a two-man office in Holland to a service management consultancy spanning three continents. With over 200 successful projects and a proven track record of improving growth and profitability Noventum have become a leading consultancy within the field service industry and Rustema has been a driving force in that development.

He is also co-author of key service book “Service Economics” and the 2016 publication “The Service Revolution of the Manufacturing Industry – Moving from reactive to proactive service business enabled by IoT”. Often seen giving presentations at industry events around the world and having been at the heart of evolving service thinking across the continent for many years, Rustema remains at the forefront of the sector today.

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John Harris, General Manager, Engineering, Panasonic

Panasonic remain the dominant force within rugged computing with a sizeable market-share. However, the company refuses to rest on it’s laurels and with the launch of the Toughbook 20 the technology giant has created the worlds first fully rugged detachable laptop. Combining the benefits of both tablet and laptop yet designed to meet the needs of even the most testing field environment the Toughbook 20 is a perfect fit for many field service companies.

Not only is Harris heavily involved in the development of products such as the Toughbook 20 but he is also a key link between Panasonic’s R&D team and their customer base. Approachable, and prepared to both listen to and act upon feedback Harris, is a crucial figure in Panasonic’s ongoing success.

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Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Frank Partners

With a background as a service manager before moving into consultancy including working with service management specialists Noventum before launching Frank Partners, Frank has a track strong record of developing service businesses within high value technology companies through various General Manager and Director level roles for industry-leading multinationals, such as Xerox, Textron and Husky Injection Moulding Systems.

He is a well respected industry author and frequent speaker at field service conferences across Europe. His mission is to support companies who want to leverage services to win in industrial markets through his expertise in strategy, new business models, ecosystems, innovation, service operations, service sales and transformation management.

Nick’s continues his passion for innovation through his new venture Si2 partners, which aims to provide new ways for managers to transform their service business through On-Demand Advisory and Support.

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John Cooper, Head of IT and Workflow Solutions, Sony Professional Solutions

With a pan European team of around 110 field engineers working alongside other members of the wider Sony workforce and various third parties, Cooper’s responsibilities are essentially across the entirety of the non-consumer portfolio of the tech giant, which is becoming an important part of the company's wider business strategies and plans.

However, despite the challenge of managing a pan European team across four divisions each with their own differing needs, Cooper has shown himself to be a forward thinking service executive, implementing and harnessing the latest technologies, to enable Sony to move towards a servitized or outcome based solutions model, entrenching them within the core business of many of their key clients.

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Bart Guthrie, Neurosurgeon and Co-Founder, Help Lightning

If 2015 was the year that the Internet of Things (IoT) moved from exciting concept to becoming a technology that is beginning to genuinely reshape the field service industry, then 2016 is set to be the year we see Augmented Reality (AR) similarly emerge. And like IoT, AR is not just a technology that can improve efficiency and productivity in Field Service, but one that can change the entire way companies will address delivering service in the field. Already we are seeing a number of companies beginning to offer AR tools for field service companies and at the vanguard of these is US based Help Lightning, the brain child of neurosurgeon Bart Guthrie.

Guthrie himself is a charismatic and confident figurehead for the company and the technology itself is certainly one of the slickest AR tools to hit the market to date. More are sure to follow, however, Help Lightning have a significant head start over most of the competition, and Guthrie is sure to be a sought out figure in the conference calendar this year as AR continues to gain attention across the industry.

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Professor Howard Lightfoot, Senior Research Fellow - Service Operations, Cranfield University

As well as being a co-author (WIth Baines) of seminal servitization book ‘Made to Serve’, Lightfoot is also heavily involved in the study of and advancement of Augmented Reality within through-life-services via his current role with Cranfield University.

Lightfoot is also a highly respected speaker in the international field service calendar as well as being at the forefront of training the next generation of field workers and developing the tools to engage with millennials.

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Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower

ServicePower had been quietly going about their business in terms of product development for some time prior to the launch of their brand new service management solution Nexus FS towards the end of last year.

With a strategy that involves strong investment in research and development alongside the acquisition of well selected companies ServicePower were in a strong position to launch their new solution, which has also had plenty of attention placed on its User Interface.

Having got their ducks neatly lined up in a row, ServicePower are set for an aggressive growth strategy for this year and Martin, who is both vibrant and easy going yet with clear focus and determination, has a strong vision of the path she wants the company to take.

An engaging speaker, Martin is often asked to give presentations at key field service events and we can expect to see even more of here this year as the sales and marketing plans begin to catch up with the impressive product development and ServicePower will be a name all service directors should be aware of by the end of 2016

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Andy Neely, Professor Andy Neely, Director, Cambridge Service Alliance

Another of the key figures within the growing movement of servitization which could have a massive impact on the operation of field service. Having held appointments at Cranfield University, London Business School, Cambridge University, Neely is widely recognised for his work on the servitization of manufacturing, as well as his work on performance measurement and management and his organisation The Cambridge Service Alliance continues to work with leading companies such as IBM and BAE on research into ways to provide, implement and employ complex new service systems.

He’s also recently been appointed as the new head of Cambridge University’s Institute for Manufacturing (IfM).

Neely is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading authorities on organisational performance measurement and management. He has authored over 100 books and articles, including “Measuring Business Performance”, published by the Economist and “The Performance Prism”, published by the Financial Times.

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Tony Chapman, Customer Services Director, Siemens

Siemens are another company who could potentially have had a number of inclusions on the list this year as they continue to lead the way in a number of aspects in terms of service delivery.

Their approach to engaging with the next generation of field service engineers was celebrated by our inclusion of Martin Hotass in last year's #FSN20, whilst their approach to developing an open Cloud infrastructure alongside an aim to have all their assets in the field connected by 2020 is an admirable example of a company moving towards a more proactive approach to service.

Given the wide range of forward thinking from Siemens though we felt that their representative should have a broad knowledge to reflect the wider organisation and in Chapman they have an excellent operations director, with a clear understanding of what good service looks like, whilst have a detailed knowledge of the challenges of IT within a field service environment.

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Phillip Sassower, CEO, Xplore Technologies.

Xplore Technologies acquisition of fellow Texan rugged tablet manufacturers last year was probably one of the biggest surprises in the rugged sector for quite some time. For a start Motion were very much the larger of the two companies, yet a supply problem from a specialist OEM saw Motion slip into financial difficulties and Xplore were there to step in and take advantage of the situation and by doing so establishing themselves as the second largest manufacturer of rugged tablets behind only Panasonic.

And whilst it was a move that took everyone by surprise it was also one that made absolute sense. With Xplore’s area of expertise being in the ultra rugged space and Motion’s being more focused on healthcare and general field operations, bringing the two product lines together has given Xplore Technologies an impressive array of tablets that can satisfy almost all field service requirements.

We are anticipating a big year for Xplore as they seek to capitalise on this acquisition, and credit should go to Sassower for acting quickly to secure the greater prize. With tablets becoming the leading form factor amongst field service companies, anticipate hearing more from Sassower and Xplore as the year progresses.

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Aly Pinder, Research Analyst, Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen Group’s Aly Pinder has to be one of the most respected and busiest people in the field service industry. A prolific author, Pinder’s work can be found across the industry (including regularly on fieldservicenews.com) and his analysis is always insightful, detailed yet also easily digested.

His work often draws on the detailed research that his organisation Aberdeen Group deliver which adds further weight to his well constructed points and observations on how field service is evolving.

In last year’s list we also stated Pinder was one of the nicest guys in the industry. However, a year on we have learnt that,that mild mannered demeanour is just a bluff for what is a cold, calculating and very good poker player!

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Dave Yarnold, CEO, ServiceMax 

The ServiceMax story is one of the biggest success stories within field service. Having gone from start-up to leading field service management software provider within less than a decade picking up blue chip clients such as Sony, Schneider Electric and Phillips along the way.

Having aligned themselves closely to the Salesforce platform, ServiceMax blazed a trail delivering a SaaS platform that was as accessible for family run SMEs  as it was corporate giants and with the recent release of Connected Field Service, a result of their close partnership with IoT specialists PTC, they are set once more to lead the way by delivering the industry's first IoT-enabled field service platform.

Aside from the technology the other factor key to their success has been in their talent acquisition, with a depth of knowledge and experience combined with an inherent desire to understand their customer base (every member of the ServiceMax team including Yarnold has to spend three days ‘ride-along’ with customers each year) throughout the team.

Indeed there were a number of members of the ServiceMax family that were considered for this years #FSN20 including VPs of Global Transformation Dave Hart and Patrice Eberline. However, with a rule of one entrant per company we decided it had to be the man at the top.

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So who do you think we've left out and why? Tell us in the comments section below! 

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Research sits at the heart of Field Service News and every quarter we publish an exclusive research report identifying the latest trends to be emerging within our industry. Here we look at some of the key findings of our research reports from across the last year...

Mobility tools in field service

Working in partnership with Advanced Field Service we explored what types of mobility tools are being used by field service companies.

What types of hardware are most commonly being selected for our field engineers? What software is being used out in the field?

How are companies selecting the right solution for their engineers?

What type of feedback are those engineers giving? And what actual benefits are being delivered through digital mobility solutions?

In total 122 field service professionals responded to our survey which ran across February and March with respondents from companies with mobile workforces ranging from less than ten field engineers through to over 801 engineers and with an even number of representatives across the spectrum with no obvious spikes, the research offered insight into trends across field service as a whole.

Types of devices being used in the field

It is perhaps no surprise by now that most companies are using some form of digital device.

We have been going through a digital revolution across the last decade and no industry has felt the impact of this change as keenly as field service.

Indeed out in the wider world of industry the emergence of Enterprise Mobility as a definable, and eminently sizeable industry that will ultimately dwarf the size of the field technology sector considerably, has now firmly taken root.

However, the field service industry, which has more complex needs than its younger cousin of Enterprise Mobility, is also a far more mature market in general.

 

In fact our research indicates that the majority of companies are using a mix of differing digital devices, with 46% stating this is the case.

This would make sense as many field service organisations are now in their second, third or even fourth generation of digital device being rolled out to their field engineers.

However, when it comes to those companies that have rolled out just one device to their mobile workforce the results revealed some further insight into the trends now appearing amongst field service companies.

One of the biggest trends that is backed up by the evidence of this research, is the dramatic rise to prominence of smartphones as a genuine mobile productivity tool being utilised in the workplace.

It is of course not a surprising result given the widespread adoption of smartphones in both the consumer and business worlds but our research does confirm that smart-phones are the most popular device being used by field service companies when only they opt to provide one device to their engineers.

Of course every action has a reaction, and the rapid growth of smartphones as a tool for field service engineers has resulted in an equally rapid decline in the use of PDAs. In fact now just 5% of companies are using these devices – the smallest percentage of any device being used within the field.

One myth however that the research helps debunk is that Tablet computing his having a similar impact on the laptop sector as smartphones are having on PDAs.

Whilst it seemed at one point that the trend for tablet computing would see the laptop being edged out of both the consumer and rugged markets it appears the rumours of the death of the laptop have been greatly exaggerated.

In fact our research outlines that in terms of the devices being used on there own, both tablets and laptops have an equal share of the market at 14%.

However, we should also consider the fact that of those companies who provide more than one device to their engineers, a large proportion of companies are likely to offer a laptop as one of those devices, largely due to the fact that having a built in keyboard makes any significant manual input much easier.

So whilst it is likely that ultimately the traditional laptop will become replaced by the convertible or even the detachable laptop, the keyboard remains an important part of the field engineers mobile technology kit.

The last few days of pen and paper

What the research presents clearly is that the masses in field service have moved towards the new digital dawn. There are of course in any industry sector, laggards that remain behind the trend.

However, when it comes to the application of mobile technology amongst field engineers this group (i.e. those using no digital medium) now stands at just a nominal 3%.

Not only the is the group now just a very small minority, but our research also indicates that this group is potentially set to disappear completely within the next twelve months.

 

Of those companies still using pen and paper 100% stated they are considering moving to a digital mobile platform within the next twelve months.

The reasons for this are of course clear, as are the benefits of moving to any digital medium, including increasing productivity and streamlining a field engineers work-flow.

The fact is that those companies still relying on pen and paper are in danger of falling significantly behind their competition.

In fact of those companies still using pen and paper 100% of the respondents admitted that they felt they were at a disadvantage, with 50% stating that they felt that disadvantage was significantly impacting their ability to remain competitive.

Cloud as a FSM platform

Our next project, which was undertaken in collaboration with ClickSoftware explored trends amongst field service companies involving use of the Cloud for Field Service Management Systems .

The research was conducted online across July and August this year. The respondents were a mix of Operations, IT and Business Leaders working within organisations that had a field service operation.

Again company sizes ranged from SMBs with under 10 field workers to the enterprise level companies with over 800 field workers. In total 150 respondents answered the survey with respondents coming from a number of different verticals including Manufacturing, Engineering, IT solutions, construction, fire and security, healthcare and more.

As with our 2014 survey on this topic after the question ‘Is your current field service solution on premise or in the Cloud?’ The survey split into two in order to give us insight from those currently using the Cloud and those that are still on premise.

This enabled us to better ascertain the benefits being seen by those using the Cloud alongside the reservations of those who are not.

Mid-sized movement

The headline statistic to come out of the research was that indeed there has been a slight shift towards more companies using the Cloud than before.

In fact there has been a swing of 3% in favour of those using the cloud with 26% of companies now having their field service management solution in the Cloud versus 74% who are using on-premise.

Whilst a small movement, given the timeframe this increase could indeed help support the argument that the Cloud is slowly becoming more prevalent and that the move to Cloud is very much tied to companies moving from their legacy systems to more modern next-gen equivalents.

 

However, a logical continuation of that thinking is that we would find those companies with larger field worker numbers more likely to remain on premise than those smaller companies for the simple reason that they are more likely to have invested in the expensive infrastructure to run an on premise solution and would therefore potentially be more tied to their existing system – making a switch to a new solution harder work.

Yet when we drill down into the data and separate the companies out into three groups – those with less than 50 engineers, those with between 50 and 500 engineers and those with more than 500 engineers we find that in fact this doesn’t hold true.

Actually whilst the trends amongst the largest companies very closely mirror the respondents as a whole (25% Cloud vs. 75% On premise) it is amongst the smaller and mid sized companies that we see the biggest variance.

Interestingly smaller companies, who are generally viewed as being the most likely to be attracted to the Cloud due to the more affordable Software as a Service subscription model that most Cloud vendors offer, were the group that were most reluctant to have their field service operations on the Cloud – with just 17% doing so.

Meanwhile the mid tier companies (i.e. those with between 50 and 500 engineers) were the group that had the most Cloud based systems with 37% of these companies using the Cloud.

When we look at the same demographic in our previous research this is an increase of 21% of companies, so whilst on premise still remains the way the majority of run their field service management systems, a shift to the Cloud, amongst this demographic at least, is clear.

Still the question remains why are we seeing more acceptance towards the Cloud within these mid sized companies than amongst their smaller counterparts? (If we accept the earlier premise that those larger companies may take longer to adapt due to greater change management challenges.)

One possible answer could be found in the make up of the decision-making units of those smaller companies. Of those companies with less than 50 engineers that are not using the Cloud, only 15% of companies had input from their IT director or equivalent whilst of those mid sized companies that have adopted the Cloud 71% involved their IT Director or equivalent in the selection of a field service solution.

Could it be that amongst smaller companies it is a case that without the input of a technology specialist, some of the headline fears around the usage of Cloud persist.

Whereas amongst those larger companies, who have a more developed IT department adding their insight, perhaps there is more understanding of both the true benefits and dangers of the Cloud?

 

One question within the survey that could certainly give us further insight into this assertion was ‘Which of the following sums up your perception of the Cloud in business’ which had the following four options:

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• I believe it is the future of enterprise computing
• I see its benefits but still have some concerns
• I wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud but would use for general applications
•  I think we should keep everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.[/unordered_list]

Given the fact that there was a fairly even balance between the two groups of company sizes, the varying responses certainly indicated a more cautious outlook towards the Cloud from the smaller companies than their mid sized counterparts.

Within the group of companies with between 50 and 500 field service engineers 58% felt that Cloud was” the future of enterprise computing”, with a further 32% stating that they “saw benefits of the Cloud whilst having some concerns.”

Interestingly not a single respondent from this group stated “we should be keeping everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.”

When we compare this to the responses of those companies with less than 50 engineers we see the confidence in the Cloud significantly reduce with only 38% stating they “believe the Cloud is the future of enterprise computing” whilst 20% “wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud but would use it for general applications” and “5% stating they think “we should be keeping everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud.”

IoT and Field Service

Another key technology within our industry is of course IoT and this was at the heart of a research project undertaken with ServiceMax and PTC.

The research was conducted across a period of 6 weeks during August and September this year.

Again well over 100 field service professionals contributed to the research with respondents from both the operational side of business (field service directors/managers etc) as well as senior IT representatives (CIO/CTO etc.) participating alongside business leaders (MD,CEO etc.)

Once more we also had a variety of company sizes ranging from those with less than 10 field workers through to those with over 800 field workers, with a fairly even split across these groups so there was fair representation of opinions from companies of differing sizes.

Also whilst there was a slight UK bias in respondents, there were also respondents from India, Ireland, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany and the USA so there was a mix of nationalities amongst the respondents as well.

Before we began looking at the appetite for IoT amongst our respondents we first wanted to see if companies were actually well placed to benefit from adopting an IoT strategy.

 

To do this we needed to assess where the companies in our group were in terms of their approach to technology in general as well as how they approached their own service delivery.

Of course with the introduction of any new technology there will always be laggards and there will always be bleeding edge adopters and if there was a bias amongst our respondent group either way this should be taken into account when exploring other responses and trends identified within the research.

Therefore the first question we asked our respondents was “How regularly does your company invest in new technology initiatives to improve field service operations and performance” and we gave our respondents the choices of every year, every two years, every three years, every five years or other. It would seem our group was on average representing a slightly forward looking set of companies with 35% stating they would invest in new technology an annual basis.

Meanwhile 13% stated they did so every two years, 17% every three years and 16% five years.

A number of respondents also commented that their company’s investment in technology was slightly less strategic and on more of an ad-hoc basis although members of this group also stated ‘recently the investment in new technology is being increased’

Predictive or reactive?

The next question we asked in this initial section was whether our respondents were working for a company that is either adopting a pro-active or reactive model in terms of their field service planning.

Almost a third of companies (31%) state that their “service is half proactive and half reactive” whilst only a small fraction of companies (4%) were operating on a wholly reactive strategy.

Again this will be a good indicator of how ready field service companies are to adopt IoT as one of the significant factors in why IoT is predicted to be such have such a major impact, particularly in field service, is that it can be the key for companies moving away from the traditional break-fix delivery of service to a more efficient preventative maintenance approach to delivering field service.

Indeed it seems that the majority of field service companies do see the benefits of moving towards delivering service in a proactive rather than reactive manner, in theory at least.

Whilst the same amount of companies (6%) stated they were either “Fully pro-active with a mix of predictive and preventive maintenance, enabled by remote monitoring and M2M diagnostics” or “We are mostly pro-active using both predictive and preventive maintenance strategies but still have a small percentage of reactive calls.”

The largest group of respondents by a long way (44%) stated they “operate a proactive strategy where possible but are still mostly reactive.”

Meanwhile almost a third of companies (31%) state that their “service is half proactive and half reactive” whilst only a small fraction of companies (4%) were operating on a wholly reactive “Almost a third of companies (31%) state that their “service is half proactive and half reactive” whilst only a small fraction of companies (4%) were operating on a wholly reactive strategy. This would suggest that the perceived wisdom that field service companies should be moving away from the traditional break-fix reactive approach to a more proactive approach, which is better for service providers and their customers alike, is being adopted by the industry at large.

It also indicates that whilst this attitude is widespread, achieving a move away from break-fix models is harder to achieve than simply updating policies.

In fact responses to this question would certainly strengthen the case for Internet of Things being rapidly accepted and adopted amongst field service companies who can see the benefits of proactive maintenance but are unable to deliver it.

 

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