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Mark Brewer looks at how and why the two big technologies that are set to alter our industry forever are likely to converge...

To most people, the idea of a Digital Twin is largely just that - an idea. The concept may make sense, but they can’t be sure they’ve actually seen it demonstrated in the real world. Or at least not in any useful everyday purpose... yet.

It’s different for those working in Field Service.

Digital Twin is on everyone’s lips, an exciting buzzword that’s changing the shape of the sector and opening the door to new possibilities.

Forward-thinking Field Service organisations are already factoring it into their planning and monitoring activities and may even be deploying it where they can.

Why is Digital Twin such a hot ticket in our world?

Raising the game

The focus of Field Service centres on improving the reliability of an organisation’s assets. By enabling them to operate efficiently for longer, with less maintenance, you enjoy a greater return on investment while also spending less on upkeep and parts.

Clearly, the ability to accurately predict potential problems in those assets before they happen is a big help in achieving the above. Even more so, if steps can then be taken to not only rectify these issues but also provide a better experience for customers.

"A study by The Service Council found that four in ten incomplete service visits to fix equipment would benefit from the use of live video or AR..."

AR combined with the Internet of Things (IoT) does all this... which explains why the Field Service sector is so excited about it. The result is known as the Digital Twin – creating a bridge between the physical and the digital.

A study by The Service Council found that four in ten incomplete service visits to fix equipment would benefit from the use of live video or AR

Better connectivity, together with more accessible relevant tools were considered to improve the speed and quality of issue resolution - meaning that less pressure is put on company resources on-site.

A remote revolution

Thinking about practical examples, it’s not too difficult to see what a difference a Digital Twin would make, almost immediately.

Imagine you’re maintaining an elevator that’s installed in one of your customer’s offices.

Thanks to AR, your engineers can view a digital representation of that elevator, on their screen in your offices or on the road on their iPad, nowhere near the physical location of the asset. They can monitor operations virtually, from the comfort of their desk and without having to visit the elevator.

The 3D model on their screen is generated using engineering data with the output of the various sensors installed on the physical equipment augmented onto this. Some show power consumption, to see how efficiently things are running. Others might show spikes in voltage or the level of vibration and wear generated by the hoist as it runs up and down the building floors, whilst also indicating the number of trips completed and speed.

"On-screen augmentations and animated sequences give those involved an accurate visual indicator of any parts required, and how they may be assembled or disassembled..."

In short, it gives your engineer a comprehensive insight into the status and performance of the equipment.

When an issue does arise or a part needs replacing or upgrading, instead of having to drop everything and go directly to the site, they may instead be able to talk to a trained individual who may be based on-site, and direct them through the repair/replace process. Using a connected device such as an iPad or laptop, the on-site employee can share live footage and follow the remote engineer’s lead to perform the required maintenance.

On-screen augmentations and animated sequences give those involved an accurate visual indicator of any parts required, and how they may be assembled or disassembled. What’s more, the engineer can tag other team members who may either have useful knowledge to contribute or might just want to learn how to perform the task for next time around.

Sharing knowledge

Given that service parts and equipment are becoming increasingly complex and expensive, this process offers a great alternative for Field Service providers to continue providing excellent service while improving uptime and consequently saving customers time and money.

Moreover, it promotes the idea of ‘democratised knowledge’ - the sharing and passing on of vital skills and expertise from experienced engineers to workers that are onboarding. This way, as the seasoned workforce ages, their insights are therefore not lost but live on in even more tech-savvy younger employees. Which is a huge benefit when it comes to training and upskilling.

As said, the benefits of the Digital Twin in Field Service could be game-changing which is why so many of us in the industry are talking about it. Looking beyond predictive maintenance, the Digital Twin also opens up the opportunity to provide value-add recommendations to your customer in the use and operation of your equipment, as well as giving valuable insights to your own R&D organisation for future engineering changes.

What could the Digital Twin mean to you, your organisation and the service levels you are able to deliver to your customers? 

Mark Brewer, is Global Industry Director, Service Management, IFS 

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simPRO has made another splash in the United Kingdom’s job management technology sector by strengthening the relationship between contractor and customer through an ‘on-the-job’ quoting and sales module.

With simPRO’s Quote and Sales module, engineers will gain the ability to conduct previously office-exclusive tasks on the job site, with an emphasis on field sales capabilities.

The module provides detailed information on goods, services and materials which customers can select from an aesthetically pleasing layout. Engineers can then provide accurate real-time estimates for customers to act upon in their own time or on the spot.

The module will also sell customers membership options which can influence the price of every option offered within a quotation.

simPRO’s Quote and Sales module is the first of many services available through the company’s new simPRO Mobile line, which was developed to allow job management tasks to be conducted from previously inconvenient locations.

simPRO Chief Technology Officer Jonathan Eastgate said the module’s function would help businesses across the UK extend service offerings and bring new efficiencies to mobile sales and administration.

“With our new Quote and Sales module, engineers can present multiple options for their customers before quoting and can even upsell on products and services. They can also then show images of catalogue items, play videos and display supporting materials such as manuals to customers which makes the whole quoting process very interactive.”

Mr Eastgate said the ability for engineers to make efficient on-the-job sales and to cut through red tape without the need of a desk is not just a win for businesses that use simPRO.

“Our clients’ customers also benefit from the drastic reduction in logistical stress. Imagine a world where you can immediately receive an on-site sales consultation, select what you need from a range of options, receive and sign for a quote and then see the work begin straight away.

“Often what gets in the way of this is the need to add that administrative step – to stop what’s happening on the job site and take an administrative step to place orders, generate quotes or make additions or alterations to a job,” he said.

“What matters most is the work done by those who use simPRO and the benefits that are felt by all parties involved. We want businesses throughout the UK to succeed and their customers to receive the best service.”

Successfully integrating with external systems like Quickbooks, Xero, Gmail and Outlook, simPRO will also provide Quote and Sales module users real-time office-to-field connectivity with technical support available 24 hours a day, six days a week across the world.

The Quote and Sales module will be available to the UK’s current field licence-holding simPRO Enterprise customers at no extra cost, giving simPRO’s mobile users the ability to take to the road immediately for free.

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Kevin McNally, Sales Director for Asolvi gives us a sneak preview of a forthcoming white paper that outlines how to build a case for investment in Field Service Management systems by outlining how Return On Investment is such a fundamental part of the equation...

Is building a case for investment in FSM a key topic for you?! There is a full white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed!

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Whilst, of course, each and every business has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, there are now certainly enough case studies available on this topic for us to be able to predict fairly confidently, that the implementation of a field service solution if done correctly, will likely  deliver considerable Return on Investment (ROI) within a relatively short time-frame.

In fact, perhaps the biggest challenge is exactly how to calculate the ROI that you are achieving as the benefits come in many different guises and various different aspects of the business!

For example, when implementing a Field Service Management (FSM) solution you can expect to see ROI come from various areas of business expense, including:

• Increasing the utilisation of your existing resources, both in the office and the field allowing you to achieve more without adding additional resources by taking advantage of tools that deliver improved scheduling and workforce planning.
• Warranty control, how often is your service just given away for free because it is uncertain to your engineer if the customer is under warranty – it happens more than you would imagine even in the biggest of businesses, especially if you don’t have a warranty management embedded in your FSM system.
• Reducing the costs of unnecessary second visits. By having greater visibility into the service call as well as parts availability field service companies can ensure the right engineers are being sent with the right tools to do the job first time around. Given that the truck roll is generally the biggest cost line on a field service P&L improving First-Time-Fix will likely deliver significant ROI all by itself.
• Greater transparency and detail within your parts management etc, It is not just with improving first time fix that parts management within an FSM can deliver ROI. Field Service operations are unique in that stock is by necessity in constant transit. Companies can have millions of pounds tied unnecessarily up in van or garage stock which can disappear into a reporting black-hole unless a fit-for-purpose solution is in place.
• Significant costs that might have seemed a necessary evil such as paper and ink can be eliminated through digitising admin in the field with mobile technology.

The Impact of the Cloud

Perhaps the most important development of recent years in terms of gaining ROI from an FSM solution is the shift to Cloud becoming the most prevalent means of deployment for such systems.

Indeed, the benefits of Cloud computing are numerous but in terms of the ROI equation, there are perhaps three big aspects to consider.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the widespread adoption of Cloud has led to most FSM solutions now being offered on Software as a Service model, where the FSM solution provider charges a monthly fee on a per-user basis. One of the big impacts of this trend has been that smaller and medium-sized companies that previously would have found such systems cost prohibitive on a CAPEX basis, could now access the tools that enabled there larger competitors to deliver more efficient service.

However, as the cost of a FSM solution is spread out on a monthly basis, it also becomes far easier for the ROI of that investment to become visible on a P&L sheet that isn’t carrying the heavy initial burden of the outlay of a CAPEX investment.

"When a solution is deployed by Cloud there is far less drain on internal resources for the service provider as the FSM vendor now bears a much heavier share of the workload in terms of actual IT support etc..."

Secondly, when a solution is deployed by Cloud there is far less drain on internal resources for the service provider as the FSM vendor now bears a much heavier share of the workload in terms of actual IT support etc.

Additionally, unlike an on premise solution which could be vulnerable to unseen issues such as flood, fire or even malicious attack, a Cloud-based solution will allow a service organisation to continue operating even should the unthinkable happen – meaning no lost revenue that may be generated from field service related streams.

Finally, Cloud based FSM solutions are in general, significantly quicker to implement compared to more traditional on premise equivalents, meaning that the field service operation can feel the benefits sooner, and thus start seeing that ROI quicker as well.

It is important to remember however, that ROI is just one of many aspects that can be used to build a case for investment in a FSM solution and we shall be exploring this and others in a forthcoming white paper with fieldservicenews.com

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WorkWave a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the field service and last-mile delivery industries, today announced that it has been awarded a Brandon Hall Group Bronze Award for Excellence in the Best Advance in Talent Management Technology Implementation category for its rollout of Caliper and Caliper Analytics.

WorkWave partnered with Caliper to implement Caliper Analytics to guide its talent management decisions.

As a result of WorkWave’s rapid growth at all levels of the company, its leadership became aware of a clear need to facilitate objective conversations around development processes and ways to support its managers to have more constructive conversations with their direct reports. The Caliper Analytics platform enables WorkWave to leverage detailed personality data to develop new and existing employees, help managers have more effective conversations and fill roles in a rapidly expanding organization.

“As WorkWave continues to place an emphasis on becoming the leader in field service management technology, it is critical that we hire and develop passionate and talented employees who possess the right skill sets for the right positions,” said Marne Martin, CEO of WorkWave. “Through the use of Caliper Analytics, our talent team has been able to take a data-driven approach to WorkWave’s recruitment and development, allowing us to ensure that each person we hire is a great fit.”

“We are thrilled that our partnership with WorkWave has been recognized by the Brandon Hall Group, as we continue to provide them with a scalable, data-driven solution to support the company’s growth and market strategy through its valuable employees,” said Jacque Casoni, Vice President, Mid-Atlantic Region at Caliper.

The award entries were evaluated by a panel of independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts and executives based upon the following criteria: fit the need, design of the program, functionality, innovation and overall measurable benefits.

“Excellence Award winners personify innovation that drives business results. Our winners embrace the future and embrace change and the challenges that go with it,” said Rachel Cooke, Chief Operating Officer of Brandon Hall Group and head of the awards program. “It is amazing in reviewing these entries how organizations – both large and small – work across functions to make human capital management a valuable asset that enables business success.”

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Jan Van Veen continues his latest exclusive Field Service News series on how companies can monetise their services with IoT as he turns his attention to something many companies struggle with - better articulating their value proposition...

Central question: How to monetise Services & IoT

Many manufacturers experience pressure on growth, revenue and margins.

Their products and services are being commoditised. Competition from lower-cost alternatives are arising. On the other hand, there are huge opportunities with new technologies, value propositions and business models.

One of the important trends is that value proposition and offerings become more data-driven and more service oriented. However, many manufacturers are product-driven businesses which do not fully appreciate the value service has for their customers and own business.

So, one of the central questions is: How to Monetise Services and IoT in order to Grow in a Disruptive World?

The capability to monetising service and IoT is mission-critical for sustainable performance and existence of manufacturing:

In a series of articles, we cover 3 critical steps which make the difference between success and failure in monetising services and IoT:

1. Solve bigger customer problems, which is all about creating significantly more value for customers.
2. Articulate the value
3. Build internal momentum for monetisation

Common mistakes

Too often we see that (new) services, solutions or features are promoted without connecting the dots to their bigger problems.

For example, a client of mine – a major equipment manufacturer – experienced the power of explicitly connecting the dots. They were launching the first version of a portal to serve DIY clients which had their own maintenance departments.

They initially presented the benefit of the portal with many online manuals (version 1 of the portal) as a way to save time every time a maintenance engineer of their client would need to find the right manual. It appeared to be tough to sell paid subscriptions for this portal.

Only when the manufacturer articulated their view of the key problems of their clients’ maintenance departments and how the portal would solve these problems, did the clients get really interested.

The dominant problems of the maintenance departments were not finding manuals, but the daily pressure to increase availability and uptime at shrinking budgets and that, that their engineers had slow learning curves due to low volume of certain problem-solving work.

"A portal which would evolve into a broad toolset for best practices, troubleshooting and maintenance management was considered a crucial asset..."

A portal which would evolve into a broad toolset for best practices, troubleshooting and maintenance management was considered a crucial asset.

Furthermore, we often see manufacturers thinking and talking about features and activities, instead of customer value. Clients only pay for the value they perceive, not for what you do.

A striking example were field service engineers of another client, who would spend a full day in pairs to install equipment which was already delivered a  couple of days before. A few days after installation, another colleague would visit the client for training and commissioning.

The two engineers would unpack all components and assemble the components, connect it to a couple of other devices from different brands which involved many integration issues, connect their equipment to the computer network – which involved loads of security and networking issues which the engineers had to solve with IT departments – which by nature tend to be reluctant.

And here is how they briefed their client when they started the job: “We are here to unbox the components, put the bits and pieces together and make sure everything is there, so the trainer is ready to go……”

Their client did not even know what kind of complex integration problems the engineers were solving. Actually, their client even wondered why his supplier did not have more mature and efficient processes to get the job done. And by no means are the engineers to blame for this.

Some practical solutions

You can easily start improving on these common mistakes:

Build a compelling story of your view of your customers' challenges, opportunities and problems, which is validated by (a segment of) your customers. Relate this as much as possible to strategic or crucial priorities of your clients.

• Include a view on how your clients could best pursue these opportunities and solve these problems. Don’t make this a big thing, just start with a first strawman version and let it grow in time.
• Link the characteristics and benefits of your solutions and services to the view of your customers.
• If possible, quantify the benefits in terms of the strategic or critical priorities.
• Ensure that your value story is well articulated in your messaging to (the specific segments of) your clients and is consistent across all touch points. This may involve some staff training..

The Benefit

Manufacturers which are better in articulating their value see that both customer-facing personnel and their clients better see the value, better appreciate the value and therefore also find it more logical pay for this value.

Hence, these manufacturers generate more new revenue streams with higher margins and differentiate more from their competition.

Give monetisation of services and IoT an Impulse

If you want to accelerate the monetisation of your (new) services and IoT, join our upcoming Impulse Sessions on “How to Monetise Service and IoT”. These are full day interactive meetings with like-minded peers, during which we will exchange experience, insights and challenges.

Book your seat @ https://moremomentum.eu/impulse-sessions/ 

Essence

Delivering value to customers does not automatically also capture the value – that is, monetise the value delivered. If the delivered value is not clearly articulated for clients (and staff), both will take it for granted or maybe even not recognise it.

Jan Van Veen, is Founder of MoreMomentum

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TomTom Telematics has launched a new version of its fleet management Software-as-a-Service solution WEBFLEET 3.3 which allows fleet operators to review combined vehicle data from different sources in one easy-to-use interface.

The WEBLEET Plugin functionality allows a third party to generate notifications within WEBFLEET to draw the user’s attention to an event or a specific vehicle. This will highlight, for example, when a cold chain trailer temperature is out of range or a vehicle has maintenance issues which need to be addressed.

Using the company's award-winning WEBFLEET.connect open API functionality, the software enables flexible and easy back office integrations to bring all information into one system.

For customers with bespoke software needs, this means faster and easier fleet control, integrating such services as safety cameras, temperature monitoring, alcohol testing, routing optimisation or ERP information within their WEBFLEET management system.

The technology is already being used by mutual customers of TomTom Telematics and VisionTrack to view vehicle camera footage directly from WEBFLEET.

"Our customers who also use TomTom Telematics can now pull up incident footage instantly and review via the WEBFLEET interface, without having to open up the VisionTrack software independently," said Richard Lane, Commercial Director at VisionTrack.  "Having access to both visual proof and telematics data gives the clearest picture possible and helps to mitigate insurance costs. We’re excited to bring this new partnership to our mutual customers."

Beverley Wise, Director UK & Ireland for TomTom Telematics, added: “This new capability gives our customers an easier user experience, with faster and more convenient access to the management information they need to make smarter decisions.

"Having real-time third-party information in one interface makes WEBFLEET the hub for optimal fleet control."

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Tieto announced recently that it is one the first Nordic companies to join the European AI Alliance, a newly-formed forum for artificial intelligence (AI) stakeholders to come together to push European competitiveness on AI research and development and its impacts on industry and society.

The AI Alliance, established by the European Commission, brings together a diverse set of leading AI actors, including companies, consumer organizations, trade unions and other representatives of civil society bodies across Europe to share best practices. The AI Alliance aims to directly contribute to the European debate on AI and impact the Commission’s AI policy-making.

To achieve that, the AI Alliance works in close collaboration with the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG), a group the Commission has also established, with 52 members from academia, business and civil society such as Bayer, BMW, Bosch, Fraunhofer Institute, Google, IBM, Nokia, Siemens, Telenor and University of Oxford. The AI HLEG advises the Commission on AI’s opportunities and challenges, and supports it in the implementation of the European strategy on AI. The AI HLEGwill also prepare AI ethics guidelines covering issues such as fairness, safety and transparency as well as the impact on our fundamental rights, including privacy, dignity and consumer protection.

The AI Alliance will complement and support the work of the AI HLEG in particular in preparing AI ethics guidelines and ensuring Europe’s competitiveness in AI. Tieto and other members of the AI Alliance can provide direct feedback on specific questions and draft documents prepared by the AI HLEG.

“As one of the first Nordic companies involved in the AI Alliance, this is a great opportunity for Tieto to facilitate the development of artificial intelligence in Europe. We are excited to join forces with other AI Alliance members to foster AI innovation while also ensuring the highest ethical and sustainability standards in the development of AI. We will work alongside other leading members to build strategies that accelerate AI research and industrial applications,” says Dr. Christian Guttmann, Vice President, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Tieto.

“As a Nordic leader in AI, we have already established a Tieto wide AI ethics certificate and are already recruiting new talent in this area, including AI ethics and transparency engineers and AI Trainers to teach our AI systems,” Guttmann continues.

AI and advanced data analytics are an integral part of Tieto’s vision for future growth and success, and Tieto has recently developed several innovative AI and data-driven projects, including the trial with the City of Espoo. Tieto will have six representatives in the AI Alliance, each with deep scientific and industrial experience in AI, including AI’s sub-categories such as machine learning, deep learning, multi-agent systems, knowledge representation, machine perception and AI ethics.

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Manuel Grenacher discusses why Automation is set to play a crucial part in the two key pillars of field service success, operational effectiveness and customer satisfaction...

As part of the fourth industrial revolution, manufacturing factories are undergoing digital transformations, and not just on the factory floor but also business-wide – specifically regarding automation.

Research firm Gartner defines intelligent automation services as “a variety of strategies, skills, tools, and techniques that service providers are using to remove the need for labour, and increase the predictability and reliability of services while reducing the cost of delivery,” and Gartner predicts that automation will reshape managed workplace services over the next few years, providing a higher customer experience at a deflated cost.

"More than 50% of job responsibilities of today’s global labour force can be automated by adapting contemporary technologies..."

Less than 5% of occupations are likely to be affected by full automation, thus curbing job dismissals – which are often cited as the main risk of the automation trend. Instead, industry experts are discussing the “partial automation potential” concept and estimate that more than 50% of job responsibilities of today’s global labour force can be automated by adapting contemporary technologies, amounting to over $15 trillion in wages.

In the field service management (FSM) industry, to keep up with customer demands, field service organisations are refining, expediting and automating service processes, using automated dispatch and scheduling software to adjust and balance resources and manage the growing number of jobs, technicians and customers.

Dispatchers work closely together with the system, leading the more face-front work and leaving the technical, tedious work to the automation-enabled software – and this results in the following benefits and outcomes.

Finding the Perfect Fit

With the help of automated dispatch and scheduling, service providers can review historical customer information at-a-glance and send out the best-fit technician with the proper skill set and tools, resulting in the quickest match and an excellent experience for all partners involved.

Having a technician on-the-job without the proper equipment and expertise can damage the relationship between the customer and technician, and can lead to many inconveniences when chasing down the potential solution. Field service organizations can deploy the automated system for both short-term projects, as well as long-cycle projects, which requires a complex calculation and organization of specific resources over an extended period.

"Automated dispatch and scheduling projects enable the best possible utilisation of all available resources, resulting in simplifying the dispatching process..."

Automated dispatch and scheduling projects enable the best possible utilisation of all available resources, resulting in simplifying the dispatching process, increasing first-time fix rate, and elevating efficiency and productivity (which translates directly into a sizable return on investments).

By providing relevant details to technicians in the field, while they are in the middle of scheduling future appointments and managing various projects, field service organisations will notice smoother and swifter operations.

Flexible Mobility and Real-time Results

Customer satisfaction extends far beyond the purchase of machines and devices, as the increasing shift towards a mobile-enabled, connected world has conditioned end-users to expect delivery of products and services in realtime.

People do not have time to wait around for a technician set to arrive sometime within an 8-hour time-frame; with the help of up-to-date, automated status reports via mobile devices (including phones, tablets and more), customers are supported as conveniently as possible.

An automated system also benefits the technicians, as they can receive real-time information on their schedules, directly to their mobile device. If a colleague is unable to perform a project or task, the automated software dispatches the adequate person to the assignment and eliminates the tasks of heading to the back office to get assignments or manually checking the best route to appointments.

Before automation, administrative staff were dependent on a labour-intensive process and inefficient combination of spreadsheets and geographic expertise of schedulers to get engineers where and when they needed to go.

Automated dispatching and scheduling gets the right people to the right place, on time, and with the parts they need – and enables organizations to transmit critical information much faster and more efficiently than before.

This leads to improved field service operations on a local, national and international scale, which results in the ultimate goal: an enriched customer experience.

Manuel Grenacher is CEO, Coresystems

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In addition to the smooth transition toward an outcome-based business model, the organisation-wide and bottom line benefits of automating asset and service data collection and utilisation are vast. The benefits are perhaps no clearer than when it comes to achieving minimal unplanned downtime, where over nine in ten (94%) respondents report that the automated collection and utilisation of asset service data will be absolutely fundamental or an important factor in actually achieving this asset specific benefit. A similar proportion (91%) report the same for improved first-time fix rates.

Plugging the Holes – Revenue Leakage

Further to this, 82% believe that automating asset and service data processes will be pivotal when it comes to lower leakages, and contract leakage is something that is causing a great deal of damage to organisations currently.

On average, respondents’ organisations are undertaking 187,470 work orders per year, but an estimated 8.34% (17,542 work orders1 ) of these work orders are left unaccounted for by engineers according to those respondents who know how many are carried out on a yearly basis. This can lead to huge financial deficits and wasted resources and is clearly a problem that organisations should be taking notice of if they want to remain financially viable.

The issue of contract leakage is proving particularly problematic for organisations in the oil and gas, and telecoms sectors – on average, respondents from the oil and gas sector report that their organisation carries out 228,261 work orders on a yearly basis, and those in the telecoms sector are undertaking 213,424 work orders. The level of contract leakage in organisations from these two sectors is staggering. The respondents from the telecoms sector who know the number of work orders being carried out per year, report an average leakage of 9.64% (26,321 work orders), and this is only slightly lower at 9.41% (23,093 work orders) according to those from oil and gas. It seems unthinkable that organisations are unaware of such a gaping hole in their business, and it raises the question of what else could they be missing?

The process of automating asset and service data practices will not only benefit those involved in keeping track of work orders but can have wider reaching benefits as well, exemplified by the 84% of respondents who agree that the successful utilisation of asset data can positively impact all areas of the business. The specific departments that are expected to benefit include, but are not limited to, sales (38%) and marketing (37%) who will be able to better leverage customer usage behaviour, finance (33%) who will be able to provide more accurate billing, and even corporate social responsibility (27%) who will be able to monitor the environmental impacts of assets more effectively.

Bottom Line Benefits: Double-Digit Revenue Growth

While these organisation-wide benefits are impossible to ignore, the truly jaw-dropping potential of automating the collection, aggregation and analysis of asset and service data comes from the bottom line benefits. On average, respondents estimate that this process and using it to drive new marketing, sales and financing models can increase their organisation’s revenue by 14.15% over the next 12 months. In addition, it is thought that operational costs could be reduced by as much as 12.03%, on average.

[quote float="left"]An increase in revenue and decrease in operational costs can only lead to one thing – increasing profit margins.[/quote]An increase in revenue and decrease in operational costs can only lead to one thing – increasing profit margins.

The figures around revenue and operational costs show slight variation by region, with those in the US and MENAT particularly confident about the revenue increases that their organisations will witness – average increases of 15.67% and 15.43% are forecast respectively. Furthermore, those from the MENAT region are almost equally as bullish about the prospects of reducing their operational costs, predicting an average reduction of 14.21%. This is likely to be at least in part down to organisations in the MENAT region starting with a clean slate – the region is currently booming with new business and they are less likely than their counterparts in Europe or the US to have existing legacy technologies in place which would slow down any transition towards the automation of processes. This, in turn, means that they can begin to witness the financial benefits almost immediately – exciting times for the MENAT region providing that any transition is rigorously planned and diligently implemented.

Predicted financial benefits over the next 12 months

Another key way of making money is to improve cash flow and automating the collection and utilisation of asset and service data can also assist in this domain – over eight in ten (83%) respondents believe that the automatic collection, aggregation and analysis of asset service data could have a positive impact on their organisation’s cash flow over the next 12 months.

But what about return on investment?

Ultimately organisations are going to have to spend a fairly significant amount of money on the automation of asset and service data processes which might put some businesses off, but if the reward outweighs the risk then this is surely going to be a worthwhile expenditure.

Strong RoI

When taking into account all of the benefits that their organisation could experience, respondents believe that for every $1 they invest in ensuring that they can automatically collect, aggregate and analyse asset service data they would expect a return of $4.44, on average. Respondents from organisations in the US are even more convinced about the possible returns that they could experience, believing that this figure could soar as high as $5.29. The potential returns dwarf the initial outlay and it is hard to imagine a stronger case for investing in this process in order to guarantee a better future for organisations.

These financial benefits all culminate in enhanced competitiveness within the industry, and 87% of respondents agree that the automatic collection and utilisation of asset service data will have a positive impact on their organisation’s ability to remain competitive in their sector.

This is crucial because the more that organisations across the globe begin to realise the value that this process can bring the more that asset and service data will be used, explaining why the vast majority (86%) of respondents agree that the more asset service data is used, the more value it brings to the organisation.

A success loop will inevitably be created, opening the door for those who are brave enough to take those initial steps to get a jump on the competition and put themselves out there as leaders in their industry.

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