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xMatters, a company specialising in communications-enabled business processes, has announced its cloud-based, automated messaging and communications platform is now fully certified for integration with the latest version of ServiceNow, the enterprise IT cloud company.

This latest version, known as Dublin, delivers enhancements to accelerate innovation, mobility, consolidation and automation within IT and across the entire enterprise.

With this cloud-to-cloud integration, joint customers can seamlessly integrate the full power of xMatters’ enterprise-grade, multi-modal communications with ServiceNow’s IT management solutions.

The Dublin release adds IT alerting based on rules such as on-call schedules, escalations and device preference as well as proactive subscription-based notifications to impacts or ‘in the know’ individuals throughout the enterprise.

In addition, xMatters’ on-demand platform offers full support for its iOS, Android and Blackberry mobile application, enabling users to take advantage of two-way notifications and the ability to respond from anywhere.

“Our customers operate in a rapid-pace environment and this continued integration with ServiceNow is a testament to providing them with the most efficient communications platform for critical moments,” said Troy McAlpin, CEO of xMatters.

“The added functionality available with this new release will continue to support users as unexpected incidents occur, managing all the message content and handling through our notifications.” He concluded

Recruitment consultancy Concept Resourcing have recently announced that they are able to report the highest demand for their services since 2008.

This growth is largely due to the company having seen particularly strong demand for their Field Service Engineering division.  This division specialises in providing field engineers to a number of sectors including IT, document solutions, domestic appliances, plant hire and commercial and domestic gas.

In March this year the company registered 346 new client vacancies, which is a 57% increase on the same period last year.  This increase is a clear indication that many UK business owners across the UK have confidence to increase permanent headcount in their service departments.  Good news overall for the UK employment market and further proof of a strong growth in the economy.

Concept Resourcing’s field service engineering division has placed more permanent staff over the last quarter than ever before. As a result they are currently hiring new resourcers and recruitment consultants into the division in response to increasing demand for our services.

It seems that the service industry continues to remain a strong, vibrant and vital part of the UK’s economic recovery.

Based on its recent analysis of the mobile workforce management market, Frost & Sullivan have recognised Xora, a ClickSoftware Company with the 2014 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership.

The award highlights Xora's superior focus on enhancing the value customers receive, beyond good service, leading to improved customer retention and, ultimately, market share expansion.

Four key factors contributed to Xora’s leadership in providing customer value:

• a best-in-class customer support program during and after solution deployment
• an affordable, cloud-based delivery model
• the forging of strong partnerships with wireless carriers
• an expanded definition of the solution’s use and value in today’s marketplace

Xora StreetSmart, a suite of configurable mobile apps that turn any mobile phone or tablet into a powerful productivity tool, is designed to appeal to a wide range of businesses and public-sector agencies.

The application is highly configurable through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface and is continually evolving with new feature releases. Cloud-based SaaS deployment minimizes IT requirements. The solution also allows customers to easily scale their implementation, leveraging new features as their needs evolve. This ultimately creates high-value delivery for each Xora customer and rapid ROI.

As a part of its promise to provide best-in-class service, Xora delivers live training to educate users on solution capabilities, ranging from help creating wireless forms to configuring mobile jobs and defining mobile business workflows to better realise the customer’s end goals. Xora also invests time and energy to understand business needs of its customers, which results in clear ROI expectations for the customer and greater use of Xora’s capabilities, ultimately leading to better service for end consumers.

With the merging of ClickSoftware and Xora, customers will receive increased benefits from the ability to expand their functionality as their business and mobile workforce needs grow. The merging of the two organisations will enable Xora to leverage ClickSoftware’s global sales operations, while providing ClickSoftware additional distribution channels through leading wireless carriers.

Xora is both a visionary and evangelist when it comes to the business potential of mobile workforce management solutions. The company has spent the past two years working to expand the industry’s view of the value and capabilities that MWM solutions can deliver—well beyond just understanding employee locations to transforming mobile business processes in the field.

“By merging Xora and ClickSoftware, we expanded our product offerings to service companies of all sizes, from 5 to 50,000 mobile workers. We are proud to deliver services that enable them to provide an exceptional customer experience, while also providing the tools to achieve outstanding operational performance and grow their businesses,” said Dr. Moshe Ben Bassat, founder and CEO of ClickSoftware.

“The combination of Xora and ClickSoftware will enable companies to pick the deployment model that suits their needs—whether it’s an out-of-the-box cloud deployment for an SMB or enterprise solution to meet more complex business needs.” he continued.

“Xora knows the SMB sector—its needs, its fears, its pain points,” said Jeanine Sterling, principal analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “As a result, it understands how to create real value for small and mid-sized businesses, focusing not just on affordability, but also on two other make-or-break factors with these customers—ease of implementation and ease of use. We’re very pleased to recognise Xora, a ClickSoftware Company, with this Customer Value Leadership Award.”

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

DA Systems, a leading UK provider of mobile data and transport management solutions for the transport, retail, healthcare and field service sectors, is pleased to report that its existing customer, Speed Couriers, has successfully grown its medical courier division by 45% and secured an important new business contract with an NHS Trust. These achievements have been attributed to the important contribution DA Systems’ Advanced Courier Interface (ACI) technology has made in enabling Speed Couriers to provide a highly efficient and reliable service, with 100% traceability of medical consignments at all times.

An ACI user for over a decade, Speed Couriers is the North West’s largest independent courier firm and seen demand for its medical courier services double in the past 5 years. Most recently the company secured a contract with a major North West NHS Trust to provide on-going transportation services to connect NHS hospitals within the region, which will help the Trust save costs and become more efficient.

Designed by DA Systems specifically for the courier industry, ACI has played a vital role in enabling Speed Couriers to grow its medical courier division and offer a secure, time critical service to the NHS Trust and other clients. The solution provides real-time track and trace functionality plus the ability to automatically email electronic signature capture to provide proof of delivery for every consignment.

On behalf of the NHS Trust, Speed Couriers provides an on-going outsourced transport service, which includes the provision of 4 vans on a permanent basis, responsibility for sample collection from local area GPs and a continuous shuttle service between the hospital sites. In addition to transporting medical consignments, Speed Couriers also provide a secure transportation service for the Trust’s specialist monitoring equipment. This benefits the Trust by giving it greater flexibility over how to allocate financial resources. Rather than automatically having to purchase multiple units of test equipment, it can be transported to the different sites as needed by patients, leaving more resources available for other requirements.

Using ACI, Speed Courier’s medical customers have the ability to communicate via a real-time portal to pre-book transport services and pinpoint the whereabouts of test equipment and other medical consignments in real-time. Services can be operated in a ‘self-service’ manner, enabling the customer to have full access to the job booking system and schedule pick-ups and drop offs directly, improving speed and efficiency.

“Our contract with the NHS Trust illustrates perfectly how the ACI technology has supported the on-going growth of Speed’s medical business by allowing us to be completely accountable for the service we provide and giving the customer full visibility online of every consignment,” says James Hadley, Commercial Director at Speed Couriers. “A major benefit of ACI is its ability to consolidate data from multiple sources into a single source of information for customers and the control room to act upon quickly.”

“Technology is important for any courier but is especially critical for the medical sector because of the time sensitive nature of their work,” says David Upton, Managing Director of DA Systems. “We are delighted that ACI has enabled Speed Couriers to expand its business so effectively and we wish them continued success for the future.”

Global designer and manufacturer of rugged computing technology, Getac, is launching a new tablet designed specifically to boost productivity for mobile workers, the 8.1" Windows 8 Getac T800.

The thin and light Windows OS device has been designed based on demands from mobile workers from Utilities, Field Services and Public Safety sectors. Getac has responded to those demands by developing a device that offers all the power, performance and usability of a high-quality consumer device, without compromising on the tablet’s full ruggedisation.

With its 8.1" screen, the optimal screen size for Windows 8, a thickness of 24mm and weighing just 0.88kg, the innovative T800 is small enough to fit in a pocket or your hand, but still offers all the power and performance a remote worker needs.

Getac’s unique SnapBack expansion system allows users to add expansions to the T800 such as an extra battery, increasing the operation use to greater than 16 hours. An additional SnapBack expansion is a 2-in-1 RFID and Smart Card Reader. Mobile workers will also benefit from the fully rugged design which has MIL-STD 810G and IP65 ratings, meaning the device can handle shock, drops and vibration to military grades while also being sealed against dust and water.

The 8.1" screen is built with LumibondTM, Getac’s proprietary screen technology that offers excellent touch control and sunlight readability, without compromising battery performance.

Peter Molyneux, Getac UK President says: “The T800 gives the best performance of any fully rugged Windows 8 tablet in the market today. Our customers have given us tremendous feedback on the T800’s thin and light design, while offering high levels of integration and field performance. We always target to give our customers the latest in fully rugged computer technology with no compromise on performance, and again we feel confident we have achieved this in the T800.”

Powered by the latest quad-core Intel N3530 2.16 GHz processor, the T800 also provides unparalleled connectivity and can be configured with 4G LTE cellular data with an auto tunable 8-band antenna capable of quickly switching between bands. It also includes the latest 802.11ac WiFi for data transfer speeds up to 3 times faster than 802.11n products. The T800’s optional SiRFstarIV GPS offers double search capacity, faster location positioning and improved accuracy.

Key features:

• 16 GHz processor,
• Windows 7, Windows 8.1 OS
• Tablet size: 227 x 151 x 24mm; 8.1" screen
• Weight: 880g
• Multi-touch display
• 64 GB / 128 GB SSD
• SiRFstarIV™ GPS
• Fully Rugged
• MIL-STD 810G, IP65
• Ultrafast Wifi Connection: 802.11 ac
• Strong Connectivity
• in-house patented 3D antenna design
• SnapBack expandability: 2-in-1 Smart Card Reader & RFID, or second Battery
• Battery life: 8 hours / 16 hours with SnapBack Battery
• Tri RF pass-through (WWAN & WLAN & GPS)

Look out for our exclusive interview with Getac's Peter Molyneux discussing this exciting new launch and rugged technology as a whole coming very soon... 

TomTom Telematics (formerly known as TomTom Business Solutions) now has 28,000 customers and 350,000 vehicles subscribed to its Software as a Service (SaaS) fleet management solution. This represents a 38 per cent year-on-year growth and reaffirms its position as a market leader in Europe.

Its WEBFLEET platform provides real time vehicle tracking, driving information and reports about operational performance to fleet managers.

“The growth of WEBFLEET is founded upon its success in helping businesses operate more efficiently by turning large vehicle data volumes into actionable insights,” said Thomas Schmidt, Managing Director, TomTom Telematics.

“As the largest and fastest growing fleet management provider in Europe, we have a lot of experience in helping customers to use this data to manage and improve their overall vehicle operations.”

In a single day, these 350,000 managed vehicles make 1.75 million business and private trips and drive more than 60 million km, the equivalent of 1,500 times around the world.

The data centers, provided with the highest security and performance standard (ISO27001), process over 425 million messages and GPS positions per day or 25 billion new data points every quarter. At any moment, this data is immediately available to business customers in clear dashboards, live vehicle information or via detailed reports in order to decrease fuel, maintenance and insurance costs of the fleet of vehicles.

[quote style="boxed"]Click here for more features, news and resources from TomTom Telematics in the Field Service News Directory[/quote]

YO! Sushi, the iconic Japanese restaurant brand has reported successful deployment of Aeromark’s Smart Optimatics technology and immediate return on investment in the first month following implementation.

In 2013 YO! Sushi attended Service Management Expo looking for a system that would improve the management of its Facilities and Assets including conveyor belts, fridges, freezers, cookers and air conditioning units, and its service supply chain for planned and reactive maintenance. Aeromark offered a single configurable solution and within three months the system was deployed, instantly saving management time and associated administration when managing subcontractors.

“Our previous system resulted in needless expenditure, as we had no transparency of costs, which caused a financial impact on the restaurants ongoing expenditure. We needed a system that provided visibility and central control of finance, to ensure that faulty assets were fixed immediately within budget.” Said Mike Bonaker, Facilities Manager at YO! Sushi.

Following evaluation on different facilities management software at the Service Management Expo, YO! Sushi chose Aeromark Optimatics. “The ability for their system to be configured to meet exactly what we needed in terms of keeping the restaurant equipment and facilities running smoothly, faster response times to our restaurants and complete audit trails of subcontractor performance, are the reasons why we chose Optimatics as opposed to other software on the shelf” said Mike.

Optimatics provides YO! Sushi restaurant managers with a single solution for asset management, a central storage for all data and integration with subcontractor systems. “This system allows restaurant managers to plan reactive jobs quickly and efficiently by simply using a Smartphone to scan the QR code on the faulty asset. The trouble ticket is then emailed to the subcontractor and they update the status allowing for reports on service level agreement hits to be generated” said Mike.

Since the deployment of Aeromark Optimatics Asset Management, YO! Sushi’s assets costs and service intervals have improved through the visibility of subcontracting service history.

“We find this systematic approach to operating much easier and we are reassured that the restaurant facilities will continue to be addressed within service level agreement as we are constantly tweaking features of the system to meet the needs of our business.” said Mike.

YO! Sushi’s deployment of Aeromark Optimatics system has been essential to restaurant efficiency and service supply chain and therefore continues to improve their customer service levels.

Masternaut, one Europe’s largest provider of telematics solutions, has been working with logistics firm Currie European since October 2008, delivering both vehicle tracking and driver behaviour monitoring functionality to the business.

The deployment has generated a marked uplift in the productivity of Currie European’s fleet, which operates across the whole of Europe and was awarded the Transport News Scottish European Haulier of the Year award for 2014.

Masternaut’s system has facilitated improved fleet planning, with at-a-glance visibility of every vehicle enabling the organisation to cut down on wasted journey time while sharing exact whereabouts of vehicles and expected arrival times with customers. The driver behaviour module has also allowed Currie European to monitor the safety of its drivers, highlighting habits such as speeding or vehicle idling in order to deliver preventative measures and issue training where necessary. As a result, Currie European has recently renewed its contract with Masternaut for a further five years.

Steve Walls, Business Systems Director at Currie European, comments: “Masternaut’s system has had a huge impact on our business. Since bringing on the solution in 2008, we’ve been able to significantly improve the operational efficiency of our fleet.”

“Improving our productivity has had a knock-on effect on customer service; we can ensure we always reach our customers in time, while keeping them better-informed en-route. What’s more, we share this fleet intelligence directly with customers, allowing them to view exactly where our vehicles are on a map-based interface generated in real time by Masternaut’s data, via our customer portal.”

Martin Hiscox, chairman and CEO of Masternaut, adds: “Managing the efficient coordination of a fleet the size of Currie European is no easy task.  By using our solution, Steve and his team are exemplifying how telematics can be used to not only drive tangible business benefits back to the organisation, but also to deliver significant service improvements to its own customers.

As Currie European goes from to strength to strength, we look forward to a continued successful partnership as we enable the business to keep tabs on its ever-expanding fleet.”

Trimble Field Service Management are bringing together a panel of field service leaders and industry exerts from around the globe to participate in a virtual summit which will be focusing on the shape of the industry today.

The summit, Transform Service Delivery: A Global Perspective will be held on Thursday 3^rd April and follows on from the launch of a new research paper from Trimble FSM entitled Transforming Service Delivery: An Insight Report, and addresses issues and challenges that are faced by field service organisations today.

There are five speakers scheduled to participate in the event whose presentations will cover topics including change management, emerging technologies, mobile resources, issue resolution, performance excellence and future trends.

The Aberdeen Group’s Aly Pinder, will lead the presentations discussing “Breaking through the roadblocks to deliver exceptional customer service.”

He will then be followed by:

• Anil Tiwari, solutions architect at Trimble Field Service Management, discussing Leveraging Data to Optimise Field Operations
• Barry White, CEO of G7 Consulting, discussing Effective Change Management: Strategies for Success
• Nate Vineyard, director of operations & performance for Multiband, discussing Managing the Mobile Workforce
• Sharon Clancy, editor of m.logistics, speaking on What the Future Holds for Field Service

• Sarah Nicastro, publisher and editor in chief of Field Technologies magazine, will moderate.

To register for the summit, or to obtain a recording of the event click here