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In 2015 Field Service News and leading FSM software provider ServiceMax teamed up on a research project to assess the appetite for IoT as a tool for improving field service delivery.

One year on we followed up with a fresh research project into the area to see what trends have emerged and now in a four part series we bring you the findings of this latest research. In part One of this series we explored the headline findings of this year’s research against the context of the previous year’s results. 

In part two we dug deeper into the study to explore what additional technologies are sitting amongst companies either planning to, or actively using IoT as a tool for field service delivery as well as what the cultural impacts of implementing IoT are and whether these are being considered by organisations.

In part three of this exclusive series we looked at the impact of servitization as a key driver for the adoption of IoT.

Now in the final part of this series we look at best practice for IoT implementation and some concluding thoughts on the research findings as well as hearing expert views on this research from Athani Krishna, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer and Dave Hart, Senior Vice President, Customer Success, ServiceMax...

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Best practice for IoT implementation:

Finally, let’s look at what we can learn from the group of respondents who have either actually already undertaken an implementation of an IoT solution as part of their field service management operations, or were currently actively in the process of doing so.

We asked respondents in this group to identify which steps they would take and in what order to make an IoT implementation as simple as possible whilst avoiding any common pitfalls.

The general consensus led to the following best practice steps:

• Research the concept - including attending trade-shows, reading relevant trade journals such as field service news etc
• Developing a business plan for how your service division will operate once IoT is implemented
• Identify relevant providers
• Seek professional advice (from either solution providers or consultants)
• Gain backing for the project from the executive board
• Select a solution provider
• Establish new business processes and role these out internally
• Connect assets in the field

What is particularly interesting about this set of findings is that the collected wisdom of those who have either gone through or are currently going through the implementation process is that there is a lot of work devising strategy and a sensible roadmap ahead of actually connecting assets out in the field.

Conclusions:

For those companies still not considering IoT there are some clear warnings here.

The general consensus is that those companies that fail to adopt IoT and adapt to a more proactive means of working are at risk of falling behind.

Indeed, even procrastination could be a risky game to play when we consider that there is a long suggested process in terms of best-practice implementations of which connecting assets (which could in itself be a considerable task depending on the size of your install base) sits right at the end of the road map.

And with 78% of field service professionals believing there will be significant competitive gains for those companies who become early adopters of IoT as a field service tool, with increased efficiency, customer satisfaction and profits being the three most anticipated benefits (each are expected by over 75% of respondents with 98% of respondents expecting increased efficiency) the rewards certainly appear to be widely accepted as both tangible and genuine.

 

IoT seems like a clear destination for field service operations. It seems it is now just a matter of who can get there first.

Expert View: Athani Krishna, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, ServiceMax

The Internet of Things as a concept is nothing new. I’d wager most people have been familiar with the novel applications of IoT since Cisco started championing the “Internet of Everything” ads several years ago. Nowadays, IoT is infusing itself into just about anything, from oil rigs and proton therapy machines to municipal trash cans and elevators.

But novelties aside, we’ve had a front-row seat to where IoT is truly proving its value – field service. And in this survey gauging the IoT appetite among largely UK-based manufacturing leaders, we’re seeing clear hunger.

It makes perfect sense – in a world where manufacturers face stagnant product-centric margins and pressures to grow their businesses, service is the natural next place to look. But we’re not talking about selling mere warranties and service plans – the stuff of yesterday. We’re talking about investing in IoT to remotely diagnose machine issues, guarantee uptimes and move to an outcomes-based selling model. That gives manufacturers more predictability in revenues and customers predictability in uptime of equipment.

This isn’t a future dream. Our customers such as Elekta, McKinley Equipment and Medivators have all demonstrated real business results using our Connected Field Service solution to unlock new revenue streams and improve customer satisfaction. These companies are moving their service operations from a reactive scenario, where technicians are dispatched once a customer calls, to one where the customer never even needs to call.

 

But what’s interesting is that while connectivity is the greatest benefit, it’s also one of the greatest hurdles. For companies, opening up systems for a connection to equipment vendors can pose security challenges. Networking & IoT technology companies understand these hurdles very well, and are working to make security better everyday. For this new reality of outcome-based services model to proliferate, companies need to understand that this is all a partnership.

As technology gets better, and early adopters embrace this new business model, I do expect this increasingly become industry standard – companies won’t see customers & vendors anymore; they will only see partners.

Expert View: Dave Hart, Senior Vice President, Customer Success, ServiceMax

Moving from a product-focused business to a service-centric operation can unlock growth potential like never before. But getting there indeed requires a cultural shift.

Just about half of those surveyed here admit that servitization - that is, delivering a service component as an added value when providing products – will have a disruptive influence on company culture. Now, understand there’s a spectrum when evolving service. Sometimes it’s limited to selling more warranties and contracts; that’s less what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about is leveraging IoT to get to an outcomes-based service model; indeed many of our customers have taken this approach or are starting to do. That’s where things get more complex.

From where I stand, having spent nearly three decades as both a field service technician as well as a service leader, the cultural impacts of infusing IoT are real and they are significant – and it’s likely, according to this survey, the impact will be greater than expected.

Think about it: an outcomes-based service model affects the finance team in the sense they need to plan for recurring revenue streams versus the days of on-premises software sold as a hard good once. Marketing and sales teams need to shift their focus from pitching product to selling the idea of service. Field service engineers themselves now can work with R&D teams more intimately to share specs on how products are performing – or not – in the field. And with IoT-laced infrastructures, it obviously has huge implications for IT departments as well.

 

All of this means the C-suite must be intimately involved in an outcomes-based approach. Migrating to this business model equates to effectively turning the organisation on its head, and that is a very difficult exercise that needs a holistic approach from the top.

Our customer IBA, which manufacturers proton therapy machines for cancer treatments, has noted it doesn’t necessarily expect its field engineers to become R&D professionals but that it envisions a reality where on-site technicians efficiently share product performance knowledge with those teams. That will require a shift in thinking and process.

At the end of the day, too, managers, directors and VP’s need to consult those actually performing the services – the field technicians. Thankfully, 80 percent of those surveyed said they are already consulting with their service engineers with regards to this transition. That’s a good first step.

Servitization is not necessarily and easy plug-and-play journey. Change is hard, but taking the right steps to align prior to implementation will save hurt down the road.

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Having conducted exclusive research into the use of Cloud based Field Service Management Systems in 2015, Field Service News and ClickSoftware have once again teamed up and returned to the topic one year on to see just how their predictions based on last year's findings have borne out. 

In part one of this series we looked at exactly what those predictions last year were as well as some of the headline findings of this year's research. In part two of the series we explored the trends have emerged year on year plus Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware offered her expert view as to what these trends mean for field service organisations. 

In the third part of the series we looked at whether security remains the biggest barrier to adoption for those reluctant to move to a Cloud based FSM solution and Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, offers his expert view on the survey as a whole also... 

Now in the concluding part of this feature we look at the benefits being felt by those who have moved to the Cloud, the remaining barriers to adoption and draw some overall conclusions

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The benefits of moving to the Cloud:

The benefits of Cloud based solutions, whether it be a FSM solution or another business tool, are by now very well documented.

Key benefits of the Cloud include: less reliance and strain on internal IT departments, more manageable costs, built in disaster recovery, scalability, and easier implementation both of the system initially and also of upgrades and updates.

But what are the key benefits that companies that have actually moved to a Cloud based FSM solution are experiencing, having made the switch away from on-premise software?

We asked our respondents to identify both the key drivers for them moving to the Cloud and the biggest benefit they have experienced since having made the switch.

Interestingly, our results showed there is some variance between the two, indicating that after making the move, companies are discovering different benefits to those that they originally expected.

Firstly, let’s look at the drivers for selecting a Cloud based FSM system.

The most commonly cited driver for moving to the Cloud was that Cloud solutions offer greater flexibility and scalability, which 86% of companies using Cloud based FSM systems cited as a reason for them opting for Cloud.

 

Other commonly cited factors in driving companies to the Cloud were ‘easy remote access’ and ‘less reliance on IT’ both of which were cited by 63% of companies.

Meanwhile, improved functionality was also widely acknowledged to be another important consideration with exactly half of respondents citing this as a benefit that drove their decision to move to the Cloud.

However, when we turn our attention to the actual benefits that companies have experienced after moving to a Cloud based FSM system - we see that improved functionality is in fact the most commonly cited benefit with over

two thirds of companies (71%) identifying this as the biggest single benefit realised.

Alongside this, improved productivity is equally common at 68% and more manageable costs were also widely cited, with over half (57%) of our respondents stating they saw this as a major benefit.

Given our assertion that the move to the Cloud is heavily tied to the replacement-cycle of FSM systems, and because improved functionality and productivity are the most commonly cited benefits, we think it reasonable to assume that many companies who have yet to update their systems are now facing a competitive disadvantage by not doing so.

This argument could also be further supported when we look at how long those using on- premise FSM systems have had their current systems. In fact, over two thirds (70%) of companies using on-premise FSM systems have had their systems for more than 3 years.

 

The results undeniably prove that older systems are more likely to be on-premise, whilst more recently implemented systems will be Cloud based.

One of the widely cited benefits of Cloud based systems is the ease of installing system updates and the introduction of new features and functionality - and this is corroborated by the research findings as directly stated by those companies that have adopted Cloud based FSM systems.

In fact, this is highlighted perfectly by the fact that of those companies  have made the move to a Cloud based FSM system 100% stated they would recommend the Cloud over an on-premise equivalent - the second time running that Cloud based systems were given such an overwhelming endorsement.

Remaining barriers to adoption:

As we touched on above, our two previous studies into the use and appetite for Cloud computing as a platform for FSM systems found security to be the ever present elephant in the room.

However, this year, for the first time ever, concerns amongst those yet to move away from on-premise software to Cloud based equivalents have been as much about connectivity issues as they have around security.

Of course, the ability to access the internet is a fundamental tenant of Cloud computing, so it is of little wonder that as concerns around security lessen to then connectivity will become the most pressing concern for those debating a move to the Cloud.

Whilst it may not be a particular issue for back end systems, one of the key benefits of Cloud computing is the ability to provide remote access to elements of such systems such as asset management, parts inventory and of course job schedules to our engineers working in the field.

 

Whilst within the UK at least, 3G data signals have now reached a projected 97% coverage, not every country has such a widespread service. This may be why connectivity issues were the most commonly cited reason why companies do not feel confident in making a move to the Cloud with over a third (35%) of companies stating this is the single biggest concern around moving their FSM system to a Cloud based platform.

Security fears then came in as the second biggest concern cited by a fifth (20%) of companies - whilst issues with legacy systems were cited by 15% of organisations.

However, despite these concerns once again we have seen a year on year increase in the number of companies still using an on-premise solution considering a move to the Cloud for their next upgrade or iteration of a FSM system.

In fact the number of companies using on-premise FSM software stating that they will consider moving to the Cloud is now approaching almost three quarters (71%).

Cloud in other parts of the business:

As we move more firmly into a world of Big Data and real-time analytics the easy-flow of both customer and asset data between differing systems is absolutely vital, as is the ability for such systems to be able to communicate with each other.

Alongside the ongoing willingness for organisations to develop APIs, the advent of Cloud computing has been the major factor in enabling such a seamless flow of data.

But what other areas within a business are predominantly becoming Cloud based and how they complement any given FSM system?

We asked both those who were using on premise and Cloud based FSM solutions if they were using the Cloud based systems in any other areas of their business.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those companies that were using Cloud based FSM systems showed a greater tendency to use Cloud in other areas of their business than those using on-premise FSM solutions.

However, amongst both sets of respondents, the business tool most commonly running in the Cloud was CRM with 75% of companies with a Cloud based FSM solution also using Cloud based CRM and only 20% of those companies using on-premise FSM software having their CRM system based in the Cloud.

While we don’t know the background, we can speculate that this may be largely due to the dominance of Cloud based CRM solutions driven in part by Cloud only provider Salesforce. Their success has seen other key players within the CRM sector (such as Microsoft) focus heavily on delivering a Cloud solution as well as driving a number of smaller providers to offer similar Cloud only CRM models.

Another factor for consideration is the importance of moving data between service and sales focused systems.

It has long been a major focus for a number of field service organisations to better leverage the insight of their service teams to greater effect in terms of revenue generation and the Cloud can be a key enabler to help organisations achieve this more effectively.

Conclusions: 

The results of this trends-based research certainly support the assertions made twelve months ago.

Not only have we seen a continued increase in the number of companies using Cloud based FSM systems and replacing on-premise systems with Cloud-based solutions, we have also seen the rate at which this number is growing increase significantly at the same time In addition to this, we have seen an increase in the number of companies still using on premise FSM software who are actively looking to make a move to the Cloud when they next upgrade their FSM solution.

Meanwhile, fears around the security of the Cloud are beginning to reduce, particularly as understanding of the higher levels of security embedded within enterprise focused Cloud platforms improve.

However, there remains a proportion of field service professionals who see security as the biggest barrier to adoption and platform and solutions vendors need to continue to provide information and education on this topic.

 

Of those who have made the move to the Cloud, real life benefits of improved system functionality and enhanced productivity are widely felt, as is the positive impact of the more manageable cost base of Cloud based FSM systems, usually offered on a Software as a Service basis.

While at the current time, there may still be more companies using on-premise FSM software than using Cloud based FSM systems, the shift towards the adoption of the Cloud that we identified within our previous research is indeed gaining further momentum and at a faster pace than ever before.

The research has also proven our previous assertion that the move to Cloud based FSM solutions is tied directly to the replacement cycle of FSM at large and the evidence would certainly suggest that as more companies continue to move onto next-generation FSM, the adoption of Cloud as the primary platform will become ever more prevalent.

It seems our prediction of a Cloud based future for most FSM system implementations looks set

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Having conducted exclusive research into the use of Cloud based Field Service Management Systems in 2015, Field Service News and ClickSoftware have once again teamed up and returned to the topic one year on to see just how their predictions based on last year's findings have borne out. 

In part one of this series we looked at exactly what those predictions last year were as well as some of the headline findings of this year's research. In part two of the series we explored the trends have emerged year on year plus Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware offered her expert view as to what these trends mean for field service organisations. 

Now in the third part of the series we look at whether security remains the biggest barrier to adoption for those reluctant to move to a Cloud based FSM solution and Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware, offers his expert view on the survey as a whole also... 

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Click here to download the full research report now

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The question of security:

So it seems that we are indeed seeing a continuation of the trends uncovered within last year’s research - in that the shift towards Cloud becoming the prevalent platform for FSM systems is continuing to gain momentum.

But how does this correlate with general perception around Cloud computing and in particular around security concerns - which were the key barrier to adoption for those who were reluctant to move to a Cloud based FSM in our previous research?

To answer this question let’s start by exploring how general perceptions about Cloud computing have changed, if at all, across the last twelve months.

In 2015 and 2016 we asked our respondents ‘Which of the following best sums up your perception of the Cloud in business?’

We gave our respondents a choice of four options:

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• 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 be keeping everything on premise, there is too much risk in the Cloud

[/unordered_list]

This year we saw the number of respondents who stated they saw “the Cloud as the future of enterprise computing” rise to over half (56%) of all respondents, an increase of 7% compared to the 2015 results.

[quote float="left"]The number of respondents who stated they saw “the Cloud as the future of enterprise computing” rise to over half (56%) of all respondents, an increase of 7% compared to the 2015 results.[/quote]We also saw a five point increase (i.e. from 35% to 40%) amongst those who stated that they could see the benefit of the Cloud but still had some concerns.

However, it is at the other end of the spectrum, where the responses offered had more negative connotations, that perhaps the greatest shift is apparent.

The number of those who stated they “wouldn’t trust putting sensitive data in the Cloud” has reduced from 13% in 2015 to just 6% in 2016 whilst the admittedly small (3%) section of respondents in 2015 who stated they felt we should be keeping “everything on-premise as there is too much risk in the Cloud” has completely disappeared within this year’s results.

It is also interesting to note that when we drill down further into the findings and look at the responses from companies based on the size of their mobile workforce that there is further evidence of a growing confidence in Cloud computing across the board.

To begin let’s take a look at those companies within the largest bracket of mobile workforce, i.e. those with 801 or more field service engineers/ technicians.

Indeed, in this bracket of companies 100% replied positively when we asked for their overall perception of the Cloud.

Over half (53%) of the field service professionals within this company size bracket stated that they saw the Cloud as the ‘future of enterprise computing’ whilst just under half (47%) stated they whilst they may have some concerns they ‘could see the benefits’ of the Cloud.

Similarly when we look at the responses to this question from those representing companies within the smallest bracket of mobile workforce (i.e. 50 field engineers or less) once again there certainly appears to be a perception of Cloud is not only improving but that this is happening across companies of all sizes.

But how does this correlate to the separation between Cloud apps that are used mainly be consumers (e.g. Google Drive or iCloud) and those designed specifically for business users?

[quote float="right"]Almost half (48%) of the service professionals that participated in our research now stated that high profile breaches in security in the consumer sector have no impact on their perception of enterprise level Cloud security[/quote]In response to the question ‘Have high profile breaches in consumer privacy influenced your opinion of the Cloud in enterprise?’ We saw a move of 7% from the previous year’s results towards responses that accepted that ‘there are far more security protocols in the business world’ and that such security breaches in the consumer world didn’t impact their thinking around enterprise level Cloud security.

In fact, almost half (48%) of the service professionals that participated in our research now stated that high profile breaches in security in the consumer sector have no impact on their perception of enterprise level Cloud security - an increase of 8% more than in 2015.

Expert View - Paul Whitelam, VP of Product Marketing, ClickSoftware

Something that comes through clearly in this research is the increasing benefit that respondents are seeing from moving Field Service Management to the cloud. When comparing respondents’ view on the main benefit of moving to the cloud in the 2014/15 survey with this year’s research, “greater flexibility and scalability” was still the number one cited benefit, growing by 6% from 79% last year to 86% today. In addition, nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents ranked both “easy remote access” and “less reliance on the IT department” in equal second in terms of benefits gained, similar values to last year.

Our experience as a software vendor in the field suggests that the priority given to “flexibility and scalability” not only reflects the ability to control operational costs but also that field service companies are prioritising customer satisfaction – and want to flexibly tune their cloud-based software solution to meet user requirements in this area. As products become more commoditised, service delivery becomes the differentiator. Companies need to improve their customer experience while keeping operational costs in check, servicing the needs of the business and the customer.

[quote float="left"]“The ability to rapid introduce new applications and services across an entire field service operation, without having to rely on the availability of the right IT infrastructure, plays a critical role in empowering field service engineers and delivering fast service differentiation...”[/quote]In many cases today, a customer’s only engagement with the supplier of their goods or services is when they need something fixing. In the retail space for example, it might be a field service visit to repair a washing machine, in the utilities industry it might be when a central heating boiler breaks down. That field service engagement may be the only opportunity to impress the customer during the lifetime of a product that might last five, 10 or 20 years.

The ability to rapid introduce new applications and services across an entire field service operation, without having to rely on the availability of the right IT infrastructure, plays a critical role in empowering field service engineers and delivering fast service differentiation. Real-time communication via smart devices between field service professionals, dispatch teams and customers increases efficiency and enhances customer service. Examples of these include using traffic monitoring systems to direct engineers to each job as quickly as possible and on-line tracking to keep the customer updated on when they will arrive.

Embracing the latest cloud and mobility technology helps companies to develop a far more collaborative, immediate and customer-focused infrastructure and to enable a culture where customer service is the priority. One where a mobile network of technicians and engineers are both enabled and encouraged to put the customer first and, as brand ambassadors, are driving customer loyalty and potentially identifying opportunities to sell more products and services to the customer while on-site.

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In 2015 Field Service News and leading FSM software provider ServiceMax teamed up on a research project to assess the appetite for IoT as a tool for improving field service delivery.

One year on we followed up with a fresh research project into the area to see what trends have emerged and now in a four part series we bring you the findings of this latest research. In part One of this series we explored the headline findings of this year's research against the context of the previous year's results. 

In part two we dug deeper into the study to explore what additional technologies are sitting amongst companies either planning to, or actively using IoT as a tool for field service delivery as well as what the cultural impacts of implementing IoT are and whether these are being considered by organisations.

Now in the third part of this exclusive series we look at the impact of servitization as a key driver for the adoption of IoT...  

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Click here to download the full, exclusive research report now...

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Servitization as a key driver for IoT adoption:

Having established that companies are generally aware of the cultural impact that an IoT implementation could have within their organisation, is this also a key indicator that they are beginning to look towards IoT as an enabler that can help them move towards offering advanced services?

Amongst those field service companies that we spoke to, this does indeed seem to be the case within many organisations. Over half (55%) of companies stated that one of the key drivers for implementing an IoT element into their field service delivery structure was that it would ‘enable them to change business strategy to a servitized/outcome based solutions model.’

Yet, whilst this is an important end goal it appears that those implementing IoT are not just thinking of the long term strategic vision - there are short term benefits being targeted simultaneously.

Indeed, the most commonly cited reasons why companies were seeking to embed IoT within their field service delivery were ‘increasing efficiency of the field service division’, ‘to improve customer loyalty by improving the service levels we deliver to our customers’ and ‘reducing costs by moving towards a more preventative service model’. Each of these were cited by 87%, 75% and 73% of respondents respectively.

 

One reason why we may be seeing both short term and mid-long term drivers for the implementation of IoT is that the concept of servitization is a lot harder to comprehend than the more tangible benefits of how IoT can improve a companies bottom line by simply reducing the number of emergency truck-rolls, meaning service is delivered on a far more manageable, preventative planned maintenance (PPM) basis.

Evidence of this can also be seen when we asked our respondents of whether they felt they had to ‘sell’ the benefits of servitization into other departments. Almost two thirds (62%) of field service professionals felt that this was indeed the case.

Interestingly (although perhaps unsurprisingly) it appears that the greatest resistance towards the shift towards advanced services and servitized business models comes primarily from sales closely followed by product development.

 

Amongst those field service respondents surveyed 23% and 22% identified Sales and Product Design respectively as the business units that they felt they did not have sufficient buy-in from with regards to a move towards a servitized business model.

In contrast over two thirds of respondents felt that they did have buy-in from both operations (69%) and IT (66%) and perhaps most importantly almost two thirds (58%) of respondents also feel they have buy-in from their senior management.

Barriers to adoption of IoT as a field service tool:

Of course, whilst a significant amount of companies appear to be viewing both IoT and Servitization as attractive routes forward for service businesses in the early twenty first century, there are still those that feel that the technology isn’t right for their organisation.

So what are the key barriers holding such companies back from adopting IoT as part of their field service delivery mechanisms?

 

Amongst the various answers put forward there were four that clearly stood out as concerns greater than most. These were costs, the sheer volume of assets that would need retro-fitting, security fears and connectivity issues.

All of these were fairly evenly placed in terms of the number of respondents identifying them as potential barriers to adoption with the sheer volume of assets and connectivity issues being the joint highest cited concerns (both being at 47%), closely followed by costs (45%) and then security fears (43%). The one other potential barrier that had just over a quarter (28%) of respondents selecting it was that the ‘technology still isn’t mature enough’.

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Having conducted exclusive research into the use of Cloud based Field Service Management Systems in 2015, Field Service News and ClickSoftware have once again teamed up and returned to the topic one year on to see just how their predictions based on last year's findings have borne out. 

In part one of this series we looked at exactly what those predictions last year were as well as some of the headline findings of this year's research. Now in part two we will look to see what trends have emerged year on year plus Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware offers her expert view as to what these trends mean for field service organisations...

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Click here to download the full research report now

 

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Year-on-year trends:

The headline finding of this year’s research is that we have indeed seen a continued shift towards more companies using the Cloud for their FSM systems. When comparing data from 2014, 2015 and 2016, we have also seen increasing year on year growth.

Indeed, the number of companies now using Cloud based FSM systems is well over a third, with 36% of our respondents stating that they are now Cloud users. This is a year on year increase of 8% in terms of companies using the Cloud for FSM systems.

Not only does this show a continuing move to the Cloud, but it is also a relatively significant increase in the year-on-year growth we saw in the previous year’s research.

In fact, the increase in companies moving to the Cloud within the last twelve months is almost three times more than it was in the previous year (9% vs. 3%).

This would certainly add weight to our conclusions last year that Cloud was gaining traction as a platform for FSM tools, and that we would see this continue to increase as companies begun to upgrade their older legacy systems. Further evidence that the shift to Cloud is happening at a faster rate is revealed when we look at how long those companies who are now using a Cloud based FSM solution have been doing so.

 

Of those companies now using Cloud based FSM solutions a third (33%) have been doing so for less than six months.This is a slight uplift compared to similar responses in 2015, which in turn were higher than the results of 2014.

Indeed, across the three years that we have conducted research into this topic we have seen an increase of 10% amongst those companies that had recently (within the last 6 months) made a move to the Cloud at the time of the relevant research project.

This would again support our previous hypothesis that the somewhat relatively slower move to Cloud computing as a platform for FSM solutions (when compared to other business operations tools such as CRM) is largely tied to companies’ timetables for moving away from their existing, legacy systems.

Given that field service is a mission critical area of operations that is gaining ever more importance (as service revenue becomes more frequently a major proportion of many organisations’ total revenue), importance of preparing and planning for a FSM system - whether it be Cloud based or on-premise, is perhaps understandable.

 

Also, when we consider that companies have traditionally regarded the shelf life of FSM software to be somewhere between three and seven years (with some companies even ‘sweating’ their software solutions well beyond the ten year mark) the implementation of new FSM systems takes time.

However, it is clear that the trend towards Cloud adoption is accelerating and on the main when companies do upgrade their FSM systems, they are more likely to opt for the Cloud as the platform for their new system.

Expert View: Marina Stedman, Global Field Marketing Director, ClickSoftware

As we said in last year’s report, the cloud is not a new concept, in fact it’s nearly twenty years since Salesforce, a company that has only ever offered cloud-based solutions, was established.

While the field service industry has taken some time to catch up, “move to the cloud or remain on-premise” is a key topic in the field service industry today.

While field service staff have typically been managed and dispatched to customers in a fairly traditional and hierarchical manner, that’s a difficult model to maintain nowadays as demanding consumers, used to instant “uberized” service and status updates expect everything to be delivered faster, more flexibly and more responsively.

The power of cloud computing and the ubiquity of mobile devices means companies can now redesign their entire FSM process to the benefit of both the engineer and the customer, giving everyone instant information about their jobs, projects and appointments whenever, however and wherever they want it.

The findings from this survey clearly show that the Cloud is the way forwards for field service, with every single organisation that has moved to the Cloud saying they would recommend it over an on-premise solution and over two-thirds (69%) of users of on-premise FSM systems, considering the Cloud for their next upgrade.

 

When considering perceptions of the Cloud, over half (56%) now see Cloud as the future of enterprise computing, an increase of 7% in just 12 months. Organisations of all sizes see the benefit. 58% of organisations with large field teams (more than 300 field service engineers) said that Cloud is the “future of enterprise computing”, (a change of 9% from 49% in 2014/15) and 57% with smaller field teams (less than 50 engineers) agreed, compared to 40% in the previous survey.

Working with customers all over the world, ClickSoftware has found the Cloud to be a great leveller, enabling every organisation, no matter what size, location or business model to rapidly adopt and improve upon the same applications and processes that drive enhanced customer service for everyone.

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In 2015 Field Service News and leading FSM software provider ServiceMax teamed up on a research project to assess the appetite for IoT as a tool for improving field service delivery.

One year on we followed up with a fresh research project into the area to see what trends have emerged and now in a four part series we bring you the findings of this latest research. In part One of this series we explored the headline findings of this year's research against the context of the previous year's results. 

Now in part two we dig deeper into the study to explore what additional technologies are sitting amongst companies either planning to, or actively using IoT as a tool for field service delivery as well as what the cultural impacts of implementing IoT are and whether these are being considered by organisations... 

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Other technologies being employed:

However, deciding to implement an IoT strategy is one thing, but the process is of course far more complicated than just flipping a few switches.

In fact, in the last issue of Field Service News we ran an article which highlighted the fact that there is a clear need for an underlying technology set to be in place before field service organisations can realistically take advantage of IoT - regardless of their appetite.

So just how ready are field service companies, in terms of their technological maturity, to implement an IoT solution as part of their field service operations?

 

Well based on our respondent set it would seem that many organisations are indeed in prime position to take advantage of IoT.

We asked our respondents ‘does your company already utilise any of the following technologies in managing your field engineers?’ Providing them with a comprehensive list of the regular tools being used in field service operations.

Here we saw that on the main most companies had what we would consider a baseline of field service management technologies with 58% having an actual FSM system, 30% having a dedicated dynamic scheduling engine, and 29% using telematics systems.

It was also interesting to see a relatively large number of companies using more emerging tools such as knowledge bases and engineer to engineer communications tools, with 31% and 36% of field service companies using these respectively. On the other hand, Wearables and Augmented Reality appear to be technologies that sit very much in the realm of hype over substance at present, with just 6% and 1% of companies using such tools respectively.

Another point of note was that almost half of companies (49%) are using Cloud based systems. One could build a strong argument that one key reason for what seems like a rapid adoption of IoT is that the path has been paved by the Cloud - with initial fears around Cloud based security slowly diminishing, so are the perceptions around similar security based fears with IoT.

The one technology that has been most widely embraced by field service companies is of course mobile solutions, which over three quarters (77%) of field service companies are now using to manage their field workforce.

Indeed, the impact of mobile solutions in field service has been truly transformative, with those companies who have yet to make a switch to mobile widely acknowledged to be at a significant disadvantage commercially.

But will IoT have a similar impact on field service as the mobile revolution?

We asked our respondents ‘do you believe you have witnessed similar disruption to field service driven by technology as that which we are seeing currently by solutions such as IoT, Cloud and Big Data?’

 

Whilst 15% stated that the ‘changes we are seeing emerge are unparalleled’ at the moment 35% still feel that the impact of mobility i.e. ‘the shift from manual processes to a digital workflow had a greater impact’. However, for many it is simply too early to make the call with just shy of half (49%) of respondents stating that it is ‘too early to tell just how big the change will be.’

The cultural impact of IoT:

As mentioned previously, the adoption of IoT is currently heavily tied with/linked to the shift towards a more proactive approach to field service delivery. But this shift involves more than just the implementation of new technology, there are also significant cultural shifts that need to be taken into consideration.

To find out if field service organisations were taking the cultural impact of IoT into consideration we asked those who indicated that they have already implemented an IoT solution if they were prepared for it’s cultural impact, as well as those who were currently either in the planning or implementation stages if they were factoring in internal cultural changes within their change management planning.

Of those that had already implemented IoT into their field service operations in total over half of companies (58%) stated that they had planned for the impact on the culture within the organisation - although of this section almost two thirds (60%) felt that the change caused more disruption than they had anticipated.

Meanwhile, of those that are currently in the planning/implementation phase of an IoT project, over two thirds of companies haven’t made any allowance for the impact on organisational culture that such an implementation would have - with just under a fifth of these companies (19%) believing that there will be no impact at all.

At the other end of the scale, just over a tenth (12%) of companies planning/implementing an IoT project think that they have all the bases covered stating that they ‘will be fully prepared for the cultural impact IoT could have on their business’ whilst just under half of all respondents have considered the issue and pragmatically ‘expect the shift to be disruptive.’

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Strategies For Growth SM have been powering insight into the field service industry for decades, here Bill Pollock, Principal Consulting Analyst at Pollock on Service looks at the latest emerging trends he expects to see as they begin their latest benchmarking study...

 

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We’ve all heard the expressions, “Everything old is new again”, and “Back to the basics”. However, while these expressions may still be somewhat reflective of the global services community, we have finally begun to see an uptick in the degree of market consolidation, as well as the impact of the many mergers, acquisitions and partnerships that seem to be re-defining the competitive landscape on a virtual daily basis.

For example, just a couple or few years ago, there was no real (i.e., dedicated) presence in the global services community by companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, PTC and Salesforce (although many services organisations, mainly among the smaller-sized companies, had already started using Microsoft Dynamics and/or Salesforce to, at least, piggy-back their Field Service Management (FSM) operations onto their existing CRM, ERP or Business Management platforms).

Other vendors, such as IFS, Oracle and SAP had, years earlier, embedded some form of FSM into their general offerings, but not everyone was necessarily buying.

Of course, there was always ClickSoftware and ServiceMax generally breaking out of the pack to gain some robust market share, leaving most of the tried-and-true traditional vendors as proud purveyors of their respective Best-of-Breed FSM solutions (e.g., Astea, Metrix, ServicePower, ViryaNet, Wennsoft and many others).

However, fast forward to today: Where are all of these vendors now? PTC acquired Servigistics (including MCA Solutions), ThingWorx, Axeda Systems and other technology firms; Oracle acquired TOA Technologies; IFS acquired Metrix; and Microsoft acquired FieldOne, all major software players “buying” their way into the FSM market through a series of blockbuster deals.

 

Salesforce, which had historically either been used (and/or mis-used) in its ability to manage field service operations, decided earlier this year to build its own Field Service Lightning module – but, built primarily on ClickSoftware’s Field Service Expert platform. ClickSoftware went private (i.e., after years of speculation that it would, one day, be acquired by SAP) and has lost some of its historical luster in the marketplace (i.e., in terms of “Who are they now – really!).

Another long-time vendor, ViryaNet, was acquired by Verisae (i.e., taking its name), and Wennsoft is now known as Key2Act. In other words, the FSM competitive landscape has probably changed more in the past two years than in the dozen years before, in terms of structure, presence, influence and use. However, we would be burying our collective heads in the sand if we thought that this recent spate of market consolidation is now over – it’s not – and there are likely to be further surprises in the short term, rather than in the longer-term future.

So, … what does the future hold for the global FSM marketplace?

Much will depend on how the market itself (i.e., the current and prospective FSM solution users) believes it should evolve. That’s why Strategies For Growth℠ has launched its 2016 Field Service Management Benchmark Tracking Survey after an approximate two-year hiatus.

The times have changed; the competitive landscape has changed; and user needs and requirements, perceptions, expectations and preferences for FSM solutions have changed.

 

In fact, it may be because of the latter that many of these mergers/acquisitions were “forced” to take place. In many cases (i.e., too many cases) the existing FSM solution providers did not, or could not, evolve as quickly as the market’s needs and, as a result, either lost their traction, their “mojo”, their market preference, or any combination thereof. It is frustrating to not be able to present some of the key preliminary findings from our current (i.e., 2016) FSM Survey – but that could likely influence the responses of some of the individuals who have not yet taken the survey.

So, … here’s our suggestion: First, take the survey by clicking this link, and we guarantee that you will, at the very least, learn something more about the global services community merely by reviewing the questions and answer sets, and thinking about what your top-of-head responses should be.

Second, after taking the survey, be sure to continue to watch our Blogsite, www.PollockOnService.com, for frequent updates and posts on key survey findings; Third, watch for our various published articles in Field Service News and other Field Service-related trade publications), and any other client-sponsored White Papers and Webcasts; and, Fourth, we will be happy to e-mail you a special, not otherwise published, Executive Summary, following the close of the survey later in the late October/early November timeframe.

In any case, we’ve got you covered – with the market data and information that you can use to compare the challenges, drivers, technology adoption and strategic actions taken by your organisation compared against all others. All it takes is about 15 minutes of your time, for timeless information about your field – Field Services.

 

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One year on from our investigation into the appetite for Cloud Computing as a platform for field service management systems, ClickSoftware and Field Service News return to the topic to see how trends have evolved within the last twelve months and to find out if our prediction of a gradual shift towards Cloud ultimately becoming the norm in field service is starting to come true...

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In 2015 Field Service News partnered with leading Field Service Management (FSM) software provider ClickSoftware on a research project, which aimed to take a measure of the feelings toward Cloud computing as a platform for productivity tools amongst field service professionals.

Now one year on both parties have returned to the topic to see if the trends we identified and the developments we predicted have materialised and to build an up-to-date picture of both the adoption and appetite for Cloud computing as a platform for Field Service Management systems.

In this white paper, co-published by Field Service News and ClickSoftware, we shall review the data from our latest research, providing year-on-year comparative analysis to identify what new trends have emerged and how attitudes towards the Cloud have evolved amongst senior management within the field service industry.

Previously identified trends:

To begin let’s briefly recap the findings of last year’s research (which was the second time we had focused on the use of Cloud within a field service context as a subject for our research.)

Whilst the headline findings of that project identified that a large majority of field service companies (74%) were still using on-premise solutions, there was clear evidence that a shift to Cloud was on the horizon.

There were two key findings that supported this hypothesis.

Firstly, there was the overwhelming evidence that the Cloud was proving to be a success amongst those companies that had made the move away from traditional on-premise solutions. In fact, when we asked those respondents who had made such a move ‘would you recommend a Cloud based field service management solution over an on-premise solution?’ 100% of them replied that they would.

However, the findings were perhaps even more telling when we turned to those companies that were still using on-premise solutions.

Amongst this group of respondents, we found that over two-thirds of companies (69%) admitted they would consider moving to the Cloud when they next upgraded their FSM solution.

Such findings led us to arrive at the hypothesis that eventually we would see a widespread move to the Cloud. It was our prediction that we would potentially see a complete pendulum shift, with up to 75% of companies using Cloud based FSM solutions within the next five years.

 

Last year’s research also identified that concerns around the security of the Cloud were the biggest potential barrier to adoption. In fact, 38% of respondents that were not using a Cloud based FSM solution stated that they felt that security was the greatest issue with Cloud.

Yet that same research also highlighted that this is generally not the case - security issues were less prevalent than both connectivity and integration issues amongst companies actually using a Cloud based FSM tools.

It was our assertion last year that there was a need for greater education and understanding of the security of the Cloud, particularly at the enterprise level amongst executives within the field service sector - so that perception and reality could become more closely aligned. Once this was achieved we would likely see the shift to Cloud becoming the most widely used platform for FSM systems gaining greater momentum.

So how have the opinions of field service professionals changed across the last twelve months?

Has there been the continued trend in the number of companies making the move away from on-premise FSM software to Cloud based equivalents that we predicted we would see? Has the perception of Cloud security improved amongst Field Service Management professionals? And has the appetite for Cloud based FSM systems gained any greater momentum?

Executive Summary: Key findings:

• Over a third of companies are now using Cloud based Field Service Management (FSM) systems
• The rate of adoption of Cloud based FSM systems has increased dramatically year-on-year with almost three times as many companies moving to the Cloud in 2015/2016 than did in 2014/2015
• The move to the Cloud appears to be directly aligned to the move away from legacy systems with over two thirds of companies that are still using on-premise FSM solutions working with FSM systems that are at least three years old
• Similarly, of those using Cloud based FSM solutions, a third have made the move within the last six months - which would suggest that not only is the rate of adoption of Cloud based FSM solutions increasing, but it is doing so at a quicker pace than in previous years
• This is further supported by the fact that over two thirds of companies that are currently using Cloud based FSM solutions would consider the Cloud for the next iteration of their FSM system
• The most common key driver for companies adopting Cloud based FSM solutions is that the Cloud offers greater flexibility. However, once implemented, increased functionality is the number one benefit felt by companies using Cloud based FSM systems
• Amongst those who have implemented Cloud based FSM systems, the move has been overwhelmingly positive with 100% of these companies stating they would recommend a Cloud based FSM system over an on-premise equivalent
• Finally, fears around the security of the Cloud, which was seen to be the biggest barrier to adoption in previous research are abating. Just 6% stated that they felt they wouldn’t trust placing sensitive data in the Cloud whilst over half of respondents felt that the Cloud was the future of enterprise computing.

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Read the next part of this research report where we will look drill deeper into the findings of this year's research... 

 

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In 2015 Field Service News and leading FSM software provider ServiceMax teamed up on a research project to assess the appetite for IoT as a tool for improving field service delivery...

Now one year on we return to the topic to see if the clear desire for IoT based field service delivery has turned to reality and if so what impact is it having on the growing trend towards servitization as a business model...

When we looked at the potential of IoT in field service last year we were confronted by what can only be called a genuine phenomenon beginning to emerge. One that could potentially change the way companies approach field service delivery entirely.

Indeed, whilst field service technology has been evolving at great pace across the last decade, much of the developments that have arrived - such as enhancements in artificial intelligence driving ever more sophisticated scheduling engines or mobility tools enhancing field service technicians workflows and eliminating unnecessary paper based administration, have been focussed on improving efficiencies and boosting productivity.

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IoT on the other hand has the potential to completely revolutionise the processes and methodologies of field service delivery, and in doing so shift the service model into a new paradigm where contracts involving tightly adhered to SLAs are replaced by guarantees of uptime.

 

In this brave new world of servitization, service is no longer the supporting player there just to add value to a product. Instead, the product is now the facilitator for companies to deliver advanced services.

And this is largely made possible by the IoT giving us the ability to monitor assets in the field and react to fluctuations outside of accepted working parameters, delivering proactive maintenance to ensure that the asset continues to deliver its set outcome.

The benefits of such an approach are a more consistent and reliable solution for the customer and a more profitable business which is closer engrained to customers for the service provider - a win-win if ever there was one.

But whilst the theory may sound great, how is this translating into reality?

This is what this year’s survey set out to understand. Building upon last year’s research project which was predominantly focussed solely on IoT this time we have widened our focus somewhat to understand not just if companies are now actively adopting IoT, but what is their motivation for doing so and just how closely is that linked to the shift to servitization or outcome based business models?

What we already know:

To begin with let’s just have a quick recap on the findings of last year’s research project.

The most obvious place to start when reviewing whether business is ready for an IoT revolution is of course to ascertain whether companies feel they have an asset base that is suited to sensor based monitoring. Here we found that just under half of companies (42%) felt that they already had an asset base that was suitable.

Given the relative infancy of IoT in field service at this point, with the general understanding of what is and isn’t possible amongst service professionals understandably relatively low, this was indeed an impressive starting point to build upon.

However, it was in the next round of questioning that we really began to see the huge appetite for IoT to appear.

We asked our respondents to rank the technologies they felt would have the biggest impact on field service within the next five years.

 

IoT was the clear winner here - with more than twice as many people stating they felt IoT would be the big technology in the short to mid term for field service, than those who cited the second most popular technology, Big Data.

This belief in IoT was further evidenced when over half (55%) of our respondents stated they thought “IoT will become a fundamental part of field service operations in the future” whilst a further 21% went further stating that “IoT is critical to any field service organisation’s strategy".

Further findings in last year’s research, which also pointed to a rapid rise to prominence of the role of IoT in Field Service, included the fact that almost three quarters of respondents (74%) felt that IoT based field service strategies were applicable to companies of all sizes and that well over two thirds of respondents (71%) felt that IoT would be common place amongst field service companies within the next three years.

Such a wealth of positive data seemed absolutely conclusive - IoT was going to be playing a big role in field service. Indeed, in our research report of last year’s findings we concluded:

“The Internet of Things is set for widespread adoption amongst field service companies and we can expect to see that adoption occur at a fairly rapid rate”

Look out for part two of this weekly series where we will find out if our previous hypotheses have been bourne out...

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