ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘servicemax’ CATEGORY

Competition in the Field Service Management Solution sector is fiercer than ever and new technology is constantly emerging. So we asked a series of industry experts what we should expect of our FSM solution today and what should we look for in a provider?

Features as Standard?

With the amount of functionality in standard FSM applications constantly improving, new innovations quickly become standard features. With this in mind what is the baseline level of functionality we should expect from an FSM solution? I.e. Should a solution include a mobile piece, scheduling, parts management?

Rue Dilhe – Managing Director, Exel Computer Systems explains their solution as being predominantly aimed at “established SME’s within the service industry, these companies are, generally speaking, well aware of the benefits available from a full breadth system.”

“The baseline functionality the majority of our prospective clients look for encompass pretty much all of the technologies and functionality offered. If we are able to show them functionality they weren’t aware of, such as configurable user dashboards displaying pertinent KPIs and reports, then these soon make it onto their requirements list, ” he adds.

“We expect the following to make it onto the majority’s ‘must have’ list: fully integrated solution, a dynamic/assisted scheduler, real-time information, remote engineer application, management reporting, user pertinent reporting, document management, call/case centre management, service oriented CRM, job information and technical documents pushed to engineer device, customisation tools, workflow tools, financial management and the ability to invoice on-site. Not to mention, the preference to partner with a well-established solution provider.”

For Kony, the focus is perhaps more understandably on mobile, as Steve Luong, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, explains.

“Although there are many FSM solutions in the market that address different needs, back-office capabilities such as scheduling, parts & inventory management and team allocation are commoditised features now.”

“Mobile is now a critical functionality in modern solutions, with native apps providing a better user experience and performance over others, allowing leading service organisations to differentiate themselves. Customer-centric solutions that even include the end user into the business process will soon be the new must-have functionality.”

 

Tesseract’s Kevin McNally, comments “In our experience, customers are looking for a best of breed service solution.”

“This includes service contract and asset management, service call taking and scheduling, planned maintenance control, stock & logistics management, quoting, job costing/invoicing and Engineer mobile communication. We are also seeing the requirement to control internal workshop / repair centres as a growth area requiring a different solution to that of field processes.”

“One of the often-forgotten areas of a solution is reporting,” he continues.

“The ability to report on any piece of data is crucial and a reason many companies are looking for change. Our customer’s clients have also become more demanding, and the ability to communicate externally also needs thought, whether that is a web portal, client reporting or direct data integration.”

Deb Geiger, VP Global Marketing, Astea International points out that there is not a 1 size fits all requirement for field service.

“I think that it all depends on the individual needs of the organisation in regards to baseline level of functionality. For example, if a company manages a mix of internal and external subcontractors then the base of functionality also needs to include third party vendor management capabilities,” she comments.

“But at a general level, the most basic elements of FSM solution should have the ability to manage service contract and entitlement information; asset/equipment information; scheduling, parts management, mobile (online & offline), customer self-service, and performance management/reporting as well as ability to configure solution without coding.”

For Mark Homer, Vice President Global Customer Transformation at ServiceMax, a GE Digital company “Any field service management solution worth its weight should handle work planning and scheduling; give technicians all they need to complete a job and close out a work order from a mobile device (on or offline); manage entitlements while technicians are onsite and handle service supply chain logistics”

 

However, he goes on to add that “as field service management evolves to become more integrated in other aspects of the industrial economy and proves a necessary lynch pin of optimising the performance of industrial equipment, these basic functionalities will progress to include more advanced features.”

Again scheduling and mobility are tow key components that are expected by ClickSoftware’s Paul Whitelam, Group VP of Product Marketing “Baseline capabilities for FSM consist of scheduling and mobility (specifically communication with the field and task execution support). Beyond that there are certainly additional aspects such as planning, forecasting, customer engagement, analytics and so forth, but as Field Service Management software becomes increasingly sophisticated, thinking in terms of feature sets can be something of a red herring,” he explains.

“In particular, there are non-functional aspects such as open APIs and extensibility, as well as the deployment model that can have a huge impact.

For example, software delivered via multi-tenant SaaS can offer a significant advantage in terms of agility and speed of deployment. More so than a feature list, it’s the way in which technology is combined with processes and people that delivers business advantage.”

Buying for the future...

So, whilst there is of course a variety of different elements that different experts think of as standard requirements, there are indeed some universal core functionalities that should now be embedded within any FSM solution, with these primarily being some scheduling automation, a mobile tool for engineers in the field and dashboard or similar reporting tools for monitoring what is of course a mission critical part of the business.

But one thing that is certain in our industry is that technological innovation is never far away. Whether it be connected devices, quantum annealing, or augmented reality every where we look there are technologies being intrinsically linked with field service that could change the way we approach service delivery entirely.

So given the constant development of technologies within field service management solutions, what steps should field service companies take to ensure that the solution they opt for is future proof?

Exel’s Dilhe explains that from their experience “from the outset, prospective clients are usually pretty confident they want a common, ‘out-of-the-box’ solution, and this is true for maybe 90% of the implemented solution, the remaining 10% however, the client can usually see a benefit in configuring the solution to the way they work now, whilst having the ability to adapt to how they may work in the future. It is for this reason that within the Eagle Field Service solution Exel provide a customisation tool-kit.”

“Customisations can range from the introduction of simple validation on fields to new panels and scrolling data sets for data entry and data display. Clients are able to extend any table by adding any number of columns for storing additional information, these can be managed from within the software without the need to make any manual database changes.”

Of course customisation sits at the very heart of the Kony offering also however, it is the pedigree of the platform and the provider themselves that offer the best glimpse of how future proof a solution is in the eyes of Luong.

He comments: “To ensure solutions they opt for are future proof, field service companies should look at solutions that have a strong technology stack supported by an underlying platform and cloud. These characteristics will allow for rapid implementation but more importantly, enable simple and fast updates to adapt to a quickly changing marketplace.”

“Additionally, understanding the solution provider’s roadmap and view of the market will ensure alignment between the field service company and provider into the future."

For McNally the responsibility should be shared by the providers and their customers.

“It is difficult to foresee future technologies in the fast-moving modern world, but customers should try to understand the impact of these within their own markets,” he begins.

 

“As an example, the “Internet of Things” may be viewed by some verticals as a distant reality but equipment such as coffee machines, compressors and many other products viewed as “unconnected” are today providing useful data. This information is allowing providers to be both reactive and proactive in their service delivery. It is vital that companies understand the data and use this as a competitive edge.”

“It can seem unfathomable for small and medium size service providers to understand the complexities of new technologies but suppliers should be assisting their customers on their future requirements and helping them understand the benefits, as these may already be “out of the box” based on previous implementations within that vertical market.”

This sentiment is echoed somewhat by Geiger who explains that when selecting technology we can’t just think of today.

“What is right for companies at the moment, might not suit as their business grows and evolves. It’s important for businesses to not only to understand their immediate need but to get the full picture of their objectives so that companies can find a solution that will support them today but also in the future. Even if an organisation may have very limited requirements today, it is much easier to start with a platform solution that has rich capabilities and a high level of configurability instead of a solution that just meets the requirements for today.”

“By leveraging a solution that offers a high-level of configurability, it is very easy for companies to remove fields or turn features “off” with a feature-rich solution, to get the base feature set to support their needs today. But as their business model changes, they have the tools to quickly adapt the solution without having to pay for customisations or having to wait until the software vendor adds specific features to a roadmap if they even decide to add those features at all.”

“You never know what is around the corner, so you need a solution that gives you the flexibility to add functionality as and when you need it.”

For ServiceMax’s Homer however, the answer is simple - the future belongs to the Cloud.

“Because field service organisations rely on remote workers for the majority of the information needed to run their business, flexible and constantly updated cloud-based software is a must – and a pre-requisite for mobile synchronisation and offline capabilities,” he asserts.

“And when it comes to enabling field personnel, companies need to seek out vendors with proven mobile capabilities. They need to find providers who continually invest in the latest mobile architectures for deployment ease and full functionality across all mobile platforms.”

“Lastly, and most importantly, customers need a platform that grows with them. They need a system that easily supports configuration with workflow management that organises standard operating procedures not only in the office, but also in the field. And it should all work together to keep service delivery consistent from the office to the field.”

Cloud-first is again echoed by ClickSoftware’s Whitelam, who also sees the need for field service companies to keep their finger on the pulse n terms of how emerging technology could impact their vertical markets.

“It is often much easier to predict new technology than it is to predict which of these innovations will be widely adopted, and in what manner. Field service companies have to be attentive to what their customers value the most and remain flexible in the face of new technology,” he comments.

 

Indeed Whitelam lists the following as the key to ensuring a future proof approach are:

• Move to cloud-first solutions which enable fast, seamless, and frequent updates to the latest feature sets and enhancements—something all but impossible with on-premises installations.
• Adopt systems with open APIs and extensibility so that new capabilities—be they IoT enabled devices or Augmented Reality goggles—can be easily adopted in a modular way.
• Ensure your FSM solution is highly configurable, and not limited to a particular data model. For example, IoT devices represent a new set of inputs or variables to be incorporated into your operations. Having a generalised approach to data management, coupled with the processing power of a cloud platform enables companies to translate this data into actionable—and automated—improvements.

Solution provider support?

It is interesting to note that many of the experts that we spoke to identified a shared responsibility between vendor and customer to understand the technology trends and establish a sensible roadmap of FSM technology to implement.

Of course in any industry where the product is as absolutely vital to business  operations one would expect a consultative approach from solution providers, but this willingness from many such providers to engage with and in many ways educate the market.

This leads us to question what other factors, aside from feature set and cost, should field service companies take into consideration when selecting a solution provider?

At Exel would prefer to see the selection process as the client choosing a business partner, instead of supplies,” replies Dilhe.

“The chosen solution will become an integral part of the business and a business tool used by most, if not all, employees. As such, it makes sense to ensure you choose a solution provider that can meet your company’s needs, both now and into the future.”

 

“With a 32 year history of implementing our solutions and supporting our clients, we feel our services far exceed those provided by a reseller,” he concludes.

McNally is certainly on the same page here also .

"The implementation of a system should be viewed as a partnership,” he opens, before adding “and partnering with an experienced provider who has a track record of delivering both technology and functionality is of key importance.”

“A strong vision and roadmap is also vital, because implementing a system  should be viewed as a long-term relationship. Speaking with reference customers can be a useful exercise. The software is only one part of the picture, implementation and support are also just as important as is the relationship between the two teams.”

Choosing a provider whose vision aligns with the field service company is key states Luong.

“Field service companies should understand how a provider plans to leverage new technologies and smart services such as IoT, sensors, beacons, image recognition capabilities, integration with cloud services or other public services such as maps, storage, identification,” he says.

“These technologies and services can totally transform existing business processes to make them more efficient, driving costs down while improving customer loyalty by providing a better overall experience.”

“As service continues to become a key differentiator, companies need a partner who understands service – a specialist who can help them get the very best from the software platform, and give them the tools to take service to the next level.” Geiger adds.

“Transitioning to a new solution is often seen as a risk by most organisations - posing potential challenges for business continuity, adoption and usage, and data security”

 

“Many solution providers therefore pride themselves on the speed on their on-boarding process – to get companies up and running on their solution in a matter of weeks. However, aiming for speed often comes at the expense of quality – things overlooked, staff not fully trained, and opportunities missed”

“A quick on-boarding process may potentially cause more problems than it solves. With something as mission critical as a company’s service business, it is worth the time and effort to ensure successful deployment and adoption.”

“Additionally it is important to look at service solutions holistically. There are many cool technologies and new capabilities are entering the market constantly. It is critical to look at all of these solutions in a holistic manner and the value that they will provide to the service business.”

“It is imperative that the solutions share data intelligently between applications, allowing operatives to make decisions and take action with full insight into the situation,” she concludes.

For Homer, another consideration is that “field service organisations need to consider time to market, as with any other investment in enterprise software.”

“Implementation time, employee adoption, and training all need to be looked at critically as they all impact the return on investment. Software vendors should have good options for buyers to evaluate these aspects of their products, as well as a very good understanding of the nuances of the service domain. Without service expertise, product development capabilities can stall and implementation projects can run over budget.”

Finally, Whitelam believes that besides features and costs, field services companies should strongly consider a number of other factors when selecting their FSM solutions including:

• Company viability and focus: Look for external proof points and proven implementations. To what extent is the company focused on FSM?
• Vision: What does the roadmap look like? Does this align to the way you think about your field service business going forward?
• Experience: Has the company worked with companies like you before?
• The Team: This is a long-term partnership, where a strong relationship can lead to great things. Is this the team you want to partner with?
• Support: What kind of ongoing support is available? 24/7? Global? Will this vendor be responsive and strive for your success?

Indeed it seems that whilst the features of field service management solutions are ever evolving, the selection of the right tool for your business should look far beyond a summary list of features on your wish list and ask what can the provider do to make this a partnership that works both as soon as possible after implementation and also in the future.

The right solution is there for you, just look with open eyes.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Kris Oldland deliver's his editorial leader in issue 16 of Field Service News - the first issue of 2017...

---

Field Service News subscribers are entitled to our bi-monthly magazine in both print and digital versions. Subscription is free for field service professionals click here to subscribe now and get a digital copy of issue 16 sent straight to your inbox

---

Is anyone else starting to feel like 2016 was already a long, long time ago?

Perhaps it was the late flurry of field service conferences towards the end of last year but the tail end of 2016 felt like we were hurtling along at breakneck speed and it felt like it was never going to end.

Yet as is always the way, once it is over and done with and we move onto the next project what felt like an endless session of conferences and interviews seems like a long time ago.

However, that is where I am lucky in my job. For as we have been putting together both this issue and our annual publication “The Handy Little Book For Field Service Managers” i’ve been able to take my time to review all of the interviews and sessions that I sat in on across the last few months and there were some really thought provoking moments amongst them.

As a result this issue is absolutely jam packed with features - in fact we have more features this time around than in any issue to date.

So if I may, I’ll use my column in this issue to just pick up on a few of the highlights that really caught my attention.

Firstly our cover feature “No Fault Found” which is based on my interview with Dr John Erkoyuncu of Cranfield University. I’d seen John giving a fantastic presentation on the topic at ServiceMax’s Maximize Europe event and he was kind enough to talk me through his presentation a little later on over a coffee.

If I’m completely honest it was the first time I’d ever given No Fault Found any serious consideration, but after listening our conversation I realised not just how big a potential issue this could be for field service organisations today, but also how this issue could be easily magnified in the near future if the servitization trend continues to take root.

Another great interview that I was privileged to conduct towards the end of the year was with Microsoft’s Carsten Groth.

Carsten is one of those fantastic people in industry that don’t quite sit within the confines of your normal grey suited, conservative industry professional.

He’s the kind of guy that has no qualms running over to you and giving you a bear hug in the middle of a busy conference auditorium.

He’s a free thinker and an intelligent thinker and a good guy to boot and it’s always a pleasure interviewing him at the time because the conversation is fluid and easy. That said it’s usually a pain writing up his interviews because it’s tricky trying to cut that conversation down enough to fit on the page.

[quote]“Once again we’ve brought together our panel of advisors and locked them in a dark room until they agreed on 20 people that they think will have an influence on our industry across the next twelve months...”

 

The final feature I’ll pick in my highlights has to be of course the announcement of this year’s FSN20.

Once again we’ve brought together our panel of advisors and locked them in a dark room until they agreed on 20 people that they think will have an influence on our industry across the next twelve months.

There are some familiar faces in the list but some new names too.

What I think is great about the #FSN20 is the discussion it creates.

To be honest if you asked each of member of the panel who put this list together if they thought the list was perfect, they’d probably argue admit that ‘person x’ should replace ‘person y’.

In fact putting the list together was great fun as it always is, because it’s a fantastic exercise in celebrating those in our industry who are driving innovation - and there are certainly more than twenty people doing that for sure!

---

Field Service News subscribers are entitled to our bi-monthly magazine in both print and digital versions. Subscription is free for field service professionals click here to subscribe now and get a digital copy of issue 16 sent straight to your inbox

---

Be social and share this feature

Kris Oldland, talks to Lucio Golinelli, Senior Director of Service & Delivery with Sky Italia about the digital transformation they are undertaking and how it is helping to drive new profits....

There were a number of interesting case studies presented at the recent Maximize Europe event held by ServiceMax from companies across many different industry verticals.

However, one that really caught the eye was that of Sky Italia who worked closely with the field service management provider as part of an ambitious company wide digital transformation program.

As Europe’s largest Pay-TV company with dominant presence in the Pay TV sector across five European countries (UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and Austria) Sky is a household name that resonates across the continent. However, the Pay-TV vertical has become increasingly competitive over the last few years and customer experience and satisfaction are two key differentiators in the sector.

So it was perhaps no surprise that improving customer experience through digital transformation was at the heart of the organisation’s move to dramatically change their business operating systems.

Indeed, Lucio Golinelli, a Senior Director of Service & Delivery with Sky Italia who has responsibility for both field services and the supply chain explained that the key benefits his organisation sought through the digital transformation - whereby they moved away from their traditional processes of field service delivery to a more digital centric process, were equally centred around both customer experience and financial KPIs.

However, from Golinelli’s side of the business this meant working closely with ServiceMax to find a solution that worked across their whole supply chain rather than simply adopting an off the shelf solution.

The main reason for this is that when it comes to installations, Sky Italia operate within the framework of an outsourced model.

“We have a multi level approach in that we have 400 company partners, which tend to be smaller companies or ‘entrepreneurs’ rather than large organisations - who then manage for Sky approximately 2500 installers,” Golinelli explained to me as he talked me through the challenges he faced throughout the transformation process.

“For Sky Italia, installation is not a revenue stream but a cost stream,” he continued. “Because for us the installation is just an enabler to provide the services to our customers.” So whilst traditional benefits of increased installer productivity may be a side effect of the implementation this was never an end-goal for Sky Italia.

Perhaps the biggest challenge Golinelli and his team faced was how to fully integrate their own needs - as an effectively B2B organisation dealing with the partner ecosystem, and their end users - who are a B2C market. Success here however, would provide Sky Italia with granular levels of information that can allow them to discover new up-sell opportunities.

 

In order to best achieve this Sky Italia simultaneously replaced their old FSM, CRM and marketing tools bringing them all together on one new Cloud based solution and working alongside ServiceMax to find a customised solution for their FSM tools.

Currently in the process of undertaking this transformation program, digital visibility will be built across the whole chain from Sky through to their end customers. This is vital as it means they are not just changing the way they interact with their customers, but even changing the interface with which they undertake such interactions.

Of course, the main challenge for any company that outsources its service is that they essentially need at least two flavours of the same solution. From a Global operation with a nationwide presence, Golinelli’s team will need different dashboards, KPIs and control rooms to those that the majority of their partners will require.

It has taken Sky Italia working directly with ServiceMax over two years to develop a solution that works across Sky themselves, their partners and their customers but it seems that all that effort is now beginning to reap it’s rewards.

They have already launched the initial phase of the development with almost 1,000 installers already on track - and Golinelli appears immensely proud to see his team flourishing.

“There are two aims, “Golinelli explains.

“Firstly, the real benefit of improved efficiency for us is less errors,and in particular less mistakes in administration - that has now been largely overcome and is being dramatically reduced.”

Secondly, it is also important that if Sky Italia’s new processes are to succeed, that the various new tools used in isolation.

“We moved from customised platform for CRM, custom FSM software, and a customised platform for marketing to a common cloud solution shared across all divisions,” Golinelli expands.

“Now we have all of the key operations based on the same cloud platform. This is very effective as the power of this system is the real-time exchange of information, from installer to an operator in a call centre or vice versa. We can also pick up a lot of anecdotal information from the installers and then feed that back to marketing, again in real-time.”

 

It is in this last concept that Sky Italia are truly seeing the largest benefit, the shared platform gives them a much better opportunity to upsell their products.

For example let’s say an installation is being undertaken and the installer can see there is a Manchester Utd flag. In real-time he can then check if the customer has the subscription for Sky Sports and can either try to make the upsell himself or feed that information straight back to his marketing department.

Although only mid-way through the process, the results so far have been impressive to say the least. The field service division is now responsible for generating more revenue than any other part of the business having seen a rise in the percentage of revenue generated by installers leap from 11% to 21%.

For Golinelli, the significant factor in their success so far is the easy movement of data from one business unit to the next. Meanwhile, for Sky Italia, the shift to a digital workflow is already beginning to reap it’s rewards as they move field service from a cost model to a cost + revenue model whilst customer satisfaction levels increase at the same time. Perfecto!

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

In a year full of M&A activity that will impact our sector in ways as yet unknown the biggest story of all was certainly GE Digital’s acquisition of industry leader ServiceMax. Kris Oldland spoke exclusively to Dave Yarnold, CEO ServiceMax the morning before one of the biggest press conferences of his life...

KO: Exciting day for you folks is probably a bit of an understatement?

DY: Yes, it’s a very exciting day for us. Today signals the completion of a truly remarkable cycle and the beginning of a new chapter. Although, we’ve been saying it’s a new chapter, but it feels like it’s a new book because what we have been through over the last 9 years has been a book in itself. So yes, very exciting.

KO: Having just sold the business for close to a Billion dollars after 9 years of determined effort and hard work - no one would blame you if you wanted to spend the rest of your days sitting on a beach in the Caribbean  sipping Margaritas - but that doesn’t quite sound like the Dave Yarnold way?

What’s the next step for you - are you going to be fully driving this next stage of the company’s evolution alongside the original team?

DY: Absolutely. I’m all in! 

We’ve talked in the past about how I think that this segment is incredibly important and financially why service is really significant for all industrial sectors.

In some respects there has been a challenge for us to get awareness at the CEO and CFO level of the significance of what we do and I think to get the amplification of what we do with the GE brand and the additional component of what GE Digital are also doing, that is going to open a lot of doors. I just can’t wait.

I was in a meeting the other day with the chairman of a top five Telecom company globally, so the opportunity to be with a company that can open doors like that, and to be able to tell our story and have an impact at that level - it’s really, really exciting.

I think about all the things that we have been talking about in terms of creating an operating system for service and I now believe we can create that operating system for the industrial sector as a whole. I think service plays a key component, a very central component of that. But also with the ability to access data, and IoT and analytics and performance management and who knows what else... I think we can build out a complete platform for industrial companies and that is very exciting to me.

 

KO: One of the things that made ServiceMax such a special company, and one that grew so rapidly within the sector, was that whilst the product was software, the company intrinsically understood field service. Have GE Digital bought into that ethos or is that something you are going to have to push internally?

DY: They are one of our great examples of one of our customers who is benefiting from that approach and they have been so profitable from that.

However, to be fair their initial thrust around GE Digital has been technology orientated so the Predix platform and the ability to access, ingest and  analyse data - that’s primarily what they have been about to date and that’s a technology play.

I think now that they have acquired Meridium and ServiceMax - the message will probably change and it will probably be a bit more solution oriented. At this stage I’m still guessing as well, but the fact is that they have just spent a Billion and a Half dollars to acquire two pretty significant applications.

 

I think all of their previous messaging was reflective of their existing technology in digital and now as we move forward my guess is that it will begin to change and evolve in line with their product portfolio.

KO: ServiceMax is of course your baby, and we’ve spoken at length in the past about the fact that it was an fundamental passion for service that separated you from many of your competitors. What was it that convinced you that GE Digital would be a good home for the company to go on and flourish?

DY: First off I didn’t want ServiceMax to end up as another portfolio component within one of the major software players. That was just too obvious and not really interesting for us as an end state.

What I loved about GE was the fact that they really do understand service, they have an appreciation for the importance of service and they drive the majority of their profits through service. 

So there is a shared core appreciation of service that is integral to both our companies, which is a great starting platform. But they are also a company full of smart folks, who can push us even further onwards. I genuinely think that together we can achieve some really, really great things.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

Who are the most influential people in the global field service sector that you need to pay attention to in 2017?

The Field Service News #FSN20 is our list of the individuals we believe will be key influencers in our industry across the next twelve months. Those included in the list have been selected by our own panel of industry insiders, who were given the simple criteria of identifying people who will have a significant impact on field service thinking.

However, more than just an annual list of 20 individuals the #FSN20 has grown since it’s launch to become a true celebration of excellence and innovation within our industry.

There are some familiar names and some new faces on this years list and as always we don’t expect everyone to agree with our selection – at it’s heart the #FSN20 was conceived as a tool to get everyone in our industry thinking about who it is that they have come across in the global field service sector that has made them think, who has made them question the accepted paradigms, who has inspired them to do just one little thing more in their own day to day role.

The #FSN20 is not just about the list our panel has put together. It is about fostering discussion that celebrates the unsung heroes of the field service sector. So look out for the online version of this list as well to take part in the debate.

But for now, ladies and gentleman and without further a do, in no particular order, we are pleased to introduce the #FSN20 of 2017…

 

---

 

Click here to see page one of the 2017 #FSN20

 

---

 

Nick Frank, Founder and Managing Partner Si2 Partners

Having worked as an international consultant for over 6 years, Nick founded Si2 Partners last year bringing a new approach to consultancy by offering services on demand.

Nick’s focus is on service strategy development, servitization business models, ecosystems, innovation management, service operations and service business development. He works with companies in a diverse range of industries including engineering, high volume manufacturing, equipment manufacturers and technology. A regular columnist in the trade press and a excellent speaker often to be found at industry conferences, Nick also plays a pivotal role in organising the conference sessions for the UK not-for-profit group The Service Community.

 

---

 

Michael Blumberg, President of Blumberg Advisory Group, Inc

Michael Blumberg is the President of Blumberg Advisory Group and is a recognised expert in Field Service and Reverse Logistics in High-Technology industry.

Michael’s thought leadership, service system planning and strategy formulation are cited as having helped many organisations increase profits and he is a prolific author publishing a number of well received projects including white papers and educational video projects.

 

---

 

Aly Pinder, Director of Member Research & Communities, The Service Council

In previous editions we had a rule that we would only include one person per organisation within the #FSN20. However, ever since Aly moved from the Aberdeen Group to The Service Council, we knew we would have to repeal the rule, as both Aly and Sumair are industry heavy weights in terms of analysis of our industry.

In his new role he will be looking to further enhance the already well established research projects undertaken by The Service Community and his addition to their team makes The Service Council one of the most important groups in the entire global field service sector.

 

---

 

Tom Heiser, CEO, ClickSoftware

It may perhaps be unfair to comment that when Heiser took the reigns of the field service management software stalwarts ClickSoftware the company was perhaps at it’s weakest point in some years, indeed they remain a leading provider of field service management solutions at the forefront of the industry.

Yet, based on the sheer level of dominance that they once held and in light of the ever increasing quality of the competition in the field service management space, Heiser had little time to find his feet in the world of field service if he was to ensure the ClickSoftware brand remained as synonymous with delivering service excellence as it had to date - particularly in the natural uncertainty that an acquisition by a private equity firm can potentially cause. 

However, having seemingly spent little more than a few hours in his own office for the first six months as he flew around the world meeting analysts, influencers and customers alike Heiser certainly appears to have not only established a firm grasp of the industry at large but also where the future for field service management technology lies and under his guidance the outlook for the iconic ClickSoftware brand appears to be on a very positive footing once more...

 

---

 

Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower

With their next generation platform Nexus now firmly established within the market place ServicePower have re established themselves as a key company within the FSM solutions sector under the vision of Martin.

However, it is her focus on R&D that really continues to drive Service Power to the forefront of their sector. With a number of patents including a one focussed on quantum annealing that will see them developing cutting edge technology for the foreseeable future. Martin is also a very highly respected speaker on the international field service circuit

 

---

 

Jim Baston, President of BBA Consulting Group Inc

Baston of BBA Consulting is the proponent of Proactive Service, and is a master when it comes to understanding the delicate relationship between service and sales and how companies can maximize that relationship to enhance profits. Author, Speaker and Consultant Baston is an intelligent and experienced leader within his field whilst being a true gentleman and pleasure to talk to, to boot.

 

---

 

Kevin Jones Managing Director Computer Product Solutions, Panasonic Europe

Panasonic remain the undisputed leaders in the rugged space with the ToughPad and Toughbook brands synonymous with rugged computing. The Panasonic ToughBook20 is the worlds first fully rugged detachable and could just be the most perfect device for field service to date being both a tablet and a laptop.

Jones has spent a decade with Panasonic and has total responsibility for the entire ToughBook / ToughPad Products and Solutions in Europe, including Sales, Marketing, Engineering and Operations whilst also sitting concurrently on the board of Panasonic Manufacturing.

 

---

 

Dave Yarnold, CEO, ServiceMax

Within less than a decade Yarnold has taken ServiceMax from start-up to being purchased by GE late last year for close to a Billion Dollars.

However, the meteoric rise of ServiceMax wasn’t solely about the technology. Yarnold has a true passion for the service and that passion has filtered down and shone through at all levels of the organisation, which was perhaps the secret source that put them at the top of the sector - having been recognised as the leading FSM solution provider in the most recent magic quadrant report.

Now as part of GE Digital, Yarnold has even bigger visions of how ServiceMax can play a role in building an operating system for the entire industrial sector of which service will be a key component.

Big ambitions?

Yes. But Yarnold is a man that could possibly just do it.

 

---

 

Click here to see page three of the 2017 #FSN20

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

With a handy announcement from Gartner arriving just in time for their annual European conference Maximize Europe, ServiceMax were in buoyant mood across the two days in Amsterdam. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was on hand to get reaction from ServiceMax’s Dave Yarnold and Rick Gustafson...

With in excess of three hundred attendees sitting in the main hall of the Krasnopolsky Hotel in Amsterdam waiting for Dave Yarnold’s keynote speech, the mood in the ServiceMax camp was already on a high. However, what tipped the mood into one of true celebration was the announcement just a few days earlier that the San Francisco based company had just come out at the top of the pile of the much awaited Gartner Magic Quadrant Field Service report.

With a whole bunch of product innovations and customer success stories already lined up for the next two days - this recognition from Gartner really was perfectly timed - adding both a sense of gravitas and triumph to the sessions across the two days of Maximize Europe.

“We didn’t know when it [the Gartner announcement] was going to hit the street so everything you saw, the whole presentation around our model, our platform, our services, and our passion was already in place. But then we were able to insert the validation of all of that as well,” comments Dave Yarnold, CEO of ServiceMax as I caught up with him a little later in the day.

“It was a beautiful thing to be able to come here present our mission and our progress and then show that validation from a really credible third party - it was really fantastic. The timing was terrific,” he adds.

 

Indeed, one of the biggest factors in why the Gartner Magic Quadrants are so widely acknowledged as key industry benchmarks is that it they are not just based on a set defined group of criterion from one organisation, but also upon feedback from each company’s own clients. This is something that makes the recognition even more important for Yarnold.

“It’s the biggest thing,” he says. “Everybody meets with these analysts and everybody presents their products but where there the rubber meets the road is the references.”

“Being able to give the analysts lots and lots of accounts with lots of companies getting results from their operations and then of course the specific comments that were made in the report about large companies expanding their global roll outs and actually getting all kinds of great financial returns - those are the things that go beyond hype,” he adds.

However, one gets the feeling that even without the Gartner announcement, the conference would have been a very upbeat affair. Field Service News has now attended the last three Maximize Europe events in a row and there are considerably more people and more buzz about the place than there was at the inaugural event held in Paris just a few years ago.

“We changed our strategy a little bit this year,” explains Yarnold when I comment on the growth of the event. “Instead of having a major event in San Francisco and two minor events in Europe and APAC, we’ve acknowledged all three regions are important to our business so rather than force our European or Japanese customers to fly to San Francisco we decided to make a concerted effort to do a great event in all three places.”

“I think what’s important when you're trying to grab the hearts and the minds of a group is you have to create an environment for the tribe to get together so they can share experiences and learn from one another,” Yarnold continues.

“Even at lunch I was introducing companies who were saying ‘oh you're a ServiceMax user that’s great, we use your parts in our products so let's talk’ and that really helps. It helps them with their business and clearly it helps us because they’re bonding around the experience that they’ve had with us.”

There was one slide in particular that really caught my eye in the morning’s opening sessions and that was the sheer number of partners within the ServiceMax ecosystem, the market place for which was only launched just over a year ago. I was keen to understand just how important that partnership ecosystem was in the continuing success and vision of ServiceMax and what role it would play in the future of the company.

“Several years ago we came to a couple of realisations,” opens Yarnold when I discuss this with him.

“One was that at the time, we were doing all of our implementations because customer satisfaction was so important to us - we wanted to make sure that every single customer was thrilled with us. However, we reached a point where continuing to do that would mean it would be really hard to scale the company. Also we were broadening our geographic presence and we needed to have partners that operated locally, using the local language.”

 

“The other thing that we were seeing, especially as we got into larger situations, was there were areas of functionality that it just didn’t make sense for us to build when some of our partners had that functionality.”

“Still we were surprised how fired up those partners were to engage with us and the last time I checked about half of our customers have actually used one of our partner’s products in conjunction with ServiceMax. It’s been really great to see that since we set up that partner market place . We can’t do it all so we’ve been thrilled with the support we’ve got from the partner community.”

In terms of the technology itself there was one definite show-stealer Field Service Connect, ServiceMax’s IoT solution, which was showcased with a number of successful case studies. Given the relative infancy of the product which launched just over a year ago, were the team at ServiceMax surprised how quickly these customers were able to show real value in using the tool?

“I was not surprised by it all,” replies Rick Gustafson, CFO, ServiceMax. “We’ve brought to market a nice bite-sized way to go about this that can deliver real business value. We’ve had the early adopter program which we’ve run half a dozen customers through it and now we have a couple of customers that are going to expand it broaden it out across the business.”

“I think the key to this is we boil it [IoT] down to a very simple value proposition and we talk about it as a way of getting started with IoT. We make it very understandable, very pragmatic, with well-defined outcomes and when we sit down with the customers we intentionally say let's focus on two or three use cases lets not try to boil the ocean,” Yarnold adds.

“The key to these hype areas is you’ve got to get some value for your early customers otherwise everybody says it was just over-hyped and it dies. Here there is real business value,” he concludes.

It would seem that both an army of satisfied customers and now Gartner themselves would agree with him too.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

GE Digital yesterday announced that it has completed the acquisition of ServiceMax, a leader in cloud-based field service management (FSM) solutions, for $915 million.

The acquisition provides GE Digital with new capabilities in the $1 trillion market for industrial service, enabling customers to immediately gain more value from their assets and find greater efficiency in their field service processes.

GE Digital's Predix solution is positioned as the only software platform that offers complete connectivity from the edge to the cloud and computing capabilities at every level of the industrial software stack.

Combining Predix with ServiceMax technologies GE Digital believe that they will be better positioned to help their industrial customers accelerate productivity outcomes for industry by combining cloud-based mobile applications with Predix. This acquisition brings together the use of digital twins, cloud applications and big data analytics with world-class field services domain expertise to unlock asset productivity for industrial customers. With this acquisition, GE will add analytics and insights into the ServiceMax logistics, workforce optimisation and deployment models.

The ServiceMax platform provides a full suite of applications, including inventory and parts logistics, scheduling and workforce optimisation, and work order management. As a result of this transaction, customers will be able to access these offerings from a modern rapid application development cloud and field-ready mobile platform that combines the strength of GE’s deep domain expertise and advanced industrial portfolio with ServiceMax’s field service expertise. The company will leverage the Predix platform to further the development of additional industrial applications focused on service delivery.

 

“This acquisition advances our vision of building a Predix-powered industrial world. Improved productivity is critical for industry, and digitising field services is a cornerstone of a successful digital industrial strategy,” said Bill Ruh, CEO, GE Digital. “By combining our technologies with ServiceMax, we continue to enhance the overall Predix technology stack for our customers. This transaction, along with our previous acquisitions of Wurldtech, Meridium, BitStew and Wise.io, is directly aligned with our strategy to drive growth both inorganically and organically by building the capabilities to support the digital industrial transformation through Predix, APM and the Digital Thread.”

Together, the companies have already driven significant productivity for GE and going forward they will co-develop service products and accelerate commercialisation in order to drive additional value for customers. GE estimates there is a market-wide opportunity to improve service productivity by $25 billion through the use of analytical tools.

Morgan Stanley acted as exclusive financial advisor to ServiceMax with Gundersen Dettmer LLP serving as legal counsel for ServiceMax. King & Spalding, LLP served as legal counsel for GE Digital. The transaction closed on January 10.

 

---

 

Be social and share this story

A shift in attitude & embracing new tools can help break telco’s poor customer service cycle writes Mussy Kurt-Elli, CEO of QubeGB and a keynote presenter at Maximize Europe Conference which took place in Amsterdam earlier this month.

While it’s no secret that telcos perennially end up at the bottom of customer satisfaction reports, a survey this summer by the Institute of Customer Service report actually shows signs of significant improvement in the space.

Not exactly time to break out the Dom Perignon, but any improvement is worth holding onto - although it has to be put into perspective.

So-called challenger brands, such as Tesco Mobile and giffgaff have apparently skewed the scores, so clearly there is still room for improvement.

And according to a more recent report, from market researchers Vanson Bourne, it’s not a wish that is exclusive to the telco sector. The report shows that nearly half of IT and field service decision makers surveyed across all types of organizations peg improving customer service as a priority area for investment. For IT decision makers, ¬field services fall below the popular categories of security, big data and analytics but it’s still significant.

 

To a certain extent it is unfair to compare telco with other sectors. Customer quantities and types of product vary but certainly telco has to keep working on improving service quality. The Institute of Customer Service notes “telecoms continues to generate the highest number of complaints, with one fifth (20%) of customers having experienced a problem.”

I shouldn’t complain. After all, the fact that most operators are struggling to execute high customer service themselves gives us an “in” to winning new business (we provide field engineering and managed services to all of the UK’s major tier one carriers, such as BT, Talk Talk, Sky, EE, and Virgin Media, as well as smaller aggregators, such as the Post Office, housing associations, and electrical retailers).

In my experience, the industry doesn’t suffer from lack of experience, but more often a lack of critical fundamentals, such as modern service tools, processes, training and front line service engineers to uphold customer service standards.

Without investing properly in these areas, the industry as a whole will continue to struggle with high levels of complaints.

In our own business, we deployed the ServiceMax field service management platform to formally manage our service teams in the field, and get insight into products, history, scheduled maintenance, and Cases and Work Orders to streamline customer interaction. Having the  right tools and process in place can lead to transformational change.

So what does this mean for telco customer service? Certainly change is necessary and this change is as much about perception of customer service as it is the processes and methodologies in making customer service and support more efficient. Empowering field service engineers and support staff to improve communication, response times and repair times (as well as increase transparency and efficiencies) is important for modern support teams.

 

The key is for telcos to recognise the true value of field service, not just as something which can impact customer satisfaction but that can also provide data and intelligence on customer trends, product deficiencies, new product ideas and the potential for upselling. Unfortunately, according to the Vanson Bourne study, in the majority of cases, organisations and board members are missing the link between ¬field services and customer satisfaction, let alone everything else. This means that boards are reluctant to support increase field service projects and improvements in customer satisfaction are slow.

In fact the telco sector has an opportunity here to make a leap forward. As a third party support supplier for the industry, we have seen huge improvements in the technology that can help us improve service provision for customers.

Improved reporting with more granularity, a clear feedback path for recurring product faults and transparent workflows are just some of the benefits we can now pass on. What does this mean to telco businesses? Ultimately a time reduction on each job which increases service capacity and therefore financial savings. We estimate that a ten-minute reduction on each job would increase service capacity by 50,000 jobs a month and earn a potential £6m in additional revenue a year.

 

It’s a strategic step that puts an end to the firefighting approach (chances are your service department has yet to modernise in terms of technology, dedicated service platforms, training or tools). Addressing the gap in field service delivery teams will not only increase customer satisfaction but also improve employee satisfaction and lead to greater job retention.

Telcos need to accelerate change and embrace the field service renaissance. Customer service after all is the new growth strategy for all businesses.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature

The Field Service Management software industry is fiercely competitive and one that in the last few years has been in almost constant flux as new technologies continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.

Yet, across the last decade there has been one company that has risen from a humble start-up to globally recognised industry leader. That company is ServiceMax, and the man that has led that incredible rise to prominence is CEO Dave Yarnold. Kris Oldland, FSN Editor-in-Chief, spoke exclusively with him as he stopped by the ServiceMax London HQ on whistle-stop tour of Europe...

The ServiceMax story really is an incredibly compelling one - while stories of start-ups that become market leaders are not completely unique, they are few and far between and in the competitive world of field service management systems, their rapid rise to prominence within the last decade is out their on it’s own in terms of success.

Indeed, there are some really great service management providers out there that have a built solid businesses serving their small corner of what is in reality a huge market. Companies that are happy to feed off the crumbs (and make a very profitable living in doing so) that fall down from the big table where the traditionally established players such as ClickSoftware or Astea fight for elbow room with software heavyweights such as Microsoft and Oracle.

But this was never going to be the path that Dave Yarnold, CEO and co-founder of ServiceMax was going to choose.

Even back in the inception days in what Yarnold affectionately refers back to as the ‘beige palace’, a nondescript office tucked away in Silicon Valley, there was a distinct vision - and perhaps a key reason for their success was that, that vision wasn’t just to be another software provider trying to serve the field service sector but instead to form a company that intrinsically understood what good service was and then build tools to help engender that within their clients.

“We looked at what everybody was doing around service and we thought everyone was missing the point in two respects,” Yarnold begins “One was that everybody was focussed on consumer call centres and basically reducing the amount of touch that companies were going to have with their customers, so all the technology was geared towards efficiency and reducing interaction.”

 

“We also felt that all the technology was geared to taking cost out and what we stumbled on early on was an interesting trend that anybody who was building products were experiencing much faster growth in the services side of the business than the product side.”

“The global economy has slowed down - especially since the last great recession, so that means you’re not selling as much product but there is certainly enough opportunities to get value out of the infrastructure, customer base and install base that you have. So we focussed on helping companies to grow their service business as opposed to squeeze their technicians for more productivity - which is still where most of the technology in our space is focussed.” He adds.

It is a valid point that Yarnold makes, as the economy crashed on a global scale, suddenly service became fore and centre as very simply there were no more margins left to cut. Competing on price in many industries was just no longer an option.

However, with the economy on (slightly) more stable footing these days, the shift to service centric businesses is less about a necessary differentiator and more about building more profitable and sustainable, longer term relationships. A case in point being Sony’s Professional Service’s division, who have developed a servitized business model, using ServiceMax as their FSM system. But was this shift to services something that Yarnold had always envisaged?

“A great analogue to answer that question is to look at the software industry.” He replies. “I remember back in the year 2000 when Salesforce emerged and the idea of Cloud computing and Software as a Service as a business model was nowhere to be seen. The reason why it became the primary mode of delivering software was because it was what customers wanted. They wanted a balanced relationship , a long relationship, a relationship where they felt like they weren’t entering into an agreement knowing the supplier was getting all of the profit up front on day one.

Think about the imbalance in that type of relationship and of course outcome based services makes a ton of sense to customers. It’s far more balanced, it’s what customers want. The fact that the software industry has gone through this complete disruption, and all the leaders in the sector have now embraced this model - that’s not lost on manufacturing companies. Most heads of manufacturing businesses today will be looking at what software businesses have become, they look at the multiples that recurring revenue streams produce and they want that to.”

 

“You look at the long-term, recession proof benefits of that business model and the lock in that that brings, it’s a really attractive proposition.”

Of course mention of Salesforce, brings us to the elephant in the room.

While Yarnold and his co-founders vision was certainly a driving force for the success of ServiceMax, it is undeniable that they also rode the slipstream of Salesforce’s own phenomenal growth. Now with Salesforce entering the market themselves with Field Service Lightning, does this represent a significant threat to ServiceMax’s continued growth?

“It’s not like it was a surprise to us, it took them a while but they realised that this [field service] is a pretty big market,” Yarnold begins bullishly.

“For us, it’s interesting being the only guys in the market that believe in the business model of servitization and where this is all going. I see even in the direction of their [Salesforce’s] product that it’s the old cost reduction approach. It’s a scheduling centric app that is leveraging technology that ClickSoftware built on their platform - which is all around schedule optimisation.”

“Yes, it’s part of our suite also, but our product is built around assets and contracts and relationships and the business processes that drive a service business. It’s not just geared towards squeezing an extra few percentage out of the engineers. That’s part of the overall RoI of running a service business, but it’s only part of it. Basically, I think it’s interesting what they [Salesforce] are doing, but it is also old school in my opinion, it’s still cost based, which is kind of boring to people who run service businesses.”

 

One for is for certain though, if an original vision and harnessing the growing momentum of Salesforce were the initial keys to success, the ‘special sauce’ that has allowed ServiceMax to truly flourish has been there intelligent acquisition of talent in key roles that truly understand the industry. Yet, it’s clear that the passion for service stems from the very top.

“At the core of it, if you go back to the three of us when we started, we just care about this. We think it’s vital. From a standpoint of what we as consumers expect from a service relationship. When we really start to dig into it, it’s not just software, it’s an important part of business, an important part of the relationship that we all expect and take for granted, and there’s this army of people making it all happen.”

“So the follow on from that is if we are going to try and enable all this, then we’ve got to try and find people who’ve experienced it - people like Dave Hart (a former Service Director and customer now working in a global customer transformation role with ServiceMax) who live eat and breath this stuff and have built there career around it.”

Having spent an hour in Yarnold’s company the one thing that is clear is that ServiceMax isn’t just a software company. They are a company which already deeply understands field service, yet is continuously learning more about the sector each day and that I would venture is the true key to their success.

 

---

 

Be social and share this feature