ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘servitization-2’ CATEGORY

Experts from Accenture, Daimler Trucks North America, Spartan Motors, Carlisle & Company, Bocconi University and Syncron share strategies to succeed in the years ahead...

To help manufacturers navigate one of the most transformative times in history, Syncron^TM, a provider of cloud-based after-sales service solutions focused on empowering the world’s leading manufacturers to maximise product uptime and deliver exceptional customer experiences, today published “2019 After-sales Service Predictions: Powering the Journey to Servitization Through Maximized Product Uptime.” Service experts from Accenture, Daimler Trucks North America, Spartan Motors, Carlisle & Company, Bocconi University and Syncron shared insights on the time, resources and technology manufacturers will need to win in 2019 and beyond. 

Servitisation – where organisations transition from selling one-off products to selling the outcome or value those products deliver – is leading manufacturers to evolve their after-sales service operations from reactive, break-fix models focused on repair execution, to a new paradigm focused on dynamic repair prevention and maximising product uptime. In this new white paper, Syncron unveils how manufacturers can succeed in this shift to servitisation. 

“In this new era of servitisation, the responsibility for ensuring maximised product uptime is shifting from the end-user to the manufacturer,” said Gary Brooks, CMO at Syncron. “This new business model will require manufacturers to find ways to increase cost efficiencies throughout the entire value chain, ultimately driving them to completely transform business logic, company cultures and product development strategies. Today’s global manufacturers are at a pivotal point in their storied histories, and those that adapt to the changing climate will be the ones to come out on top.”

The key predictions included in the white paper include: 

1. The time for manufacturers to begin shifting to servitisation is now
2. Manufacturers must intelligently allocate the resources behind an evolving industry
3. Adopting the right technology is crucial to making servitisation a reality

In addition, the white paper includes a foreword by Syncron CEO, Anders Grudén, plus further details about the future of after-sales service and immediate next steps for manufacturers to take as they begin 2019.

“We interviewed multiple industry experts – the best-of-the-best around the globe, to compile this expert advice,” continued Brooks. “This white paper will serve as an ultimate guide for manufacturers to establish business plans for not only 2019, but also several years down the road.”

Key contributors to “2019 After-sales Service Predictions: Powering the Journey to Servitization Through Maximized Product Uptime” include: Kurt Ranka, Principle Director, Accenture; Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffè, Professor of Strategy, Bocconi University; Nate Chenenko, Manager, Carlisle & Company; Jay Johnson, General Manager, Daimler Trucks North America; Jon Dickinson, Director of Aftermarket Sales, Spartan Motors; Anders Grudén, Chief Executive Officer, Syncron and Gary Brooks, Chief Marketing Officer, Syncron.

Click here to read “2019 After-sales Service Predictions: Powering the Journey to Servitization Through Maximized Product Uptime” in its entirety. To learn more about Syncron and its suite of after-sales service solutions, visit syncron.com.

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Adopting IoT as part of the greater service and business environment involves keeping up with industry changes as they take place. That means incorporating better measures when needs arise in any business area and keeping cost-effective solutions in mind for the future progress of the company as a whole...

Already, 76% of companies are using IoT data analytics to establish product and/or process quality imperatives. Their decision makers can analyze IoT data to improve solution recommendations, feedback on installations, demonstrations, specific services, and others.

IoT also serves as a signifier for opportunities to improve more processes, such as identifying popular products and managing inventory.

Respondents to a recent research project undertaken by WBR and commisioned by Astea believe data should be usable in decision making at a variety of business levels. In every case, a majority of companies have either adopted IoT for specific business functions or plan to do so in the next 24 months. But companies prioritize customer-facing initiatives—service, products, and satisfaction—over internal functions such as business projections and aligning service data with financials.

Is IoT adoption a key issue for you?! The full white paper is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed now! 

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Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty:

73% of companies have incorporated IoT (42%) or plan to do so within 24 months (31%) for the purpose of customer satisfaction and loyalty. More companies have incorporated IoT for this purpose than for any other measured in the study.

With connected data, companies are able to understand and fulfil customer demands better thanks to improved communication. In this way, minor technological improvements can be made without delay or other consequences.

Service Processes & Optimization

Respondents agree that connected data and IoT have helped streamline processes across departments. By leveraging IoT data, they can measure efforts for overall growth through set channels, be they internal or service-driven.

Now, 41% of companies have incorporated IoT for process optimization, a close second to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Thirty-six percent have already incorporated IoT with service processes; more companies plan to do so within 24 months (37%) than with any other business function measured.

Product Uptime

Companies’ attention to customer experiences carries over to product support, where one respondent cites “notable improvements” to uptime in both industrial and consumer-driven channels. One healthcare executive says IoT helps them sustain products “during times of higher demands, especially due to the fact that these are used during medical procedures.”

More than one-third of companies have incorporated IoT for product uptime (34%); more than one-quarter of companies have plans to incorporate IoT with product uptime (30%) within 24 months.

Business Projections & Decisions

IoT data can be applied to various business requirements and provide essential statistics to support managerial functions. Derivations from reliable signals allow for better judgements when making business projections and decisions.

Over one-third of companies have incorporated IoT for business projections and decisions (35%); more than one-quarter of companies have plans to incorporate IoT with business projections and decisions (27%) within 24 months.

Predictive Maintenance

Respondents’ ambitions for better response to maintenance needs extends to real-time automated reporting, a better understanding of their products’ “general maintenance structure,” and even signals for customers to be proactive—to seek out maintenance themselves.

Several respondents cite their use of predictive reporting for scheduling, sustainability, and research methods, among others. Only 32% of companies have leveraged IoT for predictive maintenance; however, 29% plan to do so within 24 months.

Aligning Service Data with Financials

Fewer companies have incorporated IoT to align service data with financials (26%) than any other business function in the study. But the data suggests this is a growth area. More companies (61%) are either planning to incorporate IoT in this way within 24 months or are interested in incorporating IoT in this way than with any other business function.

Despite the prioritization of functions that drive customer success, it is in business projections, business decisions, and aligning service data with financials that companies take an increasing interest in incorporating IoT.

At least one-quarter of companies have already incorporated IoT for each of these purposes. Have you?

Want to know more?! The full white paper is available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to speed now! 

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In a recent episode of The Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News spoke with Simon Fahie, Managing Director of ByBox, and in what was a wide-ranging discussion the two touched on a number of key topics affecting field service organisations today...

Our industry is evolving rapidly. It seems like only yesterday when I first returned to the service sector and began writing about the key trends within field service, at the time for the now sadly departed Service Management magazine. In fact, that was some six or seven years ago now and crikey an awful lot has changed in that time.

Back then the over-riding discussions within the sector were around the practicalities and benefits of moving field service from its traditional position as a cost centre to becoming a profit centre.

Fast forward to today and the concept of field service as a core revenue-generating part of the business has become firnly established. Indeed, as we have covered extensively in Field Service News, more and more companies are becoming increasingly focused on delivering advanced services, a strategic shift in thinking that has become known as servitization.

Yet, whilst servitization promises to hold the key to increased profits, a greater share of customer wallets and deeper, longer term contracts that offer far greater financial stability, it is not a particularly easy nut to crack.

Perhaps the biggest shift in thinking from traditional break fix based centric service agreements and their servitized equivalent is the move away from service level agreements to guarantees of uptime. In an era of IoT and connected assets, the move towards predictive maintenance that such an approach requires could be deemed relatively easy to establish once the right processes and technologies are put in place.

The theory is relatively straight-forward. The asset feeds back real-time data, when it falls out of set acceptable parameters that have been determined to be indicators of probable forthcoming failure an engineer is dispatched to fix the fault ahead of the asset going down - giving the end customer a continuous service whilst allowing the service provider to schedule their field service operations far more efficiently.

"Whilst servitization promises to hold the key to increased profits, a greater share of customer wallets and deeper, longer-term contracts that offer far greater financial stability, it is not a particularly easy nut to crack..."

An obvious win-win all round - easy as that.

However, one of the obvious spanners that can be thrown into the works is the parts logistics aspect fo the equation. Getting the right engineer to the right place, at the right time has been the field service manager’s mantra for as long as I can remember. However, it all becomes a moot point if the engineer hasn’t got access to the right parts.

And in an age of increasing congestion, which can put a huge strain on service logistics - getting the right parts to an engineer can cause a huge problem for field service delivery, and when it comes to advanced services this issue becomes even more significant.

“I look at servitization and for me, it really exposes some of the weaknesses in a supply chain or the process of getting parts to the engineer,” explains Simon Fahie, Manging Director, ByBox when he joined me for a recent episode of the Field Service Podacst.

“Certainly, we are seeing conversations that are saying yesterday we could do a next day fix, now we are able to do a four hour fix. But it is not just fix-times that are open to discussion. Obviously, in a servitization scenario, you have lost revenues that are at stake,” he continued

“If the asset you are supplying is not working not only do you have a disgrunteled customer, you also have no revenues coming thorugh. In fact, in some instances, not being able to provide a fix stops the use of consumables as well.”

“So what we are seing as a growing trend is the need to position inventory actually on site, or very, very close, to be able to provide the very short fixtime that servitized contracts require.”

And this is exactly where ByBox come into the equation - with a network of lockers across the UK and Europe they offer an effective means of acheiving this - in the UK for example, Fahie states that most of their customers will have a locker within just a few miles of their location.

"If the asset you are supplying is not working not only do you have a disgruntled customer, you also have no revenues coming through..."

Yet their is more to the solution than just conveniently place lockers.

“The challenge is how do you control the parts?” Fahie asks retorically.

“How do you give secure access to them? How do you know that they are there? How do you know that they’ve gone out of stock? You can’t just hand over a cardboard box of parts and say leave that by the machine for the engineer when he comes. It is a lot more challenging than that.”

ByBox’s solution to these challenges is in many senses relatively simple, yet is hugely effective in overcoming exactly these problems. The lockers themselves are enabled with secure bluetooth functionality for delivering and removing parts which allows for the movement of parts to be logged - providing essentially visibility into the parts management process, which in turn opens up the doors to even greater streamlining possibilities as well.

“What this enables is the better efficiency of the field workforce,” explains Fahie.

“If you think about the scheduling challenge if a field worker has gone and got a part at 9 am they are then committed to that job that requires them and that part. However, if the part is available and can be collected at any time by anyone with the appropriate authorisation, the efficiency of the scheduling could be increased.”

“If we add into that mix the rise of the flexible or contingent workforce, now we are trying to get a part to a place that may be able difficult to deliver to, now we can have a part picked up and delivered by a person that you have never met before and may never meet again - but that is where the felxibility of the app base dcontrol comes into play - and it could lead to some really interesting new ways of improving the service supply chain that simply couldn’t have existed before.”

Indeed, given the increasing burden being felt within service logistics due to things like pedestrianisation of city centres and ever more congested roads, for servitization to thrive as it should, it is exactly such innovative ideas that field service companies will need to embrace.

Our industry is evolving rapidly, but fortunately, it appears we have the tools to hand to adapt with it.

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

Plugging the Holes – Revenue Leakage

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

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

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

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

Bottom Line Benefits: Double-Digit Revenue Growth

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

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

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

Predicted financial benefits over the next 12 months

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

But what about return on investment?

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

Strong RoI

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

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

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

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

Want to know more?!  There is a white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to date now! 

 

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Asset and service data will be a crucial element of making this transition to a more outcome-based business model. However, at present, surveyed organisations are not accessing the full potential of this data due to their inconsistent use of digital tools and technology. While 98% of respondents report that their organisation uses automated digital tools and technology to aid the collection and utilisation of asset service data, only around half or fewer state that these tools are used in the collection (51%), aggregation (43%) or analysis (52%) stages of the process.

This intermittent use of automated technologies is not only opening the door for inefficiencies but is also directly leading to difficulties with data collection and utilisation. Around four in ten respondents report that when it comes to the management of access to asset service data in real time (40%), aggregating asset service data in a structured way (39%), analysing asset service data (41%), and sharing asset service data analysis with the rest of the business (42%), their organisation either needs huge improvements in these areas, a complete overhaul or that they simply do not do this at all yet.

The difficulties regarding asset and service data are exasperated further by the 59% of respondents who agree that their organisation is held back from the successful analysis of data because the quality of it is usually poor.

Struggles are rife throughout the entire process, right from who is collecting it and how they do this, down to how it is being analysed and shared across the business. How can these organisations possibly expect to make any informed, strategic decisions using the data that is readily available to them if the process is so disjointed, outdated and underdeveloped digitally?

Lack of Data Confidence

And these struggles have led to a distinct lack of confidence among surveyed decision makers and their colleagues, with only 50% of respondents reporting that they or other service leaders in their organisation completely trust the asset service data that they have access to. But this will need to change because asset and service data is becoming an ever more integral part of organisations, and this is summed up by the 85% of respondents who agree that service asset data should be central to strategic decision making.

The requirement to boost trust levels is especially pertinent in those organisations where the C-suite is already using asset service data today (39%) or have plans to in the future (34%) because they will need to be able to trust in the data in order to make well-informed decisions for the business.

The use of asset and service data by the C-suite will also serve to set an example for leaders across other departments that this is the best way forward for the organisation.

Glaring Skills Gap

However, it is not just these deep-lying trust issues that are a concern for organisations, which is clear from the fact that only 22% of respondents are willing to admit that the IT and field service functions in their organisation work together completely effectively to achieve the goal of better data utilisation.

This lack of collaboration is compounded by a glaring skills gap whereby over three quarters (77%) of surveyed decision makers concede that the pace of data intelligence digitally collected by their organisation’s assets is outpacing the skills of those responsible for actually utilising the data.

Further to this, more than four in ten respondents report that the skills of engineers (45%) and the skills of management (44%) are a cause for concern when it comes to using data produced by advanced technologies (such as a digital twin) meaningfully. This should set alarm bells ringing for organisations because they are struggling with skills among both their employees on the ground and those higher up the organisation as well. It seems that even with the implementation of the appropriate technology for the collection and utilisation of asset and service data, there will still be work to be done in order to extract as much value as possible – this will likely need to be in the form of a rigorous training program.

An Appetite for Automation

A lack of collaboration between teams, an ever-increasing skills gap and an inconsistent use of the appropriate technology, leading to trust issues could become a recipe for disaster in these organisations if not addressed quickly.

The need for automated digital tools has rarely been clearer, and respondents recognise this. Only 7% believe that automating the process of collecting and utilising asset service data is not at all required because all data manually entered by service engineers is structured and entirely usable. Whereas over four in ten (43%) report that the automation of this process in their organisation is required to a huge extent, or that it is completely required because manually entered data never/rarely provides value.

Organisations will need to utilise automated digital tools more consistently if they are to progress, but they will also need to upskill their workforce and address any collaboration issues internally. These three areas are crucial if asset and service data is to be utilised to its full potential and this will ultimately underpin the successful transition to an outcome-based business model.

Want to know more?!  There is a white paper on this topic available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Click the button below to get fully up to date now! 

 

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Every year, the team at Copperberg AB, producers of the forthcoming Aftermarket Business Platform gather the brightest service leaders from the largest manufacturing companies and from all corners of Europe to dissect the ongoing service transformation and share the key to a successful servitization journey.

It is a networking experience which has proven to be critical for defining new business models that can allow field service companies to respond to changing customer expectations, which are moving from ownership to outcome-based solutions.

One such service leader is Carl-Henrik Sjölund, Global Consultancy Service Director at SECO TOOLS, whom Copperberg recently interviewed for a new eBook in order to put together an eBook on Servitization that shares some practical steps towards a successful servitization journey.

Here, we take a look at some of that advice...

Want to know more? Register to access Copperberg's Servitization eBook @ http://fs-ne.ws/CAjc30lXctz

10 steps to servitization success... 

Within the eBook Sjölund outlines what he sees as 10 key steps that field service companies should consider when approaching shifting to a servitized business model.

These are:

1. Define the customer process where your product is in use
2. Define the components in the close world around your product
3. Define the challenges for efficient use, and cost of inefficient use
4. If necessary, define your own core competence (know-how, not product)
5. Match the customers’ challenges with the biggest cost of “inefficient use of components” with your best core competence to “fix it"
6. Check customer interest of your new service by using real proof of concept. Could be fake landing pages for services where people can click for interest to buy, subscribe or just know more.
7. If you find good interest for your new service, make a business case for profitability and start
8. Build a service organization by parallel “selling and recruiting”
9. Use Aftermarket Business Platform to communicate your strategy and you get many interested system suppliers that can help you to enable and control the business
10. Enjoy the success!

Hindsight with 20/20 vision:

Reflecting back on his own journey, one of the core challenges in making a transition to a business strategy he had experienced was the difference between the traditional sales approach found in product-focused sales compared to the more nuanced approach required to sell complicated, yet highly profitable outcome-based service-centric contracts. As Sjölund commented:

"The journey was more or less OK except that we had too much trust in the existing product sales organization to sell the new services."

"They just didn’t understand it, he added. "Instead we found a few of our own salespeople for service sales with different backgrounds to understand the complete customer journey (challenge) and communicate with the highest management level about this. It’s important to bring people from the product service organization along to learn and pick the best.

The major trends of Servitization:

The eBook also draws on the wider pool of senior Service Professionals that attend the Aftermarket Business Platform and as such outlines some of the key trends that are becoming prevalent amongst Manufacturers across Europe.

These include:

• Manufacturing companies are faced with smaller and smaller batch sizes because of faster and faster development cycles.
• This leads to challenges to estimate costs earlier, prepare for the unknown and have very fast set-up of machine. Added to that, the need to produce good parts directly when there are orders means there is no time for optimization.
• Companies lack staff with the right skills and working methods for this.
• Many suppliers are promising industry 4.0 ready-to-use solutions without success support and this leads to bad experiences.

The technology of Servitization: 

Of course, as we have discussed many times here at fieldservicenews.com technology is a major factor in enabling the growth of servitized business strategies and models.

However, for Sjölund, the sheer volume of innovative technology that is empowering field service organisations to push ever further the boundaries of service excellence, a path that logically leads towards servitization, can be something of a double-edged sword.

"Technology is part of the problem: what is good and what to do?" He asks. "We already tried out a lot of technology (AI, Robotics, 3D Printing, AR/VR) to know what is usable and what is not."

"Most important change according to my experience so far is the use of big data mining to predict the future and access virtual good advices combined with virtual collaboration between users for “reality checks” and confirmation between professionals," Sjölund continues.

"This needs, however, data generating systems (IoT) in the workshop and well managed virtual communities. This is today not yet spread and partly not even available."

Want to know more? Register to access Copperberg's Servitization eBook @ http://fs-ne.ws/CAjc30lXctz

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The idea of outcome-based business models has not completely taken off as yet, and this is reflected by what respondents’ report is happening in their organisations.

On average, respondents estimate that 19% of their organisation’s business model is outcome-based, compared to 38% of the model that would be classified as product-based and 26% that is service-based.

However, there is potential for an outcome-based approach to be a big hit and it is unlikely to be too long before large multi-national corporations realise that product and service-based models are not as relevant as they once were.

It seems as though this realisation has already started to some extent; of respondents whose organisation does not currently operate a 100% outcome-based business model, more than nine in ten (95%) report that they are currently working towards moving some or all of their products and/or services in this direction or are planning to in the future.

Surveyed organisations from the oil and gas sector appear as though they are looking to get a head start on their competition with 64% of them reporting that their organisation is already working towards implementing a more outcome-based business model.

In recent times, organisations have found themselves in a race to the bottom, constantly undercutting their competitors on price, but often at the expense of product or service quality, simultaneously cutting their own profit margins.

This is not sustainable as a business model, not only due to reducing profits but also reducing customer satisfaction levels. Outcome-based business models provide an opportunity to differentiate from the competition and raise standards across all industries.

Enhanced Performance and More Competitive

The shift towards this type of business model is therefore somewhat unsurprising, and surveyed decision makers display overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards this approach.

The vast majority (89%) believe that the move to more outcome-based business models will enhance the way their industry operates, and only slightly fewer (82%) agree that this model will make their company more competitive than ever before.

Not only do organisations from the oil and gas sector appear to be making an early leap towards outcome-based business models, but surveyed IT and field service decision makers from organisations in this sector are almost completely convinced on the possible impacts of such a change.

More than nine in ten (94%) respondents from the oil and gas sector believe that this switch will enhance the way that their industry operates, including 71% who believe it will lead to significant enhancements.

Decision makers in oil and gas seem to be tired of the shortcomings of product and service-based business models and are ready to embrace the positive changes that outcome-based models will inevitably have.

Everything has a shelf-life, and it is evident that old school approaches to business have run their course – it is time for a change, and oil and gas are hoping to lead the way.

In business, those who can be first to the punch will often be very successful, but with a transition such as this, organisations must ensure that their plan is rigorous and well thought out.

Implementing a fully functional outcome-based model will not necessarily be a straightforward process and could be fraught with difficulties along the way, but it is certainly a step worth taking to improve customer satisfaction levels, the bottom line and the way industries operate as a whole.

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The field service sector is one that has always bred innovation and ingenuity and in today’s business landscape, where boundaries are being continually pushed forward by radical new approaches to service delivery, empowered by a wave of exciting technologies, there has never been a greater opportunity for companies to drive their businesses forwards through service.

As a celebration of excellence in our sector, Field Service News is pleased to announce the 2018 edition of the #fsn20 - a list of service professionals who are leading lights within our sector...

Andy Harrison, Engineering Associate Fellow, Life Cycle Engineering, Rolls Royce

Rolls Royce has long been the poster boy for the servitization and advanced service movement we are now seeing begin to really gain momentum within the manufacturing sector and beyond.

As such, it makes sense that they are heavily involved within helping to establish a framework for advanced services as part of a multi-organisational committee dedicated to identifying the some of the fundamental steps towards such an approach.

Harrison is the man that is leading that committee and some of the work he and his colleagues within the group are undertaking will be pivotal to the future of field service.

Ashley Weller, UK Sales Director, Mars Drinks

Having joined the organisation in 2011 Weller has held roles across a number of disciplines within the business including field service management, marketing and as Customer Service Director.

It is in this role that Weller established the creation and delivery of a highly successful customer service strategy and customer engagement across both direct & indirect business streams.

In 2015 Weller took the visionary decision to challenge his people to elevate their role, transforming themselves into Brand Ambassadors and adding even more value to great customer relationships. As a result of the team’s work over several years, the new processes are now a living, breathing animal and are running smoothly under the control of the regional managers. The new brand ambassadors are a true USP for the company and are loved by their customers. The engineers are proud that they’ve achieved all this – it’s what their customers wanted.

Having recently taken on the role of UK Sales Director, it is anticipated that Weller will be able to build on this success and to further drive revenue through their now well-established 'Brand Ambassadors'.

Seva Gavrilov, Market Unit Director, Russia, Volvo Penta

Seva Gavrilov joined Volvo Penta 22 years ago and took over leadership of the Russian business in 2007.

He has always had a passion for nautical engineering, having graduated from the Marine Technology University in St Petersberg as a Naval engineer but also as a visionary with a head for business. Now, he is leading Volvo Penta through a programme of initiatives that are giving their dealerships a competitive edge, more momentum and increasing the company’s market share.

The group HQ in Gothenburg, Sweden has been watching Gavrilov’s programme carefully and has already implemented some similar ideas internationally. Since the company is in a transition period from being largely product and dealer focussed to Customer focused, Russia’s key message is to enforce the shift to end-user benefits.

Improvements in change processes, complaint handling and collaboration between groups such as sales and service can make huge improvements.

Ulrika Lindberg, Executive Vice President, Service, Marel

A member of the Harvard Business School alumni Lindberg holds an impressive CV having held many senior service and management roles in Europe, Africa and the Middle East Lindberg has a deep knowledge of customer satisfaction, aftermarket, spare parts and of course field service - in fact, she is something of a specialist when it comes to establishing and developing service portfolios.

Having built a new unit within Swedish-industrial giant Alfa Laval, with an overall objective to increase sales of services and a focus on developing and maintaining a portfolio of well defined service offerings for the organisation, Lindberg took on the role of Vice President for Global Service where she was responsible for Global Service operations with focus on Growth of Service, Competence Development within Service and Service Operations before recently moving to her current role as Executive VP with Marel.

Kevin Starr, Program Director, Advanced Digital Services, ABB Oil and Gas Division

Given Starr’s wide-ranging background which encompasses installing industrial automation, working with pneumatics, then electrics, DCS and now digital and across roles that include R&D managers, software developer, data scientist and cloud specialist - he is perhaps the very personification and embodiment of how the field service sector is in constant flux on a journey of continuous evolution.

When it comes to digitalisation of automation of service within the industrial sector, Starr is to be regarded a leading subject matter expert – a fact that is attested to the fact he is a highly sought-after speaker at industry conferences as well being the host of a successful YouTube series and author on the topic and he has played a sustained role in establishing ABB as a pioneer of data-led service delivery.

Jonas Granath, COO and Deputy CEO, Polygon

Deputy CEO and COO of Polygon a company with over 3,500 field service engineers, Granath has worked in service businesses across the globe, throughout his career.

One key attribute that really marks Granath out as leading figure within the industry has been how he has continuously demonstrated across his career an ability to find different ways to lead and get his message across no matter the background of the people he is interacting with and it is this ability to communicate that has made him such a successful change leader and senior service professional.

Across the last four years, he has helped Polygon evolve their approach to service delivery and is driving their present shift towards a more comprehensive post-folio of advanced services that have come from that evolution.

Tim Jones, Professional Services Director EMEAI, Waters

Having spent over thirty years with Waters Jones has worked across their Sales, Product and Service divisions and has become an integral part of the organisation who deliver practical and sustainable scientific innovation to enable significant advancement in healthcare delivery, environmental management, food safety, and water quality.

In his role as Professional Services Director for EMEAI he has played a critical role for ensuring Waters continue to meet the high level of service standards that they have become known for and has shown in the way he has structured his teams that he has a firm grasp of the importance of the engineer/customer relationship and of empowering his service engineers to take ownership of their performance.

Dan Sewell, COO, Espresso Service

Sewell has been a driving force behind not only driving his organisation's field service efficiencies but also in Espresso Service’s wide embrace of the Internet of Things.

It is this willingness to adopt leading-edge technologies that have seen the organisation increase profits through the intelligent use of data that has enabled their customers to get greater guarantees of uptime and improved visibility into how t ey can also build their revenue streams.

In addition to this, the company has been able to rapidly expand into new territories as well as establish key patents and partnerships that will firmly establish them as one of the leading service providers within their space and Sewell’s deep industry knowledge and expertise have been a fundamental element of that success.

Larry Wash, Executive Vice President, Kone Americas

Wash has a long and distinguished career that has included senior executive positions in service operations for a host of highly respected organisations including Xerox, Trane and Ingersoll Rand before joining Kone where he is at the vanguard of their drive to lead service innovation in a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving sector.

Alongside his role as Executive Vice President, Wash serves as a member of KONE’s Executive Board. and leads a $2 billion business that includes teams across the United States, Canada and Latin America.

Wash also serves as Board President for the National Elevator Industry, Inc., a pre-eminent trade association for the building transportation industry as is highly regarded as a thought leader within the executive service community.

James Mylett, Vice President, Schneider Electric

Mylett is another member of the #fsn20 that has established his credentials as a highly respected service leader across a number of executive level service centred roles with a host of organisations who each have a reputation for excellence in terms of service delivery with a CV that lists positions with Comfort Systems, Johnson Controls and now Schneider Electric, whom he has been working for since 2017.

Schneider has shown ambitious plans in terms of establishing a highly progressive and forward-looking approach to their service operations on a global scale and as Vice President Mylett will be instrumental in seeing them meet their goals.

Wilhelm Nehring, CEO, OSRAM

In his role as UK CEO of the elevator division of thyssenkrupp Nehring showed a balanced understanding for the importance of technology in driving a service business forwards alongside the fundamental role that his field service technicians played in ensuring his organisation continued to stay at the forefront of what is both a highly competitive and exceptionally innovative sector.

Speaking at an exclusive fieldservicenews.com Think Tank session last year he commented ‘for us all this digitalisation that we’re talking about is not something to replace engineers, or even to have less engineers – it is for us to enable our engineers to do the job better than they could before.’

Having recently taken on the CEO position of globally leading lighting manufacturer OSRAM it is clear that he intends to carry that belief with him into his new role stating ‘my aim for OSRAM is to become a key player in the digitalization of our buildings and cities. On that journey our employees are our most important assets; they make the impossible possible.”

Nehring is a perfect example of the new breed of business leaders who understand the huge impact service personnel will have on the future of enterprise and we predict OSRAM will flourish under his leadership.

Chris Dexter, Senior Director, Technical Services EMEAR, Cisco Systems

With over 25 years of industry experience, Dexter is currently Senior Director, Technical Services EMEAR.

Based in the UK, leading a team of 200+ diverse and talented engineers across the region, Dexter is responsible for providing support for Cisco’s most complex technologies and emergent service offerings, as well as acquisition integration within the services function.

Innovation lead for EMEAR - funding, incubating and developing disruptive new concepts relating to customer experience and support quality and has given a number of exceptionally well-received talks at leading industry conferences such as TSIA Europe and Field Service Europe highlighting his and Cisco’s experience is achieving service excellence.

Christian Nolte, Vice President, Global Service, WMF Group

Nolte has been a popular and well-respected speaker within the European Field Service community for many years now and in his previous role with cash management and retail financial firm Diebold Nixdorf was at the vanguard of introducing the concepts of IoT and connected assets into field service as well as offering a number of insightful and innovative strategies to help improve service efficiency to his peers at a number of key field service focused conferences within Europe.

Now in his new role with WMF he is set to translate those ideas himself into the coffee retail sector, where again his extensive experience and insight into utilising the Internet of Things to drive service improvements will prove invaluable.

David Douglas, Vice President, Scientific Games

Douglas possesses over 25 years of global technology leadership experience.

His focus has been in the Lottery and Gaming sectors and broad experience includes executive leadership of North American organizations responsible for Service Management, customer deployments of large-scale systems and infrastructure, professional services, technical service, field service, operational support and call centres.

His current scope at Scientific Games includes the oversight of Scientific Games’ Service Management functions is currently leading a team comprised of 900+ employees. Douglas has a long history of achieving enormous operating efficiencies through the consolidation and creation of technology centres, process and quality improvements through the implementation of ITIL as well as hands-on experience with mergers, acquisitions and company integration activities.

In addition to having a mindful eye towards creating a strong, effective team and delivery practices, he is widely respected in the field service sector for his focus on creating value for the customer through the implementation of new, innovative service-related technologies.

Neil Johnson, Vice President & General Manager, Fujifilm North America Technical Services

Johnson is a highly seasoned service leader and is regarded as s one of the top executives in the US Service Industry.

He has demonstrated exceptional management expertise as he took a lead role in the transformation of Fujifilm’s Service Group from a cost centre to profit centre whilst developing strategies within the organisation for staffing, systems and CSA’s as the company established a well-deserved reputation for delivering flawless installations during the peak of the digital prepress evolution and his latest role with the group he looks set to further build upon his past successes and a bright and profitable future for the company’s service operations.

Rajat Kakar, Vice President, Head of Product Related Services Business, Fujitsu

Kakar is a frequent speaker and well respected at industry events whilst within Fujitsu, he is known for driving growth and sustained profitability, successfully penetrating new markets and building highly functional teams.

In his industry, he is recognized as first to market with new products. As prior leader of Product divisions within Fujitsu, he was first to market with UMTS integrated lightest laptops, Green IT with Zero-Watt PCs and Zero-Watt Monitors. His pragmatic and inclusive management practice for sales as well as operations, coupled with an as needed hands-on leadership style, has earned him a reputation of the desired leader and has enabled him to turn around dated or loss-generating organizations, both indirect and matrix structures.

Steve Smith, Founder and CTO, Astro Communications

Smith is a shining example of how excellent leadership, out of the box thinking and a genuine dedication to developing talent within the service side of the business can be implemented to establish a service organisation that is able to punch significantly above its weight in terms of establishing an excellent reputation for meeting the highest service standards.

Through innovative schemes such as taking his team sailing across the English Channel Smith has been able to engender an excellent sense of brand pride within his field engineers and is also a major proponent of apprenticeship schemes - through which he is developing a series of excellent, highly professional and well-rounded service engineers who can only enhance Astro’s reputation even further.

Ton van den Ham, Manager Engineering & Service, Yokogawa Europe Solutions

Yokogawa's industrial automation business provides vital products, services, and solutions to a diverse range of process industries including oil, chemicals, natural gas, power, iron and steel, and pulp and paper additionally with the life innovation business the company aims to radically improve productivity across the pharmaceutical and food industry value chains.

In recent year’s their European operations have established a strong reputation for providing service levels that exceed customer expectations and Van den Ham has shown within the year he has been with the organisation that he is an impressive service leader with innovative ideas who could have a major impact on the service sector.

Ged Cranny, Head of Direct Services, Konica Minolta

Cranny has played a fundamental role in spearheading Konica Minolta’s efforts to bring transparency to their data which has empowered the print/copy specialists to massively improve efficiencies within their service operations whilst simultaneously being able to dramatically reduce their employee churn, boost customer engagement and increase service related profits.

Having adopted a very hands on approach when implementing key systems that have enabled these achievements, Cranny is also prepared to speak openly about the approaches he and Konica Minolta adopted with his peers and help guide others on a similar path by sharing the insight of his experience.

John Cullen, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Metso

Whilst Cullen would invariably suggest that this accolade should perhaps be handed to one of his highly capable colleagues focussing specifically on the service operations side of the business at Metso, as former Vice President of Service Portfolio Management & Marketing, Automation Services for the organisation he has been a key role in the mining and aggregates giant’s shift from product centric to customer-oriented solutions on a global sale before building upon that as Vice President of Minerals Services where he was responsible for the development of service value propositions for the €1.4Bn business.

Given his pivotal role in establishing a service-orientated approach within Metso, we anticipate that Cullen will continue to drive the benefits of advanced services that Metso have developed in his latest role also.

the #fsn20 panel

Many thanks to this year’s advisory panel:

Aly Pinder, IDC, Sara Mueller, WBR, Bill Pollock, Strategies for GrowthSM, Kris Oldland, Field Service News, Jan Van Veen, MoreMomentum, Prudence Kolong, Copperberg, Michael Blumberg, Blumberg Advisory Group and Nick Frank, Si2 Partners.

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Data is one of the key driving forces underpinning the modern day economy, but asset and service data specifically, is absolutely crucial.

Organisations collect, aggregate and analyse plenty of it, but the way in which they do this can either be the catalyst for soaring above competitors, or the iceberg that sinks the ship.

Equally, outcome-based business models, which could be considered the next generation of the modern economy, might be a “make or break” moment in the lifespan of many global organisations. An outcome-based business model is focused on the outcome for the customer rather than a specific product. Customers receive extensive maintenance and support services after they have purchased the product, helping to nurture their relationship with the supplier.

In addition, customers only pay per outcome.

For example, the ability to only pay for a jet engine while it is in the skies, or an MRI scanner that is fully functioning and actually able to carry out a scan on a patient. Essentially, this type of model ensures that the customer always has the right outcome, enabling them to grow their own business while fostering a healthy client-supplier relationship.

Whether organisations can make an effective transition to this relatively new form of business model will likely be intrinsically linked to their ability to successfully collect and use data derived from their assets and will ultimately decide whether or not they stay afloat.

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Summary of Key Findings:

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