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Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief welcomes back Kevin McNally, Sales Director of Asolvi as they look through five key considerations to factor in when trying to build a case for investment within a field service management solution including, definable return on investment, health and safety compliance, increasing customer engagement, reducing staff turnover and avoiding a competitive disadvantage....

 

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The great and the good of the service management industry came together at this years Service Management Expo held in London's Exel and Field Service News was at the hear of the action hosting the FIeld Service Solutions Zone.

Here we speak to Dan Lancaster of Telogis about the importance of telematics in field service...

 

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Field Service News Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland reflects on a busy summer in the European field service industry in his leader for issue seven of Field Service News...

Click here and complete the brief form to download a digital copy of Field Service News issue seven now

I’ll be honest, when the doors closed on the third day of this year’s Service Management Expo I gave an almighty sigh of relief...

Not only was it the end of a very busy three days but it also marked the end of what was an incredibly busy conference season in the European field service industry and to be quite frank I think everyone needed to take five just to catch their breath.

Since we published the last edition of Field Service News we’ve attended the Aston Spring Servitization Conference, The Field Service Forum, The TomTom Telematics Developers Conference and of course the Service Management Expo and each of these events brought into focus some of the key conversations that are happing in our industry today.

There has been an abundance of excellent content produced by some of the leading figures in Telematics, Servitization, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and much more with each outlining how these varying tools and technologies will impact on field service.

And whilst long may it continue, it is also good to have a little bit of time in these long, hot summer months to let all these ideas, concepts and strategies tumble around in our heads for a while. Then, as we move into the final quarter of the year, our thoughts and plans around how we can harness some of these concepts, can solidify and evolve into strategies with substance.

And as I start to bring some of my own thoughts into focus my first initial observation is that so many of these new trends are interconnected.

In the past I’ve explained my belief in this column that we are entering a golden age of service, driven by a perfect storm of technologies emerging together and if anything the last few months have reaffirmed that belief.

Service is no longer an after thought but a primary business driver and if there was ever any doubt about this it was completely eradicated at the Aston Servitization Conference.

It was fantastic to see academics and industry leaders coming together to learn from each other and at the end of an intensive two days there was no doubt in my mind that this growing trend of Servitization was moving very quickly from academic theory with a handful of industry examples (albeit high profile ones) to a considerable shift in business thinking which is continuing to gather momentum.

Indeed the topic of servitization raised it’s head again when I interviewed Sony’s John Cooper with Cooper providing a perfect example of Servitization in a new contract with Spanish media outlet Telemadrid. As Cooper himself explains “when it’s pay-per-usage - it becomes all about the service.”

Which of course brings us back to the technology, for working in the parameters of an outcome based solutions contract means that your field service operations have to be highly efficient to ensure you are delivering the uptime levels such contracts are built upon.

IoT is of course one such technology that is truly driving these changes in business thinking and culture. Sony for example employ a number of remote monitoring and diagnostics tools across their B2B technology range, and such connected devices are huge enablers for companies moving from a traditional reactive type of service operation, to a more proactive type of operation that an advanced services approach requires.

 

And it is not just the devices our engineers are repairing and maintaining that are becoming connected, it is their tools and even their vehicles themselves that are becoming connected also.

It is of course no surprise that the connected vehicle dominated conversation at the TomTom Developers Conference, but in fact it wasn’t the only game changer for fleet management discussed that day in Amsterdam.

We also saw TomTom Telematics redefine themselves as a Platform as a Service for the telematics industry with the launch of their Apps Store, and this new model for telematics, built on open integration, is something of a game changer.

It is a smart move by the Dutch Telematics giant and one which couldn’t have been better timed as another major player in the Telematics space, Microlise who have a phenomenal reputation within the haulage sector, have also turned their attention to field service with the launch of a very slick new solution Clear. 

And then of course there are the two technologies that are underpinning most change in field service, Mobile and the Cloud. 18 months ago we researched the Cloud and I made some bold predictions around it’s adoption in field service. In our latest research project we revisit some of those claims and see if, how and why the adoption of Cloud based solutions in our industry has moved on at all within the last 18 months.

Time to let those little grey cells get to work...

Running across the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th of June the Service Management Expo remains one of Europe’s key field service events…

The Service Management Expo has for thirty years been a central pillar within the field service calendar. Whilst there are a growing number of excellent conferences that showcase some of the leading trends within the field service industry both in the US and Europe, when it comes to an exhibition format, with the sheer number of vendors demonstrating their field service solutions within the vast exhibition hall held in London’s impressive Excel complex (Service Management Expo is just one of a number of exhibitions brought together by organiser UBM under the Protection and Management umbrella) the Service Management Expo for the time being at least remains unmatched.

Whether you’ve been given a brief to go and find the best solution for your field service operations or if your just there to see what is available so you can start putting together some plans, with over thirty different providers there will be plenty of opportunities for you to get a close up look at the various specialist software and hardware available that can make your field service operations that much more efficient.

Yet whilst Service Management Expo is very much about the exhibition stands with this many industry experts floating around in the same space it would be criminal not to get some of them together to share their insight into what is making the industry tick in 2015. This is where we come in!

Field Service News is once again hosting the Field Service Solutions Theatre, which sits proudly at the heart of the exhibition and we will be hosting a series of interviews, presentations and panel debates throughout the three days of Service Management Expo plus this year we will be closing each day off with a chance to network with fellow professionals over a beer or glass of wine.

 

Across the coming weeks we will be looking in a bit more detail at what these sessions will entail with each of the days being brought together under a broad theme for the day. Here we look at the sessions for the first day of the sessions Tuesday the 17^th of June.

After an opening presentation by the theatres co-sponsors IFS and Field Service Management the next session of the day comes from George de Boer, International Alliance Manager at TomTom Telematics which begins at 11.45am

DeBoer’s presentation entitled “Open innovation: The key to seamlessly connecting your back office with your mobile workforce” sets out to outline how your Field Service Application can be connected to your service vehicles and engineers? With a focus on those field service managers who are looking for more control, lower vehicle cost and a paperless process. De Boer’s presentation will set out to show attendees how TomTom Telematics’ open fleet management platform WEBFLEET connects your back office with your mobile workforce.

After two presentations from software vendors we move towards a more strategic topic as Nick Frank gives us his presentation “Service Thinking & Imagination: The secret ingredient in monetizing the iotS and all that connectivity stuff” at 12.30pm

Looking at The Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, Big Data and the premise of Frank’s presentation is that whilst they are an inherent part of the future of field service connected products have no value by themselves. It is the data they deliver that can enable us to start blurring the distinction between Products and Services and it is here that we will start to see significant value.

For Field Service to really leverage these exciting technology concepts, companies must re-orientate their focus from purely the product related experience argues Frank and his session focuses on how increasingly Field Service companies must gain insights into the value they create deep within their customer's business, and figure out how they use their technology and know how to make a difference.

 

 

Following directly on from Frank’s presentation is the first of the day’s on stage interviews with host Kris Oldland, Editor of Field Service News talking to Professor Tim Baines of Aston University in a session that begins at 1.15pm.

Following on neatly from Frank’s preceding presentation this session titled “Advanced Services 101 - Just what the hell does servitization mean anyway?” Takes advantage of the eminent Professor Baines position as one of the leading proponents of the growing servitization trend to try and identify exactly what is meant by Advanced Services and Servitization. With the Aston Spring Servitization Conference  running just a few weeks earlier Baines will also be able to give us all of the latest thinking on this increasingly important topic to the field service industries. 

One of the key questions we will be exploring is this concept suited to companies of a specific size or vertical as well as what are the benefits and how will it impact Field Service operations?

The interview sessions continue as we turn our attention to another of the emerging challenges of modern field service – i.e. data security at 2.00pm

This time Oldland welcomes Steve Foxley, Director Customer Services for manufacturing giant Siemens to the stage with the conversation being focussed around the challenges that field service organisations will face when it comes data security as through trends like big data and the IoT the issue becomes ever more pressing.

Each of the three days will end with a panel debate and this session that runs at 2.45pm is titles “Field Service Evolution: How do we manage the challenges of 21st Century Field Service?” and will see Baines, Foxley and Frank return to the stage to collectively review the themes of the day, once again hosted by Oldland.

 

With the Field Service operations having gone through (and continuing to go through) a period of rapid evolution and as the day’s sessions will have discussed IoT, Servitization and Big Data amongst others are opening the doors to ever more efficient and profitable service operations, but are also introducing new challenges. So this session will look at not only how can we mitigate them but also how important it is to understand these challenges when before we take the first steps down such a path.

After what promises to be day full of plenty of interesting concepts that should provide plenty of food for debate we will provide an hour of networking to continue the conversations in a more relaxed environment with complimentary drinks.

 

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As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year’s Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre.

Here we hear from Simon Spriggs account manager at Exel Computer Systems discussing the various types of scheduling system with a focus on assisted scheduling and why it is important for any field service company to be able to have the ability to get it right first time every time when it comes to dispatch.

Download the slides from Simon's presentation by clicking this link