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When business growth meant ENWA Water Technology UK had outgrown its existing service management software software,  it turned to Tesseract to chart a new course. 

ENWA Water Technology UK (EWT UK) specialises in water treatment systems for heating, cooling and process water applications, are charting a new course with Tesseract’s service management software.

The company distributes and services all kinds of water treatment technologies within the UK, with clients ranging from Heathrow Airport to Great Ormond Street Hospital to Imperial College London.  The company established a marine department in 2011,  supplying water treatment solutions to large oil tankers, rigs and offshore storage and production platform, and has grown significantly over the last five years.

This growth brought challenges for the service management software package that EWT UK already had in place. They realised they needed a more efficient, streamlined system in order to be as productive and profitable as possible. “Our previous software didn’t fail; we just outgrew it,” says Glenn Simpson, Manager of EWT UK. “We decided to look for the right software to enable us to move forward and grow, and that’s how we found Tesseract.”

A high degree of organisational efficiency in the servicing department was a particular need. For that reason, the ability to integrate Tesseract’s user-friendly Remote Engineer Access solution with EWT UK’s existing systems was essential. The flexible software is also capable of being integrated with the company's Sage accounting software, another important advantage that drew the company to Tesseract.

“Tesseract came in and demonstrated that, essentially, their software has just what we require,” says Simpson. “Actually they came in twice, which was good because it takes time to get your head round these sorts of things. We’re looking forward to a very rewarding partnership.”

 

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This excellent infographic created by field service software provider  The Service Manager  exploring the benefits of field service software which they have kindly allowed us to share with you...

Field service organisations must adapt in a rapidly changing world, says Tom Bowe, Industry Director, Enterprise Service Management, IFS.

Agility and adaptability were the overarching themes at the recent IFS customer conference in Boston.  More than 250 service-focused attendees came to hear user case studies about implementing and using IFS’s service software, watch industry experts apply new trends to real life, and to learn about what IFS is doing to take their service solutions to the next level.

Why? Because the world is changing, rapidly. According to Erik Qualman of Socialnomics fame, 40% of the Fortune 500 will be gone within 10 years. As PJ Jakovljevic of Technology Evaluation tweeted; “You have to be prepared to destroy your own business model before a kid in a dorm room does it for you.”
[quote float="left"]Monolithic legacy systems can no longer keep up with the changing market and customer demand.

So how do you future-proof yourself as a service organisation as the world changes, new technology evolves, and customer demands shift and increase? Addressing customer service vigilantly is vital to a service organisation’s success. Let your consumers drive the trends you adopt to ensure better return on investment. Flexibility and usability matter, especially in a consistently changing environment. Monolithic legacy systems can no longer keep up with the changing market and customer demand. Those organisations that don’t adapt will be replaced.

 

We have developed a sort of nine step program to help service organisations achieve service excellence and help them adapt to an ever-changing environment. Here are some of the things you should keep in mind when you are looking to make your service organisation more adaptable, and more successful:[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. Know your business
   This may seem a bit obvious, and redundant, but in order to help your organisation streamline processes, maximise service margins, and increase customer satisfaction, you need to have a full understanding of your company’s goals, their future plans, their mission, and the vision. This will allow you to focus your efforts, systems, and processes on the right objectives
2. Excellence through insight
   The power of BI is never-ending. Use your collected data to drive more informed decisions, hone processes and affect change throughout your organisation. This should never be a static, one way function, BI should directly affect your future operations.
3. Accelerate service achievement
   A holistic view of not only your service organisation but your service value chain will accelerate service achievement. Bringing suppliers and other parties you collaborate with into the value chain adds value to them, you and ultimately your customers.
4. “Uberise” your service
   From the minute you order a car on Uber to when you arrive at your destination, Uber provides transparency from identifying the driver and license plate, to showing you on your route, to providing easy, secure payment options. Service businesses can use optimised, automated field service solutions (like IFS Field Service Management) to offer trust, security and reliability to their customers in a similar manner.
5. Delivery that delights you and your customers
   In the past, delivering superior customer service often meant accepting a reduced service margin. Now with powerful technology like M2M sensors, mobility solutions and automated processes, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Let your customers drive your initiatives and reap the benefit at the same time. Better organised internal processes often automatically improve external delivery.
6. Open up to new things
   New trends and technology in the service space can often be overwhelming, but don’t be closed off to what’s new and great in your space. Actively watch the market and evaluate which trends will affect your industry and your business the most. Sometimes this is customer driven. If a new trend can help meet a consumer demand, it is probably more than worthwhile to pursue.
7. Optimise your world
   Today, more people own a mobile device than a toothbrush (Socialnomics, 2014) and over one-third (36%) of consumers prefer using a company website or email to contact a business (2014 American Express Customer Service Barometer). Gone are the days when an excel spreadsheet, white board, or patched together legacy systems can handle customer demands and a mobile workforce effectively. Optimisation and automation allows for a seamless process from call intake to billing, reducing overhead costs, deviations, and errors.
8. Manage your future
   The future doesn’t have to be as unpredictable as it seems. Market research, watching trends, and utilising your business intelligence (and managing your big data effectively) will help give you a crystal ball into what’s coming and allow you to adapt faster, giving you a competitive edge.
9. Agile, ready for change
   If the past decade has shown the business world anything, it is that the most successful organisations are those that are two steps ahead of the game. The best way to future-proof yourself is to function as an agile, flexible operation. With the right systems and vision in place, the changing world will have nothing on you.

IFS Enterprise Service Management is continually investing in our solutions to support our goal of providing service organisations with dynamic scalability, mobile solutions, ease of deployment, and cloud and wearables flexibility.
We are future-proofing ourselves by helping you succeed at what you do best; delivering unrivaled service.

 

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ServicePower and Qton Solutions have formed a strategic partnership to provide optimised workforce management solution for the metering industry which will expedite services and reduce costs.

ServicePower Technologies Plc market leader in field service management technology, today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with Qton Solutions, the field service management software specialist in the UK metering industry.

Qton’s platform, hosted and managed in the cloud, provides drag-and-drop scheduling of jobs, mobile dispatch with real-time status updates, and fully customisable industry compliant workflows which facilitate on-site data capture.  By including ServicePower’s ServiceScheduling incorporating the latest optimisation algorithms, Qton’s work order management and mobile dispatch technology now includes intelligent, intra-day, schedule optimisation. Work orders will be created in Qton, optimised, and continuously re-optimised in ServiceScheduling, and dispatched to the metering field technicians.

Adam Bowen, Head of Operations, Qton Solutions, stated “The Qton field service management platform provides robust mobile workforce management functionality for metering services within the utilities industry. Integration of the ServiceScheduling optimisation technologies enables us to offer true route optimisation in addition to the drag-and-drop scheduling our platform was designed to support. ServiceScheduling integrated to our platform enables Qton to bring higher levels of efficiency and productivity to the industry, while maintaining the same level of customisable mobile workflow so necessary within the utilities sector.”

 

Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower, stated “This is yet another partnership for ServicePower which broadens its reach into new verticals. ServiceScheduling will provide the advanced optimisation technology which Qton’s utility customers require to ensure the lowest cost maintenance schedules and highest levels of customer service, through offering real time, accurate appointments to the industry. The partnership gives customers a choice and also offers the product as a service which broadens our larger cloud-based offering. By working with Qton, ServicePower is able to grow its utilities customer base in the UK. This partnership further demonstrates our commitment to ServicePower’s partner ecosystem. We will achieve growth through integrating our technology with innovative partners whom extend our functional, geographical and execution reach, in addition to generating our own organic sales.”

 

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TomTom Telematics has been awarded the Best Commercial Vehicle Systems Integrator for 2015 by TU-Automotive.

The award recognises the impact of TomTom’s cloud-based SaaS platform, WEBFLEET, and was announced at the TU-Automotive Awards Ceremony in Novi, Michigan. According to the judges, TomTom Telematics was selected because of “their progressive attitude, multi-faceted solution and ability to innovate”.

TomTom Telematics has cultivated a growing eco-system of more than 300 software and hardware partners unique in the fleet management industry, with all applications published in its App Centre.

The WEBFLEET.connect API allows third party software partners access to all field data generated by drivers and vehicles, in the same way they have access to all processed and aggregated data provided by WEBFLEET.

The company also provides additional .connect APIs for all of its in-vehicle equipment, allowing third party hardware to connect smoothly to its telematics black box by using it as in-vehicle communications hub. By taking advantage of OBDII based data sets on smartphone applications or accessing instant in-vehicle and office-based data streams on TomTom Telematics driver terminals, partners can provide customised applications easily.

 

“As the connected car space continues to grow and gain momentum, staying ahead of the curve and continually innovating is no mean feat,” said Krystyna Grant, director, TU-Automotive.

TomTom Telematics open platform approach is integral to the company's strategy and has resulted in the creation of an end-to-end fleet management system, which allows seamless data flow between drivers, vehicle and office. New applications have been produced to help customers digitise business processes and benefit from even greater efficiencies.

“It is extremely gratifying to have TU-Automotive validate our approach, especially as we continue to invest in our APIs, SDKs and partner ecosystem,” said Thomas Schmidt, managing director, TomTom Telematics.

“We are committed to delivering value to our fleet customers across industries. The best way to do that is to make integration with industry-specific solutions easy and efficient. Through our partner ecosystem, App Center and WEBFLEET platform, we are able to deliver value and improve the bottom line for more than 35,000 organisations worldwide.”

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by: Click Software
Title: The Cloud: Up where customer service for the field belongs
Download: Click here to download the white paper
By downloading you agree to the T&Cs listed available here

Synopsis:

The Harris Interactive Customer Experience Impact report revealed that 86% of consumers have quit doing business with a company because of a poor customer experience—up 59% in four years. Other research has revealed it takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for one negative experience, whilst 91% of unhappy customers will not willingly do business with the same organization again. This white paper discusses how leveraging cloud solutions to optimise mobile workforces can improve the experiences of customers while lowering operational and IT costs. More field service management software is now available in the Cloud making it more accessible for SMEs and an alternative to heavy IT investments for large service organisations

Overview:

Customer complaints: What you hear is only the tip of the Iceberg. Many service companies don’t realize it when service levels are running low. In an increasingly savvy and connected market where information is readily available and easily accessible, customer service is often the only discerning difference between competing businesses. Investing in customer satisfaction is not only important but imperative for the long term survival of businesses especially where commoditisation has taken place

• Process improvement – to ensure prompt customer service and correct resource assignments
• Workforce development – to give the staff the opportunity to learn new skills
• Automation – rather than relying on error-prone and time-consuming manual processes
• Cultural changes – creating a working environment that stimulates the entire staff

Field personnel: you most valuable players

Only with real-time data can everyone shine. Providing real-time data across the entire organization is key to enhancing the customer experience. All levels of the service organization need actionable information to enhance how efficiently the field-service team operates and to improve experiences delivered to customers.

Silver linings within the Cloud

Cloud-based solutions open new doors for field service companies of all sizes by allowing for the quick, flexible adoption of new technologies that previously proved to be too expensive, risky and time-consuming to deploy.

Delivered via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, cloud solutions provide several advantages over traditional on-premise solutions: inlcluding PAYG, rapid deployment, immediate ROI and free upgrades. In field workforce management, cloud-based solutions typically allow companies to achieve productivity gains of up to 20% and return on their investment within 12 months. The cloud approach gives businesses the opportunity to replace high, up-front capital infrastructure expenses with low, predictable costs, while also delivering other key benefits:

The service delivery chain

Cloud-based mobile workforce management solutions cover every step of the service chain—from planning and forecasting, to real-time intelligent scheduling, shift management, mobility and execution—underpinned by extensive user-defined analytics and dashboards to provide clear and intuitive reports. Optimised scheduling: Advanced resource scheduling and optimisation tools provide the main interface for dispatchers, supervisors and managers. Service companies can increase the efficiency of their workforce with by combining a powerful cloud-based scheduling and optimisation engine with strong decision support tools.

• Multiple scheduling options and policies
• Real-time optimisation immediately responsive to changes
• Optimised scheduling using multiple factors, people, crews, contractors, assets and complexities
• Street-level route optimisation
• Intelligent and flexible appointment booking
• Workflow dispatch and progress updates

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Mobility that connects entire teams. 

Mobile enterprise field execution software should allow both field workers and dispatchers the convenience of real-time communications and full end-to-end visibility. By using real-time mobility, field workers can update dispatchers; they can update customers, thereby benefiting everyone with true connectivity and better productivityReal-time information, when and where you need it. View jobs, service histories, customer information.[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Mobile solutions should be compatible leading devices and operating systems, through all service workflows, and with 24/7 availability
• Mobility is driven by apps. Don’t reinvent the wheel – build your business process using ready-made apps without having to code or go through a lengthy upgrade process
• The enterprise mobility solution must offer a robust and scalable infrastructure that can adapt to the needs of the business and its users.
• Cutting-edge capabilities include artificial intelligence and automation that anticipate and act proactively upon user’s needs

Real-time and historic service performance

Look at the entire service delivery chain - before, during and after the moment of service - and the collected business metrics that result from each moment. Make key performance metrics delivers strategic value to service organizations by placing graphical, easy-to-understand key performance metrics directly into the hands of executives and service managers. Each user chooses which actionable data to report based on their role and business challenges, from the C-suite to front line supervisors.

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Click here to download the white paper

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Click here to find out more about Click Software in the Field Service Directory

 

 

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So far in our exclusive interview with Paul Massey, Managing Director of IFS, we’ve taken a look at where Applications 9 sits against previous milestones in both Massey and the Swedish ERP provider's history in part one and then in part two we looked at whether the field service world is finally ready for the Cloud and IoT.

Now in the final part of this interview the conversation turns to the impact of consumerisation on enterprise software and why being an ERP provider can be a double edged sword for IFS when it comes to working with Field Service companies….

Given the trend towards consumerisation in enterprise software across recent years it is evident that this is something that is ingrained within the IFS development mentality.

“It is getting bigger and bigger,” admits Massey. “I’ve been around a few years and it just wasn’t as relevant before because for example the first graphical interface in work someone used was probably much more up to date than the software they used in their personal life. Now its completely the other way around. Our challenge is sometimes our applications may look really old and dated compared to what they use on their tablet or what they use on their PC at home.”

“That’s becoming more and more relevant to people looking at our applications and valuing them against other applications. If the users don’t like the application, then it is much harder to get them to use it irrespective of the business benefits and everything else. That’s really sometimes an intangible but very significant hurdle to get across.”

 

“So since 7.5 with the .net release the UK has been a big focus of what we are trying to do because if you don’t get their hearts you wont get their minds. That’s the challenge: you can have as much complex detailed functionality as you like but if the end user can’t use it in a relatively intuitive way then it’s wasted.”

As the conversation drills down to more specific field service side of their offering I was keen to see if Massey, felt that being an ERP provider was a help or a hindrance to them in terms of how they approach field service. Particularly given that they essentially have to separate offerings in the space.

“I think being primarily known as an ERP provider is a bit of a double edged sword as far as field service is concerned,” Massey begins. “We do have customers that use the original IFS service management functionality which is very much best suited to being at the back end of something where you’ve manufactured it, you commissioned it and then you maintain it. So your following the whole asset lifecycle and its probably a more complex asset maintenance scenario where there is a field service element but its part of something wider and in that story the whole integrated ERP approach is really powerful. All the data moves from one phase of the lifecycle to the next, seamlessly.”

“Whereas you’ve got another set of people who are looking purely at field service for who having an ERP is almost an anathema because they want a very light footprint: field service with probably mobility and scheduling so the advantage to them of integrated finance, HR, inventory and a complex infrastructure is much less evident and almost in some cases even a negative.”

 

“So it’s about understanding the audience, understanding what a particular customer wants and that’s why we have the two offerings that we have in field service -  the FSM product as well as the embedded service management product as well. Plus then they’ve obviously got mobility which can talk to both of those things.”

“Sometimes it’s a challenge when we talk to a prospect to understand which sort of flavour of service do they want. There are some obvious things like the number of resources your scheduling, the geographical coverage or whether they have some specific end functionality which can tend to push you in one way or another but ultimately it is about understanding what the customer wants at the end of the day. It’s a fairly glib cliché but its true.”

“If we are into highly integrated service management solution space then we think we can absolutely compete with everyone and that’s why we are strong in Defence and areas like that because it is a more complex typical service solution.”

“On the simpler field service side we believe some of the things that we have done in scheduling, in mobility and with the latest release of the field service product we believe we can compete as a standalone with anybody as well.”

“I think particularly our close integration with our scheduling application gives us some real benefits,” Massey continues. You’ve always got the question of which version of mobility do you want you’ve got Android, IoS Windows and all those things but we certainly believe with the two offerings we can cover all the bases.”

“That’s why we’ve invested so heavily in service over the last few years with the acquisitions made and the functionality we’ve added in these releases. We see it as a big area of growth for IFS going forward. It’s a massive area and in most geographies that sector is still growing very strongly. Service continues to be a major focus for us and hopefully our investment decisions will pay off.”

 

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In the first part of this exclusive interview with Paul Massey, IFS, Managing Director we looked at where he felt the recent announcement of IFS Applications 9 sat against previous milestones within the Scandinavian company’s history.

Now in the second part of this interview we look at Massey’s thoughts on the Cloud and IoT, plus whether he was ready for the reception to the most talked about new tool in Applications 9 – the lobby function…

Head in the Cloud

One of the big announcements at the recent IFS World Conference was the launch of a fully managed cloud. However, many of IFS’s existing clients have already invested significantly within the infrastructure to run previous iterations of the ERP solution so is this a platform that is geared towards winning new business I asked Massey.

“From a marketing perspective of course the managed cloud is going to be aimed at winning new business. It’s a good coherent and deliverable Cloud story.” He began

“But in terms of the uptake I think it’s going to be out to our customer base quicker. Obviously there is a big customer base to shoot at and we only bring in so many customers each quarter.”

“So whilst an increasing proportion of those will be on cloud the bigger potential market for us is obviously the existing customer base. As part of an upgrade proposal we can try to convince them to go to the managed cloud and I think actually some of the benefits and return on investments are actually more tangible for the existing customer base than they are for new customers because they understand whats involved in running IFS, deploying new releases, managing the application, managing the database. They already know the importance of resilience and uptime so potentially it’s a very easy sell for us.”

“So I think in terms of the uptake the momentum will be generated from the existing customer base. But that in itself will obviously provide us with more references for the business.”

The managed Cloud solution is a direct result of the IFS’s close partnership with Microsoft. Which of course leads to questions around yet another disruptive technology on the horizon namely The Internet of Things. Whilst there has been a lot of discussion around IoT and Field Service it’s not really been as embraced as fully as some may have thought by now. Perhaps partnerships such as IFS and Microsoft could be the next stone to that wider spread adoption?

“I think so” Massey replies when I put the question to him “Its certainly ticking a few more boxes that actually facilitates some of the benefits of IoT because with a hosting platform like Azure behind it that provides a lot things from the reliability and scalability, the security of data, and all those things that people are sometimes a bit frightened of when people talk about automating”

 

“Having data moving around between machines and the cloud, those are real life concerns that classical ERP and companies using ERP in that classical way are very frightened of.” He adds

“It’s not just to do with the IoT but the whole security of Cloud computing is approached the same. But just the fact that it’s Microsoft if you engage with them they’ve got a really good story about security which does take a lot of the potential concerns off the table I think it’s another facilitator effectively in terms of IoT meaning something tangible to people.”

The killer app?

As we return our focus to the Announcement of Apps 9 I reflect that the biggest buzz in the break after the initial sessions was all around a new solution called Lobby which allows individual users to have all of the data they need for their own specific roll or project in one easy place. It’s easily configurable, and a first initial look suggests it could be a powerful tool.

So what were Massey’s thoughts when he first encountered the idea, was it always a case of knowing that this would be the ‘killer app’ that would resonate so well with his customers or was he taken back by the overwhelmingly positive response?

“I think to some extent we’ve had similar technology in the past and through portal technology but because its’ now much more embedded in the application and it’s easier to set up and quickly show some real practical use of it” he explains.

 

“Yes I do think it will be the sort of headline feature that we are pitching it to be as one of the perennial challenges in selling ERP applications is presenting to the prospect the potential of all the information being at their fingertips. There is always a myriad of data in an ERP system it’s just a matter of getting at it in a useful way. So I think it’s a really graphical and hopefully relatively simple way of demonstrating that there is so much data that you can choose what data you want and how you present it .” he expands

“As a way of attracting attention to the depth of functionality beneath it in the ERP application I think it is really good and hopefully the technology in how to deploy it and customise it is straightforward enough for people to understand that it is easy to get it up and running.”

Look out for the third part of this exclusive interview as we turn our attention to the impact of consumerisation on enterprise applications…

 

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With over 20 years’ experience in the industry Chris Beling looks at the connection between ‘best-in-class’ service organisations and the use of business intelligence.

True or false? The importance of turning data into meaningful business intelligence has never been so critical for the service management industry as success criteria and the ability to deliver ‘service excellence’ continues to move further away from the ‘wrench’ and more towards a customer centric focus.

Recent reports published earlier in 2015 suggest that ‘best-in-class’ service organisations are reaping the benefits of such an approach with figures showing higher customer satisfaction and customer retention rates as well as a year-on-year increase in service margins. So why isn’t everybody adopting this approach?

One of the main challenges faced by the wider market is progressive technology. So what do I mean by this? I’m referring to the pace at which technology and service management software advance and the ability, or lack of, for service organisations to adapt and adopt these advances successfully to help drive business growth.

The service environment varies greatly, whether you’re a service centre handling thousands of repairs every day, or a service provider with a large team of field engineers managing a hugely varied portfolio of assets all over the country (or all over the world for that matter) . Consequently ‘out of the box’ solutions don’t always match organisations’ exact requirements

 

Disparate systems, legacy data, complex assets and growing customer demand all add to the challenge of providing ‘service excellence’ in the complex world of service management. So even if you know that customer satisfaction, an increase in contract renewals, improved service margins, workforce efficiency drives, moving from reactive resolution to a PPM based approach are all essential for business growth and maintaining a competitive advantage, how do you provide service excellence without impacting current performance?

Here’s how? With a service management solution that provides a comprehensive end-to-end process engine and the flexibility to match your exact requirements, keeping you in complete control of operations, whilst at the same time providing management with a holistic view across the organisation and not just delivering data but revealing business intelligence.

Leading organisations are now looking at service as a ‘profit centre’ in its own right with management embracing the concept of a ‘customer centric focus’ in order to excel at service operations and drive revenue.

With a central system receiving data automatically and simultaneously from multiple parts of the business - at the point of job creation through the service desk; from engineers in the field via mobile technology; direct from assets with M2M capabilities to name but a few – business intelligence doesn’t just report on the number of calls completed ‘on-time’ but the provides insight into what it took to close those calls and how they could have been prevented the in the first place.

It’s reported that 41% of service jobs are now Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) visits within best-in-class service organisations which indicates greater control of resources, planning and cost allowing them to optimise their workforce, increase productivity and improve margins. This single shift in approach from reactive to predictive can have a huge impact on margins with fewer reactive calls, an increase in ‘first-time fix’ rates, improved asset up-time and, of course, enhanced customer satisfaction.

 

In any business, and this is nothing new, it’s more costly and resource intensive to generate new business rather than nurturing existing customers. Service management is no different. So, if we find ways to achieve ‘service excellence’ and in turn improve customer satisfaction, it would be fair to expect to see an increase in contract renewals, customer retention and customer referrals.

The expertise of service management software providers, their ability to provide comprehensive solutions and their ability to work in partnership with their customers to understand requirements, are all essential for the successful implementation of a ‘service excellence’ strategy within any business. After all, you only get out of a system what you put in – so if business intelligence is the required output you must be able to input, capture and monitor the data in the first place.

The ability to connect and optimise assets, contracts, customers and workforce using one central system that can provide real-time visibility to operational performance and turn a myriad of data into meaningful business intelligence seems like a game changer to me. Investing in, and building on, solutions that offer that business intelligence will be what separates those organisations at the top of their game from the rest of the field.

 

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