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Field service management is a huge playing field with some pretty big players. Typically when organisations talk about field service management they talk about having the right person in the right place at the right time with the right information. But what about ensuring that they have the right tools? Leadent Solutions', Emma Newman asks... 

Just like in any marketplace, within the workforce management software market there is distinct brand loyalty at play. ClickSoftware, SAP, IBM and TOA dominate the market with their products and continue to expand their suite of field service applications to include, for example mobility. Many customers of these solutions will look at the systems they currently have in place and stay loyal to the same brand. Gartner feeds this brand loyalty mentality with field service software organisations clambering to be at the top-right of the eponymous quadrant. Companies look to, and in some cases rely on, Gartner for guidance as to which provider is “best of breed”. But I think you would be wise to remember that what is considered to be “best of the best” doesn’t necessarily mean the best for your organisation.

Generally the big boys of field service will now offer a “suite” of solutions claiming to cover the whole end-to end process, packed full of features and marketed using all the on-trend buzz words.

Is it right that an organisation which has a scheduling and rostering solution from one vendor should automatically choose mobility or reporting tools from the same provider? The larger players would certainly lead you to believe that this is the case, and there are some heavy arguments for this route. For example: easy installation with out of the box plug and play functionality, instant integration with the other products in the suite, similar user interface, easy licensing and just one provider to pay. These solutions are usually at a cheaper price or marketed as “free”.

Many customers are led to believe that if you buy licenses for modules X & Y you get free licenses to unlock the functionality held within another, the reporting module, for example. A common tactic used by software providers as an apparently cost effective incentive for prospects to procure an entire suite of products.

But is this the right approach to take? Do we need to turn the way in which we research and purchase field service software on its head?

Levelling the field service playing field

The workforce management software playing field is becoming far more level in terms of feature-functions, and whilst brand recognition is important, it’s not – and nor do I believe it should be - the be all and end all when making a purchase decision. With most software vendors now offering managed cloud based solutions along with far more robust and proven integration platforms, we find ourselves at a junction of endless possibilities.

Today’s workforce management market is all about the customer. Software providers and workforce management solution consultants alike must seek to support this ethos and look to more creatively architect solution landscapes to effectively blend and integrate products so that they can best resolve today’s far more demanding customer service orientated challenges.

Not many organisations can purchase an out-of-the-box product and just plug-and-play as promised; most will need some level of customisation to fit the business processes. A recent MPL Systems and Field Service News survey found that a quarter of the organisations who took part in the survey admitted to changing the way they worked to fit around their workforce management software. But it should be the other way around – your field service software should meet the needs and requirements of your business processes.

Before you embark on any decision making about workforce management software, you should first look at the processes you are trying to improve. Not only this, but you must focus on really understanding the areas that need to be optimised and automated in order to achieve the biggest ‘value-add’ to the customer experience. To assume value will deliver itself from a packaged suite of ‘same brand’ products is not the forgone conclusion it perhaps once was.

The end game

The future of field service software should be flexible. It should enable customers to pick and mix to create an end-to-end solution that will fit their needs; and these solutions should be supple enough to integrate with ease into other products in the market.

Interestingly the “Technology in Service Management” report found that 74% of companies were working with multiple vendors and the statistics from the 2014 report show an increase of 2%. This would indicate that organisations are demanding that they not only have choice but that they deem it to be important. Yes organisations want an integrated end-to-end service management solution, but not necessarily all from one vendor.

 

 

Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service News podcast. This month we are featuring a guest podcast recorded by field service management specialist, Aubrey Fox of Trimble Field Service Management.

In this podcast, which is supported by a series of slides Aubrey looks at just what type of companies can benefit from field service management systems before looking at the challenges field service companies can face. Basing his discussion on research undertaken and collated by Trimble FSM, Fox delivers an excellent and authoritative commentary, exploring how field service companies can transform the way they work  through the use of technology.

 

 

Please note that that promotion of this download is a joint venture between Field Service News and Trimble FSM and by downloading the podcast you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which are available right here.

You can also find out more about Trimble in the Field Service News Directory by clicking here

As part of the analysis of our research project looking at the types of field service software being used today we have created this infographic to give you some of the key findings at a glance.

 

 

Surrey Based service management software provider are selected by nationwide building materials company and announce a new improvements to their Service Desk solution…

Specialist Service Management software Sunrise Software have recently been selected by the Nicholls and Clarke Group as they move to improve their customer service standards through the implementation of an improved IT infrastructure. With a team of over 550 employees based within 24 offices nationwide, the Nicholls and Clarke Group are recognised as leaders within the building materials sector operating as manufacturer, distributor and retailer. With a diverse range of activities and locations within the organisation it is of course imperative that their back office systems are robust and that integration between divisions is as seamless as possible to allow operations to remain effective.

In acknowledgement of this Nicholls and Clarke have already established an impressive approach to IT Service Management and ITIL best practice and the addition of Sunrise ITSM will further enhance this effort.

Narendra Joshi, Head of IT at Nicholls and Clarke explained “Previously we used a home grown Service Desk system. However, in an ITIL compliant environment like ours, where all IT staff are ITIL trained, we felt that we needed to make the investment in a platform that would rise to meet our operational standards and grow with us into the future.”

The decision to work with Sunrise followed on from an extensive review of the solutions available
Before selecting Sunrise based on a blend of their technology, people and also the company’s pragmatic and understated approach.

“We liked the flexibility that the software platform’s modular approach presented to us,” added Joshi. “It means that we can take a phased approach and grow across the business. The browser based interface is ideal for our environment and, coupled with the software’s integration with social media, showed Sunrise to be a really forward thinking company.”

A phased service management implementation:

The implementation will initially begin in the IT department, where Sunrise ITSM is providing a comprehensive Service Desk solution that will be especially beneficial in supporting the group’s ITSM best practice approach. The system will provide support for each of the 100+ merchant trade account, desktop, manufacturing, distribution, ERP and financial systems that need to be maintained across the 24 sites.

Nicholls & Clarke then plan to create a software Asset Management system heavily based around ITIL best practice to support the creation and management of a group-wide software library so that the IT team will be able to track and manage software versions, license management and renewals planning by using Sunrise ITSM’s reporting functions.

The next step will include extending the rollout to the customer services team; providing a support desk infrastructure to track and monitor operational and business issues ranging from pricing enquiries to business processes, order queries and web order support.

Geoff Rees, Sales Director at Sunrise Software commented “organisations like Nicholls & Clarke that have seen strong organic expansion often out-grow their existing software systems. The business benefits of moving to a fully integrated Service Management Platform that can span all service and customer facing functions, without the overhead of maintaining an in-house developed system, are wide-reaching; enabling the business to operate more efficiently, provide better customer service and better information to support commercial business decisions.”

New iteration of ‘Wall-board’ Service Management Software

Meanwhile the Surrey based software company have also released an improved version of their web-based portal, which includes improved visual displays and trends analysis of key performance data

The latest version of ‘Sunrise Wallboard’, which displays metrics for Service Desk performance, includes improvements to the display of critical operational KPIs as well as a simplified, easier to use interface.

It has been updated to include new FusionCharts libraries enabling animated and interactive data displays, new chart types for enhanced data visualisation, and has improved compatibility with Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 to meet customer demand. Also included within the new version is an enhanced aggregation engine to enable multiple data sets to be compared over time to enable trends analysis - for example tracking the volume of Incidents logged by month according to severity and displaying this on a chart.

Sunrise Software’s Product Director at Neil Penny, commented:

“Visual Service Desk metrics are critical to an organisation when providing real-time data on which to base informed decisions. We have enhanced Wallboard, which is available across all our Service Management products, making it easier for our customers to use it to its full capacity, supporting decision making and efficiency. This latest version has been designed with the user in mind, with increased capabilities for data analysis and providing more choice for how data is displayed. It puts more control into the hands of the Service Desk, enabling them to fully interrogate, analyse and display critical performance data.”

 

In the final part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we look at what conclusions can be drawn from the research and analyse what can be expected of modern field service software.  

Missed the earlier parts of this series? You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here and the second part looking at management reporting here , and the third part looking at the future of field service software here

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report which includes even further analysis then you are able to download it for free by clicking this link.

Conclusion

When we look at the findings of this research as a whole there are a number of conclusions that can be drawn. When it comes to scheduling solutions there is still a large section of the industry not utilising any scheduling software, which ultimately leads to poorer levels of efficiency in the management of the mobile workforce.

This is of course in turn leads to fewer members of the overall workforce being in customer facing roles that could potentially generate revenue.

Based on the improvements in dispatcher to engineer ratios that scheduling software is proven to deliver, for those companies still operating on a manual basis, investing in some form of scheduling is no longer a nice to have but a necessity if they are to remain competitive.

Just a fifth of companies are able to exploit their field engineers’ trusted adviser status by giving them the tools to sell directly. This represents a major opportunity for companies with the means to invest in such systems to capitalise on their competitor’s hesitancy and gain a commercial advantage. Yet despite this opportunity currently few companies place investing in mobile hardware and software near the top of their priorities, with both categories sitting midway on the priority lists of the majority of organisations.

Perhaps the biggest trend this research has unveiled is that cost has become less of a concern for companies looking to implement new technologies, with issues with legacy systems now being the most common concern. [quote float="left"] Many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard.

 

This could well be a direct result of the influence of the Cloud. The SaaS business model has now meant that service management software is an affordable option for smaller companies, however, integration has been a early documented issue with some Cloud based solutions.

Our research earlier this year on SaaS and Field Service would also seem to support this hypothesis. To sum up, it appears that many elements are coming together to offer vast improvements to the software available in the field service industry. Also many elements that not so long ago were new, premium solutions such as navigation software have now become standard. Meanwhile we also see exciting technologies such as the Internet of Things and Big Data starting to encroach into service management software.

The future indeed seems bright indeed, but in the here and now there are still things that can be improved upon. Whether it be scheduling software or management reporting tools the results of this research indicate that on the whole there is room for improvement in the software being used today.

However, the research also identifies examples of excellence in the service management software as well. Integration is becoming more and more important, and end-to-end service management has become a reality.

Careful consideration is essential when selecting a software provider and an understanding of your own strategic aims is as important as understanding the options available to you. However, it seems that investing in a service management solution in 2014 is both more affordable and beneficial than ever before.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report featuring additional exclusive analysis then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.

Paul Adams, Marketing and development manager at Solarvista looks at why no two field service companies are ever quite the same and what that means when choosing service management software...

 'At Solarvista, we have implemented hundreds of service management and workforce mobilisation systems over the years. And the biggest thing we have learned over that time is that everyone in service management does everything differently… even in the same industry sectors!

This issue became quite a big problem for us. We’d be approached by a prospective user in the same industry sector as current customers (they were often referred to us by them) and we’d think, “Great, we have a service management solution off the shelf for you”. Then, we’d find out that they did just about everything differently! Ouch.

We’d pitch modifications that required the use of developers going into the core product and making changes to meet those needs. In itself, quite a workable proposition and we’d done this successfully for many years. But as we grew, managing this code change became more costly to us, and sometimes to the customer. And it’s fair to say that developers don’t come cheap.

The ‘gaps’ that we normally address with specific modifications or code usually are categorised as:

1. Missing functionality
2. Integration to legacy systems
3. Logic or business logic modifications/additions

 

To our customers, these gaps needed to be filled to ensure a successful, efficient solution was implemented. But, deep down, it often felt risky to them… they couldn’t see what they were getting until the latter stages of the project, when maximum resource exposure occurred. It doesn’t matter how good we are as developers, it’s only natural to feel anxious about such risks.

We needed to do something that enabled us to address the (mostly) totally different needs of each customer without resorting to changing or modifying our product.

I’ve written in previous articles about our R&D effort in cloud based services and some of the answers came as a result of this research. In cloud systems, one of the key cost reduction drivers is “one version of software for all customers”. But we knew that this was contra to what service management systems need. After some deep thinking by our best developers, we managed to find a solution.

Firstly, we re-architected many parts of our software to offer, what we call, Extensibility. This means that we can add completely new client-side features, 100% integrated with the core product, without needing to modify a single line of the underlying product code. In other words, one version of software BUT with new functionality added specifically for the customer needs, which operates as if it’s part of the existing product (the user wouldn’t realise). Not only that, the feature can be added in (literally) hours or days (not weeks) and with no requirement to regression test the underlying product. This enabled us to address Missing Functionality and Business Logic Change issues.

This didn’t solve the problem of connecting to ever increasing legacy and partner systems however. Often we would need to read customer data from a corporate system, or update a third-party system of a partner company. In fact, we often built 30+ interfaces in one system! How could we do this without needing expensive development?

The answer came again from our R&D into cloud architecture. We thought about power supply adapters and how they could be “plugged” together to achieve a whole unit. From this we built something we call a Dynamic Adapter operating via our Service Bus system that allows us to connect as many systems together without needing to code a single line. Once again, one version of software, but implemented doing very (very) different things.

The results have been impressive. In fact, we have recently addressed the service management needs of a very famous coffee shop company using Extensibility and Bus/Adapter technology alone without needing any core changes to our products. Another, in the automotive sector, that had pulled out of a service management project with a competitor, has had 35 ‘gaps’ filled with this same technology.

Service management software is often standard. But this doesn’t mean you cannot have exactly what you want.

 

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 Paul Adams, Marketing and Development Director with Solarvista. Adams discusses the journey Solarvista have gone through in re-developing their own very successful ERP solution to meet the demands of 21st Century service companies and how the benefits of improving technology are enabling smaller to mid sized companies to compete with those in enterprise.

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 Conor O'Neill, Director of Product Management at Feed Henry explaining why mobile first development is critical in a field service environment if you are going to allow IT to become an enabler to your business rather than a blocker.

In this third part of this series looking at the findings of our exclusive research report into field service software we focus on the future of field service software. You can read the first part of this series which looked at scheduling and integration and interaction here and the second part looking at management reporting here 

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

Looking forward:

In the final section of the survey we asked respondents to identify what they thought were the most important technologies likely to appear in service management software, where they believe their organisation should focus their investment and finally what the barriers were to implementing new technologies.

Perhaps the most revealing result of the entire survey was in this final section, specifically surrounding “the biggest concern when implementing a new technology” Surprisingly  “Cost of implementation” is now only the second most common concern with “Legacy issues with former systems” becoming the industries greatest concern in 2014. The amount of companies that now cite this as their biggest concern when implementing a new technology has increased from just 22% in 2013 to 38% today.

This represents a potentially significant shift in the industry. In the last few years we have seen rapid developments in service management software, with key trends, such as the requirement for system wide integration as discussed earlier in this report, starting to emerge. The impact that the Software as a Service model has had on costs offers many companies the ability to invest in service management software, when in the not too distant past such an investment may have been beyond their reach.

Earlier this year in another research project conducted by Field Service News we saw that number increase to 38% of companies with a further 48% of companies stating they could possibly do so in the near future. However, the same report also highlighted that currently only 23% of companies have made the shift to a Cloud based environment for their service management software.

This would indicate that there is indeed a trend for companies to be migrating their service management software to Cloud based systems and it is an on-going process. If this is indeed the case then it would also explain why cost has become less of a concern whilst integration with existing legacy systems becomes a greater worry.

We also asked which emerging technologies would be likely to have an impact on field service software in the near future. The results whilst not surprising indicated how many in the industry seeing field service software evolve once again in the very near future. Over 45% of companies felt that Big Data, The Internet of Things and Connected Vehicles will all start appearing as options within field service management solutions within the next three years.

If each and all of these concepts live up to the massive hyperbole that surrounds them then it the way our industry operates will be fundamentally changed. At the same time 37% of companies also think that they wearable devices will become commonplace within the next three years also.

Whether this comes true is likely dependent on the success of Google's Glass product which offer the greatest promise, although the development of smart watches could potentially offer another wearable device that could be put to use in field service. Interestingly perhaps one of the technologies most established that could offer great benefits to certain field service verticals, namely 3D printing was only cited by 19% of companies as being likely to make an impact in field service.

However, this could be a reflection of the wide ranging industry verticals field service incorporates as much as a lack of faith in the technology. 3D printing will certainly be of more of a benefit to some industries (e.g. manufacturing) rather than others (e.g. retail). That said anecdotally there are are certainly those who have (an unfounded in most instances) lack of faith in 3D printing, we are reminded of echoes of the exaggerated fear of the security of the Cloud somewhat with 3D printing. It many ways the technology simply seems to much like science fiction to be fully trusted.

When we looked at the more immediate needs of the industry we saw some familiar patterns. Despite the questions we raised earlier in this report about the suitability of optimised scheduling for all companies, such systems appear to remain in demand amongst field service organisations.

Our final question in the survey was “In terms of investment, which of the following areas of technology do you think it the most critical for your company to remain competitive?” and we gave respondents 8 choices asking them to rank them in order of priority. The options were Route optimisation, optimised scheduling, integrated CRM, contact centre/help desk, mobile hardware, mobile software, logistics/spare parts management, and reporting/analytics tools.

Optimised Scheduling was ranked as the number one priority by 29% of companies, this was followed by Integrated CRM and contact centre/help desk software, which were the number one priority for 27% and 17% of companies respectively.With nearly three quarters (73%) of companies identifying one of these three areas as their key focus for investment it seems that these are clearly the biggest needs for the industry at large.

 

It is also interesting to note that whilst relatively few companies (7%) identified logistics/spare parts management systems as there number one priority, many companies identified it as either their second (27% of companies) or third (23% of companies) priority. This would indicate that whilst most companies do not see logistics/spare parts systems  as the most burning issue, they do acknowledge that it is an area that they should invest in should funds become available.

The one technology that has perhaps now had its day is route optimisation. This scored as the lowest priority for 56% of companies. There are many reasons route optimisation is now no longer a significant area for investment, whether this is because it is included in many service management software packages or that the technology has been around long enough to reach to near market saturation - the fact is that most companies will now have some sort of route/navigation software already even if it is simply Google Maps and a BYOD.

If you want to read the full 10 page benchmarking report featuring additional exclusive analysis then you are able to download it by clicking this link.

By registering for this white paper you agree to the fascinating terms and conditions which you can read right here.