ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘software-and-apps’ CATEGORY

LaurentOthacéhé, CEO of CognitoiQ explores the importance of going beyond meeting customer expectations and ensuring you are delighting your customers...

Want to know more? There is a white paper on this topic that provides further insight available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

Not a subscriber but you are a field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get this white paper sent directly to your inbox now as a thank you for your application

For some years now, the prevailing wisdom has been that in order to stand out from their competitors, businesses of all types must focus on their customers’ experiences.

Gartner says that in 2017 “89% of marketers expect customer experience to be their primary differentiator”.

The costs of bad service are well documented:

• Bad customer service costs UK companies over £37Bn each year
• More than a quarter of UK customers took their business elsewhere or spent less with a company due to bad service in 2016
• A customer is four time more likely to switch to a competitor due to problems with services, compared with pricing and product issues.

As are the benefits of good service:

• 86% of people will pay more for a better customer experience
• Better customer experiences can lift revenue by up to 15% and reduce the cost of service by up to 20%

This wisdom has taken hold in the field service industry too: our industry has traditionally been more focused on keeping costs down, but research now shows that field service companies are putting the customer first.

Field service managers say that ‘customer satisfaction’ is their most important KPI... But customer experience is more than just customer satisfaction.Field service managers say that ‘customer satisfaction’ is their most important KPI, ahead of technician productivity and utilisation, and first-time-fix rate. But customer experience is more than just customer satisfaction.

Managing customer experience means paying attention to every interaction, the customer has with your company, whether that is through using your products and services or via your website, call centre, billing or social media.

In this context, it becomes clear that a visit from a field service engineer is loaded with opportunities to delight – or disappoint – your customer.

Think about your own experiences as a customer

You are never going to be delighted with a company that fails to deliver: the product doesn’t work; the parcel doesn’t arrive; the engineer is late and can’t fix your problem.

The basics have to be right. And if they aren’t right, the company has to go out of its way to resolve your issue or deal with your complaint. So far so good, but what takes customer experience from good to great is those occasional ‘moments of magic’: the unexpected extras, or the human touches that you remember, and tell people about.

For example, when an airline gets everyone seated, their hold luggage stowed, and the plane takes off on time, then that is a Brilliant Basic: customers get the experience they expect.

The good news is that for every service organisation becoming a best-in-class service provider is an achievable goal.When the flight is delayed on the tarmac, but the airline gives everyone free food and drinks and lets them switch their phones back on to call ahead, then that is a Remarkable Resolution: the airline deals well with a failure of the basic service.

But when the flight attendant overhears a passenger worrying about getting her connection and making her sister’s wedding and contacts the destination airport to get the connecting flight held back, that is a Moment of Magic.

Of course, it is only the best-in-class companies that generally positioned to identify these needs and deliver those Moment's of Magic, however, the good news is that for every service organisation becoming a best-in-class service provider is an achievable goal.

The first step has to be adopting a customer-centric culture across your organisation and then empowering and enabling your team to deliver the new culture you have embedded through the application of technology such as mobile and data analytics.

Want to know more? There is a white paper on this topic that provides further insight available to fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

Not a subscriber but you are a field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get this white paper sent directly to your inbox now as a thank you for your application

be social and share

Kris Oldland Talks exclusively to Dan Sewell, COO, Espresso Service about why he and his organisation identified the need for a dedicated field service management solution including why they felt it needed to be a cloud solution and the reason they opted for Tesseract Service Centre Tesseract an Asolvi product has had on his engineer and dispatchers...

See more from this interview where Sewell outlines the impact of implementing the solution has had on his engineers here

Be social and share

GE Digital's acquisition of leading field service management solution provider Servicemax just over a year ago sent shockwaves across the industry for multiple reasons.

Firstly, in an industry that has been going through a spate of acquisitions over the last two years, the amount was quite simply eye-watering and just blew everything out of the water. Secondly, this was an acquisition that came right out of left field. Many analysts may have predicted that ServiceMax would eventually be acquired having been the industries biggest success story, but few would have suggested that an industrial force such as GE may have been the suitor that would become their new home. Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News, spoke exclusively to the senior players at both ServiceMax and GE Digital to find out how things are bedding in...

When the ServiceMax from GE Digital train rolled into Berlin towards the end of last year for the European leg of their series of Maximize conferences, there was an exciting mix of vivacious confidence between the ServiceMax team and keen curiosity and anticipation between the delegates - who were in the main ServiceMax customers.

Of course, this was to be expected - as it is at such events that ServiceMax have traditionally announced their latest developments and outlined how they had refined their roadmap. In past iterations of the conference, we've seen ServiceMax announce a number of industry firsts including the announcement in 2016 of Field Service Connect - which essentially established a blueprint for the role field service management systems will play in our sector adopting IoT that is being mirrored by a number of their peers.

And that's not to mention the little matter of GE Digital's acquisition of ServiceMax for an incredible $900Bn which was announced just days after 2016's Maximize Europe event in Amsterdam.

With just over a year having passed it was a perfect time to see how well embedded ServiceMax had become within the GE Digital machine, and just how much such significant investment had changed their vision for the future of both their organisation and of field service delivery itself.Indeed, with just over a year having passed it was a perfect time to see how well embedded ServiceMax had become within the GE Digital machine, and just how much such significant investment had changed their vision for the future of both their organisation and of field service delivery itself.

Having spent a lot of time with Yarnold and his senior team over the last few years, one thing that has always come to the fore was that there was an inherent understanding of what excellent service looked like, and the ServiceMax vision was always about trying to develop the tools to make meeting standards of service excellence that much easier.

I recall speaking to Yarnold in 2016 about the ethos of the company, and he explained then how they felt that most of the technology in the Field Service Management sector was  geared towards taking cost out. What they realised very early on into their journey to becoming a leader within the industry was that there was a critical emerging trend - companies who were building products were experiencing much faster growth in the services side of the business than the product side.

We focussed on helping companies to grow their service business as opposed to squeezing their technicians for more productivity - which is still where most of the technology in our space is focussed"So we focussed on helping companies to grow their service business as opposed to squeezing their technicians for more productivity - which is still where most of the technology in our space is focussed" Yarnold had stated back then.

Of course, this approach has become widely embraced by most of ServiceMax's peers as solution providers realise that most companies now have at least one foot planted firmly in a service-centric world and as concepts such as servitization and outcome-based services go mainstream.

However, while there is no denying the prescience of Yarnold and his team's approach, until last year they were always just an observer of trends within the field service sector, only experiencing them indirectly via how they impacted their client base. But now as part of GE, an organisation that has something upward of 40,000 service engineers in various different divisions and across multiple sectors globally, they now have a direct line into a wealth of field service directors that are all on the same team.

I was curious as to what if any impact this would have on ServiceMax regarding how they position their worldview on what great field service looks like. In his opening address early that day Yarnold had touched upon shared learnings - so was it a case of their previous assertions being validated? Or was there an element of identifying essential details that could only be seen when one is embedded that little bit closer to the actual coalface?

"It is a bit of both" responds Yarnold. "We are part of GE Digital which has the Predix platform and then these application areas APM and ServiceMax, and we are separate from the rest of the GE business which are the industrial business units such as Oil and Gas, Power Generation and Healthcare and so on. Each of those business has their own field service operation, and each of those businesses is rolling out ServiceMax. So we're not part of the organisation, but we have the home team there to draw on."

To bring this message to life Yarnold recounts how before the acquisition Sharma, who at the time was the CIO of GE's Oil and Gas business had been a somewhat challenging customer, but once they were on the same side of the table the value that ServiceMax brought to the table was revealed to actually be hugely valued. "I do wish he'd maybe told me a bit sooner'' Yarnold said playfully which brought a warm laugh from Sharma - and in this brief exchange, the camaraderie and trust between the two were immediately brought to the fore, something usually found within relationships built on a mutual respect.

It's been a good balance so far, and we're just starting to tap into that knowledge of those industries and the vertical specific complexities of those industries. It keeps things fresh and challenging, but that's what we want. We want that challenge"So yes there was a lot of affirmation" Yarnold commented returning to the initial question. "Then where I think the learnings are coming in. As we start to work with these folks and we start to understand what their customers, the service, and maintenance organisations are all about - we need to ask how do we continue to evolve and build our product so that they fit those organisations. Utilities, Airlines, Railroads, Oil Companies - these have not necessarily been our direct customers to date and we're learning a lot about that. We're also learning a lot about metrics and measuring business. It's been a good balance so far, and we're just starting to tap into that knowledge of those industries and the vertical specific complexities of those industries. It keeps things fresh and challenging, but that's what we want. We want that challenge."

So would it be fair to assume that given this additional stream of insight there maybe a change to the roadmap that ServiceMax has outlined for themselves? Kasai picks up this point. "I think you outlined it well when you positioned it as an expansion" he replied when we tackle this topic.

"Both being part of the wider family of GE but also the massive investment is a much needed, as we really need to expand our portfolio into new markets and new capabilities. We'd always made a conscious effort not to go into many of these industries for a variety of reasons, but largely from a focus point of view. But now we have I believe, a solid competitive edge from a channel point of view with great customer relationships. We have an understanding of the domain within those industries, and it would have been tough just to walk in and grow that knowledge. Thirdly, we have the capital to go ahead and invest in the development of the products to actually develop those capabilities for these industries. It is a combination of these three things which essentially makes a brand new company - there is so much potential and that what we're all really excited about, where do we go next?"

It is interesting the Kasai mentions how the new environment in which they find themselves in is in many ways akin to being an entirely new company. It brings back recollections of another previous conversation with Yarnold the day the acquisition was announced. "It is not the start of a new chapter; it is the start of a whole new book" he had commented, which is a strong analogy, as this latest incarnation of ServiceMax is indeed a distinct creature than that which has come before. However, likely any great novel within a series, the fundamental aspects of what made it a best-seller in the first place must remain in place. To extend the metaphor to its very limits, there must be a familiarity and continuity in place if it is going to build on the successes of previous in the broader in the ongoing saga.

In other words, ServiceMax as part of GE Digital must build upon the strong foundations that are already in place. Yet, for such a substantial investment, they simply have to evolve as both Kasai and Yarnold suggested. However, it seems that this is something that is very much already starting to happen as the ServiceMax team becomes plugged into the broader world of GE.

Such cohesion and deep level insight will not only drive the functionality of ServiceMax forward hugely but by doing so will also raise the bar for the industry as a whole. As Sharma explains" Something we have done recently is to have seven business swarm ServiceMax from which we've then built a core centre of excellence capability - it is a very focused team, they have both deep domain expertise and have also been ServiceMax users for a very long time. From this, we have developed accelerators to help improve deliverability, but it has also become a great feedback loop to Rei and the product team."

It is this type of integration that many of the analysts within the industry (including myself), hoped to see emerge when the acquisition was announced. As such cohesion and deep level insight will not only drive the functionality of ServiceMax forward hugely but by doing so will also raise the bar for the industry as a whole.

It was undoubtedly one of the most interesting aspects of the acquisition that I discussed at the time in that there is vast potential for the further development of important solutions when a major player such as ServiceMax is embedded within an organisation that has such a fine-grained level of knowledge of delivering service, rather than being swallowed up by just another major software house that many would have expected.

Yet for the full value of this to be played out there has to be a true ebb and flow of dialogue between ServiceMax and the wider organisation - something which Sharma indicates clearly exists. "We attack things together, working with the platform team, ServiceMax and ourselves, on an integrated asset model of the future. We are talking about working within large-scale operations and exploring how do you augment and drive participation? It is a great way to valid test or experiment with a capability, and we give instant feedback."

We have the fortunate situation where we have a very large-scale service organisation as a captive audience, and we have an organisation that's capable of delivering these great capabilities to these organisations. "When you develop new products you have to be very iterative, you have to have a small set of customers to be constantly testing against so you that you eventually build a scalable product for the masses. If you look at these new capabilities, we are looking at it very much through that lens, and we have the fortunate situation where we have a very large-scale service organisation as a captive audience, and we have an organisation that's capable of delivering these great capabilities to these organisations."

Of course, the most visible return on GE's investment so far, certainly from a product perspective, would for most people in the industry be the close integration between ServiceMax's Connected Field Service suite and another of GE Digital's offerings, Asset Performance Management (APM). As we've covered previously in Field Service News, the combination of these two tools pushes us with far more certainty than ever before into the world of IoT based field service. So is this a clear indication of the direction that both GE and ServiceMax see as the future of field service delivery?

"I think what the move to predictive really does is that it puts everything on your terms," comments Yarnold. "You're planning ahead of time; you can predict who is going to go where with a high probability of success. This will, of course, increase efficiency but it is also a huge value add to the customer - you're in a position to now delight them, because the right people are showing up, they know the history, they know what is required and so on. I just think it changes the model entirely."

"Outages are needed, machinery gets worn out" adds Sharma, "the question is how can you replace these in a planned way because when it's unplanned, that's where really bad stuff happens. The notion that is important to me is about focusing on getting to almost zero-unplanned downtime. That is where I think the industry is going to head."

As Yarnold had expressed to me previously, it seems clear that there are kindred spirits and a shared DNA somewhere between the two organisations, and most certainly a shared vision for the future of field service. In terms of their influence on the wider market both ServiceMax and GE have played a role in getting us to where we are today. How far they can continue to push the field service sector forwards as one cohesive unit remains to be seen, but the early indications would suggest that they will remain at the vanguard of innovation within service delivery for the foreseeable future. As each of Kasai, Yarnold, and Sharma commented at various points across our discussion - it's all hugely exciting.

Be social and share 

Field service management software is transforming trade/ speciality contracting as more revenue comes from service contracts and maintenance...

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, has released a primary research study revealing that legacy software solutions used by speciality and trade contractors could prevent them from profitably delivering aftermarket services to their customers.

These contractors are finding aftermarket service an important source of revenue growth as project owners wish to outsource asset maintenance to the companies that constructed, fabricated or installed the asset on their behalf.

The survey of 200 HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), plumbing, electrical, building automation, low voltage electrical, signage, overhead door and other speciality contractors paints a picture of an industry in the grips of a digital transformation.

85 percent of study respondents said they have maintenance contracts with customer-specific terms, service level agreements (SLAs) and pricing, but only 14 percent said their software facilitated these contracts “very well.”

85 percent of study respondents said they have maintenance contracts with customer-specific terms, service level agreements (SLAs) and pricing, but only 14 percent said their software facilitated these contracts “very well.”Many respondent companies did not enable field technicians to improve the customer experience or drive new revenue. Only 38 percent said technicians could access information on the terms of the contract including customer-specific requirements. Only 15 percent of respondents have the technology to empower field technicians to upsell or sell new service contracts, only 25 percent could issue new estimates and 23 percent could get customer approval for an estimate.

89 percent of respondents said they use subcontractors, but just over 10 percent have adopted the current technology by giving their subcontractors a mobile app to interact with their field service management software.

Respondents reporting greater readiness for digital transformation—Digital Transformation Leaders—are nine times as likely to say their software prepares them well for the essential process of service contract administration. Only 30 percent of Digital Transformation Laggards were even offering customer-specific contracts, while Digital Transformation Leaders were more than nine times as likely to say their software prepared them very well to support these contractual obligations with specific requirements for each customer.

Our data shows that residential contractors seem to be ahead of commercial contractors when it comes to Digital Transformation.IFS Industry Director for Field Service Management Mark Brewer said, “These trade and speciality contractors are at an inflexion point with field service management software. Many of them have invested in some level of field service technology to support aftermarket service work. Often, this same software helps them manage construction crews during the initial project. But now they are at that point where they need to become more attentive to customer-specific SLAs. They need to upsell and drive more sales from each customer and improve the customer experience.”

IFS Senior Product Evangelist for Field Service Management Tom DeVroy added, “The adage is that the future is here—it is just not evenly distributed. This is true for trade contracting, where our data shows that residential contractors seem to be ahead of commercial contractors when it comes to Digital Transformation.

This is mostly the result of customer demands that have pushed them towards software that optimizes the field service schedule, enabling them to give an accurate estimated time of arrival and issue proactive customer alerting. They are further ahead on automated subcontractor management, automated parts ordering and fulfilment, and field-based, point-of-service payment processing. Contractors engaged strictly in commercial work need to catch up as their own customer expectations evolve.”

Download the entire study, Are Trade/Specialty Contractors Leveraging Field Service Software for Aftermarket Service? @ fs-ne.ws/MNNo30inF0F

Be social and share

Kris Oldland Talks exclusively to Dan Sewell, COO, Espresso Service about the impact installing a dedicated, cloud-based Field Service Management System Tesseract part of the Asolvi group has had on his engineer and dispatchers...

Find out why Evatic have rebranded to Asolvi here

be social and share

Evatic Group, the leading provider of service management software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Europe, has been rebranded "Asolvi".

It's the latest development for a company that has been at the centre of some big changes over the past couple of years, most notably the acquisitions of Tesseract in the UK and WinServ in Sweden. Asolvi is now helping 800 customers across 30 countries to attain greater flexibility, scalability and profitability in their service operations.

Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Asolvi, explains the reasoning behind the new name: "We wanted a name indicative of the fact that we don't just supply software. We solve problems. We find solutions to our clients' service management needs. We're a partner that helps you become more efficient." He adds, smiling, "And since we're a multilingual and multinational company, we also wanted something easy to pronounce in many languages!"

We wanted a name indicative of the fact that we don't just supply software. We solve problems. We find solutions to our clients' service management needs. We're a partner that helps you become more efficient.Asolvi will continue to offer service management solutions under the Evatic, Tesseract and WinServ brand names, but felt that the time was right to distinguish between the company and its products. "Our products have been in the marketplace for a long time and have established themselves as leading brands within their respective segments," says Rødseth. "Each product has its own distinct benefits and will continue to develop under the Asolvi umbrella."

Rødseth goes on to explain how he expects Asolvi's recent growth to bring some stability to the market. "Having acquired both Tesseract and WinServ in the last 18 months, we expect to continue the much-needed consolidation of service management software players in the SMB space in Europe. Being a larger entity gives us economy of scale to meet the future demands of modern service companies."

Asolvi is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway and has offices in the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland and Singapore. It is a private company owned by the employees and Viking Venture. For more information, please visit www.asolvi.com.

Be social and share

With a new US patent approved for their Quantum Computing algorithm, Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower explains her vision for what the future of customer experience excellence will look like and outlines the path her organisation can offer to consumer-focused organisations as they begin rolling out a raft of new CX tools...

The last time Field Service News sat down and spoke with Marne Martin, ServicePower’s bold and ebullient CEO, for a formal interview, it was to discuss their recent acquisition by private equity firm Diversis at the beginning of this year.

At that point, Martin was keen to express the fact that it was she who had courted investment with a vision to expand upon their product suite more rapidly than they could through organic means alone and that this acquisition was not just another PE shark circling the rich pickings of the Field Service Management sector. At the time Martin commented ‘I felt that we were 75% and we were really looking for someone to get us to 100% of where we saw the opportunity in the sector not just for the current but in the future.”

I felt that we were 75% and we were really looking for someone to get us to 100% of where we saw the opportunity in the sector not just for the current but in the future.”Of course, many a CEO has said similar things in the past having just been acquired, a message of confidence is par for the course to keep the client base assured that their future is still safe in a steady pair of hands. But just how far along the path Martin outlined have ServicePower come in the last six months?

“We are completely thrilled with the progress we have made already in 2017” Martin responds when this question is put to her. “We’ve been supplementing the talent that we already have by bringing in some really great people and we will continue doing that, as it’s allowing us to constantly move forward with the development efforts and plans that we already had in place.”

One thing that has certainly seemed to materialise since the acquisition is a greater outward projection of where their core market lies. For Field Service Solution providers this can be a challenge within itself as field service straddles so many vertical industries, which whilst sharing many shared pain points and challenges, also have their own specific vertical nuances to be considered as well.

Yet whether it’s the result of some business refinement that came out of the acquisition process, or whether it is simply something they are now verbalising that little bit more, ServicePower now seem to have a very clear understanding of their target market.

“All of this [development] is around really expanding our dominance in consumer industries” Martin explained. “We sell B2B but we are enabling the consumer experience for our customers so we are essentially B2B2C primarily, ServicePower is really unique in dominating that positioning. The other field service providers are either more focused on preventative maintenance or other such aspects of the sector. We really are the only field service company that has this domination and focus in the consumer sector and that empower our customers to cultivate consumer experience as they deliver it - whether that be through different service routes or through different types of technicians.”

But how does this translate into actual developments of the solution?

“The new customer experience will incorporate a lot more of web service front end User Interfaces that we are coding with the latest programming standards,” Martin tells us.

It is really designed to give customers a better digital experience whilst also making call centres more productive and for the technicians“It is really designed to give customers a better digital experience whilst also making call centres more productive and for the technicians, the mobile tech enablement is better. We’ve done a huge amount of R&D on how integrated ecosystems deliver a much-improved customer experience but actually it is better for every stakeholder in the service continuum.”

“I firmly believe, and so do many of our customers, that the customer and the tech want the same thing - a great experience,” she continued.

“That is either an experience where things don’t break - because of processes like tailored proactive maintenance or incorporating IoT diagnostics to leverage what you know about the assets, or if they do require repair then we’re facilitating a repair experience that doesn’t necessarily require a truck roll, ideally they’re able to do some remote maintenance and fix it without coming into the client’s home.”

“However, if there does have to be a truck roll, if they do need to come to the client’s home - then they should be making sure they are coming into the home at a time that’s convenient for the customer and with the best knowledge about the asset possible - that is how you facilitate the first-time-fix. So now you are seeing the first few steps to making this all happen and soon you’ll also see some of the additional predictive types of improvements that we’re also rolling out with Smarter Field Service and the new algorithm.”

“In fact, we were recently awarded a new US patent for our quantum annealing work and you’ll definitely be seeing the further evolution of this vision as we move into 2018.”

Now, it was felt in some corners that it was ServicePower’s research work into Quantum Annealing that made them such an attractive proposition for investment in the first place. However, up until now the conversation had centred mainly around theoretical research ServicePower had undertaken.

But if this research work is set to move into the practical realm, then this could truly be a game changer for field service optimisation.

What I think will be the service experience of the future for our customers, is tying in the power of this quantum computing algorithm not just to do the traditional pipe of ‘technician-route-schedule-optimisation’ but also to think about optimisation across the different types of service.“What’s interesting to me and what I think will be the service experience of the future for our customers, is tying in the power of this quantum computing algorithm not just to do the traditional pipe of ‘technician-route-schedule-optimisation’ but also to think about optimisation across the different types of service. For example, having more flexible work queues or how you triage and route the delivery of service for a customer - all through digital enablement,” Martin explains.

“Say for example, a customer hits our new intelligent customer portal - you can send them to a process, you can use IoT diagnostic information, or upload photos or whatever type of triage type of information that you have, then depending on how you assess that you might then send them through to a work queue that is optimised and we can have a dynamic work-flow between back-office activities, call centre activities, technician experiences and triage assessment activities.”

“We’re actively thinking about how to use our quantum annealing algorithm in a more flexible way to optimise the total service experience. What I have seen is that even amongst our customers and prospects that have an IoT diagnostic group, they are not working that information into an integrated service experience.”

“They might have some techs that are trained in that or the might have an elite network that is doing it, but they are not tying it into the overall workflow and optimising a more efficient service experience.”

“Ultimately you only want to send a technician on site when you really have to and as much as possible you want to make sure that when the technician gets on-site they’re able to do what the customer really needs - which is, of course, a first-time-fix.”

This scenario is, of course, the ideal field service win-win-win. The customer is happier because they are back up and running, the engineer is happier because they have a better work-life balance and less angry customers and the board is happier because they are seeing improvements to the bottom line. Indeed, if it is achievable, we are getting close to field service nirvana.

Martin concludes: “We are also looking at how we can use the quantum computing power looking at demand forecasting, capacity planning, and parts information, focusing on consumer industries and how we deliver a great service experience. It is about so much more than just the technology – it is a whole integrated approach that looks at the digital journey with the customer, the call centre and mobile technician enablement.”

It seems that Martin and her team at ServicePower are undeniably still on the right path to deliver the future of customer experience.

Be social and share

Noventum have been a trusted pillar of the service management community for a long, long time and now they have established an excellent process to allow field service companies establish which FSM vendors best meet their needs. René Boverhuis guides us through their methodology...

A Field Service Management (FSM) solution is a key enabler for a service business to deliver best-in-class customer experiences, maximise business efficiency and achieve strategic goals.

Selecting the most suitable FSM solution can be a daunting task as there are numerous products on the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and no single product can support complete end-to-end service processes.

A complete service solution will almost always consist of a combination of several products, some of which may already be implemented, except in a greenfield situation. Organisations thus have to accommodate their existing IT strategy and architecture in which the FSM solution should be integrated.

To select a FSM solution, Noventum recommends a seven-step approach:

1. Define strategic business objectives and goals

Before starting to select a new FSM solution, it is important to understand why an organisation needs this and what the organisation wants to accomplish with it.

Questions that need to be answered include:

• What direction is your service organisation heading?
• What type of services will be provided to your customers three to five years from now? Outcome based, predictive maintenance, etc.
• What are the main business goals in terms of growth and profit margins?
• Why not strive for a standardised global operating model and supporting service IT architecture?

It is important to understand the strategic objectives and goals as the new solution should be able to provide the functionality to enable the business to achieve the goals and be able to support the services that will be launched in the future.

2. Identify key service characteristics and service process scope

The type of service contracts that are offered, the type of market the organisation is addressing and the way these services are delivered greatly influence the required capabilities that a FSM solution must provide.

To get an understanding of the nature of the service business that needs to be supported, insight into key service characteristics is needed, including:

The different service contract types that are offered.

Service market as a B2C service organisation has quite a different dynamic than a B2B.

How is service delivered? By using internal resources, subcontractors, outsourcing of service activities, or a combination? Does this differ per county, region or business unit?

Size of the service business (if possible broken down per country, region or business unit) in terms of:

• Service revenue per year
• Total number of service contracts, service requests and work orders per month
• Number of technicians, dispatchers, service managers
• Value of service parts consumed per month
• Total number of installed base objects

The functional scope required of a FSM solution is dependent on the service processes that the organisation needs to have in place. To be future proof, the processes required in the future also must be identified to be able to support new type of services that are planned.

At Noventum we use the Service Capability & Performance (SCP) Standards as a framework to identify the business capabilities that should be included in the scope. A good way of determining which service business capabilities are relevant for an organisation is by identifying key end-to-end business scenarios and for each business scenario determine which SCP capability is touched by it.

Using this approach, a high-level business capability model can be created relatively quickly. This can also be used as a starting point for the definition of a new global standard.

3. Design High-level Service IT Architecture

Most organisations already have IT applications in place that support part of the service business, often this differs per geography or business unit.

To determine which elements of the existing IT landscape can continue to be used or which applications are no longer needed, it is important to fully understand the landscape. It is important to understand:

• Which applications are currently in use?
• Which processes are they supporting?
• What the technical state of these applications?
• How satisfied the business users are with the current applications?
• What are the gaps in terms of functionality?

This analysis can then be used to design a high-level vision of the future service IT architecture which can be used to: decide which applications should continue to be used, identify the gaps for which a new solution must be found, and determine any dependencies that should be considered.

This also includes a mapping of the service process onto the new architecture. For example, it could be the case that the existing ERP implementation is used for production and installation at customer sites. The initial installed base then is created in the ERP, then transferred to FSM solution and maintained in the FSM solution from that point on. Using the new High-Level Service IT Architecture, the process scope for the new FSM solution is further refined.

4. Define functional and non-functional requirements and constraints

Now that the business processes have been defined, the next step is to define the functional features that the new FSM solution must have.

To define the required features, Noventum’s SCP Functional Reference Architecture is used. The reference architecture consists of a set of functional domains, each with a set of typical features. The processes from the SCP Standards are mapped to the functional domains and therefore we know which ones are relevant for the process scope (fig.1).

This results in a comprehensive list of features that the new solution must support. This list is prioritised according the business goals and strategy.

Besides the functional requirements, the non-functional requirements and constraints are also defined. This includes the typical things like performance, security, availability, flexibility and interoperability, and constraints that define the context and environment in which the new FSM solution must be deployed.

5. Identify short-list of FSM products that match requirements and constraints

The functional scope, High Level service IT Architecture, functional and non-functional requirements and constraints can now be used to the define a short-list of products.

Noventum has good understanding of the FSM products on the market today, which includes that feature they provide and how they fit in existing architecture. We regularly publish our FSM Reality Check (fig.2) which ranks each FSM solution in terms of the ability to provide business benefits vs. the risks and costs involved in implementing and operating these solutions.

Using our knowledge of the FSM products, Noventum can help organisations to quickly reduce a long-list of potential products and vendors to the two or three most suitable ones, eliminating the need to go through a lengthy RFI process.

6. Evaluate FSM products and vendors

For each of the vendors and their product on the short-list it needs to be evaluated into detail to what extend the product can address the functional and non-functional requirements, whether it fits into the existing/future IT architecture and if it can meet the constraints.

To significantly shorten the time required to select a solution, Noventum often assists organisations in defining the RFP (using the functional scope, non-functional requirements and constraints) and evaluating the RFP responses, demonstrations and presentations.

As part of the process Noventum believes it is important that reference visits are part of the selection process as this provides the opportunity to hear from peers about their experience with the solution.

Reference visits also provide insight into why an organisation selected their specific solution and to give confidence that the solution works in practice.

7. Conduct Proof of Concept

High user adoption of you FSM solution is a critical success factor and there might be some essential specific functionality for a service organisation that needs detailed evaluation.

A Proof of Concept is a good way to validate whether the technicians are comfortable using the mobile FSM app to do their job, for example. Other examples include testing contract types, SLA’s or complex preventive maintenance schedules.

Together with Noventum and the product vendor, some of the key business scenarios defined in Step 2 can be implemented in a short period of time and validated with a select group of stakeholders.

The Proof of Concept is thus used to confirm that the selected product indeed is the best suitable FSM product to support the service processes and enables the service organisation to meet their strategic goals.

Conclusion

Although selecting the right FSM solution for an organisation is a daunting task, by using the right frameworks, knowledge of the service business and FSM market, it can be done in a much shorter time frame and cost. While an organisation can be sure that they select a solution, which is able to support their service business now and in the future.

 

Be social and share

 

Leadent CEO, Alastair Clifford-Jones tackles the tricky issue of ageing technology...

Many organisations that have implemented field service management solutions now face a dilemma. Recent advances in technology platforms, software and hardware, have caused these organisations, that had previously enjoyed a competitive advantage, to risk being left behind. And it’s not just the advancement of technology that is driving this, the focus for many field service organisations has changed due to consumers’ ever-increasing expectations, and the deregulation of some industries.

Given the pressure on organisations to provide a better customer experience, many assume the solution is to replace or upgrade ageing technology; especially considering that the replacement could be a Cloud or SaaS-based solution that would shift the costs into an OPEX bucket. Whilst this might be seen as a silver bullet, the truth is more complicated.

When organisations first considered field service management systems they were trying move away from the Chaotic Survival state (as per the maturity model shown below.) Business cases were predicted on an improvement in operational efficiency by ensuring the right job was given to the right operative, with the right skills/tools/parts to meet customer service levels at an optimal cost.

 

To become a Supply Led business required a limited change in technology, and more of an organisational change as it is much more about breaking down silos within a business.

However, transforming into a Demand Led organisation requires significant investment, and a completely different way of thinking. This is where organisations need to be truly digitally enabled with multi-channel customer touch-points.

So, what’s the right direction for organisations?

It depends. There are several aspects to be considered.

The first is not just what technology you have, but how well it’s been implemented into the business; are processes understood and adhered to? Does the business model match both the objectives, and process model?

Often organisations believe technology is at the root of their problems – if they could just have faster software or more flexible configuration life would be so much simpler. In reality it’s often the way technology has been implemented and this isn’t just about customisation or configuration, it’s about embedding process and mindset change into the business. Even in today’s world, there are far too many technology-driven implementations that are not owned or controlled by the business.

The second is deciding where the business needs to be. In the diagram above, it is clear the ‘best’ position is on the right-hand side, but this is primarily driven by consumers. If your customers don’t need you to be this type of business, there is no point trying to position yourself there. But don’t kid yourself, this would make you the exception, not the norm.

Your business’s starting point, and where you need it to be will give you an indication of the gap that needs to be closed to deliver competitive advantage. This then begins to formulate a basis for the decision to upgrade or replace technology. But, as ever, there are a number of ways to close this gap, with many requiring some technology, but how do you make the right decision?

The options are:

• Drive more value from a current deployment
• Implement point solutions to add functionality
• Upgrade an existing solution
• Replace the current system

Getting more Value from a Current Deployment

Many implementations have failed to deliver the anticipated value. It’s not that businesses are over optimistic when the business case is developed, but more that they don’t take the opportunity to truly transform. The field service management solution is seen as an operational tool and implemented in a silo.

This silo thinking has resulted in the lack of an integrated view of the end-to-end customer journey. In reality, this is not because the business failed in the implementation, but more that efficiency was the focus at the time.

 

Getting more from a current deployment is all about the end-to-end customer journey. Often greater value can be achieved from just having an integrated view, which means looking at processes and how the organisation matches this view.

In my experience, there is always more value that can be generated from a current deployment. But the big question is, is it ever enough to meet current and future requirements?

Implementing Point Solutions

If the scheduling and dispatch solution is working well, and an organisation is just trying to improve the customer experience, there is no reason why the existing solution cannot be enhanced by implementing greater functionality via integration with other software such as online booking or customer communications.

This way a customer can get the ‘digital experience’ with minimal disruption to operations. Given integration capabilities and the proliferation of APIs, it is much easier in today’s world to integrate a point solution with current platforms. The main gripe for customers is the lack of information from the organisation. If you keep your customers informed via appropriate channels - a web or mobile app, or even a lowly text message, it can dramatically enhance customer experience.

In addition to improving the customer experience, it alsomakes operational sense. The business case for delivering better customer information can often be satisfied by the reduction in calls to call centres alone.

Upgrade an Existing System

Upgrades come in many forms. Vendors are working hard to shift customers from on-premise solutions to their new cloud variants. While the existing cloud vendors are innovating and adding functionality to stay out in front. Often the decision to upgrade is with the supplier in that support will usually be withdrawn for non-upgraded systems, for example, where the cloud option becomes the only option.

Where the organisation has an option to upgrade to get enhanced technological capabilities, it is very important to understand the impact it will have on the people and processes. In my experience, upgrades often fail because the processes have not be realigned, or the teams have not been properly informed or trained.

Organisations that have really benefited from enhanced functionality have conducted a full impact analysis on the processes and realigned their businesses appropriately to make best use of new capabilities.

Replacing a Current System

To many organisations, replacing a system fills them with dread as the initial implementation was a particularly expensive and painful experience but, in reality, much of the hard work has already been done. Much of that pain was in moving from a manual system to auto-scheduling and mobile dispatch. This was a change management exercise, and isn’t a reason not to replace. In fact, if it was done well, it’d be shame not to further capitalise on that investment.

Additionally, moving to a cloud or SaaS based system will not require the capital outlay which was required in the past and, should an organisation choose to move to the cloud, the new IT landscape and architecture needs to be considered, particularly in terms of integration and security.

 

Of course, there are benefits of replacing a current system beyond those of better functionality, for instance, some new systems offer much greater business flexibility. For example, the way different providers treat capacity can offer greater benefits; where many assign an engineer at the time of appointment, some now look at the overall capacity and perform the assignment on the day. For the majority of businesses and use cases, this increases efficiency.

If we are looking at moving organisations to the right on the maturity model it’s essential to have an integrated approach to the end-to-end customer experience, which may be constrained by that organisation’s field service management solution.

Don’t Get Left Behind!

As we’ve seen, moving towards a truly Demand Led model for field service can be achieved via a number of different paths. Where your organisation sits within the maturity model and how much focus is placed on the customer journey will dictate the path you need to take.

But in all cases, it is imperative to make those decisions with a critical eye on your own maturity and the end-to-end customer experience in mind. Failure to do so risks leaving the business trailing in the wake of those who do.

 

---

 

Be social and share