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Field workforce automation tools such as dynamic resource scheduling and mobile working have had a significant impact on field service, with organisations that have adopted this technology consistently experiencing productivity improvements of 25% or more. However, these tools are not just capable of streamlining the way we currently work, they also provide us with a unique opportunity to do different things. All we need to do is unleash our imagination, says, Laraine Geddes, marketing manager, Kirona

Efficiency drives opportunity

By leveraging the highly sophisticated tools available,  field service organisations have the perfect platform from which to expand. Dynamic resource scheduling enables organisations to improve the way they plan and efficiently allocate resources to field based tasks to maximise capacity and minimise non-productive time. Empowering field workers with mobile technology has not just streamlined the way work is allocated to the field, with real-time updates delivered to centralised functions, but it has also equipped the field worker with the tools that make them more effective in the field.

The result is a far more efficient and effective field workforce. This not only has an impact on bottom line profitability, it also presents an opportunity to grow the breadth of and scale of services delivered in a highly profitable manner.

The customer experience

All of the great efforts on driving efficiencies can be lost if field service organisations lose sight of the customer experience. According to Accenture in 2013, 62% of consumers switched service providers due to a poor customer experience, and although not as extreme, it is a similar picture in the B2B world. Customer retention is vital, according to Emmet and Mark Murphy in their book ‘Leading On The Edge of Chaos’, just a 2% increase in customer retention has the same bottom line impact as a 10% reduction in cost.[quote float="left"]All of the great efforts on driving efficiencies can be lost if field service organisations lose sight of the customer experience.

Looking at ways to leverage technology to differentiate your customer experience should therefore be a focus of any field service organisation.

 

Using Dynamic Scheduling to provide customers with convenient appointments, using email and SMS to keep customers informed of when your field worker will arrive are all ways of delivering a great customer experience. But this can go even further, enabling customers to book appointments online, having deliveries scheduled at the time of purchase either within stores or online and enabling field-based workers to schedule follow-up appointments when they are with the customer all adds to the customer experience.

Driving new revenue opportunities

Happy customers present opportunity. When a customer has just received great service they have a far higher propensity to buy. By leveraging the field worker’s mobile device to prompt them with targeted up-sells for that client or customer, such as extended warranties, additional related products or follow-on services opens up the opportunity in a timely manner.

Being able to efficiently schedule resources enables you to offer premium services and SLA’s to your customers, generating additional revenues that you are confidently able to fulfil within your current capacity. This is where analytics is immensely valuable, enabling you to simulate different service offerings and understand in which regions and across which skills these can be provided.

Proactive service

Field Workforce Automation tools provide a fantastic opportunity for organisations to make that leap from being reactive to being proactive. Whether that be simply scheduling proactive tasks to complement reactive work, pushing real-time information to field-based engineers for preventative maintenance they should perform during a scheduled visit or filling any idle slots with proactive visits to customers.[quote float="right"]Field workforce automation tools provide a fantastic opportunity for organisations to make that leap from being reactive to being proactive.

 

Through driving efficiency in your workforce, you create additional capacity with existing resources, this additional capacity enables you to be proactive, all you need to do is understand how best to utilise this time to have the greatest positive impact on your customers and your business.
Whether you deliver goods, provide a facilities management service, offer field maintenance for business or consumers or deliver field-based professional services such as healthcare, you have an opportunity to be the best in your industry. Creating an efficient field service organisation and providing an exceptional customer experience does not have to be mutually exclusive, in fact, they can be highly complementary.

Ensuring you have the right technology in place to enable you to plan and schedule, to connect your field workers with your centralised systems and to analyse and gain true actionable insight into your operation is key. Using your imagination to use this technology to deliver greater value to customers and create new revenue streams enables you to set your company apart from the competition.

 

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 A Supervisor app has been added to its FieldMaster mobile applications suite by Trimble to help managers stay efficient and effective on the go by empowering them to do more work in the field and manage their day-to-day operations remotely.

With the FieldMaster Supervisor app, managers can leave the office and still have visibility into their fleet and mobile workers from their smartphone or tablet.  “Mobility is an increasingly valuable tool for field service organisations,” said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble’s Field Service Management (FSM) division. “It allows a traditional office role to move into the field and still access up-to-date information about the performance of the field operation. The result is a more effective operation where managers in the field have the information they need at their fingertips.”

FieldMaster Supervisor is available with Trimble Fleet Management and Trimble Work Management solutions.
Key features include:[unordered_list style="bullet"]

• Viewing all locations of your entire team on a map
• Seeing each team member’s job progress, including tasks at risk
• Finding the nearest worker to another team member or customer
• Navigating to key locations using turn-by-turn directions
• Inspecting job performance and documenting status in the field
• Receiving important vehicle and driver performance alerts in real-time[/unordered_list]

FieldMaster mobile applications are a core component of FSM’s integrated suite of field service management solutions that includes Fleet Management, Work Management and Driver Safety. It also includes a Technician app which is an advanced collaboration tool for mobile technicians that allows them to receive, access and update job information in real-time for improved effectiveness on the job.

The mobile apps are available from the Google PlayStore and the Apple App Store.

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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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Marathon Data Systems, a leading provider of cloud-based field service management and fleet management solutions, announced today that it acquired Foxtrax GPS, a cloud-based leader in fleet tracking technology. The company also announced it is changing its name to WorkWave™  to reflect its transformation into a leading solution provider for businesses with significant mobile workforces and to reinforce the tight integration of its cloud-based platforms for marketing, office management and fleet management. 

“The Foxtrax products, customer base and team round out WorkWave’s mobile-first portfolio,” said Chris Sullens, CEO and president of WorkWave, formerly Marathon Data Systems.

“Foxtrax is well known for its excellent service and functionality. By integrating Foxtrax’s cloud-based solution with Viamente, our leading cloud-based route planning and optimization solution, and our proprietary smartphone apps, we can now provide our 7,000+ clients in the field service and ‘last mile’ delivery verticals the most powerful, intuitive and cost-efficient solution available in the marketplace. Everything our clients need to gain full visibility into their field operations will be conveniently available in one place.”

 

In conjunction with this acquisition, Marathon Data Systems has changed its name to WorkWave, reinforcing the tight integration of its cloud-based platforms in marketing, field service management, route planning, and optimization and GPS. “This is a huge step in our corporate evolution,” added Sullens. “Unifying our messaging and product portfolio under the WorkWave brand reinforces how our product offerings connect every aspect of our clients’ businesses, providing an unprecedented level of insight into their office and field operations, enabling them to truly delight their clients and supercharge their business performance.”

WorkWave offers an integrated suite of cloud-based business management and fleet management solutions for the field service and “last mile” delivery verticals, including:

WorkWave Fleet, formerly Viamente, is a comprehensive cloud-based route planning and optimization platform that leverages a proprietary optimization algorithm, an intuitive user interface and a robust set of APIs to provide ”last mile” delivery companies a simple, dynamic and powerful solution for planning, tracking and analyzing their delivery routes.

WorkWave GPS, formerly Foxtrax GPS, is a cloud-based telematics platform that offers real-time vehicle tracking, comprehensive driver behavior alerting and tracking, and satellite-based asset tracking for companies in the field service, ”last mile” delivery and other fleet-based industries.

WorkWave Marketing, formerly Marathon Marketing Services, offers a full suite of website and lead generation services for the field service, automotive and other industries. This rapidly evolving, integrated marketing platform allows companies of all sizes to cost-effectively enhance their brand and drive leads into their businesses by leveraging WorkWave Marketing’s in-house website design, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media and reputation management offerings.

WorkWave also offers industry-leading solutions for the pest management industry, the general field service industry and the lawn and landscape industry through its PestPac, ServiceCEO and QXPress brands respectively.

 

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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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Continuing our series of interviews with industry leaders, Kris Oldland took the opportunity to sit down with IFS Managing Director, Paul Massey at the IFS World Conference in Boston last month. Against the backdrop of the launch of the swedish ERP provider’s latest product suite Applications 9, the conversation looked at both Massey and IFS’s journey across the last twenty years or so…

It’s been a busy month for IFS with a raft of new developments announced at their 2015 world conference including the launch of IFS Applications 9, key partnerships with Accenture and Microsoft, the launch of a Managed Cloud Solution plus a number of improvements to their field service offerings.

Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland spoke to Paul Massey to discuss what these announcements mean for the Scandinavian based company.

With so many big announcements coming in the first morning of this years world conference it felt like a sensible idea to try and put this into context of the near twenty year journey Massey has been on with IFS.

“Back when we became IFS back in early 1997 that was when the product was becoming graphical” Massey begins.

“There was a long history with my company Avalon and IFS who at the time were our Scandinavian distributor. Basically Avalon didn’t make the transition from character to graphical so IFS acquired most of the assets of and at the outset it was all about that new graphical user interface along with the component architecture story that IFS already had. So for us that was the first major milestone and in a way that was the first wave of internationalisation for IFS.” He continues.

Indeed IFS had been a very Scandinavian centric company before that point with one operation in Poland but little else beyond there home market.

This all began to change in the the late nineties as following on from the UK acquisition France and Germany and then a US acquisition.

As Massey explains “The first three or four years of our time with IFS was all about becoming an international company. There was a massive amount of investment in that area in sales and marketing functionality to cover other markets etc so that was a big investment period for IFS so in the early noughties there were some financial difficulties from a financing point of view because that was such a period of aggressive expansion. I wasn’t involved in the senior management then as I am now but I’m guessing they saw that was required to get a global footprint as quickly as possible.”

 

In fact this aggressive expansion plan resulted in a marked a period for IFS between 2000 and 2004 when there was negative growth. However as the world faced an economic crisis in 2008 IFS had already taken their hit and as competitors started to suffer they emerged as a healthy, profit making organisation.

“We’d finished spending our money and were set to reap the benefits of our investments” Massey admits. “We managed to more than survive that phase because it definitely impacted on others much more than it did us. We continued to grow as we moved from a negative cash flow to a really positive cash flow and we came out the other ends of that in a very healthy state.”

But what about the product how did evolve also?

“Having gone through the transition to graphical interface right at the beginning the next major milestone was enterprise explorer, the .net client in the Apps 7.5 release.” Massey explains.

 

“That was the next technology milestone from IFS’s point of view from then all of the releases i.e. 7.5 then 8 and now 9 have been more heavily focussed on broadening out the level functionality in each of the industries we target and obviously keeping the technology up to date.”

Which brings us up to Apps 9 which has brought a number of new features that had the delegates of their world conference more than impressed (see page 48)

“From a technology point of view I think the Layered architecture and some of the stuff we are doing with in-memory optimisation (which will be in an update of Apps 9 a little later in the year) is really important.” Explains Massey “You’ve got to keep the functional and technical streams running together in parallel which I think we’ve done. I think there is enough of both of those things in this release to get the customers interested in it.”

Look out for the second part of this exclusive interview where the conversation turns to the Cloud…

 

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Enterprise mobility specialists Kony and Citrix are teaming up to offer a comprehensive mobile app development and  mobility deployment solution.

Enterprise mobility specialists Kony and Citrix are teaming up to offer a comprehensive mobile app solution that includes initial mobile app design and development to enterprise mobility management and operations.
 
“We are excited to work with Kony to help power the mobile enterprise with industry-proven applications, visualisation, development, and management tools for a wide range of industries, ” said Scott Schwarshoff, Vice President of Mobile Application Platform at Citrix. The combination of Kony’s mobile app platform and XenMobile enterprise mobility management solution will empower customers to accelerate their mobile strategy to deliver world-class mobile experiences, he continued.
&nsbp;
[quote float="left"]Customers get individualised solutions from quick-start app templates designed to efficiently mobilise the business

Kony Apps are now verified by the Citrix Ready program, designed to allow customers to get their apps to market faster. The apps, which include the Kony Mobile Service Solution,  incorporate built-in best practices, features, and connectors.  Customers get individualised solutions from quick-start app templates designed to efficiently mobilise the business or customer processes to meet business needs, exceed user expectations and drive business results. They integrate with existing ERP systems to deliver all mobile devices, including phones and tablets and are  highly secured, scalable, and business-ready with reporting and analytics.
 
“Leading companies across the globe are successfully using mobility as a catalyst for business innovation,” said Dave Shirk, president, Products and Marketing, Kony. “Enterprise mobile apps are no longer a nice to have. It has now become a strategic imperative for businesses to effectively compete in this new mobile era. We are excited to work with Citrix, a long-standing industry technology leader. Together, we will empower enterprises to fast-track their mobile strategy with a proven mobile-centric approach from start to finish, with leading technology at every level.”
 

 

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Based on research by Capterra this handy infographic identifies the strengths of some of the key software providers you may find in the field service sector...

Within field service the IFS brand is well known, having gone through an aggressive expansion drive fuelled by key acquisitions of US based Metrix and UK based 360 Scheduling the brand has secured both headlines and customers alike within our industry in recent years. However at this year’s IFS world conference held in Boston there was a real sense that the ERP software provider has truly come of age as a key global player.

Hosted in Boston the three-day event combined some inspirational keynote speakers, a slick mix of presentation formats – including a US TV Style panel show and most importantly given the profile of the delegates an impressive array of technology for the attendees to get their hands on.

At the heart of the conference was the announcement of IFS Applications 9 which having be revealed on the first morning of the conference caused a significant amount of interest and excitement. Admittedly the audience was already fairly engaged with IFS’s product suite with an initial poll showing almost half of those in attendance were already considering moving to Applications 9, however, if the general reception to the series of new functionalities and tools announced was anything to go by, by the end of the three days that figure may well have increased further.

IFS Applications 9 revealed

After an initial opening keynote from IFS CEO Alastair Sorbie we were soon greeted with an impressive promotional video giving us a glimpse of what the next generation of IFS applications will include. Shots of a very modern, intuitive looking interface sitting across multiple devices, including interestingly a variety of smart watches ensued as the video rolled across the obligatory 100ft screen, accompanied by an upbeat dance track.

The message was very clear. IFS Applications 9 was something the Scandinavian based company were very proud about and they wanted the world to know it.

 

As Thomas Sald SVP Research and Development, IFS announced as he took to the stage as the video came to an end “It looks quite exciting doesn’t it? And it’s beautiful as well”.

Indeed this is perhaps the first initial response of IFS Applications 9. It simply looks great. It is a clean, modern, and intuitive looking user interface. The growing trend of customisation in enterprise technology is something that the development team of IFS have clearly given a lot of consideration to.

“We know that user experience is important to you as it is directly linked to your business.” Sald continued “A great user experience increases productivity, makes it easier to make the right decisions and helps in attracting and retaining talent. It also shortens the implementation time and creates enthusiasm for the new system.”

“User experience is important. Yes it’s looks good, but it is important because it supports your business and the people that run your business.”

However, there needs to be more to a new system than just a facelift. Fortunately IFS Applications 9 has introduced a number of new capabilities that also raise the bar in terms of the functionality of the software that could potentially some real benefits to those field service companies that elect to implement it.

The first of these introduced was the IFS Lobby.

IFS Lobby essentially provides a very clear and highly customisable view of a business or a specific project within a business, in relation to a specific job role or process. Being fully customisable IFS can bring the users at-a-glance information that they need for their own specific requirements and it can be tailored to each unique user.

The user is also then able to drill down into specific finer details relating to either their role or a specific project and it’s elegant UI is fully responsive making it accessible from desktop, tablet or even smart phone.

 

Such easy access to key information whilst out in the field could of course be equally as vital to enhancing and improving how a field engineer’s workflow as it could to making reporting at management level a far easier and less troubling task.

Another impressive benefit of lobby is the ability to observe and interact with other departments within the ERP structure and this leads neatly into the second big introduction of IFS Applications 9 – Streams.

Streams is basically an inbuilt notification system within IFS Applications 9. With a similar look to something akin to the lovechild of instant messenger and twitter it was a neat way to receive updates on tasks that require your action.

However, Streams doesn’t just sit in your Lobby waiting for you to spot the new notifications pop up. No Sir, with apps for both smart phones and smart watches available Streams is able to bring your attention to the task at hand as soon as it arrives.

What was soon becoming clear with the release of IFS Applications 9 was that the software is hugely customisable. From being able to quickly and effectively build your own Lobby that provides the key information you need at a glance through to tweaking the UI so that it looks more familiar and comfortable to you and your colleagues.

However, being able to make aesthetic changes and user level functionality is one thing but a true customisation, one which essentially changes elements within the base code, which are sometimes still both genuinely needed and well motivated is another entirely.

In the past a significant consideration if you have a customised version of any software, let alone something as mission critical as an ERP, is how much additional work is there to make the upgrade feasible due to the customisations in place. Often the amount of work to transition from one version to another can simply outweigh the benefits of moving to the new platform.

This is where the next major new element of IFS Applications 9 comes in. It is built on a ‘Layered Application Architecture’ which essentially removes such worries from the equation making upgrades as simple a process for customised versions of the system as those that have been run straight out of the box.

“We’ve broken the code into separate transparent layers” explained Sald “That means when we come with an update to IFS applications your customisations can remain unchanged. That’s going to save a lot of time.”

Indeed it is, and this layered architecture has been applied to all of the varying pieces of IFS Applications 9 such as the data models, the design models the business logic and the user interface which could be a potentially massive incentive for those companies looking to opt for a system which is set to grow with them.

 

The other big enhancement that could be a real game-changer for both IFS and ERP providers in general is the inclusion of an embedded CRM. As data becomes more and more important in field service both in terms of capturing it, interpreting it and most importantly removing barriers to accessing that data for those who need it is critical.

With the inclusion of Embedded CRM within IFS Applications 9 essentially users can now have an enterprise application that combines ERP and CRM into a single package so now the barrier of using a CRM as a separate application with it’s own separate database is removed.

However, whilst each of these components of the new release are important, it was undoubtedly the Lobby function that had caused the most excitement with the conversations in the coffee break clearly being centred around this new innovation, with a number of attendees clearly keen to get a hands on experience with it in the later sessions.

Playing with the Big Boys…

I mentioned at the beginning of this feature that this was the year that perhaps IFS have truly emerged as a major global player. And whilst IFS Applications 9 is truly an impressive step forward for the company, it was just element of the announcements revealed at the conference that led me to this conclusion.

Another significant factor is the announcements of a number of key strategic partnerships that signify just how far IFS have progressed in recent years and how important a player they may set to become in the various verticals they operate within.

The event itself saw a number of these partners including the likes of Oracle and Intel showcasing how they are working with IFS in the innovation and networking area.

However, there were two top tier partnerships that really caught the eye. The first of these was a co-operation agreement wit Accenture that was announced the day before the conference, which will see the two companies, strengthen there existing partnership with training and certification of over 100 consultants through the IFS Academy.

With IFS and Accenture jointly pursuing sales and delivery opportunities the core of the agreement will focus on growing IFS’s licence sales together with Accenture’s implementation and application management services. Such an approach could be key in opening up a path to top tier, blue chip organisations for IFS who have traditionally be more focussed on the mid-level sector.

Whilst this five year partnership may well prove significant for IFS, it was the other ‘diamond level’ partnership that was announced that is of likely interest to their customers both past and present.

That partnership was with Microsoft.

As a result of this high level collaboration IFS announced during the conference the global availability of IFS Applications as a fully managed service on Microsoft Azure, which could provide a much more flexible and cost effective way to take advantage of the IFS suite of solutions.

 

Optimised for IFS Applications versions 8 and 9, IFS Managed Cloud is a security-enhanced single-tenant cloud within the world-class Azure environment. Customers can decide how and when changes are made to IFS Applications, specify maintenance and upgrades to suit their business needs.

“Not everybody wants to go about the cloud in the same way” began Dan Matthews, Chief Technology Officer IFS as he made the announcement. “Some of you may see it as a virtual data centre, others may be working with a partner who are moving multiple assets to the cloud. Some of you may want the vendor to take care of everything for you”

It is to those in the last categories that IFS Managed Cloud is aimed at.

“IFS Managed Cloud marks a major milestone in our company’s history as it offers our customers a new set of options for deploying, running, and using our solutions,” Matthews commented in the accompanying press statement to the launch.

“We have designed IFS Managed Cloud to provide flexibility, improved security, and reliability at a level that would be very expensive to achieve in any on-premise installation. Coupled with the layered application architecture of IFS Applications 9 and the ability to utilize Azure’s global network of data centres, we are offering a truly future-proof cloud solution that reduces complexity, risk, and cost.”

So what about Field Service?

Of course whilst understanding the bigger picture is important, for those with field service operations the burning question is what have you improved for my team and me. In fact there were a number of major updates that were announced during the conference that related specifically to their IFS Enterprise Service Management (ESM)suite of products, which comprise of IFS Service Management, IFS Field Service Management and IFS Mobile Workforce Management.

In fact Cindy Jaudon, North American President for IFS went as far as defining IFS ESM as the most “comprehensive suite of service management solutions available.”

So what has been added?

For a start the latest iteration of IFS Field Service Management (version 5.6.2) includes a number of enhancements including running natively on Microsoft Azure which as well as being a robust and proven platform of allows customers to dynamically scale system resources based on actual usage.

There has also been a large focus on added mobility tools with some really nice enhancements including an automatic calculation of ETA using GPS data and the long awaited ability to record videos with the system. However, here it is perhaps the under the hood tweaks that were most impressive with initial tests showing that the new update is delivering 92% decrease in sync times and a 500% increase in maximum file sizes.

 

Notifications have had an overhaul too with the Android version now support the Android notification bar (a key missing feature for many Android users) and alongside the ability to accept or reject a job assignment directly from notifications just makes the user experience that much more streamlined than before. We also see the notifications system having a wearable option for the first time as well with integration with Samsung and other Android watches.

There is also the introduction of what promises to be an excellent automated knowledge management solution, which will make recommendations of which solutions are appropriate for a job as information is being entered by customer service staff or customers.

The system considers user rankings and actual usage. Additionally, solutions include attachments (FAQs, product manuals, etc.), service notes and sync with the mobile devices; efficiently extending knowledge management from call centre to field service.

In both IFS Field Service Management and IFS Mobile Management there is a focus on scheduling and IFS Mobile Workforce now features support for a number of increasingly complex scheduling problems including being able to now even cater for jobs that have different start and finish areas.

Alongside this there is increased support for dispatchers including simplified visualisation of the schedule, and manual, semi automated and dynamic scheduling options.

For management there is then the excellent inclusion of target-based scheduling which gives them the ability to set business-goals and KPIs within the system that automatically impact on the way the scheduling system allocates work whilst at the same time it can consistently monitor actual performance versus business targets such as SLAs and first time fix rates etc.

IFS Mobile Workforce Management also now incorporates an Advanced Resource Planning tool, which supports the manning requirements of more challenging and complex operations such as Oil Rigs, Ships, high-tech machinery and so forth.

Finally IFS Service Management boasts the same love and attention to it’s UI that has been seen across the whole of IFS Applications 9, plus improved remote warehouse capabilities, and again a focus on both scheduling and mobile.

Milestones

As I mentioned in the beginning, the IFS World Conference from the very start had a sense of celebration and pride about it all underscored with a deep lying confidence.

The technology showcased across the three days was undoubtedly impressive and at the forefront of the various industries it is designed for. And as we’ve touched on here through some strong strategic partnerships IFS may well soon find themselves playing in a bigger pond and attracting even bigger fish.

Another announcement made at the conference is that IFS have now got 1 million users on board.

 

It’s a big milestone but one that is all the more impressive if look back at their history and see that it took, 21 years to reach the 500,00 mark. A further 8 years to grow that figure to 750,000 and just a further 2 years to grow there user base by a quarter of a million users to hit the big seven figure milestone.

One thing is sure; IFS’s growth is now gaining some serious traction. They’ve got a product that can deliver and are rubbing shoulders with some very powerful friends.

Now wonder they’re feeling confident. The question is now just how big can they become? How long before we are talking about the next milestone? And just what will that Milestone be?

 

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