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Jonathan Best, vice president of Europe and Africa, Kony Inc outlines the key steps he believes are required for successful mobilisation of a your field team... 

Mobility has proven that it’s not just a passing fad. Mobility offers many opportunities for enterprises to optimise business processes, empower employee productivity, enable real-time collaboration, improve customer experiences, and drive increased revenues.

Initially, most companies were just trying to get one or two apps out in the public app store. Many started with some type of branded consumer app, what are called business-to-consumer (B2C) applications. Businesses used these apps to allow customers to experience and engage with their brand. Often times, these apps were built and launched by the company’s marketing organisation.

Now, with the “consumerisation of IT”, businesses are not only providing mobile experiences for their customers, but also using mobility as a way to empower and enable their employees to be more productive and efficient through business-to-employee (B2E) mobile apps. Particularly those that are out in the field.

Whilst the benefits of mobility are compelling, businesses are faced with the complexity that also comes with mobile not just for IT but also for the line of business that is requesting the field services app. The sheer scale of defining, designing, deploying, and managing mobile projects can seem daunting.

To ensure that your mobile application initiative is successful, enterprises need a clear mobile strategy. Here are five essential requirements to ensure your mobile strategy is on the right track:

1. Streamline Business ProcessesStreamlining operations is the first initiative that enterprises need to address when mobilising the field force. Businesses should be planning to extend the standard back-office process to the field in an automated way, and to ultimately achieve greater operational efficiency.

   The creation of a mobile version of an existing process is a common mistake. Successful mobility is not as simple as delivering an existing system on a smaller screen. It requires thinking in a different way about what is mobilised and how. The key component of operational efficiency is enabling the field to have access to real-time information that will make their job easier and more predictable. If it doesn’t do this in an effective way, you will not see an increase in employee adoption of the app, which means your mobile initiative is doomed to failure.

2. Real-time access to real-time informationField service teams cite cost reduction as a mobile driver, which is a matter of making it easier for the field employee or technician to access to the right information at the right time. By reducing system complexity, the business can combat inefficiency and help the employee get their jobs done faster.

   Many businesses look to mobile technology to increase employee productivity. For field service teams, this means defining current roadblocks and areas for improvement. Raising the productivity of the field force could mean focusing on key performance indexes (KPIs) such as first time fix rates, time on site, and speed to issue resolution. This translates to doing the right job right the first time, by ensuring the right person is assigned and the right information is available and consumable in the way the field worker prefers.

3. SecuritySecurity is an essential piece to any mobile strategy. IT must secure not only the device and application, but also the data itself. Considerations include how the data is integrated from the back office, transformed into meaningful data for the mobile application, sent securely over the network, stored on the mobile device, and managed to the integrity of the business. With these layers come different security methods, including authentication and authorisation of the systems and data to the encryption of the channels and of the data itself. Mobile extends outside the four walls of IT, and must be approached in a holistic way that ensures it can do so safely and without compromise.
4. Understanding users, devices and peripheralsIt’s critical to understand your users. Mobile workers operate differently in the field than back-office workers. Mobile processes are unique, which requires an outside-in mind-set and approach. You must identify the task, understand the process flow, and connect it to the data and systems that store it. This enables you to create a first-class user experience based on the way the field works. It also gives you the flexibility to avoid back office system integration prior to mobilising your field force if necessary.

   Understanding the devices and peripherals that your mobile application must support, and the speed of updates and operating systems upgrades is another challenge. The cost and velocity required to deploy and manage your app for all of those devices comes with development, security, scalability and adoption issues.

5. Consider Two Approaches to MobilityCompanies can take two options to implement mobility. One option is to implement core business mobile apps that contain a significant set of business processes and functionality, like a field service, CRM or asset management application. The other is to leverage micro apps to target and introduce specific business capabilities and returns by delivering better visibility and collaboration between the personas around core business mobile apps.

   The field service team may choose to use a micro app to manage service level agreement (SLA) contracts, introducing a specific application that could track the association of a work order to the SLA. The app could do more than just create a report, instead making it actionable and tying it directly to top-line revenue. These value-adds are key to the app’s success. By doing so, you would improve the operational efficiency of your field service team, and be more proactive with your customers.

   Mobilising your business processes can seem simple. It’s critical to understand your business requirements and align them with a strategy that addresses your specific challenges to ensure that you have the best approach. By carefully considering your strategy and technology, focusing on user experiences and processes, and collaborating between the line of business and IT, you will overcome the roadblocks and build a foundation for mobile success in the field

 

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Red Hat  a leading provider of open source solutions, today announced its vision to help organisations succeed in the mobile-first economy. Customers can take advantage of Red Hat’s experience and leadership in enterprise IT, and its portfolio of enterprise-grade open source technologies – including mobile capabilities from the recent acquisition of FeedHenry – to overcome their mobility challenges.

Mobility is increasingly becoming a top priority for business as a means to drive innovation and streamline operational efficiency; however, it is also creating demand for faster and continuous development cycles that challenge traditional IT infrastructure and development methodologies. To become mobile-centric, enterprises must evolve in a way that supports both the agility of new mobile initiatives and stability of core IT.

In response, Red Hat is focusing its enterprise mobility vision on four areas: platform architecture, developer experience, technology integration, and collaboration in two-track IT environments.

• Platform architecture: The public cloud or private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)-based architecture of the Red Hat mobile platform facilitates agile development and DevOps processes, leverages RESTful APIs and microservices, and accelerates time-to-deployment to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Developer experience: A developer-centric approach that embraces modern toolchains, collaboration, and continuous development and integration allows organisations to use existing IT skill-sets for new mobile initiatives.
• Technology integration: Simplified integration of the platform with other enterprise middleware components, based upon a common REST API architecture, captures and stores new data generated by connected devices to help unlock the value in existing systems of record.
• Collaboration in two-track IT environments: Adopting a two-track IT approach, using mobile as the catalyst for building a “fast IT” organisation, helps balance agility with stability and fosters greater collaboration and cooperation between the two tracks.[/unordered_list]

Since accelerating into the enterprise mobile market with the October 2014 acquisition of FeedHenry, a leading mobile enterprise application platform provider, Red Hat has achieved several notable milestones in its mobile journey, including:

•  Release of platform enhancements for mobile Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and collaboration.
•  Integration of the platform into Red Hat’s award-winning integrated development environment (IDE), JBoss Developer Studio.
• Deployment of FeedHenry technology as a mobile service in OpenShift as part of Red Hat’s xPaaS strategy for cloud-based application development.
• Customers in industries ranging from manufacturing and transportation to workforce management are using Red Hat mobile technologies to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and extend critical enterprise systems to mobile devices.
• Recognition of the FeedHenry platform as the top Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) in a sector analysis by GigaOM Research./unordered_list]

Red Hat plans to expand deployment options for the FeedHenry platform and roll out new integrations with the existing Red Hat middleware product portfolio, giving enterprises greater freedom of choice by extending its industry-leading capabilities across hybrid environments.

Commenting on the announcement Craig Muzilla, senior vice president, Application Platforms Business, Red Hat said “The mobile phenomenon has had a profound impact on the way we think and act and consume information in our daily lives.

 

That impact is now rippling throughout enterprise IT as organisations come face-to-face with the reality of doing business in a new ‘mobile first’ world, where speed and agility must be prioritised without forsaking the stability of core IT. Our vision is to help enterprises evolve in a digital world and provide them with an open and flexible architecture and the technologies that accelerate this transition.”

Chris Marsh, principal analyst, Enterprise Mobile App Strategies, 451 Research also commented stating “51% of organisations recently surveyed are further increasing their mobile budgets this year.

The enabling technologies are falling into place for companies to break out of the way they think about mobile from the silos in which it has traditionally resided, but the process needs to evolve to support this.

Over the past year, it has become clearer that traditional waterfall development across the software lifecycle is ill-suited to mobile, and that agile methods are more applicable."

 

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Trimble has recently announced that it has added new features to its Field Service Management (FSM) solutions to significantly improve workflow visibility and streamline operations for businesses and their mobile workers in the field.

New features have been added to Trimble's Work Management solution, an intelligent scheduling engine and FieldMaster Technician, a downloadable mobile app that enables workers to access and update information in real-time. These solutions work together to enable real-time information sharing between mobile workers and the back office and are part of Trimble Horizon, a new dynamic platform for Trimble's FSM solutions and service. Cloud-based and modular, Trimble Horizon enables organisations to drive an agile, dynamic field service operation.

"Empowering workers in the field with the collaborative tools and immediate information they need to manage their day effectively is a necessity when delivering service out in the field," said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble Field Service Management.

 

"These workers are constantly looking to solutions that provide them with the instant visibility to get to the right place at the right time with the information they need to do their job correctly the first time. The enhancements we are announcing today are integral to creating a more streamlined workflow and enabling a more dynamic workforce."

Work Management - Intelligent Scheduling

The new Work Management 3.1 solution will now support multiple crew assignments and equipment bookings. Several technicians can be assigned to a task for improved efficiency. In addition, a scarce or specific piece of equipment can be booked against a task to help organisations better manage their assets and resources and increase first-time case resolution.

FieldMaster Technician - Mobile App

New features in FieldMaster Technician include the ability for a technician to copy or create a task on site so they can carry out and account for work immediately. Site history can also be accessed and viewed in the app, allowing the technician to arrive with the necessary knowledge of work previously carried out. Details of each crew member assigned to a task and the tools that have been booked can be viewed, enabling the improved visibility of resources. In addition, technicians are now able to upload forms and photos to attach to a task or job.

FieldMaster Technician 1.2 will also send the mobile workers' location from their GPS-enabled smartphone or tablet in real-time. This allows businesses to better understand the progress of their field operations and dispatch work based on a technician's accurate location.

 

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Paul Adams of Solarvista looks at one of the most important, yet often mis-managed areas of field service, inventory management...

Leading edge practitioners have long recognised that effective visible inventory management and stock control are very different from simple inventory reduction. As a result of a sophisticated inventory management system, a world class cost-effective service operation can differentiate itself from the competition, lower costs and drive up customer satisfaction.

There is continued pressure for service to produce the right part in the right place at the right time and to do so at the lowest possible cost to the business. Consequently this effective inventory management has become a fundamental issue in achieving the right level of customer service and paramount to competing effectively in a fiercely competitive market.

 

As the true value of accurate and effective inventory management becomes apparent however, many companies have realised that a totally effective logistics operation is difficult to establish without the proper mechanisms in place.

The right approach.

The traditional tools and skills are struggling in some businesses to meet the service level demands of customers; with the financial imperatives faced by all businesses, more must inevitably be done with less.

One of the most important factors when considering managing your business’s inventory is to know how to achieve equilibrium between having enough inventory and yet not having too much.

Inventory is an expensive part of any business and not just accounting for the purchase cost but all other associated costs such as storage, handling and insurance. Reducing stock also reduces the risk of damage, obsolescence, theft and deterioration, which could potentially become expensive.

By ensuring that the business has a fully competent system that can order appropriate quantities required for specific jobs, it is therefore reducing these costs as well as the risks associated with carrying surplus stock.

Technology, technology…

Operational strategies supported by effective technology solutions, processes and infrastructure will allow the service organisation to deliver cost efficiently, while improving margins and increasing the resilience of the operation to face up to any potential market difficulties. Offering optimum levels of service and providing competitively priced services will position the business to take advantage of upturns in the market. The business should be able to live up to the promises made on its behalf, and deliver cost-effectively increasing customer satisfaction, retention and margins.

Normally the challenge to achieving this type of operating solution is that most service companies are working within an existing infrastructure where they are continually changing “on the run” to keep up with the shifting environment. Using a fully integrated service management solution enables a business to create an infrastructure that is designed to be able to accommodate continual refinement, and able to keep up with the shifting environment, at times even anticipating it to allow positioning ahead of the competition.

 

The improved use of communications should be seen by the business and customers as a positive move to provide better information about customer needs and requirements to both. The target is to minimise the fixed cost element of the operation keeping it variable where possible minimising overheads and creating high flexibility to deliver customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

Through systems integration the business is able to support the customer requirements by understanding customer requirements and providing support across the whole operation.

The ability to out-do competitors and sell cost effective solutions to customers requires differentiators, and these will come from an integrated systems solution enabling the business to have in-depth knowledge of customer requirements provided by top quality staff throughout an effective operation supported by a fully integrated technology solution.

There are a number of inventory management systems, although it is worth conducting some research and being sure to choose a package that is right for your business; the benefits of such a system will far outweigh the costs.

 

“Effective inventory management will give businesses in any industry a distinct competitive advantage over their competitors.” Chris Welsh, Solarvista

 

 

 

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John Cameron, general manager of Trimble Field Service Management looks at how technology can play in a part in the whole field service cycle...

Mobile technology is redefining the workday as field technicians increasingly leverage mobile devices for tasks that previously required time-intensive phone calls and paperwork.

Today this technology is helping to streamline workflow by mitigating daily challenges that used to derail even the best laid plans. In a recent Aberdeen study, 82 per cent of organisations identified mobility as a strategic initiative to gather real-time intelligence for issue resolution. Clearly, this technology offers significant benefits in enhancing end-to-end processes. The following are five ways we see mobility transforming the workday:

1.     Operational Efficiency

Mobile devices and apps connect field workers to back-office personnel, customers and equipment, facilitating a real-time end-to-end flow of information that allows field service personnel to make critical decisions so they can move on to the next task expeditiously. At any one time, an in-day schedule change might require calling a dispatcher or having to drive back to the office to pick up paperwork, but with mobile technology, information is delivered to technicians’ devices, making them more efficient and better able to perform their tasks no matter where they are.

2.     Work-driven Collaboration

By connecting field techs with each other and back-office personnel, mobile technology keeps everyone within the organisation aligned. A truly mobile workforce transcends the limitations of geography. Workers can access information anywhere, anytime, regardless of their location, and in many cases, are more connected than if they were confined to a desk. From the field, they can use mobile devices to request information or assistance from other co-workers already in the field, preventing costly disruptions in their workday caused by trips to the office. The mobile worker can contact teammates in the event of a problem such as needing a part to complete a job. If a nearby co-worker has the part, the technician doesn’t have to waste precious time and fuel driving to a warehouse to retrieve it. It is this enhanced collaboration that leads to increased productivity and, ultimately, a more efficient workday.

3. Streamlined Service

Real-time access to route and schedule information and unplanned schedule updates help field technicians to not only get to their assignments faster but also helps them resolve issues more quickly. Mobile technology provides the technician with easy access to information such as customer and equipment repair histories, invoicing and billing issues, and locations of nearby technicians to request assistance in case of problems or to notify them of jobs at risk. This access solves the immediate issue and reverberates through the workday in the form of enhanced efficiencies, time management and increased service excellence – three of the key challenges facing field service organisations today. 

4. Enhanced Integration

While mobility is extremely valuable to field service organisations, the value increases exponentially when properly integrated with other platforms, including workforce management. Integration facilitates the real-time flow of essential information, automates tasks such as the capture of location and performance data and job-related notifications and allows immediate access to information such as invoices and customer histories. Greater integration leads to greater efficiency, which leads to streamlined operations and that leads to an enhanced bottom line.

5. Tactical Planning

Field mobile devices, in-cab equipment and M2M sensors attached to field machines constantly capture and transmit data to back-office systems, where it can be stored and analysed for optimal decision-making. Whether it’s proactive maintenance to mitigate equipment failure or enhanced routing and scheduling to increase productivity, quantifiable insights delivered by the data can make the difference between running a good operation and an excellent one. Data from the field helps refine operations and identify trends and areas for improvement, which leads to enhanced performance and happier customers.

For more information about the new FSM features, view Trimble’s interactive infographic for empowering the end-to-end field service workflow at: www.trimble.com/FSM/solutions

 

 

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Alan McNamara of Ultan Technologies gives us a run down of some key considerations for implementing mobile workforce technology....

1: Use Existing Phones/Devices

In the not-so-distant past, most on site applications were running on Windows handhelds. These already expensive tablets were usually ruggedised at an even greater expense, along with high maintenance and support costs. As a result, using technology on site was considered to be too expensive for most companies.

Nowadays, a smartphone or tablet will suffice for the vast majority of applications, which can either be provided by the company, or workers can use their own if a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) arrangement is in place.. These relatively cheap devices are easily replaced, and workers are used to using their own devices, meaning it’s an infinitely easier change to manage than it once was, with far less training involved.

2: Integration - Do it Simply

With any workforce management system, a huge project can be put in place to integrate it completely with back end systems. This sometimes misses the point. It’s best to get incremental improvements in productivity with minimal resistance to change and with minimal cost. Large-scale integration costs time and money and can sometimes delay a project to the point where it is shelved. It’s better to accept that some manual steps will still be required as part of the initial operation. Over time, more onerous manual steps can be automated.

3: Phone vs Tablet vs Laptop

This will depend on the type of data you want to collect. If there are huge forms (see next tip) and lots of writing required, then often laptops are easier for the workers. In most cases, though, tablets and phones are better. They are cheaper, lighter and they will force you to make your forms easier to use - thus ensuring a greater chance of success.

4: Small Forms

Many companies will have their workers fill in extensive paper forms when they’re out on site, much of which is unnecessary for a particular scenario or job. When it comes to digitising this form for use on a smartphone or tablet, companies are eager to cram all of the paper version onto the new format, believing that it’s easier to have everything on the one form. As a result, you end up with cumbersome forms that will see low worker buy-in, as it will be easier to use the paper version instead.

The best way around this is to split the form up into several, smaller and more manageable forms, particularly at the beginning. Make them all as simple and easy-to-use as possible. What data do you really need? What data must the worker fill in and what data can be automatically captured?

One of our most successful implementations has been with a company where their first form had one field and space for a photo!

5: Allow for Client Access?

Allowing your clients to access the back-end of your MWM (Mobile Workforce Management) system can result in a number of tangible benefits. Firstly, it helps portray the idea that yours is a company that is completely transparent with their clients, by giving them the opportunity to use a custom login to access reports of work done on their sites.

Secondly, having the functionality to allow your clients to see evidence of the work being carried out for them in real-time can be used as a USP when vying for new business. In our experience, clients don’t actually use this feature very regularly, but are content in the knowledge that it’s there if required.

 6: Report Generation

Deriving quality reports from the system is a top priority for many of our clients. For the most part, this involves being able to customise reports to suit them, rather than tailoring the information they collect to fit a pre-defined template. We find that companies are far more likely to adopt a system that allows them to create a customised form for their workers, which in turn results in a customised report to fit the company’s needs.

7: Photos/Videos/Voice?

Will your MWM system require media such as photos, video recordings, and voice memos? For most mobile workforces, photographs are essential to show evidence of work done, but the other two are perhaps not as prevalent. We’ve found that video and voice capturing work well in tandem for reporting on any unforeseen incidents or accidents that occur on site. They can give a much clearer picture as to what the problem is on site, allowing for Site and Health and Safety Managers to act accordingly, and minimise work stoppages.

8: Asset Management

Some MWM systems have the functionality to track assets from the warehouse right through to installation. If this added functionality is something that could benefit your business, it’s worth enquiring as to whether or not this is provided by any systems you are evaluating.

One of our clients in the UK track roadside broadband devices from the moment they leave the warehouse, right through to when they are installed. This allows them to assign responsibility to a specific worker for this expensive equipment, as well as providing them with the ability to monitor battery life and warranties on each piece of equipment after it’s installed.

9: Native App vs Online

One of the final considerations to take into account is opting for a system that is app or web-based. Whilst this may seem like a trivial enough decision, there are many important differences to take into account when choosing a system. For example, native apps can run offline, allowing for your workers to gather data even when they’re out of network coverage. This is obviously imperative for companies whose employees predominantly work on sites with poor network coverage. Additionally, native apps usually have a more intuitive and better-designed UI (user interface), as they are designed specifically for the device that it is downloaded on.

On the flip side, browser-based systems will work on any system that can connect to the internet, which can be handy for companies using a BYOD approach - as workers will invariably have an array of devices they will be using.

 10: Licence Model

Choosing the right licence model for your business is key to successfully implementing a MWM system from the off. For a lot of smaller businesses, a per-user per-month licence will be the most attractive versus a yearly or “once off” licence.

A per-user per-month licence negates the impact of making a large payment up front, only for the system to prove unsuccessful once trialled. It also means the system can be easily scaled as you see fit,  allowing you to start off with a small number of users to trial the system, and then add more licences as you see fit.

 

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Speaking exclusively to Field Service News ServiceMax COO Scott Berg has discussed the similarities between widely differing industries, the rapid rise of ServiceMax and why the IoT hasn't quite got fully up to speed as yet which we featured in the first part of this interview.

In the second part we saw just why Berg believes the field service software specialists are in pole position to deliver the much promised benefits of Big Data to field service and why their relationship with Salesforce has evolved to a more equal footing.

However, whilst not afraid to identify the strong position ServiceMax have established, of which he is clearly proud. He also goes to great pains not to diminish the respect and thanks he has for Salesforce.

“I can’t say enough about what an enabler it was.” He adds quickly “ For a company like us, and I’ve been there six years, we should be nowhere by now. We should have just blown the first three years just trying to get this thing running and begging to get those first twelve customers.” He says only half joking.

“Here we are getting a hundred and something customers a year. And 40 a quarter so I think it has been a really unique experience because of that.”

Of course whilst things have panned out rather nicely for Berg and the ServiceMax team, with such a close alliance there was always the danger that unless if they didn’t evolve their own IP as swiftly as they have that their rapid rise to prominence could have been stunted, with the company being dismissed as simply an add on for Salesforce.

Was this part of their thinking when they took such an aggressive development path, was it always a case of needing to establish their own clear identity within a specific timeframe?

“I don’t know that we thought about it deliberately that way but I think its sort of ended up that way in hindsight.” Explains Berg

“I think honestly what we were responding to was the demand of the market. Our focus, our mission has really been about that field service engineer, that end user, the guy in the van or on the end of that ladder so that drove us to do some things that Salesforce wouldn’t do like offline data synchronisation, and the kind of configurable process that you could run across a variety of devices and schedule optimisation. Mathematical optimisation is not really a feature of the Salesforce website so I think its really user driven demand”

He pauses a moment before continuing “But then you can look back on it and say wow we built all that stuff because we really needed to. It just so happens that is fairly independent intellectual property value specific to our market.”

This focus on the engineer brings us onto another topical and somewhat controversial topic, namely wearable computing.

“We’ve been working for several months now on a Google Glass prototype, and showed it around a couple of our smaller user groups.” Berg begins when I ask him if the advent of Saleforce Wear has spurred ServiceMax into developing  solutions for wearable devices.

“A lot of customers of ours are in safety conscious environments. Where there are lots of checklists, where the engineers are working in real hands-free, high risk environments. We’ve been looking at Google Glass as a compliment to mobile phone apps, where you can get into a hands free series of procedures, or check off certain standards, action the completion of certain tasks that is required for maintenance in regulated environments and things like that.” He adds.

But is there an interest amongst their client base for wearables at all?

 “We’ve had a few projects around this and we’ve run it by a few customers.” Berg starts. “There is definitely a cool factor. Even looking at the various mobile devices its been kind of eye opening for us to identify what are each customer going to use these devices for? Let’s take Google Glass as an example, battery life is not outstanding, and many of the visual cues still involve tapping your temple to get it to do some things. So whilst the promise of a hands free, see what I see, remote eyes and ears kind of thing is out there, you’ve still got to think of the practical reality of how is somebody going to use this on a job site.”

“It’s been an educational process for us more than anything. How do these gadgets interplay with each other, in a course of a day?”

This of course has been one of the big challenges for the widespread adoption of wearables. Whilst the hyperbole that has surrounded such devices, particularly Glass has focussed on the devices as a replacement mobility tool, this is not how Berg sees it.

“I think it’s definitely a complimentary device, that’s the way that we see it. I don’t know if its going to be right for everybody any more than I could tell you everyone should use an android phone or everyone should use a tablet.”

For ServiceMax it seems that the emergence of wearables just means further ongoing developments for yet more platforms, which is just par for the course.

“I think one of the things we’ve embraced smartly is we’re not going to be able to dictate to every customer how they want to operate, so we’ve got a windows laptop version that works disconnected.” Berg explains

“This is a big deal in medical regulatory environments because they plug in peripherals and download diagnostics and reprogram cancer surgery equipment and things like that.”

“However, Coca-Cola said ‘look I want to take calls and log my work pretty simple work process – iPhone only.” He continues.

“I’ve got other customers that are deploying a number of devices. They’ve got laptops, they’ve got online web-presence and then they’ve deployed our iPad solutions as well. So I think they [wearables] are just another compliment and we need to be ready to make our experience happen across all of those because we won’t be able to dictate to people ‘oh yeah we’re the Google Glass guys and you have to do it this.”

For the time being I don’t think Berg and the team at ServiceMax need to worry about that. Infact I don’t think they need to be worried about being pigeon holed as anything other than ‘Oh yeah ServiceMax, they’re the guys that everyone seems to be talking about’. 

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Enterprise collaboration tool Intellinote recently announced its new Field Service Management Solution, developed to help field service companies lower costs, increase revenues and provide a significantly enhanced customer experience.

Delivered as a user-friendly cloud-based tool, Intellinote for Field Service Management lets users capture, document and collaborate around service requests and other fieldwork using iPads, iPhones and desktops. Built for the field & the office, Intellinote for Field Service Management is easy to deploy and no IT is required.

The solution provides customers with the ability to:

• Document fieldwork with fillable PDF forms, notes, pictures and geo-tagging.
• Share, in real-time, details of completed fieldwork with key stakeholders including customers, supervisors and accounting departments.
• Provide field workers with real-time access to Policies, Service Catalogs, Form Libraries and Training/Reference Materials
• Integrate with Billing Systems, Work Order Databases and other in-house developed/3^rd party applications
• Work in both offline and online modes[/unordered_list]

“The old way of managing field work required a chain of events that wasted time and money as each service request, work order or job went through many manual and often error-prone touch points,” explained Intellinote CEO, Tony Lopresti. “As the field service management space continues to demand cloud-based solutions, we’re excited to provide companies with a solution that helps them collaborate better between field and non-field employees, and ultimately deliver a superior customer experience. Intellinote for Field Service Management is a powerful, competitive differentiator with clear advantages for users.”

Intellinote for Field Service Management eliminates the many inefficiencies that have plagued services companies: paper forms, incomplete task information, lack of clarity, lack of visibility into the real-time status of a service request and manual handoffs between field workers, supervisors and customers.

 

With Intellinote for Field Service Management, the entire process is greatly simplified. Customers realize ROI from handling more work orders every day, eliminating form errors, avoiding the 2nd or repeat service call, avoiding overtime pay, reducing customer disputes and by arming field workers with service catalogs and other tools on their mobile devices to upsell customers. For a mid-sized company, these could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings and additional revenue every year.

“We choose Intellinote to help us do three things. One: Help our field workforce document each job - from initial requirements to installation. Two: Help management monitor progress and collaborate in real-time with our on-site team. Three: Keep our customers informed on the status and progress of their jobs," said Chris Newsome of A Place For Everything Closets. "Intellinote is delivering on these fronts. Our team is more productive and we are able to serve our large and growing customer base better with it," Newsome added.

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As self-service technology experiences rapid growth in industries such as retail and financial services, research reveals that the field service industry have been somewhat slower to adopt writes Paul White of mplsystems. 

Given that the role of the consumer has largely changed over recent years due to the consumerisation of technology, customers are now expecting to be able to have more visibility and control when it comes to interacting with a business.

Within the field service industry there is a growing focus on improving communication between the service desk and field engineer teams.

However, businesses are slowly realising that technology can also be used to improve communications with clients, offering a low effort experience that not only increases visibility and loyalty but generates cost savings.

Research carried out by mplsystems and Field Service News reveals that the number of organisations implementing self-service technology for their customers is slowly growing, with 40% of organisations offering some element of self-service technology to their customers.

However, it is clear that although there is a trend for self-service arising in the industry, many online portals and self-service technologies are still very limited in functionality with only 6.7% of respondents providing their clients with total self-service functionality.

It is clear that customer self-service technology is starting to make an impact in the field service industry, however the functionality of these solutions are still quite restricted and often do not provide the customer with the control they require.

Businesses need to make sure, when implementing self-service technology that they are integrated with other key business systems. This will provide the customer with all the tools they need to be able to action, amend and view their service requests, profile and billing.”

Therefore the key to successfully implementing customer self-service portals it to ensure they integrate with existing systems such as ERP, scheduling and engineers mobile technology. Without this integration, customers are unable to access the information they need and often continue to use the service desk to perform updates, changes and requests.

The portal needs to be able to provide the customer with the same level of service as the over the telephone, otherwise, as recent research by Software Advice concludes, introducing an online portal can do more damage than benefit if implemented incorrectly.

It is suggested that, despite the current popularity of online self-service portals, mobile app technology will rapidly become one of the most popular self-service solutions in the industry.

Research suggests that over 50% of smartphone users chose apps over phoning a contact centre and this will continue to rise as the influence of generation Y and the proliferation and innovation of mobile devices continues. However, only 5% of organisations currently offer their customers mobile apps as a communication channel into the service desk.

Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight and Futures at BT Technology, comments “It is predicted that by 2020 web chat and messaging via mobile devices will account for 40% of customer interaction with the service centre, whilst channels such as phone and email drop to 38% and 4%. Businesses need to prepare themselves for this channel transition by equipping themselves with the right technology.”

It is clear that the value of mobile app technology can be significantly increased when messaging capability is included. As traditional browser based web chat extends to messaging on mobile devices, it becomes possible to bring field engineers, the service desk and customers together in a virtual world, despite location or device.

When clients are speaking to a service desk agent and need further assistance, the agent can quickly open up a 3-way chat session with the appropriate expert or field service engineer from any location. Often client issues can be resolved in this way without the field service professional actually needing to visit the client site, proving cost effective and efficient for both the business and the customer.

After an award winning construction & property maintenance company implemented an integrated customer online portal, they experienced 100% business growth by being able to take on more business without having to increase resource and by providing differentiation when tendering for new business contracts.

The online portal now manages 75% of the businesses reactive job requests, significantly reducing the workload on the service desk whilst providing instant access for customers to report problems.

It is clear that the field service industry can gain many benefits from introducing self-service technology and with research suggesting that customers will continue to demand more control and visibility, implementing this solution is becoming essential to remain competitive.

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To find out more about customer self-service in the industry download mplsystems white paper: “Meeting customer demand: Evaluation of the top 3 customer self-service technologies for field service.”

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