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Marne Martin, CEO of award winning software provider ServicePower takes a look at what the Field Service should look like in the not so distant future...

Today, field service organisations face increasing competition, changing customer dynamics, reduced margins and are increasingly challenged to achieve corporate metrics. Each must look toward technology that will improve its competitive edge and increase productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Intelligent, integrated scheduling, mobile and business intelligence technologies must be deployed to:

• Intelligently schedule the best labour resource, whether that’s an employee in a company truck or a 3rd party contractor, to meet customer requirements
• Optimise employee schedules to achieve the greatest levels of productivity, efficiency and SLA compliance
• Fully mobilise onsite processes, ensuring the job is completed, to the customer’s satisfaction, in a single truck roll, driving down schedule costs and repeat trips
• Continuously analyse and fine tune the overall operation through real time, data driven decision making

All in a fully mobile way. Consumers, used to instant access to the web, expect field services to be provided now. They expect technicians to be provisioned with the necessary tools and technology to show up on time, access the parts and other resources needed.

Intelligent Scheduling

Only software solutions provide field service organization with the technology required to schedule field based resources to meet not only customer commitments but do so in such a way as to reduce its overcall costs through optimisation and intelligent deployment of both employed and third party labour.

Demand fluctuation caused by seasonality,for instance, creates unnecessary cost and dissatisfied customers if response time are extended. Additionally, parts, extra labor or helpers, and jobs which require compliance to strict SLAs can’t be efficiently scheduled without an intelligent scheduling application.

This is where intelligent software solutions are invaluable as they consider data and existing schedules to make the best scheduling decisions for the company.

Optimisation

Real time, or intra-day, optimisation is crucial to the achievement of the highest productivity and efficiency.

Manual scheduling, which relies on human capability and emotion, entails a user building and managing a schedule. It is labour intensive and rarely considers travel and cannot be automated to adapt to change or exception management. Manual scheduling just can’t scale for future growth.

 

Rules based scheduling automatically builds a schedule based on simple computer logic, filling an open schedule slot. However it does not continuously move previously scheduled jobs to ensure the least costly total schedule looking also at technician skills, parts availability or travel. Intelligent Scheduling, based on artificial intelligence, delivers true optimisation. In this scenario, schedules are created and continuously and automatically changed to achieve cost, margin, cycle time and customer satisfaction metrics. Priorities can also be dynamically adjusted to changing business needs or KPI goals using also real time mobile status reporting, GPS and other parts and job information.

Only solutions that offer true optimised scheduling including intelligent routing provide field service organisations with the technology to achieve its goals while improving satisfaction, building brand loyalty and positive social networks.

Real time, Data Driving Decision Making

Field service does not exist in a box where the environment never changes. Each operation must continuously collect data, from all parts of its service ecosystem, analyse that data, and use the data to fine tune operations. Field service is a continuously evolving entity that must adapt in order to compete and exceed customer expectations.

The Future is here. Right now. New technological innovations, such as connected machines, are driving further innovation within the within the field service industry.

For instance, sensor information (M2M data) from connected devices, like security systems, building systems and vending achines, can be used to initiate repairs based on a detected failure.

 

However, that same M2M data, as well as other information, such as manufacturing data, can be used to model and predict  equipment failure, enabling the field service organisation to predict the failure of an elevator or power generator, and send a technician to maintain it, before it breaks, minimising customer down time. New technologies are enabling an evolution from the

traditional break/fix repair model, to a proactive, preventative maintenance model, which reduces costs for the field service organisation through higher first time fix rates, and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty due to decreased down time.

ServicePower, named Visionary in the Gartner 2014 Magic Quadrant for Field Service and recipient of the 2014 M2M Evolution IoT Excellence Award provide connected mobile field services solutions that bring together all aspects of the field service value chain, including the customer and the dispatch center, technician, claims and warranty processes, parts, the contracted workforce, assets, mobility, business intelligence, and social collaboration.

Through continuous innovative, like M2M Connected Service, industry acknowledged optimisation technology and cutting edge mobility, our software accelerates business efficiency gains and customer satisfaction while reducing costs, on one underlying and consistent platform. We offer field service experts that have managed businesses and field teams understanding customer’s needs and pain points.

Don’t let your field service organisation be stuck in yesterday. Implement technology to meet your cost, margin, cycle time and customer satisfaction metrics today, and future proof your operation through deployment of the latest, continuously improved field service management technologies.

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Upgrading a service management system can be a challenge, but unifying and upgrading multiple systems across a continent? Here’s how Pitney Bowes approached the task…

Service management software has evolved and the benefits of moving to a modern next generation system are well documented. But what are the considerations that need to be factored in when changing systems? And what about companies that have evolved multiple systems across various regions?

One company who recently went through this process was Global Franking Machine giant Pitney Bowes as they sought to both standardise and upgrade their systems across the whole of Europe.

"We started with different service systems across Europe that had become built up across the years which that didn’t talk to each other” Andy Beer, Director of Service & Postal Market Development explained at a recent Service Community event.

Of course this is an issue for any organisation that operates across multiple divisions, with differing centres of operations. And whilst it may not be impossible, it certainly makes it harder to identify company wide trends, swiftly enough to act on them with any great effect.

“We had six or seven different systems that we had built up across Europe and in fact in the Nordics we were still using a paper based model similar to when I started with Pitney Bowes in the 80’s” continued Beer before describing the Nordic system “whereby our engineers would come into the office in the morning, go to a big rolodex and pull out their cards for the day, come back and write it all up.”

With such disparity it was clear for Pitney Bowes the direction they needed to take.

“Our number one goal was to give us one platform across Europe so we could then report on our key performance metrics, whatever that may be and do it on an international level.” Beer explained

“We looked at our existing systems and to upgrade us from the platform we were on and to add in other companies we needed, would have required and investment in a little over a million dollars, so it wasn’t a decision that we were going to take lightly.  We weren’t going to just say give us the upgrade, give us version 2. We wanted something more for that.”

Quite rightly so as at level of cost whilst the right solution could lead to significant added insight into the operation of the company and ultimately large potential savings, get it wrong and it would be a costly mistake. As it turned out even this level of investment would have failed to deliver the requirements that Pitney Bowes had identified as key to their needs.

As Beer explained further “even with that investment we still wouldn’t have a web front end, which we were looking for, and we would still be beholden on either the suppliers of that system or our own internal IT department to help us write reports.”

“We felt we were looking in our rear view mirror an awful lot and it wasn’t just what was immediately behind us that we were looking for, it was sometimes looking months behind us before we could actually start to get reasonable reporting, so we definitely needed to change”

With field service experts from all quarters exalting the importance of data this was another area that Pitney Bowes were acutely aware that their current system wasn’t empowering them as much as it should be.

“Data is important but when you have tons of it and you can’t sift through it, when you can’t find an easy way to get meaning from the data, then you’re just hamstrung by it.” Beer outlined before adding further

“When I say about looking in the rear view mirror, visibility of particular production or productivity metrics were very low and it was then very difficult to manage either individual engineers, based on their metrics, or build that up into a team of engineers, or into a country, let alone build that up across a European view.”

“The pain we went through to change reports, even just to tweak things slightly” Beer recalls before pausing a moment with a wry smile.  “ When your running the operation, you want to be able to see everything at a whim, you don’t want to have to be beholden to an IT group or a vendor to be able to give you something you think you might need. “

This is perhaps the fundamental difference between, the last generation of service management software and current systems. In this data driven age non-technical people are used to accessing highly customised reports with ease, and often depend on this ability to do their job.

As Beer points out “The thing is, as operational people we think we need to see an awful lot of stuff but then may stop and look at it and think ‘Do I really need that after all?’ but we need to see it first to make that call.”

Other considerations that were key for Pitney Bowes were that their new solution had to be able to integrate with Salesforce, as this was their chosen CRM and also that it to be Cloud based.

Outlining their thought process Beer added “Our existing systems wasn’t cloud based and we absolutely knew that our prime need was to move to the cloud, we didn’t want to have the hassle of owning the system, we wanted instant upgrades where available and instant fixes where available. “

“Essentially we wanted to future proof our investment.”

With the plethora of service management solutions on the market selecting finding a solution to meet their needs was always going to be possible, although dependent on a robust evaluation process. However, selecting a solution to meet these needs was one thing, implementing a solution across such a complex mix of territories another.

The approach required needed to involve all of the key stakeholders.

“We knew we were beholden to IT in our previous systems, we didn’t want to be in that position now but we also knew that they couldn’t not be involved.” Beer explains

“So we had two phases of the project, the first one was business and operations led. We picked a team of people from across Europe that came together and then spent five or six months getting really deep into what we had and what we thought we needed moving forward, and putting together a plan to get to from one to the other. Once we had that we engaged with IT”

“We wanted to the establish how we could integrate what we had into other systems, interfacing with the vendor and outlining what we saw as our business and operational requirements and then asked how readily available those were.

“We took this approach knowing that the more you fiddle around the edges of what your vendor can offer you the harder it comes to manage going forward”

Beer further expands on the practical and pragmatic approach by adding

“Nirvana is to take something off the shelf in PC World, type your code in and bang the following morning you’ve got a system, real life is not quite as beautiful as that, we know that, but the more you can avoid trying to tweak the edges of a vendors system and what it does to try and make it fit with your processes the better.”

It is through taking such a measured approach of understanding not only needs and goals but also limitations, and building the flexibility to overcome any limitations through adapting processes, that Pitney Bowes have been achieve the massive challenge of unifying disparate systems across a continent, and it is an approach worth considering for any company considering upgrading their existing system.

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ServiceMax have been one of the undoubted success stories in field service software of recent years. Kris Oldland, Field Service News Editor spoke to Their COO Scott Berg to find out about the journey they have been on and what happens next....

It was a cold early morning in Paris towards the tail end of last year when I met with Scott Berg. For me having flown in late the night before the famous Parisian coffee brought the welcome caffeine boost required to focus my sleep deprived brain.

However, when Berg entered the room, looking fresh in a crisp suit and bounding with a relaxed and jovial energy, it was clear that for him no such shot of espresso was required. Despite what had been a pretty hectic schedule he was clearly the type of guy that gets up raring to go every morning. And why shouldn’t he be, as COO of ServiceMax he was clearly in a good place.

It seems that almost every other company I speak to at the minute has recently moved to their field service management platform. If that sounds like an exaggeration here’s some interesting statistics to consider.

 

They have just finished their sixth year with a 100% year on year growth so and added 125 customers to their roster within the last twelve months. They operate in a highly competitive market and as far a I am aware at least, nobody is making that kind of progress and taking that kind of volume.

As Berg himself acknowledges “We’ve won more business in the last year than some of our competitors have done in the last 15.”

And these customers come in all shapes and sizes, from all verticals across every corner of the globe.

“The really fun thing for us is to see the variety of companies that we are working with.” Berg begins in an enthusiastic manner “We recently ran a Chief Service Officers summit, the first event that we had ever tried like that and there were 6 Global Heads of Service with the likes of Coca-Cola and Becton Dickinson and so on there. So on one hand we were working with these massive companies and then on the other hand there are companies like Service2 which is a husband and wife owned company that have gone from having five technicians to 10 since they employed ServiceMax -  so it’s a kinda cool thrill a minute kind of energy in the market right now” he adds.

This has always been one of the fascinating things about field service, there are so many parallel challenges across disparate industries and this is something Berg elaborates on further as we talk.

 

“That was completely the case yesterday, there was the Head of Professional Services for the Sony group, the man in charge of service for everything except their consumer brands.  So movie theatre camera systems and BBC News and all of the big news network type of things “ he explains “and he had the same talent acquisition issues as everybody else, he had the same political challenges internally of getting a seat at the boardroom table to enable him to pursue some initiatives, even though he was the only growing part of the business.

“All day it was the same story and it didn’t matter whether you were curing cancer or showing the latest movie at the cinema, it was basically the same sets of conversations we were having with people.”

And it is easy to imagine Berg being able to hold such conversations with these Global Heads of Service or equally with an owner of a small SME such as Service2 who are just taking the first steps in growing their business. He comes across as an approachable and enthusiastic but there is also an earnestness about him as well.

However, it’s easy enough to talk about all the good things ServiceMax have achieved but what about the things that they haven’t. Is there anywhere that Berg felt remained a work in progress for what is lets not forget still a relatively young organisation in it’s market segment.

“I think we’ve done a phenomenal job when it comes to capitalising on the mobility space” he begins “We’ve developed our Android platform and we’ve revamped our iOS solution which has been positive. It’s been somewhat of a surprise in how ready and willing the market is to take on these high-end portable devices. “

 

“One of the things that still perplexes me though is how slow the uptake on Internet of Things, and machine to machine communication." he continues.

“It’s funny, I use solar panels on my house and from my phone I can tell you if they’re working and then through my Nest thermostat I can turn the heating up and down from my phone also. Yet here are these massive, powerful, hi-tech intellectual property companies and they can’t figure out how to get an Ethernet connector jack plug into their devices?” he adds with a laugh.

The thing is he has a point. Widespread adoption of IoT in field service is behind where it should be based on the technology available. And to be fair to ServiceMax for those clients that are set to take advantage of M2M connectivity they are pretty much ready to go .

 

“We are very eager to jump on this [IoT]” he comments “We do have some customers like Elekta who have a full offering which we call IntelMax for machine to machine connectivity and Johnson Controls made huge investments in the area but it still strikes me how hard its been for industry. I have a little hundred dollar consumer device on the wall of my home that can do it and yet industry can’t?”

So is the ServiceMax product all set to go for Internet of Things?” I ask “Is it just a case of waiting for the market to catch up?”

“I think it is” Berg replies ‘”There are certainly relationships we are trying to build. We’re in discussions with people like Cisco and others to try and bridge that last mile of connectivity and we’ve explored some of the Apple iBeacon technology sensing people, locations and the physicality with the device.”

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Today, the ultimate goal of field service excellence is to respond quickly to customer needs, whatever they may be and it takes four criteria to meet this goal: Be on time, allow enough time to do the job, have the right skills and bring the right equipment. Trimble Field Service Management's General Manager John Cameron explains more...

For the mobile technician, an increased importance has been put on their role to the overall success of the organisation, as they are quite often the only interaction a customer will have with the business. This has led to the search for new ways to empower technicians and equip them with the right tools that allow them to excel at their jobs, through improved communication, collaboration, data sharing and integration.

 

Recent research from Aberdeen Group[1] found that 82 per cent of field service organisations identified mobility as a strategic initiative for the service operation in the next 12 months, as a tool to empower the field with real-time intelligence to make decisions and resolve issues to better serve the customer. Companies that understand how to strategically leverage mobility solutions stand to drive efficiencies, improve customer service and benefit from a more profitable bottom line.

 

With field-based work becoming increasingly complex and time-sensitive, more and more businesses are beginning to focus on the proliferation of mobile solutions, integrated with back-end field service solutions, to help manage field operations and provide the mobile workforce with the real-time knowledge needed to make better, more intelligent decisions while in the field.

The Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) has huge potential for the field service industry. It enables devices that are equipped with sensors, hardware and software to be networked together through the internet, where they can communicate with one another and send and receive data. Machine-to-machine (M2M) technology is already helping field service companies to find out about issues before they occur through this development but the IoT is said to go beyond M2M and represents the ‘next generation’ for field service, connecting not just with machines but with systems, people and other things.

For example, IoT allows field service companies to gain greater insight into the status and health of their assets remotely, enabling a smarter approach to proactive and preventive maintenance. Sensors can be integrated into their devices in the field which can yield a huge amount of data on diagnostics, measurements, temperature and overall conditions, all of which is instrumental in preventing equipment failure, scheduling maintenance and improving safety. The same principle applies for condition-based maintenance. Businesses will be able to become better at it as they will have access to more and better information in the first place.

Mobile apps

There are a number of different approaches a business can take in order to create a mobile application strategy, one of the most common being to develop them internally with mobile app development tools. At its core, mobile applications provide technicians with the ability to share, store and view job data while out in the field, offering them a virtual link to the back office that helps to inform and empower them.

 

Having full visibility of a field operation is a key success factor and mobile applications that can offer visibility into the status, location and performance of field assets (technicians, parts, equipment etc) help technicians considerably in getting to the right place at the right time with the information they need to do their job correctly the first time. A number of mobile applications on the market today also provide added value to the field worker by enabling them to easily locate and contact nearby co-workers if they need assistance on a job or require advice on solving a problem. By having the tools to work more collaboratively, resolution is more likely to be reached first-time, helping to increase worker productivity and effectiveness.

 

The plethora of information offered through mobile applications can include previous work history of jobs and upcoming work details. For example, if a technician is en-route to a customer, a quick look at service history on a mobile phone can inform them that the customer has complained multiple times to the helpdesk about a product/equipment failure. This is vital information that can help the technician approach the customer with more care, helping to maintain a good customer service. Furthermore, when a technician reviews and accepts a job within a mobile application, the mobile devices’ navigation tool can help them find the most efficient route. Helping to reduce fuel consumption and travel time. From a service perspective, the technician can then pull up the customer’s details and call them to confirm when they will be arriving on-site.

Mobility solutions: What to choose?

There are a multitude of mobile devices on the market today that help technicians get to the right place on time, fix the customer’s problem the first time, and move on to the next task. The problem field service organisations face is choosing the right technology for their field based workers.

Ruggedised devices continue to evolve as mobile technology improves and have proven successful in helping field workers to complete their daily tasks. Such devices can be used in the harshest of environments and enable scanning packages, diagnostics, checking customer records, invoicing and delivery confirmation, among other tasks.

As the lines between consumer and business technology continue to merge, non-rugged tablets and smartphones have also broken into the field service marketplace. Tablets tend to be larger than smartphones and therefore engineers may find it easier to view and input job details. At the same time, smartphones offer the portability factor.

The ‘Bring Your Own Device’ debate has received much coverage in the service sector and has arguably been dubbed as being the only way forward for businesses looking to compete effectively and offer the most efficient customer service and increased employee satisfaction.

 

Simply, ‘Bring Your Own Device’ refers to employees having the ability to connect their own technical devices, such as smartphones, laptops and tablets, to their company’s network instead of using a device owned by the company. Uptake of BYOD had been relatively slow in the field service industry but recent years have seen an influx of workers bringing their own personal devices into their work environment to use in their everyday jobs and the advantages, both to the organisation and the employee, are significant.

 

For the field service organisation, it creates new opportunities for the business by increasing the number of tech-savvy and mobile-application users in the workforce. For the employee, they have taken a personal choice to use the technology and are familiar with it. This in turn will lead to increased satisfaction and productivity whilst eliminating the need for technical support and training costs for the business.

Mobility solutions: Capturing the insight

When a field service organisation deploys a mobile strategy, the wealth of data captured around technician performance, customer data, vehicle location, work order status etc. is not enough to make intelligent business decisions. It is how that data is analysed and turned into usable information that is what will really make a difference. For this reason, data captured through mobile devices must be tied into other systems within the organisation’s technology infrastructure, if not it will get lost. Indeed, Aberdeen Group found the top strategic action for 62 per cent of best-in-class field service organisations to be to improve data integration between the field and back office systems[2].

Aberdeen Group’s research also found that best-in-class field service organisations are 49 per cent more likely than peers to integrate data from mobile devices with back-end systems, such as ERP and CRM[3]. This integration will then allow other departments, such as sales, marketing and engineering to benefit from the field insights captured and maximise its value.

 

For example, customer and equipment data has the ability to spark insights into new products, services and campaigns, which benefit the organisation in revenue opportunities. This interaction also helps customers get access to products and services that will help improve their productivity and business goals. Service is ultimately a partnership between the customer and the organisation and without the use of captured data, the opportunity to evolve will be lost.

 

Ultimately, having a mobility strategy in place allows for better empowerment, data sharing and collaboration out in the field. For the field worker, they are provided with the best possible support and are able, themselves, to make use of the real-time information and knowledge to make the right decisions while on the move. As a result, they are better positioned to resolve issues first-time and deliver the best service they can.

For more information on how to drive an agile, dynamic field service operation through the adoption of mobile solutions, download Aberdeen Group Senior Research Analyst Aly Pinder’s recent report, Empowering the Mobile Worker with Real-Time Insight and Data Integration, here.  The report provides insight into how top performers provide technicians with the right information in the field, integrate data captured in the field with back office systems (via mobile apps) and excel at delivering resolution and not just a response.

[1] Aberdeen Group, Empowering the mobile worker with real-time insight and data integration, 2014

[2] Aberdeen Group: Service Mobility: The right technology for the tech, 2014

[3] Aberdeen Group: Service Mobility: The right technology for the tech, 2014

Red Hat a leading provider of open source solutions, early this week announced an update to its newly acquiredFeedHenry 3 mobile application platform.

The update, featuring a new Teams and Collaboration enhancement, is an expansion to one of the industry’s leading mobile application platforms for enterprise development. The FeedHenry 3 mobile application platform brings something new to the market with its integrated collaboration and access control features that support distributed development teams working in unison across multiple application projects.

The FeedHenry 3 Teams and Collaboration enhancement includes:

• Global collaboration on mobile application projects: Multiple distributed development teams, both in-house and outsourced, can work simultaneously in FeedHenry 3 on mobile application projects, which consist of a variety of client applications, cloud applications, and services, each with their own individual Git repositories. Developers work individually but with access to relevant project-related components, increasing agility at individual stages in the application development lifecycle.
• Role-based collaboration across the application lifecycle: Multiple skills and teams, from application design, front-end coding, back-end services development, analytics, administration, and more, can work concurrently across multiple application projects bringing applications to market faster and more efficiently without impacting individual developer agility and productivity.
• Access controls for mobile projects: Configuration of fine-grained controls at individual levels of each mobile project enables ease and security of access to key project components. This helps lock functionality at different levels within the platform. For example, by setting authorised access controls, sensitive back-end systems credentials can be insulated from third-party or other developer roles, providing greater security and compliance. This fine-grained access control also encourages an API-driven and micro-services development and discovery approach, enabling ease of discovery and reuse of core components and services.
• Company-wide visibility across mobile projects: Centralizing collaboration and control across multiple skills in multiple mobile projects, across various stages of their lifecycle, enables visibility of all company-wide mobile projects. This promotes a mobile-first approach to enterprise mobility, supporting innovation and reuse.

Commenting on the release Cathal McGloin, vice president, Mobile Platforms, Red Hat stated “Enterprise mobility has matured beyond a single application, silo approach, toward a team-based, business-centric model, where multiple applications, at various stages of the application development lifecycle, are managed by different teams. Organisations are looking to improve their agility and responsiveness on mobility projects while at the same time having distributed teams and centralised policy management. Teams and Collaboration, as an integrated feature across the FeedHenry 3 platform, addresses this need, enabling a granularity of access control across different development resources, whether in-house or third-party, that promotes agility and reuse of core components.”

Chris Marsh, principal analyst, 451 Research added “With 40 percent of large enterprises planning to increase their application development outsourcing, collaboration across enterprise IT, lines of business and any external partners that may be involved is crucial. As the complexity of juggling multiple application projects and the pressure of faster development cycles increase, enterprises will look to platform vendors to offer more team-based collaboration features that provide centralised visibility and control of all application development projects across the organisation."

Welcome to the latest edition of the Field Service News podcast. This month we are joined by Paul White, CEO of mplsystems as we revisit some exclusive research undertaken by Field Service News in partnership with mplsystems earlier this year.

The research set out to unlock exactly what technology is being used within the field service industries in 2014 and in this exclusive interview Paul and Field Service News Editor Kris Oldland discuss some of the most pertinent and surprising results and explore and extrapolate the meaning of these findings. Amongst the topics discussed are whether the ratio's of dispatchers to engineers in field service companies are actually lower than they should be, whether the smallest companies are getting short shrift from software providers and why mobile has changed the shape of the industry and whether it will continue to do so...

To download the full podcast just click here and complete the brief registration form!

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

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

 

 

Trimble announced last week the launch of Trimble Field Service Management (FSM) Connect, an advanced development environment and a standard set of Web services and APIs that can enhance field service business processes by allowing access, use and sharing of data across a variety of different systems.

Following the recent announcement of Trimble Horizon, the new cloud-based platform for FSM solutions, FSM Connect is the third in a line of new features and solutions announced this week as part of Trimble's spotlight on empowering mobile workers.

"Most companies have multiple solutions that collect data, which has to be manually interpreted and checked against the same or similar data from other solutions," said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble's Field Service Management Division. "FSM Connect is a package of Web services for Trimble customers and partners that provide a comprehensive and reliable way to enable a seamless information flow between Trimble FSM solutions and back-end or third-party systems. This means the value of data can be realised across an organisation and the most up-to-date information can be shared instantaneously, a vital requirement for organisations with mobile workers out in the field."

"The amount of information a field service organisation needs to operate successfully can be daunting and one of the biggest challenges it faces is the lack of integrated data to provide a consolidated view of their processes. With FSM Connect, we can enable them to solve this challenge," said Cameron.

FSM Connect enables organisations by providing a single point of access for their field service information. In addition, it allows users to feed the integrated data into business analytics and reporting systems to make more-informed decisions about their field work that can drive productivity and enhance knowledge management.

Other benefits of FSM Connect include:

 

• Decreasing manual data entry by automatically sending data to other applications
• Increasing operational efficiency by centralising and streamlining data views
• Providing bidirectional flow of data that allows full integration across the organisation

 

Trimble will be hosting a Webinar with Aberdeen Group on Thursday, 30. Oct. Aly Pinder, senior research analyst of the Aberdeen Group, will discuss the key emerging technologies empowering workers out in the field, including the use of mobility. To register for the Webinar, or to sign up for a recording, click here.

 

 

Trimble yesterday introduced its new cloud-based platform for field service management—Trimble® Horizon. Trimble Horizon will be the core platform for its Field Service Management (FSM) suite of solutions and services. Built upon Trimble’s robust hosting and infrastructure framework, Trimble Horizon supports the following capabilities:

• Solutions – Trimble’s cloud-based solution suite which includes Work Management, Fleet Management and Driver Safety

• Mobility – Mobile applications and tools for better empowerment, data sharing and collaboration in the field

• Connect – Web services to enable seamless integration

• Insight – Business intelligence and analytics tools

Trimble Horizon offers customers an extensible, flexible platform allowing them to depend on Trimble as a single provider for all their field service needs. Cloud-based and modular, Trimble Horizon enables organisations to drive an agile, dynamic field service operation.

“We are delighted to introduce Trimble Horizon,” said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble’s Field Service Management Division. “In a world where technology is so fast moving, we wanted to provide our customers and businesses globally with a foundation for innovation. Trimble Horizon will allow them to add, extend and integrate technologies as their needs change, providing them with the agility to adapt and innovate. Trimble Horizon will couple our best-in-class field service management solutions with integration opportunities and the ability for customers to configure and utilise specific modules across the platform’s global infrastructure.”

Trimble Horizon is a key element of Trimble’s FSM global strategy to continually focus on solutions and tools to better enable organisations around the world in driving service excellence and empowering the mobile workforce.

 

Resource Type: eBook
Published by: Advanced Field Solutions
Title: The 2014 Service Manager Handbook
About: One of the most detailed and comprehensive resources to be published for the field service industry this year. This excellent eBook covers an exhaustive range of topics to help you get to grips with managing your mobile workforce, improving productivity, increasing efficiency and improving your bottom line.
Download: Download the white paper by clicking here

Overview:

The field service industry is subject to constant change and it’s vital to keep an ear to the ground on the latest hot topics to embrace the changing business landscape and keep up with the competition.

Intelligence on your business and its status, not to mention the highest levels of customer service, is absolutely pivotal to survival in tough trading times and even the savviest players need to ensure they have the right tools in play to keep up with their rivals.

To remain successful and dynamic, service managers need to be resilient to change and have the ability ‘to think outside of the box’ to ensure their organisation is best placed to drive their business forward.

They need to keep their finger on the pulse on many different aspects of the running of the organisation from innovating ideas, investing in IT, and seeking and exploring opportunities for further growing the business.

Having the power to access critical data across all areas of your service business, make informed instant decisions and manage your operation – from the first inception of the call all the way to its happy conclusion – will highlight the strong players from the weak.

If you want to make your business stand out from the crowd in 2014 and beyond, having the correct systems and processes in place will need to be a high priority on your agenda.

This essential handbook takes a glimpse at the key areas that all service managers need to address to give your organisation the power to evolve from ‘field service burnout’ to ‘best-inbreed’…

Topics include:

Modelling the perfect profitable client - In an effort to maintain business viability – and keep your engineers working out in the field – some field service businesses may be tempted to take on clients with narrow profit margins.

However, to build a sustainable business, you need to focus on the jobs, contracts and clients that
are most profitable, rather than trying to be all things to all clients. So it’s worth stepping back and analysing your client base.

Turning work away is never easy to do, but it can also free up your expensive resources to focus
on where they can bring best return. Your service management solution should give you the
advantage of arming you with the evidence and information you need.

Scheduling Challenges - Scheduling your field engineers is undoubtedly one of your core key performance indicators (KPIs), central to your business profitability, and a key target on which your staff are measured.

But it’s a delicate balance between meeting the needs of both your staff and the business. Get it right and the chances are the business will be highly successful. Get it wrong and the consequences can be disastrous.

However many UK service businesses find big savings, both in terms of costs and time, simply through getting the properly skilled technician to the job with the minimum of fuss. So when scheduling your field resources, it is key to get it right.

Empowering your workforce - Your engineers are the public face of your business. In many cases, they may be the only representative of your company that the customer ever sees.

Your reputation, spread by word of mouth or increasingly through social media and online reviews, is founded on the experience your customers have of your engineers.

Consider ways to free your service team from the routine dross that saps their time and motivation, and empower them to be more productive and efficient.

Reviewing your customer service strategy - It’s a given that the customer is your number one priority, however, to satisfy and retain your clients, field service companies need to repeatedly provide a professional service.

Typically, customer service is impacted by a combination of factors that result in the customer not getting what they want, when they want it.

So what can service businesses do to really ensure that what you are delivering is adding genuine value to your clients? And what can you do to ensure your value-add is fully recognised by the client?

Setting realistic budgets and timescales - Today’s customers are flexing their buying muscles and putting increasing pressure on suppliers to meet their strict SLA.

To establish your reputation as a customer service leader and gain full control over your job profitability, it’s vital to gain full visibility over your contracts and tighten controls over your SLA management.

Having access to accurate information on the actual cost of similar past projects, contracts and large installations helps to ensure that future bid costs and resource requirements are accurately assessed.

There are many factors that will determine the price of the bid to the client. This is quite often the main focus when putting the estimate together, with the cost and resources that are needed to deliver the contract not always being fully considered at the bid stage. Without formal systems in place, many service organisations find it difficult, time consuming, if not impossible to compile this historical information.

Unleashing cash flow - To maintain a healthy cash flow, it is important not to tie up cash unnecessarily in stock. Getting a hold on your stock is a sure-fire way of gaining significant savings in cost and time.

If your organisation handles stock, you will be all too aware of the dangers of stock piling.

Having cash tied up in stock is a dangerous tactic when cash flow is so important. Rather than relying on a ‘crystal ball’, organisations should automate the stock forecasting process so that sales and usage of stock can be predicted, avoiding the pitfall of holding more stock than required.

Your service management systems should give you the power to analyse stock history, so you can recognise trends and fluctuations to ensure that stock levels fall within the desired optimum range and anticipate demand at peak times.

Turning data into insight - Having distinct performance mechanisms in place enables management to recognise and react to emerging trends, whether positive or negative. Without these, performance may be overlooked in areas that could be optimised and yield greater return.

The importance of the KPI - KPIs are a vital performance tool for all service organisations of all sizes. To effectively track, monitor and evaluate success to ensure your business is growing in a sustained way, a best practice method needs to be adopted.

It is vital to identify which KPIs align to your business success. Standard service management KPIs include: first time fix rates, SLA adherence, engineer productivity, job costing, call rates, net profit margin, stock value and customer satisfaction/retention.

Without pro-actively monitoring KPIs, service management businesses are vulnerable to problems that can seriously undermine both performance and profitability. For example, a company that does not regularly monitor sales margins could discover at year-end a repeated mistake that has cost thousands.

 

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