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Field service management software specialist, Oneserve, has hired Alistair Hayter as its new Chief Technology Officer.

Hayter has worked in senior technology and product delivery roles in the education, healthcare and finance sectors. A specialist in solution design, team development and strategic alignment and has previously been Head of Engineering for Equiniti Data,
Technical Director for Lovell Sports LTD, CTO for Imagine Education LTD and Senior Product Manager for VitalPac.

Chris Proctor, CEO at Oneserve said: “This is a key appointment and we are really excited to have Alistair join the team at Oneserve. Our business has grown dramatically over the last few years and Alistair’s skills and expertise will drive forward our exciting development plans for the future.

“Alistair has extensive industry experience which will only serve to enhance our business offering. We are delighted he has chosen to bring this knowledge to Oneserve at a crucial time in our growth and we look forward to product innovations and new launches ahead,” concluded Proctor.

 

Renowned property maintenance provider Axis Europe is in the throes of a digital transformation. At the heart of that transformation is new scheduling and route  optimisation software from Fast Lean Smart (FLS), set to bring all-new levels of
productivity and customer engagement to Axis’ service operation in conjunction with Dynamics 365.


Established in 1986, Axis utilise 500 field operatives to provide strategic repair, maintenance and improvement services for premier UK building owners across all property sectors, including social housing, schools, commercial offices and heritage properties. Its work, partnerships and interactions are shaped by a set of core values that make it “big enough to deliver, small enough to care” as per its strapline.

A strong commitment to providing top-quality service to customers in an increasingly service driven and complex landscape is what heralded Axis’ decision to digitally transform. The company currently uses multiple service management solutions and a scheduling system dominated by manual intervention, which it sought to integrate and streamline. FLS has now become central to that process.

“We needed a user-friendly scheduling system that could really increase the productivity of our field operatives whilst reducing travel and back office admin costs,” says Russell Measor, Head of Data and Delivery at Axis. “We also needed a system that could integrate well with Microsoft Dynamics 365, which we are implementing as our new CRM platform. With that in mind, our
Dynamics implementation partner recommended two software providers — FLS was one of them.”

Axis evaluated the two providers and FLS’s real-time scheduler and route optimiser, FLS VISITOUR, came out on top for several reasons. Russell explains, “The main reason we chose FLS was the speed and high performance of VISITOUR and the fact that we can tweak its  algorithms to fit our needs. With speed profiles and real-time traffic data, VISITOUR can plan
routes in ways that are most efficient and most productive for our operatives. And real-time tracking is going to increase our engagement with customers and reduce our no-access rates. It will enable us to provide them with operatives’ exact, up-to-the-minute locations, making them less likely to pop out when an operative is round the corner.”

One of the ways that FLS approaches a sale is by proving its performance capabilities with customised scheduling tests, which many other providers don’t offer. Russell says, “We were blown away by the results of the scheduling tests. Rescheduling our appointments using VISITOUR demonstrated a significant reduction in mileage and driving hours. More importantly it showed that with VISITOUR our engineers can achieve one or more additional jobs per day.”

Although these figures were powerfully persuasive on their own, the ultimate reason Axis decided to invest in FLS VISITOUR was a much simpler, more human one. “We thought that the team at FLS were more down-to-earth than other providers,” says Russell. “They were less salesy and gave us a more tailored service. We didn’t just feel like another sale. We felt that
they actually cared about our business.”

Axis is hoping for great things once FLS VISITOUR has been implemented. Russell explains the overall benefits that his teams are looking forward to: “A business with complex planning and in-day scheduling challenges like Axis needs to react in real time and FLS will let us do this. In doing so, we will provide a faster response and better service to our customers. We’re particularly looking forward to the increased productivity, increased assurance as to our ability to meet SLAs, and lower back office costs thanks to greater levels of automation.”

More information can be found at www.fastleansmart.com.

Acquisition follows Silver Lake's recent majority stake purchase of ServiceMax from GE in December.

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Communication platform Zinc has been acquired by ServiceMax, the cloud-based field-service management firm for an undisclosed sum.

The deal follows ServiceMax's parent company, GE, selling a majority stake in the firm to private equity firm Silver Lake at the end of last year, and comes almost two years after GE's $915mn acquisition of ServiceMax in January 2017.

Aly Pinder, ServiceMax's Programme Director of Service Innovation and Connected Products, IDC said: “The ability of ServiceMax and Zinc to immediately surface tribal knowledge in-context not only aids in solving the task at hand on a work order, this integrated solution can also lead to significant improvements in customer experience, as well an enhanced ability to help acquire and engage talent for these critical customer-facing roles.”

Stacey Epstein, Zinc CEO added: “The perfect combination of Zinc’s modern, real-time communication with ServiceMax’s cutting edge and comprehensive suite will be unparalleled in the market, and I am thrilled to continue to help companies realise the promise of complete Service Execution Management.”

ServiceMax CEO Scott Berg, told diginomica that Zinc's real-time communication software will compliment their own platform, and lead to potential transaction-led benefits for customers. "Picture a world where those service engineers in a company could deploy this," he said, "and the first thing they start to do is communicate in real-time, starting to build those knowledge networks. Potentially then, phase two, they start deploying some of the more transaction-led capabilities…the handling of contracts, parts, work orders, and scheduling that they get with ServiceMax.” 

You can read Field Service News' recent interview with ServiceMax CEO Scott Berg here.

 

Employees are putting their businesses at risk of cyber-attacks by refusing to obey the rules when it comes to the apps they use in the workplace, according to a report from Maintel.

Workers have confessed to using unapproved apps in the office, including Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Snapchat to communicate with colleagues as well as friends and family. For example, four in ten employees (41%) admit to using Instagram for more than two hours each day, despite the app being banned in almost half of UK organisations.  

The majority of employees are well aware that certain apps are not approved for workplace use, but this hasn’t stopped them breaking the rules. In fact, the research found that usage is on the rise, with use of WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram increasing significantly over the past three years – 30%, 27% and 33% respectively. 

Staff told us that apps like WhatsApp offer ease of use (84 per cent), speed of response (44 per cent) and informality (35 per cent) in the workplace. This highlights that businesses need to implement more apps that meet their workers needs. But, while employees may be continuing to break the rules, using these unapproved apps is a danger for many businesses. The risks of using undocumented, unsecure apps should be obvious enough – especially in light of GDPR. 

Maintel CTO Rufus Grig said: “If this research tells us one thing, it’s that whilst organisations can go ahead and prohibit the use of as many tools as they like, this will never be enough to actually make this vision a reality. Businesses need to recognise that employees are still using these tools in the knowledge they are unauthorised, and make a conscious effort to understand why. Employers need to ensure the communication needs of a multi-generational workforce are catered for. To do this, it’s clear we need to invest more time into making sure that approved tools offer the best user experience possible, or in those words, offering platforms that are motivating, compelling and easy to use in the workplace”.

You can see the report here.

Firm's first software release of 2019 tailored to engineers on large project work.

Job and Project Management Software outfit simPRO's has, as part of its Mobile package, released an app that records working hours as well as allocating time for engineers in both service and project environments.

The TimeSheet app will allow businesses to understand how much time is being spent on each project, and cut back on administrative labour, such as paper-work, on-site.

Jonathan Eastgate, simPRO's Chief Technology Officer said: "The extended app gives all engineers who use it a new level of autonomy. Time can be recorded retrospectively  - or as the job is being completed. And the ability to use the app offline gives users access to review and record activities no matter where they are."

 

Tieto has entered into a strategic partnership with Swedish telecom operator Telia leveraging 5G mobile technology.
5G technology has been on the agenda for several years but the standard is not yet completely set and the roll-out of commercial networks will not begin until next year. But despite that, Telia and Tieto both see plenty of reasons for companies to start looking at the technology already today. As part of Telia’s partnership program, Tieto will be involved in developing solutions together with its customers and making use of the innovation-friendly environment for 5G that the operator has created. In addition to Tieto, other members of the Telia 5G Partner Program include Ericsson, Volvo Construction Equipment and Einride.

”To only view 5G as yet another communications technology is too simplistic. From our perspective, we feel that the technology is an enabler for our customers and a way for them to carry out projects and ventures that would have been very difficult – sometimes impossible – with today’s technology,” says Cecilia de Leeuw, Head of Telecom Services, Tieto.

One example is environments where requirements for reliability and security are extremely high. The technology can be used to expand infrastructure, for example to enable large numbers of connected devices that communicate with each other and send large quantities of data at high speed and controlling devices in real time.”“We are already seeing great interest from customers within the forest industry where they see opportunities to optimize its supply chain thanks to the possibilities for real-time planning that 5G technology enables. By placing connected sensors in trees, one can easily keep track of every parameter, from moisture levels and temperatures to weather conditions and possible risks like wood rot, in order to identify the exact right time for harvesting,” says de Leeuw.

Healthcare is another area where 5G technology is expected to have a major impact. Secure and stable connections will play an important role in building secure information pathways, and in the longer term the technology can lead to solutions like doctors operating surgical robots remotely – enabling people who live in faraway areas to receive advanced treatments without having to travel.

“As always when it comes to this type of potentially revolutionary technology leap, it is difficult to predict where the technology will go, how it will be utilized and what it will enable. But I feel confident that we will see many incredibly exciting services and products in the coming years that have been made possible thanks to 5G technology,” concluded de Leeuw.

A partnership between ERP company Acumatica, and cloud-based field sales management and mobile sales solutions Skynamo will give sales teams access to inventory, product and customer information and ability to capture and submit customer information and orders.
As an Acumatica Independent Software Vendor (ISV), Skynamo is working with Acumatica resellers to implement and support the business’ combined field sales solution to its existing and prospective customers. The partnership will enable any kind of manufacturer, wholesaler or distributor with a team of sales reps to benefit from synchronised Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data functionality, which reps can access while on the road.
Skynamo’s field-sales app enables reps to access product stock levels, pricing, discounts and inventory data when visiting a customer site. This empowers sales reps to remotely submit orders, allow for customer visits to be recorded, and for notes from customer interactions to be accurately captured – all from a mobile device. It also uses mobile and GPS technology to give managers real-time visibility into sales activity in the field, while greatly reducing the number of administrative tasks for sales reps that tend to take their time away from building relationships and selling to customers.
“Our partnership means that Acumatica customers will be able to improve the quality and volume of customer data and sales activity information they have access to by giving sales reps a much easier way of capturing and acting on it in the field,” said Brian Howe, Alliances Director for Skynamo. “Acumatica customers will benefit from an increase in sales revenue as a direct result of enabling field sales reps to visit more customers and spend more time with them thanks to Skynamo’s time-saving mobile sales functionality.”
“Skynamo’s cloud-based mobile-first solution supports our mission to deliver adaptable cloud and mobile technology to the market and enable every customer to have a complete, real-time view of their business anytime, anywhere, on any device,” said Christian Lindberg, VP of Partner Solutions for Acumatica. “Our partnership enables customers with field sales reps to derive more value from their investment in Acumatica and for our resellers to offer additional functionality and services to our customer base.”
Skynamo is a mobile sales app that reduces administrative tasks for field sales reps and improves accuracy of data and orders collected in the field, so they can sell more. It also provides sales managers with insight into field sales activity in order to coach sales reps and improve sales. Among the many problems solved by the Skynamo sales app are inaccurate orders, inaccurate data collected in the field, lack of visibility into sales activity, poor sales performance and lost sales opportunities.

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Trade service businesses across the UK can now forego their landlines and save significant amounts of time, money and logistics with communication, thanks to the latest solution by job management company simPRO.

simPRO’s newest feature, VoIP phone, allows users to use an inbuilt web phone instead of traditional phone handsets or third-party phone software.

simPRO Chief Technology Officer Jonathan Eastgate said the VoIP phone integration would provide a number of benefits to businesses that were looking to take advantage of the trade service industry’s inevitable digital future.

“VoIP provides a flexible, multi-functional solution that couldn’t be simpler to use. Without the need of a traditional telephone handset taking up space on the desk, users can make a call with a push of the mouse or keyboard and connect with people without any disruption to their workflow.

“Incoming calls, re-directs and on-hold calls can all be coordinated on the screen, meaning you can continue to use your simPRO software on your computer while simultaneously speaking freely to colleagues, customers and contacts about important deals, affairs, meetings, files, documents and agendas.”

Mr Eastgate said that while streamlining business communication was a major benefit delivered by VoIP, the costs involved were also a significant variable that would overtly improve a business’ operation.

 

"Incoming calls, re-directs and on-hold calls can all be coordinated on the screen, meaning you can continue to use your simPRO software on your computer while simultaneously speaking freely to colleagues, customers and contacts..."

 

“VoIP can be much cheaper to incorporate than a traditional telephone line, which typically requires a business to be set up with a costly telecommunications deal.

“It means that businesses that use VoIP need no longer worry about the reliability of their phone connection, the changing rates of their telco deal, and the cumbersome need for dedicated hardware,” he said.

simPRO’s VoIP capability is a product first for the company and is expected to take the lead in the UK market, as many VoIP solutions currently available are limited by specific communication hardware requirements and ties to the UK’s local telecom suppliers.

simPRO's VoIP service is provided to all clients at no charge - they simply continue with their existing VoIP service provider at existing rates whilst getting the benefits simPRO has brought through the integration.

“When using simPRO, the VoIP will draw information to produce caller IDs and maintain call logs which can be viewed in a browser window – all you need is the internet and a headset,” Mr Eastgate said.

“simPRO’s VoIP product is the very embodiment of job management and a great example of streamlining your processes to increase your profits and productivity.”

 

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