One of the key areas that was discussed heavily in a recent Field Service News Think Tank Session was whether the move towards remote first as a default a key part of the new normal?
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Sep 09, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Covid-19 • Think Tank
One of the key areas that was discussed heavily in a recent Field Service News Think Tank Session was whether the move towards remote first as a default a key part of the new normal?
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The Pros and Cons of a Remote First Default Approach to Service Delivery
As is always the case with the Think Tank Sessions there was robust discussion with the pros and cons of such an approach both put forward. For some around the table including Konica Minolta’s Ged Cranny the shift to a remote first approach was not only likely but also potentially a necessity.
For others in the group including Siemens' Tony Chapman, the conclusions were less certain.
As Chapman commented during the session, “the value for me in the engineer is the knowledge. By that I mean it is not just the knowledge of the product, it is knowledge of the product and the process that we delivered to a customer - then you have to devolve that to a remote service.
“The benefits of that type of knowledge for the customer are that you get the expertise on hand. The question is how much does value does the customer see in that expertise?”
What we saw begin to emerge from this Think Tank session was the start of a new conversation within the field service sector, or perhaps more accurately an increased urgency to assess a conversation we have been having for some time, but where the balance of importance has suddenly been shifted as a result of the global pandemic.
"It all revolves around what have you sold to your customer? Are you fixing downtime? Or are you selling uptime?”
- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax
Do we need to guide our customers towards understanding that remote first is the way forward and start having firm conversations about the value of uptime and quick issue resolution over on-site presence? Yet, many customers will still see the value of having an engineer on site – something that is a fundamental part of where their value perception of field service delivery lies. Where do you sit on that?
Perhaps the answer lies in some form of halfway house as is often the way in both life and business. Perhaps, in a world of remote first as a default approach to service delivery, the physical presence of an onsite engineer becomes a premium service offering?
“There are two elements to it this conversation,” mused Coen Jeukens, Vice President of Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax during the detailed debrief session held on simultaneously on the Field Service News Digital Sympoisum and ServiceMax’s executive circles webinar series.
“On the one hand, it all revolves around what have you sold to your customer? Are you fixing downtime? Or are you selling uptime?” Jeukens continues.
“If you are selling the fixing of downtime, then I think the customer is really going to continue seeing the value of the technician being on site. If the technician isn't on site anymore and you start fixing the issues remotely then it is a completely different value proposition.
“On the other hand, if you're selling uptime, for the customer, it doesn’t really matter whether you do it with the technician on site or remote. In fact, maybe fixing it with an remote type of service has a lesser impact on the downtime of the customer. Therefore, I think you first have to know what the customer is buying.”
"I always would always take into account service is not only a matter of let's say metrics, I also see that service has a human element to it..."
- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax
However, there as most service leaders will note, there is often more to the longevity and success of a service contract than just the cold hard metrics. There are always countless examples of customers who truly value the rapport of the field service engineer, the human interaction that will be lost within a remote services fix.
As Jeukens comments, “I always would always take into account service is not only a matter of let's say metrics, I also see that service has a human element to it. I do see that there are a lot of customers out there who really value seeing of a technician on site - especially when the technician on site is not only fixing the product, but if the technician is also ‘fixing’ the customer by providing additional services such as how they could better utilize a piece of equipment. For that you really need human interaction.
“Depending on what you're tasking your technicians to do, fixing the downtime or selling the uptime, or even fixing the customer, I think we you will see a hybrid model emerge. However, I definitely see that a lot of companies who have been reluctant in allowing remote connectivity or remote service because they always saw a fear of connectivity, the firewall, etc. - I think a lot of those customers right now see that they have to reassess the fear of opening up a chat channel in the firewall versus their need for uptime,” Jeukens adds.
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Sep 07, 2020 • Features • Covid-19 • Think Tank
It's been said in many corners of the field service industry and beyond, that COVID-19 has been the greatest disrupter of all time - what does this mean for the field service sector?
It's been said in many corners of the field service industry and beyond, that COVID-19 has been the greatest disrupter of all time - what does this mean for the field service sector?
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The Short-Term & Long-Term Planning Field Service Companies Should Be Undertaking
Within the recent Field Service News Think Tank Session that was focused on the impact on the pandemic on the field service industry, it was also pointed out that it's also been the greatest accelerator for digital transformation amongst field service companies.
As Kevin Starr, ABB said one of our Digital Symposium live streams during the lockdowns commented, "our five year plan digital transformation plan got condensed to five weeks!"
Whilst Starr may have been being slightly hyperbolic; it remains a neat summary of how digital transformation projects in our industry have not just been accelerated but have been given a turbo boost.
However, while we have seen digital transformation become the single most pressing focus for the majority of field service companies in 2020, one thing that became apparent during the pandemic is that it is those companies that were already well down the path towards digitalization, and who had already begun to rethink their approach to service delivery as part of that process who were best positioned to adapt.
"While Cranny may have expressed the concept in his trademark pragmatic way ahead of the curve, he was not alone in sharing this vision of the future of field service..."
As Ged Cranny, Konica Minolta had explained during a Field Service Think Tank session, "one of the things that we realized four or five years ago was that machines are getting more reliable. Plus, we had an ageing workforce. I walked in the room and told everybody, I wanted to run the service department with no engineers. My management team looked at me as if I had gone mad."
It was a bold statement five years ago. Today, it is an uncannily prescient move that positions Konica Minolta well as they and all around them are forced to consider a world of zero-touch service delivery where possible. I said to them, if we achieve this everybody in the world, we'll look at what we're doing. Indeed, while Cranny may have expressed the concept in his trademark pragmatic way ahead of the curve, he was not alone in sharing this vision of the future of field service. Many other forward-thinking organizations were also considering the move to remote services. Yet, while the path was being laid it out, a remote-first approach remained for most a dot on the horizon.
"I think, if you look into the majority of service contracts were in existence, that they were already offering such services, Rajat Kakar, IBM had commented during the same Field Service News Think Tank Session. However, COVID-19 has pushed us much closer to that horizon in 2020 than anyone might have anticipated.
"I think the markets need to move a little bit faster in adapting to some of the tools we have," added Kakar. "If you launch an engineer is quite expensive. If you can reduce that cost by utilizing remote support. Then from the OEM standpoint, we should start thinking about self healing a lot more," Kakar had expanded.
"In the near term, you're looking at things around workforce, models for capacity needed when lockdowns are raised, identifying which workers can be brought back in and evaluating your cash situation..."
- Daniel Brabec, ServiceMax
It is such forward-thinking that sets apart the Think Tank discussions as some of the leading conversations happening today within our industry. A format that brings true industry leaders together with the freedom to bounce ideas off each other without constraint can lead to genuinely inspiring conversations.
As we worked through some of the salient points from the last quarter's Think Tank sessions, Daniel Brabec, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax neatly summarized the current thinking that we are seeing emerge.
"You've got the short term where you're keeping the business going, looking at your current field procedures to determine which steps can be reworked or bypassed, locating your critical parts, Brabec explained.
"In the near term, you're looking at things around workforce, models for capacity needed when lockdowns are raised, identifying which workers can be brought back in and evaluating your cash situation looking at the impact of pent up demand or deferred demand for installations and preventative maintenance visits.
"Then in the long term, you really want to start assessing and reevaluating how you're going to approach your whole structure of service moving forward, structuring the way forward and getting more remote support, even looking forwards to new concepts such as self healing. Having more connected devices and products and enabling your customers more is going to be the way of the future and I think COVID is really helping to accelerate all of them."
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Sep 03, 2020 • Features • Covid-19 • Think Tank
Daniel Brabec and Coen Jeukens of Servicemax reflect on the financial impact of the global lockdowns on th efield service sector.
Daniel Brabec and Coen Jeukens of Servicemax reflect on the financial impact of the global lockdowns on th efield service sector.
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The Falling Dominos of the Field Service Supply Chain:
There has been a lot of discussion about how the financial recovery may look since the pandemic hit. Initially, there was some optimism that as deep as the blow was to the global recovery we could see the economy bounce back in almost the same measure. Indeed, the economic analysts are largely predicting an upturn in US GDP of around 20% which would be the largest quarterly rise in history. Yet, this is positive momentum must of course be held up against a historic 33% contraction in the second quarter of 2020.
Perhaps the best description of how the economy may return to pre COVID levels is the ‘Nike Swoosh’ curve – a steep and steady drop followed by a more gradual and controlled return.
Ultimately, the impact of the global lockdowns has had a massive impact on economies across the world, and field service organisations have felt this challenge as much as any other industry, as the customer ecosystems that they operate within have been hugely effected. The domino effect of a crashing economy has hit service organisations hard.
Fundamentally, we all know that for the short to mid-term at least there is going to be a lot less there's going to be less cash in the market. However, the precedents of the past have shown that often in an economic downturn it is service delivery that will thrive as assets in the field are sweated that little bit longer – meaning the service and maintenance contracts required to keep those assets operating at full capacity become in greater demand.
"There's a whole knock on effect across all industries where companies are affected in being able to collect that revenue in line with the standard service the cash cycle..."
- Daniel Brabec, ServiceMax
“I think we have to look at a couple of pieces,” commented Daniel Brabec, Vice President, Globat Customer Transformation Services, ServiceMax during the last Field Service News Think Tank Quarterly Debrief.
“From the financial perspective, some companies such as those in med-tech sector are companies you would think are doing fantastic simply there's such a high need for their services at this time. However, you also have to consider whether or not their customers can pay them.
“There's a whole knock on effect across all industries where companies are affected in being able to collect that revenue in line with the standard service the cash cycle. So the question is what are these companies looking at in terms of bringing revenue back into the business to invest? I think Alec [Pinto, Leica Bio-Systems] really hit the nail on the head there in his in his comment about revenues being tied to fixed services.”
This is an important point and one that was discussed heavily during a Think Tank session that was centred around the initial impact of the pandemic. Will there be a requirement for rethinking the way we approach developing our service contracts and indeed our very service offerings as we try to adapt to the new normal?
“We need to see a shift and we will see a shift,” Brabec continues.
“I think for a lot of organizations if they want to thrive in the future the shift will be towards outcome based services. This is because you are working with a customer and end user and have a contract with them where you're guaranteeing certain levels, you still have that contract. It's not going to be impacted as much as a contract on a time and materials basis.
“Moving forward, I believe you're going to have a lot of organizations shift more toward that model out of pure necessity - they won't be able to survive if there were continued pandemics or any other issues that might arise in the future that could potentially limit their cash flow. So, companies will have to think of other ways to have that that recurring revenue that adds long term annuity streams that will help your business not only weather the storms but continue to thrive and grow into the future,” Brabec adds.
“I think this entire pandemic has showed us that we have a large vulnerability with the way we have set up our supply chains with a lot of manufacturing happening offshore..."
Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax
Of course, with the question of both customer supply chains and restricted funds within the market another big question we must address now is whether the service supply chain and spare parts logistics is robust enough to survive a second wave of lockdown should the pandemic rear its ugly head once again.
“I think this entire pandemic has showed us that we have a large vulnerability with the way we have set up our supply chains with a lot of manufacturing happening offshore,” reflected Coen Jeukens, Vice President, Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax during the debrief session.
“If we go back to our customer base, we see that customers have organized their supply chain in a certain way because that was the most efficient way under the legacy model, because we couldn't conceive something like this would happen. Now we know and Daniel already mentioned the business continuity plans, those continuity plans, couldn't even foresee this happening. I think that right now with these new insights, we will rethink our continuity plans, and we will start preparing for it,” Jeukens adds.
So, could this be the impetus for a more widespread adoption of 3D printing? Particularly within the spare parts arena?
“I do think that in certain cases, it is possible to use 3d printing to print spare parts - it is possible but for other parts I think we do have to rethink, maybe we have to go back to the CFO and say, ‘well, you had an inventory reduction program, but if we look at our recovery process, we might have to invest in additional stock.” Jeukens comments.
“Alternatively, it may be the other way around. Maybe you have sufficient stock but you have certain technicians are hoarding spare parts in case of another supply chain failure. For me it is essential that companies invest in the visibility in their own infrastructure to see what technician is ordering and who's consuming it.
“Then, even if you have a shortage of material, then you should rethink from a prioritization perspective. What particular break-fix type of situation really warrants you to use one of those very precious spare parts instead of just fixing a piece of equipment for a machine that doesn't really have a criticality in a customer context? I think that revisiting those business continuity plans, rethinking the supply chain, see in what areas 3D printing can alleviate the pain, is an important undertaking for service organisations at this moment,”
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Aug 31, 2020 • Features • Covid-19 • Think Tank
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session Kieran Notter and Daniel Brabec reflects on the groups comments around the initial operational challenges of Covid-19
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session Kieran Notter and Daniel Brabec reflects on the groups comments around the initial operational challenges of Covid-19
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The many conversations required for servitization to work:
As we moved onto the final Think Tank of the three that we were reflecting on during this inaugural debrief session we touched on the longest and perhaps most important Think Tank that Field Service News has ever run. The focus of this session was to assess the impact of Covid-19 and to establish some first steps in building towards the recovery.
Having put an initial question to the group for them to outline their initial responses to the lockdowns of the pandemic, it made sense for Kieran Notter, VP Global Customer Transformation to be the one that opened up the discussion during the debrief.
During the actual Think Tank there were some excellent and well considered comments including Alec Pinto, Regional Service Manager DACH & High Growth Markets, Leica Biosystems comment:
“From an operative perspective, we couldn’t go out anymore. So we had to start getting used to the new regulations quickly. What was allowed in hospitals? How could we get our people into hospitals? Suddenly, we were putting our people in areas of risk, so managing that part of the operation and ensuring safety while letting our employees feel secure, that was a big challenge to overcome.”
As well as Rajat Kakar, Executive, IBM, Services EMEA comment:
“We saw a massive shift in ways of businesses. As an example, companies who provided services for people to migrate from office buildings to homes were busy; they didn’t have enough people to bring the office equipment, set it up at people’s homes and set up home offices. Whereas, companies which were primarily working on standard services, IT services within the corporate environments, they saw a decline in business.”
Reflecting back on both these quotes and the discussion at large Notter said, "for me, it was, it was quite interesting listening to everybody view. We gave them a rough two minutes to try and give a view of what the current situation was about. But it was it was that important or passionate to them that two minutes was nigh on impossible.
"On Alec's points, there was much that he sad that couldn't all fit into one slide but some of the other bits that Alec said that really sort of made a difference. We know med-tech device companies, at least some of them, are really, really it's going to thrive through this pandemic, because it's their business, it's what they do.
Then we have the other businesses that have done really bad because no one's using their products. There is no service has to be done and it's a very different environment. For someone like Alec, who was sort of in the middle, they were doing that that hospital work, where they had to stay open. It was even the confusion that if a technician went into a hospital to do some work in a schedule, you were asking do they need their quarantine for 14 days because they've been into a hospital? What are the rules behind it? What's the game plan?
Then there is the HR element that came into the conversation. How do we look after the technicians? What happens if they've got dependents at home who are vulnerable? So that's the level of detail really and understanding of what the challenges are.
"When Rajat, spoke, he spoke about some great points, but one of the most interesting things I thought he raised was one of the simplest. He said, People come to work, the telephones are on their desk. You leave them at home that telephonic system isn't with them anymore. How can they run a call center if they have no telephone? It's just really really simple things like that, that no-one had planned for."
"I think one of the key pieces that we've seen that's come came out of this is around business continuity plans and the way that that companies are starting to reassess the way they approach their customers," adds Daniel Brabec VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax.
"We need to use this time to find ways to make and build relationships and any CSO that's looking at things from that perspective, I think, is is poised to thrive moving forward. They're acknowledging that we have a huge issue, but what are the ways that we can address it and not only adjust to the new normal but also come out of the stronger. A lot of that is focused on customer relationships and how they're going to actually approach service in the future."
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Aug 26, 2020 • Features • Think Tank • Servitization and Advanced Services
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Daniel Brabec, Coen Jeukens and Kieran Notter of ServiceMax outline what they think is driving forwards the move to servitization amongst field service organisations.
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Daniel Brabec, Coen Jeukens and Kieran Notter of ServiceMax outline what they think is driving forwards the move to servitization amongst field service organisations.
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The many conversations required for servitization to work:
While there is much discussion about the how of servitization it is also important to understand the why. This was something that came up in on of the Think Tanks covered within this debrief session.
As Maarten Wijnheijmer, Global Aftermarket Sales Director, Howden commented during the Think Tank in question:
“I think perhaps one of the most important points around servitization is that you cannot sell the concept to everyone immediately. Although an even more important point around servitization is that, if you want to keep it simple and practical, you don’t need to sell it to everyone immediately either. The trick is to start with customers that recognize the value, test the proposition with them and then scale-up.”
While in the same Think Tank Jan van Veen commented:
“I think there are two things that need to be considered. One is the belief in the direction, the other is that you need to be able to innovate and try and explore and that you have resources available to do so.
“Often within companies everything can be so short term oriented, if that is the attitude of top and middle management then innovations will never flourish because such projects are just a disturbance of what is really important which is hitting your monthly and quarterly numbers.”
"I think that buy-in across all the organisation is key," Commented Daniel Brabec, VP Global Transformation, ServiceMax during the debrief session.
"You have to have all of the different players and a groups and have everyone bought in," Brabec continues.
"If we think about basic change management skills, you have your project champions. You want to make sure you have champions essentially for servitization across the whole business. That's at the the field service engineer level, that's at the senior leadership executive level and that's obviously at the at the service leader level. I think the one thing that's hugely important is making sure that service has a seat at the executive table
"It's not being directed from any one individual, it's making sure it's a conversation across all areas of the organization and that everyone's bought in. I think one of the things that must think about with servitization is understanding the conversation must make sense for all these individuals. Making sure they understand what it is is actually going to change about the business. It is also focusing on those areas of customer intimacy, operational excellence and product leadership.
"It's understanding all of those pieces, and then the value that will be generated for each of their areas of the business," Brabec adds.
"In answering what is driving the move to servitization, I would say a launching customer..."
- Coen Jeukens, ServiceMax
"I agree with, with Daniel's statement," comments Kieran Notter, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax,
"However, I would also add that there is there is a change now for for many businesses. It probably was a little bit earlier in the IT world, but now it's hitting the rest of the world as well is this change from having two CSOs. One being a Chief Service Officer and the other being a Chief Sales Officer, and obviously, the Chief Sales Officer was generally on that table before his service equivalent ever got there.
"But now there's a change where those two CSOs are disappearing, and you're ending up with a Chief Revenue Officer. By having a Chief Revenue Officer, now, all of a sudden, a company is focusing on where revenue comes from, and where it exists. If you are moving to a truly outcome based services, when you get to the element that you're no longer selling your product, you're actually selling as a service then that changes the whole profile. You know, if you're not selling the product, you don't need the Chief Sales Officer you're selling as a service. So you need someone to look after that revenue and understand that need and how that works between the product and the actual service that you provide," adds Notter
"I really think that Kieran and Daniel are correct from an internal Field Service Organization perspective," concurs Coen Jeukens, VP GLobal Customer Transformation, ServiceMax.
"All these dynamics are important. in answering what is driving the move to servitization, I would say a launching customer. For instance, I think the most quoted servitization offering is power by the hour by Rolls Royce. However, Rolls Royce developed that service offering not because they thought it was such a good idea, but because the Royal Air Force said we want to have more predictable models. We want to buy it from you, so you develop it for us. So I think tapping into the mindset of the customer and see if you can find a launching customer. I think that is a very good addition to all the internal alignments just by the CEO, CFO or CSO"
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Aug 24, 2020 • Features • Think Tank • Servitization and Advanced Services
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Kieran Notter discusses his experience when it comes to structuring a field service organisation to adapt a servitized approach...
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Kieran Notter discusses his experience when it comes to structuring a field service organisation to adapt a servitized approach...
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The importance of aligning internal and external needs:
In the second of the Think Tanks discussed during this debrief session, the focus of the conversation was centred around the increasing drive towards servitization.
One thing that came through in the Think Tank from all of the members, was the importance of executive-level buy in for a servitization project to even begin.
However, we also saw across the discussion the importance of buy-in from the bottom up as well. It really does need to be a company wide movement and adoption.
As Christo Roux commented during the Think Tank:
“In our organisation up until two years ago we had two different business units, based on two different technologies but our board reorganised and we now have three units with service being the third. Service now has a seat at the executive table and that has been the real game-changer. Now service has a very high profile, it is no longer that secondary part of the discussion which just gets added to the end of the product sale. Service is now an intrinsic part of the overall sales process. What we have found is that when you have that executive board level representation, focus and support, that does make a difference to how you can servitize.
For a long time, service has proven that in the lows of capital expenditure, service maintains the revenue stream. People always need to maintain their equipment and keep service running, so we were always a constant revenue stream at constant margins.
This was largely driven by a change in the CEO seat and a lot of credit for this shift in mindset has to go to the new CEO who had the understanding and the vision to bring service into the executive conversations.”
In that same Think Tank, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News commented:
“Another company I have worked with has organised their services within business units so each and every business unit is responsible for developing their own service offerings. However, what I believe they also need is a platform to establish new sertivized offerings, a central competence group that is guiding the teams to what is possible.
“Having covered the establishment of such groups in the past I’ve seen them have a real impact. Such groups, I think, should keep strategy simple and make it practical. Keeping it simple means taking baby steps, but at least you are taking them and moving forward. Making it practical is to enable these business divisions to actually deliver the projects. They are not going to invent the wheel themselves – so you have to bring it to them.
“Another organisational question in this area, is whether service is best structured as a separate business with its own P&L or as part of the product teams?
“The challenge is that if service is joined up, the focus will mainly be on the new builds or implementations, because that is where the big money is. Service is usually many smaller orders as opposed to the one big hit of the product sale. The service side of the organisation has to fight for priority and capacity and a shared understanding of the value of the long-term service relationship may ensure the organisation will accept the required investments in this case. On the other hand, if a company splits the operations, the problem becomes the handover from new build to service and customer relationship management. Ultimately, both models have challenges, the key is to realise what is the ‘inside of the battle’ and to establish the common ground to work together for the greater good.”
Oldland's comments reflect something of a common dichotomy in the field service sector. On the one hand there is a new innovative organization within an organization. As a company seeks to build out this servitized or advanced services solutions, they are competing with not only product sales, but also the standard, traditional service approaches within their organisation as well.
Having had experience of such challenges as a service leader himself and also in his role with ServiceMax assisting over service organisations navigate their way towards a servitized business approach, Kieran Notter, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax was well placed to help offer guidance for those on the call.
"One thing I have learned through the relationships I've had with my own experiences when working in the service industry, and then again, working for a software company like ServiceMax, but mostly through things like the Think Tank is that is never never clear yes on these answers," Notter began.
"There's so many variables that come into play such as the vertical that you are operating in. You look at things like new businesses, such as solar panels, they've come into the marketplace and instead of taking an old fashioned approach where they merely sell the solar panel, they have been able to ease into a servitized approach where they sell the outcome - the energy."
"There needs to be an alignment in the business. If you move into a siloed business you're not going to help anybody, the customers or yourself..."
- Kieran Notter, ServiceMax
"So there is a totally different aspect if you're a new company, you have a little bit more freedom. Whereas in some of the more traditional industries, companies that we expect to talk to day in day out, it's realistically about establishing an understanding from the top level. I personally the key is aligning the goals that people need realised.
"I mentioned earlier about understanding whether the supply chain is service's friend or foe. If you think about the fundamental goals that are required by these two organizations, with the supply chain needing to reduce inventory and service wanting more inventory, so it can increase its first time fix rates.
"On outset, that sounds like an argument, so there needs to be an alignment in the business. If you move into a siloed business you're not going to help anybody, the customers or yourself. So there has to be some sort of alignment. You'll find that that becomes possible maybe with some of these Tiger teams, where they can bring in people from each area and then they're freed up to do the 'free thinking' that isn't constrained by their their MDO's or their KPIs, or their compensation packages."
"It's about understanding what that is and then of course, there's always the other aspect which is when you come up with these great ideas and these visions, does your customer want to join in with that that vision? Are they acceptable to it or indeed, are they actually against it? Then if you find the ones that are acceptable to the idea, can you actually manage it? What infrastructure do you have to actually manage the offering that you're giving?"
"However, I think the world is dictating a newer approach. You know, when we heard from Coen and Daniel earlier and talking to all of the members of the Think Tank, we're looking at new initiatives, new intelligence, new ways of doing business."
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Aug 21, 2020 • Features • Think Tank • Servitization and Advanced Services
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Coen Jeukens expands on how we must reframe the Service/Product conversation
In this excerpt from the inaugural Field Service News Think Tanks Debrief Session, Coen Jeukens expands on how we must reframe the Service/Product conversation
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The many guises of servitization:
The question of how we must realign the relationship between service and product as we move towards a more service-centric economy has been discussed at length across the pages of www.fieldservicenews.com. We've been tackling this conversation with representatives of various corners of the field service world, not only geographically but also from industry and from academia.
The consensus, that was also echoed in this Think Tank is that collectively we need to reframe what what these conversations around servitization mean. That is because there are now very many different interpretations of servitization, through-life-services, outcome -based-services and advanced services.
At the very least companies need to be able to define their understandings of what servitization means to them, they need to then reframe that conversation internally first, so they can take it forward externally.
Speaking during the Think Tank Christo Roux, Director, Field & Workshop Services, Outotec commented:
“We talk about bundling our offering. So in terms of servitization it has come down to long term service agreements which may include consignment stock, service level agreements, partial or full presence on site, 24 hour call services and so forth.
“For us that is as far as we are going in terms of servitization.
“But outcome-based services in our world is definitely a discussion being held, but the general consensus would suggest that it might have to be something that is separate to this initial approach.
“I don’t today see it as something we could integrate into our field service offering particularly easily - so we will still definitely go with our long term service agreements. Through these we have an expected revenue base and also a better resource loading capability and then we can supplement this with all the spot resources we can do as well.”
In the sameThink Tank Maarten Wijnheijmer, Global Aftermarket Sales Director, Howden commented:
“Even if the official strategy is to prioritise aftermarket and at the top level that is the story, you also need to see what is happening two layers lower in the organisation, which is where the day to day decisions are made. Strategy doesn’t land on its own and it is not always understood by the top what is needed to implement their vision to generate more aftermarket business.”
Also sat in that Think Tank was Coen Jeukens, Vice President, Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax.
"Again, this story is just like the previous comment," Jeukens reflected when discussing the Think Tank in the debriefing session.
"It starts with the voice of the customer. I think that if we see that the customers are getting more mature and more demanding, we can see that apart from buying a product or buying the services, they simply want to have the output or the value of a product and I can really see that in Christo's comments here because it takes two. It takes the field service organization to make a conscious decisions, how far do we want to go in the maturity of our service offerings. However, of course that has to align with the maturity of the customers. Simply, it would be a waste of time if they would invest in servitization offerings, when the customers are not there to buy them."
"I think in every vertical in every market, every customer out there has their own dynamics in the market and service companies can really tap into that," Jeukens continues.
"Going back to the example of my previous employer, we started by looking at the voice of the customer, and we were selling safety and security systems. So that could be something simple as a camera system or a security camera system. Now the customer can buy a bunch of security cameras and they can maintain them themselves. We as the solution provider could buy or sell those cameras and we could sell associated maintenance contracts with them in this scenario what we would do is over the lifespan of the system is ensure that the customer receives the camera feeds
"However, we we saw that more and more customers were saying well that is not what we want. If you look at an airport for example there would be thousands of cameras. Just try to imagine the control desk where somebody is looking at thousands of camera feeds. It is unmanageable so that was not what the customer wanted.
"The customer wanted to have the insights. They only wanted to see the feeds of the cameras which need actionable items. So if you look at what customers really need, you can really start selling those new types of services. We had the privilege to have a number of customers who really valued that type of service."
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Aug 19, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Think Tank
In this excerpt from the first Field Service News Think Tank Debrief Sessions, ServiceMax's Coen Jeukens & Kieran Notter expand on the difference between data, insight, action and value.
In this excerpt from the first Field Service News Think Tank Debrief Sessions, ServiceMax's Coen Jeukens & Kieran Notter expand on the difference between data, insight, action and value.
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Standing on top of a data mountain or drowning in a data lake?
"I think for many organizations, it's [harnessing the power of the data wihtin their systems] very difficult," begins Coen Jeukens, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax.
"They have run their service organizations for many years in a particular paradigm and when they are confronted with new tools or technologies it's very difficult to get a kind of sneak preview or an idea of what those new tools could bring," Jeukens continues.
"Of course, from a marketing perspective, we have great messages about IoT data. But what that has brought us a lot of data lakes. So what I really liked in the statement of Jan van Veen during the Think Tanks was where he talks about about data and insights, and then he talks about value. However, there is one particular step in between. Data can be converted into insights, but the insights must then be converted into an action and the action itself provides the value."
"Sometimes you can create an action on an insight, but if that action doesn't provide any value should you could still continue collecting the data and the insights for it? By looking at and rationalizing that, by looking at things from a methodological perspective, not simply just jumping on the bandwagon of each new technology, but really having a clear understanding of what's the objective and then reverse engineering what you need.
"As for technology, well, it's a great driver, and it's an enabler at the same time, but then you can start making sense of things," Jeukens adds.
"For me, it's about having a vision of what you want, and then measuring what you need to put that in place and then collecting that data.."
- Kieran Notter, ServiceMax
"One of the things I've seen all my years is there's there's there's a huge amount of desire to collect data," comments Kieran Notter, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax.
"To speak to the point Jan was making during the Think Tank, there is not always a vision to understand what to do with that data. I think a lot of the times we try and put in a solution before before we actually understand what the problem is," Notter continues.
"I think that is often the issue, companies must understand what the problem they are trying to solve is, or the outcome, or the value that they're trying to drive, and then only collect the data for that.
"If you think about a technician in the workplace, which is either a scenario where you're utilizing the technician to collect the data, or you're utilizing connected products. If we look at that human element, the humans will stop collecting it with accuracy if they think it's not being used or utilized. So for me, it's about having a vision of what you want, and then measuring what you need to put that in place and then collecting that data.
"Don't drown yourself in data," Notter concludes
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Aug 17, 2020 • Features • Digital Transformation • Think Tank
In this excerpt of the first Field Service News Think Tank Debrief Sessions we hear from Daniel Brabec VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax as he discusses the deeper layers of value that can be found through digitalisation...
In this excerpt of the first Field Service News Think Tank Debrief Sessions we hear from Daniel Brabec VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax as he discusses the deeper layers of value that can be found through digitalisation...
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The multiple touch points of a digital transformation project:
One area that really came to the fore in this series of Think Tanks was that while at conferences and in the pages of trade journals such as Field Service News we often tend to primarily focus on the efficiencies and the improvements to the bottom line that digitalization can bring, or occasionally we may focus on the other end of the spectrum when we start looking at the various different potential revenue streams enabled by the use of tools such as remote assistance for example.
However, there are so many other areas of the business that digitalisation in the field service operation that connect disparate parts of the business to the field service operation such as marketing, R&D or sales.
As Jason Smith, Director of Field Service, EMEA, 3D Systems Corporation commented:
"One thing that the embracing of digital and the flow of data that comes with that allows for is the coming together of all of these varous touch points that allows a business to operate as a much more effective whole.
“Everything has to be about data, so we need the best data coming off the machine through the customer to get the right diagnostic in place. Industry 4.0 and connectivity is really helping with that.
“However, we still have a culture amongst engineers where they need to recognise that they are also responsible for the solution. What they have found and how they build up their experience is empirical - they’ve been able to build on that knowledge and telling others, that knowledge capture is key to the whole thing. It’s not just what is wrong with the machine its what did you do to fix it and how can we put that back into a closed-loop cycle so we are constantly improving and evolving the solution.
“We’ve touched on some of the tools to do that and Artificial Intelligence is of course one such tool but making sure that you have that closed-loop in place and its not just one-way traffic is the key to that culture change and so making sure engineers are part of it and recognise it I think is going to be key to improvement.”
And Jan van Veen, Manging Director, MoreMomentum also commented:
"Data is absolutely important; there is no doubt about that. But the value is not in the data; neither is it essentially in the insight.
"What we are seeing is a number of different mechanisms kicking in that are all related to digitalisation. There are several of these. There is the disruptive element in how we are working, but also in the markets we serve at large.
“Some companies will follow the curve, others will be entrants into the market that drive us as a sector to work in a better way, and others will be unable to keep up and will fall away.
“Also, at some point we begin to see a type of de-materialisation. So we get less products being involved as some are taken out of the equation. For example, we don’t have generally have a need for a camera or a calculator anymore as our phones can handle both those functions.
“Another phase we will see is demonetisation, where digital products become so prevalent that they become much cheaper and then finally alongside this we also see democratisation where digital services become available for everybody at an affordable price point.
“We are in the early phase today as we talk about data coming from equipment and what we can do with that. But I think the real challenge is how are we going to turn it into value. Not insight, but services and value propositions using the data.
It certainly seems evident that companies find more than one benefit when implementing some aspect of a digital transformation. However, do companies tend to go into these projects with one vision of what they they're trying to achieve and then actually discover new potential improvement opportunities on along the way or do they have already have a comprehensive understanding of the many facets of their digitalisation roadmap?
"It's a really interesting question," mused Daniel Brabec, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax during the debrief session.
"If you think about where the actual change comes from, where the internal drive comes from, a lot of times, it'll be on some initiative that's been directed down via the executive team that doesn't necessarily have a touch with service. For example, the CFO might come back and say service is costing us too much money, we need to reduce x and y. And we need to make sure that we're cutting all of our costs here and there and to do that, we need to get our first time fixed rate up to X percent because it's currently at 53%."
"There's a lot of really quick wins for organizations to change and do things that are not hard for them in that digital transformation..."
- Daniel Brabec, ServiceMax
'What what we find when I work with a lot of these companies is because they're they're so archaic in nature, they don't have any digital tools, they may still be on on a whiteboard or pen and paper out in the field that they know they need to move the needle in one area. But as we start to discover they have a lot of opportunities in other areas that can make a huge impact on their business as well that they haven't even considered," Brabec continues.
"I think pulling all these different departments together to actually discuss some of the potential solutions is key to understanding you know, how they can collaborate and how they can actually enact some of those changes that we're starting to prescribe for them."
"In fact, one of the things that we do is to help our customers is called a maturity assessment," Brabec explains.
"We'll work with various individuals in the organisation and get their take on where the service team is across various dimensions to to kind of understand as an organization, are they high or low and where can they really move the needle.
"There's a lot of really quick wins for organizations to change and do things that are not hard for them in that digital transformation. That can really move the needle for them as an organization and free up more opportunity to make more of those changes into the future."
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