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As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year’s Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre.

Here we hear from Caroline Pennington, Trimble Field Service, discussing some of the findings of  the Trimble FSMs latest Market Insight report. To download a copy of this report click here 

 

 

Over recent months, recruitment in the field service market has boomed, with a wealth of opportunities now on offer for field service engineers, managers, representatives as well as specialist roles. John Cameron, general manager, Trimble Field Service Management (FSM) looks a little deeper into this trend...

In line with this boom, field service organisations are seeking a new type of worker, one which has the necessary technical ability to carry out skilled and complex work but which also has the interpersonal attributes to deal with, and build a relationship with, the customer.

Trimble recently released a report, ’Transforming Service Delivery 2014 – An Insight Report’, which investigates the most pressing issues affecting fleet and field service organisations today. Interestingly, the report found customer centricity to be at the heart of field service business’ strategies and highlighted an era in field service where customer satisfaction, retention and profitability are intrinsically linked. As a result, organisations are revolutionising their strategies in order to conform to growing customer expectations.

A direct impact of this has been the role of the field service worker, which has shifted from one of operational necessity to strategic importance. Why this shift? Because today’s customer values one-to-one interactions and with the field service worker often being the only contact a customer will have with a company, the quality of service and information the field worker provides can be the only way for customers to measure the integrity, credibility, effectiveness and overall brand promise of the service-based organisation.

The emergence of a ‘new’ field service worker

Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service and third party expert cited in Trimble’s report, has found that having well trained and professional employees who are genuinely empowered to do their jobs is something that customers truly value.

“The biggest change we’ve seen in customer service,” Jo Causon explains, “is the move from a transactional economy to the relationship economy where value lies in one-to-one interactions and service leaders prevail in the marketplace. In a relationship economy companies that excel in customer service are increasingly able to cross into and disrupt marketplaces with a common purpose of changing the rules of engagement with the consumer and the employee, raising expectations of, and commitment to, service.”

With this shift, the skills agenda is becoming increasingly important as customers expect a greater level of engagement and real understanding of their needs. “Those organisations that concentrate on developing relationships rather than transactions will be the ones that are able to drive greater loyalty and commitment,” says Jo. “The types of new skills sets required are the ability to combine strong emotional intelligence, commercial acumen and technological awareness. All of which will be integral in an environment which is increasingly complex. There will be a growing challenge for organisations to bring together the required skills in order to deliver service experiences that are simple and intuitive and run across the organisation.”

Field service organisations therefore need to ask themselves when they are recruiting, are the individuals they are interviewing those who have not only the technical skills to do the field service role but also the  required emotional intelligence to make the connection with the customer.

 

Will Sambrook managing director of The Akenham Partnership and an additional expert cited in Trimble’s report, says of field service organisations, “I think a lot of organisations are often guilty of wanting people, especially young people, to arrive at the workplace ‘ready’ for the work and the culture and it’s not as simple as that.

“Businesses need to do more to engage with the colleges and schools showing students what they can expect from an organisation like theirs. What they can do in terms of getting themselves ready, demonstrate where their career can go in their industry.”[quote float="right"]Aberdeen found best-in-class companies were 35% more likely to use workforce management solutions such as performance management tools to optimise resources and workforce management processes.

 

But it is not just new starters in a company that need to be considered.  It is essential that any changes being implemented to an organisation, whether it is rolling out new technology or processes or ways of working, are communicated thoroughly to the existing workforce. Engagement is essential for a successful outcome. Employees need to be fully prepared so that a culture can be fostered in which they understand the changes, why they are needed and how to embrace them.

Will Sambrook adds, “Board engagement is absolutely essential. But it is important that Boards do not believe they have to be all-seeing, all-doing or all-acting. Their role is much more about creating the line of sight, from the Board strategy to what’s happening in the organisation; the processes, the people, their engagement with the customer – everything is aligned.”

Retaining top performers

In terms of field service workers it is not just about focussing on those being recruited or going through change but also managing those in the business and doing the job every day. Best-in-class organisations understand the ramifications of having an undertrained, underqualified workforce. When a company sends a field service worker on a service call, the worker needs to resolve the issue the first time. According to Aberdeen, however, 26% of cases are not resolved on the first visit, requiring additional follow up visits. While this is not all down to skillset, it nonetheless erodes customer confidence and can reflect the need for worker training.

One way managers of field based workforces can manage performance is through the use of workforce management solutions which provide capabilities to evaluate field worker performance and determine who delivers the best results. Once managers identify best-in-class workers they should do what they can to retain them. Aberdeen found best-in-class companies were 35% more likely to use workforce management solutions such as performance management tools to optimise resources and workforce management processes.

For more information on the transforming landscape of customer service and associated change and skills gap download Trimble’s latest industry report, ‘Transforming Service Delivery: An Insight Report’ via the following link: www.trimble.com/fsm/insightreport

As the organisers of the Field Service Solutions Theatre at this year's Service Management Expo, Field Service News was on hand to speak exclusively to a number of leading industry professionals straight as they stepped off the theatre podium. In this video series we are pleased to bring you the highlights from the Field Service Solutions Theatre.

Here we hear from Tabitha Tayler-Higginson, Trimble Field Service Management who took part in the Future of Field Service Panel Discussion and here she gives us a little more insight into Trimble FSM's latest product Work Management.

Trimble Field Service Management's new Managing Director John Cameron joins Field Service Service News as a guest columnist and outlines the importance of managing mobile resources effectively...

Many companies managing a large field service workforce operate in industries which require highly skilled individuals, whose work is variable and complex in terms of location and task. Add in a high degree of compliance-focused work and that means that field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. However, with market competition and customer expectations at an all-time high it is more important than ever that organisation’s ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day. Understandably, the biggest area of concern for those in field service is workforce management[1] and 69 per cent of organisations are investing in technology to help manage jobs more effectively[2].

Expert Insight: Defining the challenges

Establishing what it takes to manage a large field service operation today, from managing the people and scheduling the work, to the technology that helps to drive efficiency, is essential and requires organisations to overcome a number of obstacles, including:

• Jobs overrunning if they are more complicated than first thought
•  Traffic congestion and vehicle breakdowns causing delays or even failure to meet an appointment
•  Workers potentially calling in sick, starting late or getting delayed can impact adversely on the productivity of the workforce.

The biggest and most repetitive challenge facing organisations managing a mobile workforce is cost and this is closely related to a secondary challenge - the role of the technician in the business.

The technician is often the only contact a customer has with the company and therefore exposure to the company’s service delivery and brand. With a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience. The challenge facing organisations is therefore around the role and responsibility of the technician.

An additional challenge is measuring service performance, suggesting that the old adage of you cannot manage what you cannot measure certainly rings true. Measuring what is happening in a hugely diverse workforce and identifying what the key metrics are to do that is essential. Ultimately you need to understand what has happened and you want to know that ‘now’ to use that data to enable real-time decision-making.

Finally, managing change and embedding best practice is core to a successful field service operation. Organisations often wrestle with this change on a regular basis from all sorts of areas, whether it is new technology, new people, new policy or new vans and equipment. In a remote workforce, managing change and making sure that it sticks is particularly difficult, due to their activities, but finding a way to embed change and making sure that best practice is shared across the workforce is a key success factor.

Putting workforce management technology into action

Reassuringly, developments in workforce management technologies have begun to offer a solution to these challenges, through intelligent scheduling tools and performance management analytics. This capability provides the stepping stones needed to help organisations measure, manage and improve their operations through optimising resources, offering real-time visibility and monitoring and giving warning of tasks at risk or showing the impact of work allocation decisions.

Traditionally, many organisations scheduled tasks based on a technician’s allocated territory but with today’s most common customer complaint being that a technician did not resolve the issue on a first visit, scheduling the most knowledgeable technician to a task or one who has the right tools or parts in their vehicle, is crucial. As a result, more and more organisations are beginning to realise the value of intelligent scheduling - incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into their scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is actually the person who can resolve the customer’s issue the first time. Aberdeen Group[3] found that intelligence is at the heart of scheduling with over half of organisations using service performance data to evaluate the effectiveness of scheduling criteria.

Self-learner tools can also help considerably with intelligent scheduling. They incorporate an algorithm that quickly learns preferences for each mobile worker and will allocate tasks accordingly. This includes geography, such as which mobile workers normally service particular areas, and what skills mobile workers have and to what degree they are qualified to do certain types of work. Such capabilities help to improve customer service as tasks can be scheduled to best meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs), produce efficient routes to reduce travel time and ensures work is only given to those with the right skills, carrying the right assets and tools.

A case in point: Pacific Telemanagement Services (PTS)  

Justin Keane, Chief Operating Officer at PTS drove change in the organisation after recognising a need for additional effectiveness in its scheduling processes. Every morning the company would give a batch of tickets to its technicians for their assigned regions and would see what they could get done in a day. Technicians would print a list of their tasks and spend half an hour planning routes based on their own knowledge of the area. They tried using a map to sequence the stops, but that took about an hour a day for each of the eight regional hubs, which is eight hours a day just to build the routes. With these scheduling problems having a detrimental effect on the company’s productivity and growth, it sought a solution which would allow it to become more efficient and reduce or eliminate the time required for scheduling.

PTS deployed a field service management solution which allows dispatchers to view all their tasks and schedules in one place. This has reduced the time that dispatchers spend on routing from three hours a day to 45 minutes a day – an efficiency saving of 75 per cent or about 11 hours a week. Additionally, since the technicians no longer needed half an hour a day to plan their own routes, it has saved more than 200 hours per week of their time and job completion rates have increased by 10 per cent.

PTS has expanded its field service technology to all of its regions and this has made the company more productive, which means improved efficiency, happier customers and a more positive bottom line.

 

As part of Trimble Field Service Management's recent event "The Big Debate" Will Sambrook of The Arkenham Partnership looks at how important the board is in implementing change for field service organisations as well as discussing sharing data within an organisation and what the key changes required to implement a successful change

 

 

In recent years, the battle to improve operational efficiency in field service has been hard fought with businesses constantly looking for new ways to do more with fewer resources. As a result, business leaders are being forced to critically examine the way their organisation works and look for new ways to deliver the competitive edge required to thrive in today’s marketplace.

Customer Service vs. Cost

71% of field service organisations use customer satisfaction as the main metric to measure the performance of their business. However with an increased focus on service excellence, yet reduced customer spending and a squeeze on profit margins, companies must find ways to balance service delivery with the cost.

One way organisations can look to achieve this balance is through ‘getting it right first time’. The most common customer complaint is when a technician does not resolve the issue first time. This may be due to not having the right part or tools, not having the right skills or not enough time to complete the job .

Issues like this can be avoided if companies focus on their productivity by taking a bird’s eye view of the end-to-end process. They need to know what the problem is, who is qualified to solve it, notify them of the task, know where they are, when they will arrive and when the job is done. Taking these necessary steps to avoid a return visit will maintain productivity and ensure customer satisfaction.
“Customer Service is a strategic issue,” says Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service. “If organisations do not include it in the boardroom then some of those organisations won’t be around in the longer term.”

Managing Mobile Resources in Field Service Delivery

Managing a large field service operation today is filled with complexity, from managing the people to the assets, vehicles and jobs. Research shows that workforce management is one of the biggest areas of concern in field service and with much field-based work becoming increasingly complex and critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence, more importantly than ever companies need to ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day.

The biggest and most repetitive challenge facing organisations managing a mobile workforce is cost and this is closely related to the following secondary challenges:

• The role of the technician in the business - with a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience.
• Measuring service performance - ultimately you need to understand what has happened and you want to know that ‘now’ to use that data to enable real-time decision-making.
• Managing change and embedding best practice - organisations often wrestle with change whether it is new technology, new people, new policy or new assets. Finding a way to embed change and making sure that best practice is shared across the workforce is a key success factor.[/unordered_list] 

The importance of Measuring Field Service Performance

As the business adage goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” and this has never been truer when it comes to the performance of field service organisations.
A field service operation is extremely dynamic and often unpredictable. Each day, managers are faced with complex issues which require fast action. However lack of real-time visibility into what is happening in the field can result in managers making poor decisions; directly impacting the performance level of their workforce. Indeed, performance management and visibility were cited as being key areas of concern for field service organisations .

In order to improve operational decision-making, field service managers must begin to utilise instant and accurate information about key trends occurring in the field. Real-time data about why a service window wasn’t met, how many planned jobs were left incomplete, duration of tasks and which technicians are performing well, can all be used to drive service performance levels and transform the way work is planned, allocated, managed, reported and evaluated.

Turning data into information

In recent years, field service organisations have been overwhelmed by the flow of information coming in from multiple sources, in various formats and through an array of tools. The major challenge they face is how to make sense of the massive amounts of data in order to extract valuable insights to help hone day-to-day operations and make long-term strategic decisions.

In a recent Trimble survey, the main concern with using data from the field was the reliability of the information. Performance Management Analytics (PMA) has come to the fore as a solution able to tackle this challenge by giving managers the ability to review a day’s work and measure performance results against specific metrics. For example, they can identify the most productive performers, determine which schedules and routes produce the best results and compare results from one vehicle or worker against the entire workforce.

Implementing successful change to better engage workers

When a company is implementing any change to the way it works, whether it is rolling out new technology or processes or ways of working, engaging the workforce is the key for success.
“Board engagement is absolutely essential,” says Will Sambrook, Managing Director of The Akenham Partnership. “But it is important that Boards do not believe they have to be all-seeing, all-doing, all-acting. Their role is much more about creating the line of sight, from the Board strategy to what’s happening in the organisation; the processes, the people, their engagement with the customer – everything is aligned.”

Using Technology & Tools

It widely acknowledged that technology is a key enabler to being able to deliver service excellence. Indeed, 70% of field service companies believe the key to achieving strategic business goals is having the latest field service technology in place.

Some of the future technology trends set to make an impact on field service organisations include:

• Increased integration of M2M
•  Profit-Driven Analytics
• Knowledge Management shaping strategy
• Leverage of Mobile Apps
• Cloud-Driven Transformations
• Data-Driven Productivity
• Growth of rugged mobility

For further insight into how to transform your field service operations, catch Trimble’s Caroline Pennington, Market & Analyst Manager and editor of Trimble’s recently-launched publication, Transforming Service Delivery: An Insight Report, at this months’ Service Management Expo. Caroline will be exclusively presenting some of the key trends and issues highlighted in the publication at 12pm on 17th June. Complimentary copies of the report will also be on offer at Trimble’s stand O1470. 

 

 

Trimble Field Service Management has recently announced that they will be attending Field Service Forum in Amsterdam from 3-4th June. A brand new event taking place at the Radisson Blu hotel, Trimble will join field service professionals from across Europe to network, exhibit and debate the challenges facing field service organisations today and explore the current and future opportunities for business growth.

Across the two days, keynote presentations will be offered alongside dedicated workshops, focus sessions and one-to-one meetings. A key sponsor for the event, Trimble will be participating in the show's 'Technology Forum' on Wednesday 4th June with a presentation on how to manage a field operation effectively and using emerging technologies to drive service excellence,  focussed on the manufacturing  and capital asset industries.

Across the two day event Trimble will be offering a live showcase of 'Work Management', offering attendees the chance to find out how the cloud-based solution can transform the productivity of a mobile workforce through intelligent scheduling tools and state-of-the-art Performance Management analytics (PMA).

Complimentary copies of Trimble's latest industry publication, 'Transforming Service Delivery: An Insight Report', will also be on offer at the Trimble stand. The report investigates the most pressing issues affecting field service organisations and provides insight into how to transform operations, from measuring service performance and delivering excellent customer service to handling change management and turning data into information.

The report is also available for complimentary download via the following link www.trimble.com/fsm/insightreport

 

The field service industry continues to evolve at pace. New technologies are constantly emerging which have the potential to change the industry as we know it.

At the same time we are seeing a huge cultural shift with many seeking to realign their service division from cost centre to profit centre. To help us keep up with these changes Field Service News has put together a panel of five field service industry experts and asked them each to share their insight on the industry today. The third member of our panel is Mark Forrest, of Trimble Field Service Solutions

 

What is the biggest driver for change in field service today?

Many companies managing a large field service workforce operate in industries which require highly skilled individuals, whose work is variable and complex in terms of location and task. Add in a high degree of compliance-focused work and that means that field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. With increased customer expectation it is important that companies ensure that their field service is not derailed by unpredictable dynamics of the working day.

An increasing number of organisations are beginning to realise that it isn’t where the vehicle is that’s important, it’s where the engineer or field service worker is and what they are doing that is of paramount concern, as ultimately they are the ones providing the service to the customer. The support of solutions to help manage work efficiently and effectively has therefore become integral in helping to meet customer demands and achieve service delivery excellence.

 

Which technology has had the biggest impact on the field service industry in the last 5 years?

Organisations with field service technicians have previously struggled to effectively schedule their work and track their progress to continually meet service commitments. Indeed, one in ten organisations still collect data from the field via paperwork. However, work management technologies have emerged to transform the productivity of mobile workforces through intelligent scheduling tools and performance management analytics.

Organisations can measure, manage and improve their operations through optimising resources, offering real-time visibility and monitoring and giving warning of tasks at risk or showing the impact of work allocation decisions.

Data obtained from such technologies can be analysed through performance management analytics to allow interrogation of the information to provide an understanding of the performance, trends and the barriers in line with business targets. The analysis drills down to different variables around individuals, teams, regions, job type etc. and can be provided to different stakeholders within the organisation depending on their business need for day-to-day management or longer term business planning.

 

What is the most important consideration when moving from cost centre to profit centre? 

Field service has evolved from what was once an operational necessity to a strategic significance, as the technician may now be the only contact a customer has with the company and therefore exposure to the company’s service delivery and brand. With a proven link between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability, how the technician interacts with the customer can be significant in the customer experience.

The most common customer complaint is when a technician does not resolve the issue first time. Making sure you get the right people with the right skills with the right assets to the right place within a set time is therefore essential. Work management technologies can help by incorporating technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is the person who can resolve the issue first time.

In addition, employing mobile workers who have the ability to upsell or cross-sell products and solutions whilst with customers can also make a difference to service delivery as a cost or profit centre.

 

Who is Mark Forrest? 

Mark Forrest is general manager of Trimble Field Service Management, a position he has held since January 2012. In this role, Mark is responsible for providing worldwide mobility-based productivity solutions to the communications, field services and trades markets.

Prior to joining the Field Service Management division, Mark served as general manager and Chief Operating Officer for Caterpillar Trimble Control Technologies (CTCT), a joint venture between Trimble Navigation and Caterpillar. Mark also has served as the general manager and worldwide sales director for the Heavy and Highway Division. A native of Australia, Forrest holds an undergraduate diploma in Engineering Surveying and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Colorado.

To read this full panel debate and much more download a free digital copy of our quarterly magazine. Click here to register.

 

Trimble Field Service Management are set to release a new report following on from a research project they have be conducting looking at how field service organisations need to transform their service delivery to remain competitive in today's market. Ahead of the release of the report Field Service News spoke exclusively with Trimble FSM Managing Director Mark Forrest. 

FSN: You report that customer service is widely regarded to be the number one priority for field service organisations. How are organisations adapting to meet this priority?

MF: The correlation between customer satisfaction, retention and profitability is proven and we know the most common customer complaint is when a technician does not resolve the problem first time. As a result, field service organisations have to strive to get it right first time to meet customer expectations. A return visit is not only significant in terms of time and cost but can also be damaging to the brand and reputation from a customer view point.

Recent studies show that over a quarter of dispatched jobs fail to be resolved first time, requiring two or more follow-up visits. Making sure you get the right people with the right skills with the right assets to the right place within a set time is therefore essential. Work management technologies can help with this. They incorporate technician knowledge, parts availability, and capacity into scheduling processes to ensure that the technician arriving on site is the person who can resolve the issue first time.

FSN: Your research found that 1 in 10 field service organisations still collect data from the field via paperwork and some collect no data at all. Is there a cost to field services of collecting data in this way? If so, what can be done to address it?

MF: To pick up on a finding like this was a real surprise considering, with the advancements in workforce management technologies, that some organisations are still relying on paperwork to manage their field service work and some are not collecting any management information at all. Not only are there immediate implications for, and restrictions on, the day-to-day management of the work in terms of efficiencies, scheduling and productivity, but if you don’t have a real-time understanding of what is happening, there is little scope to then apply this information and identify trends for longer term business planning.

With customer expectations at an all-time high, field service work has become increasingly mission-critical in terms of timing, skills and consequence. More organisations are beginning to recognise that they need to manage their work more efficiently and effectively and adopt intelligent scheduling which allocates the right technician to the right job. As a result we will see organisations move away from the traditional methods of data collection and look towards automated learning tools to accelerate this process.

FSN: The importance of measuring service performance and that you ‘cannot manage what you cannot measure’ is discussed in the report. What metrics should field service organisations use to measure service performance effectively?

MF: While some organisations aren’t collecting data at all, for those that do, time taken to complete a job, customer satisfaction and the number of jobs completed were the three main metrics used to measure field service performance. For most businesses, measuring and improving just three key metrics will offer meaningful and significant improvements so it’s fundamental that businesses chose the right three to keep an improvement project manageable and on track. The emergence of Performance Management Analytics (PMA) can help considerably in the measurement process. Such tools provide the visibility to analyse the productivity of a field service operation and showcase key metrics. These metrics can range from how often SLAs are met, total tasks completed, distance travelled and utilisation in terms of actual tasks completed against total time of the working day. This can be seen at an organisation, region, team or even individual level, allowing businesses to drill down to the areas of concern or opportunity and make the necessary changes.

FSN: The report states that the ability to make sense of ‘Big Data’ can make the difference between a business that is good enough and one that stands out from the pack. What hurdles do field service organisations face in tackling ‘Big Data’ and how can they overcome these?

MF: Due to the sheer scale of data being created in everything we do, field service organisations can be overwhelmed by the amount of information coming in from multiple sources, in various formats and through an array of tools. Our research found that around a third of field service managers believe that their organisation is ineffective at using the data they collect to make decisions and the main concern with using data from the field was the reliability of the information.

The key is to firstly use technology that you trust to provide you the data you need. The next step is cutting through the amount of data and identifying the trends and metrics that really make a difference to your operation. Starting with a benchmark is key so you can track improvements as you start to measure the impact of change. Using field service data correctly can give vital insight to field service managers in areas such as identifying the most productive performers and those which need training, determining how long job types take and predicting peaks and troughs in capacity based on previous trends.

FSN: You report that more than 90% of the change programmes rolled out by field service organisations in the last year improved their operations. What is the key to rolling out change well and how can other organisations achieve this?

MF: We’ve worked with a number of large organisations in the roll-out of very large programmes of change and organisations that implement change well, can be seen to do so because of the culture of their organisation, employee engagement and having the right processes and strategy in place. It is also of the utmost importance that change is driven by the Board of Directors and that they keep on top of it to ensure that all processes and people remained aligned with the set goals. I cannot stress enough the need to really engage the workforce in a technology roll-out. Organising workshops in order to educate them on a new technology is essential and will give them the opportunity to ask questions and understand the overall value attributed to change. Using a new technology can be daunting so providing that on-hand support after implementation is also, just as important.

FSN: What are the most important considerations when implementing new technology?

MF: Our research found that many field service managers still believe the most important factor in choosing new technology is ease of use. This was closely followed by integration into current systems. We know from the companies that we work with, that field service organisations are increasingly seeking modular, scalable and easy to integrate solutions that allow them to deliver on their business objectives and which they can easily roll out to employees, is easy to use and offers them an enhanced work experience.

Organisations that understand how to strategically leverage new and existing technologies stand to drive efficiencies, profits and improve their customer service. Some of the most important developments to look out for include integration of M2M, leveraging of mobile apps, profit-driven analytics and cloud-driven transformations.

FSN: You conclude your report with a section on ‘What the future holds for field service management’. In your opinion, what will be the most significant trend to shape the industry going forward?

MF: It is an exciting time for the field service industry as we’re seeing a different kind of field service worker emerge. Those entering the industry are more proficient with technology and tools and that is already having an impact on not only the increased adoption of mobility and apps but also the way in which we, as customers, are communicated with. Gamification is a developing step for this tech savvy workforce as it offers a more interactive, competitive environment for the mobile worker, increasing productivity. From a wider technology point of view I see M2M as having a significant effect on the industry with predictive and preventative maintenance growing to make up a significant proportion of service work; potentially with service companies taking the place of the customer as the instigator of a service visit, having been alerted to a potential issue by the machine or device they are going to fix – a huge step change for our industry.

Trimble are hosting a virtual summit on the Third of April which will be discussing this report and the industry at large and you can register for this event here