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Kevin McNally, Sales Director, Asolvi takes a look at how technologies such as Cloud and IoT are levelling the playing field and giving small and medium-sized businesses the opportunity to deliver service standards that meet and exceed those of the traditionally dominant enterprise-sized organisations...

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One thing is certain in today’s field service sector, that never before has service delivery been so empowered by the technology that now underpins field service management.

Cloud is, of course, one such technology and the introduction of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model that it gave life to has undoubtedly changed the way that smaller field service organisations can operate.

Cloud has given them access to SaaS-based Field Service Management (FSM) solutions that in the previous CAPEX world of the late twentieth and an early twenty-first century would have been simply too cost-prohibitive for them to access.

IoT, has the potential to go even further and not just enhance the way field service operations are undertaken, as Cloud and Mobile have done, but entirely revolutionise the fundamental ways in which we approach field service delivery.This is one very clear example of how technology has very much levelled the playing field for smaller field service companies.

Another key technology, IoT, has the potential to go even further and not just enhance the way field service operations are undertaken, as Cloud and Mobile have done, but entirely revolutionise the fundamental ways in which we approach field service delivery.

The long-standing break-fix methodology, which has been at the core of field service operations by necessity since the inception of field service itself, can be circumvented and replaced by proactive preventative maintenance.

In a world of IoT, the service provider is no longer dependent upon the customer to report a fault, the asset itself can identify that it needs maintenance and the service call can be arranged in advance of the failure.

IoT absolutely offers the keys to a far better future for field service - for both service provider and customer alike, but for smaller to medium-sized companies are we entering once again into an era of cost-prohibitive technology?

Has the playing field so neatly levelled off by the introduction of the Cloud, once again become skewed in favour of the enterprise-sized organisations?

The importance of Cloud:

As I alluded to in the introduction there is no denying that the emergence of Cloud computing has been a core driver in the ability for smaller field service companies to be able to compete with their larger competitors.

This development is mostly the result of the introduction of SaaS-based subscription-style licensing which makes access to such systems possible.

It seems like a long, long time ago that Tesseract, an Asolvi product became the first company in the world to offer their full FSM solution in the Cloud and on a SaaS model. Indeed, today almost all FSM providers now offer their solution in such a manner.

Many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation isThis means that the smaller companies can have access to tools like scheduling, stock and parts management and mobile work management applications for their field-based staff to access via a mobile device.

Yet, they also have the advantage of being more agile, more streamlined and less weighed down by legacy systems and processes that their larger peers undoubtedly face.

In fact, many aspects of introducing an FSM solution can become more challenging the larger an organisation is. For example, optimised scheduling engines need to be ‘taught’ the rules under which they are to operate – the larger the workforce and the more diverse the skill-sets within that workforce, the more ‘lessons’ that need to be fed into the scheduling system for it to operate as intended.

In terms of FSM solutions, the shift to the Cloud has absolutely changed the competitive dynamics within various industries in favour of those smaller companies who are savvy enough to embrace cloud-based FSM and unencumbered by challenges such as the above which larger companies may face.

Can IoT work for SMBs?

Earlier, I outlined the potential seismic disruption that IoT is set to have on field service delivery as a whole.

Yet, when we hear about those companies that are harnessing the power of IoT, invariably we often tend to look at examples of companies who all tend to sit within the largest bracket of organisations.

Rolls Royce, GE, Sony et al have often dominated the headlines in terms of the successful application of IoT platforms that have radically changed their approach to field service. So one could be forgiven for thinking that IoT is perhaps something only the largest organisations are capable of implementing – but is this necessarily the case?

The reality is that there are a growing number of SMB-sized field service organisation who have embraced IoT to become a truly disruptive force within their respective sectors.The reality is that there are a growing number of SMB-sized field service organisation who have embraced IoT to become a truly disruptive force within their respective sectors.

Take for example regional German IT and document management services provider IBS Bürosysteme (IBS).

By utilising a machine-to-machine solution called Evatic Consumable and Meter Management (ECMM) they have been able to boost productivity, dramatically eliminate washed toner and streamline their processing. They have done this by integrating ECMM with their fleet management solution and directly processing data from all of the printers within their fleet, generating consumable replacements and subsequent invoices automatically.

This provides a clear win-win scenario in that their customers’ are receiving an improved service and massively reduced downtime, whilst IBS are able to improve their own efficiencies both within the field service and consumables areas of their business.

However, for those companies that embrace IoT, the rewards can be even greater than mere efficiency and cost savings.

As an example of a smaller company truly utilising the power of IoT let’s take the example of Espresso Service – a third party service provider operating within the coffee sector.

They have taken an active approach to utilising IoT data from across the fleet of coffee machines that they service and in doing so have not only been able to improve their own service delivery but have subsequently been able to develop additional advanced services based on their ability to translate the data from the assets they serve into truly meaningful insights that help their customers better understand how the assets are being utilised.

This allows them to tailor their own marketing and business strategies to be closer in line to how their own customers wish to be served.

It is in examples such as this where we see the true impact that IoT can and will have on industries of all sorts.

IoT naturally paves the path towards preventative maintenance, thereby simultaneously reducing the cost of each truck roll whilst improving customer satisfactionFor whilst as we’ve discussed IoT naturally paves the path towards preventative maintenance, thereby simultaneously reducing the cost of each truck roll whilst improving customer satisfaction, it is within the data generated by connected assets that we will find the most valuable new revenue streams.

As seen with Espresso Service, being able to offer customers advanced services that are based around the insight from data collected within their assets, can open up potential new revenue streams while firmly embedding an organisation within their customer’s business ecosystem.

Yet, while the data is the tool that underpins such advanced services, it is an organisation’s ability to think beyond the bounds of the currently accepted status quo of what good service within their sector is, and to seek what the new normal should be and bring that forward to their client base, that is the critical genetic component of almost all disruptive companies.

This is certainly not a trait that belongs exclusively to enterprise companies.

Indeed, a strong argument could be made that it is the entrepreneurial environment that exists within many smaller organisations that can allow such ideas and concepts to be nurtured and ultimately flourish.

Another factor for consideration here is also that examples such as that of Espresso Service are largely reflective of an organisations ability to truly understand the market they serve and their customers needs within that market.

In today’s world where service has become a core differentiator, this can allow the SMBs to flourish should they embrace the current technology available to them.Again, here we see an advantage that many smaller companies may have over their larger peers in that the relationships they often have with their client base are that much more intimate – giving them perhaps better opportunity to really get under the skin of what their customers’ most challenging issues are and making them better placed to develop strategies and solutions that can solve the issues at hand.

The rapid development of technology we are seeing today means that smaller organisations are now able to access technology that can push their service standards on par and above those of the larger, traditionally dominant companies within their competitive sphere.

In today’s world where service has become a core differentiator, this can allow the SMBs to flourish should they embrace the current technology available to them.

Want to know more? The bad news is the full white paper is only available exclusively for fieldservicenews.com subscribers.

The good news is that if you are a field service practitioner then you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner.

The even better news is we will send you a copy of this white paper when you apply as a welcome!

Click here to apply for your complimentary industry subscription to fieldservicenews.com and access the white paper now!

Note: Please do take the time to our T&Cs (available in plain English at fieldservicenews.com/subscribe) and note that this content is sponsored by Asolvi

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Asolvi have continued their expansion within the European field service management sector with two new key hires who have recently joined them from Xerox Norway.

The two new hires are:

Lars Løkkevik

Løkkevik has 25 years of experience from sales, management and business development.

Lars worked 11 years in Xerox in various positions in Business Development, Channel and Services. In his new role with Asolvi he will be responsible for further developing their partners more towards a consultative driven sales process where solutions with a service packing provide clearer differentiation and build new revenue streams.

He will work at Nordic level and with Asolvi's prospects, existing customers, manufacturers and dealers.

John Alfred Hustvedt

Hustvedt has a long experience from B2B sales of IT and IT. Has led several projects to win the majority of Xerox's major Norwegian contracts.

John Alfred has worked with the print service concept Managed Print Services (MPS). He is used as a lecturer on the subject, and is a member of the International Print Service Association (MPSA), a member of the Standards & Best Practices Committee, which deals with industry design and industry standards for the print service.

In his new role with Asolvi, he will work at European level and towards manufacturers, dealers, prospects and end customers.

These two key hires would appear to be further evidence of the ambition and rapid expansion of Asolvi, who recently rebranded from Evatic having acquired well respected UK based field service management solution providers Tesseract as well as Swedish firm WinServ who offer specialist field service management solutions tailored for the print copy market.

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Evatic Group, the leading provider of service management software for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Europe, has been rebranded "Asolvi".

It's the latest development for a company that has been at the centre of some big changes over the past couple of years, most notably the acquisitions of Tesseract in the UK and WinServ in Sweden. Asolvi is now helping 800 customers across 30 countries to attain greater flexibility, scalability and profitability in their service operations.

Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Asolvi, explains the reasoning behind the new name: "We wanted a name indicative of the fact that we don't just supply software. We solve problems. We find solutions to our clients' service management needs. We're a partner that helps you become more efficient." He adds, smiling, "And since we're a multilingual and multinational company, we also wanted something easy to pronounce in many languages!"

We wanted a name indicative of the fact that we don't just supply software. We solve problems. We find solutions to our clients' service management needs. We're a partner that helps you become more efficient.Asolvi will continue to offer service management solutions under the Evatic, Tesseract and WinServ brand names, but felt that the time was right to distinguish between the company and its products. "Our products have been in the marketplace for a long time and have established themselves as leading brands within their respective segments," says Rødseth. "Each product has its own distinct benefits and will continue to develop under the Asolvi umbrella."

Rødseth goes on to explain how he expects Asolvi's recent growth to bring some stability to the market. "Having acquired both Tesseract and WinServ in the last 18 months, we expect to continue the much-needed consolidation of service management software players in the SMB space in Europe. Being a larger entity gives us economy of scale to meet the future demands of modern service companies."

Asolvi is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway and has offices in the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland and Singapore. It is a private company owned by the employees and Viking Venture. For more information, please visit www.asolvi.com.

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Field Service News speak exclusively to Evatic, CEO Pål Rødseth, about their ambitious plans to conquer the European SME market...

The field service industry has of course seen a lot of merger and acquisitions activity in the last couple of years, much of which has seen major global enterprises such as GE and Microsoft entering the market, through acquisitions of ServiceMax and FieldOne respectively, plus there has also much been private equity investment in established leading brands within the industry such as ClickSoftware, ServicePower and IFS.

However, there is another organisation on the acquisition trail which has gone beneath the radar of many of the more mainstream IT and Business focussed trade journals, yet they are perhaps set to have an equally big impact on the field service management landscape - that is Norwegian company Evatic who currently have offices in Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland, UK, America and Singapore.

UK readers may well recognise the name as they acquired the highly respected British FSM pioneers Tesseract towards the end of last year - however that was just the first piece of the puzzle as the Nordic firm aim to build up a pan European organisation. Indeed, they’ve spent little time resting on their laurels and have recently added a second FSM provider to their growing family having recently acquired Swedish company WinServ.

However, whilst the acquisition of Tesseract was very much about securing the excellent IP that the UK team had developed as well as giving them a foothold into the UK market, with WinServ it seems Evatic are making a move that firmly establishes them as the number one player in their home sector.

 

“WinServ has been the toughest competitor to Evatic over many years in the Nordics,” explains Pål Rødseth, CEO, Evatic.

In fact, around 50% of the 330+ clients that currently use WinServ are in the copy/print sector - which is also Evatic’s main area of focus. Additionally WinServ’s clients are also predominantly spread across the Nordics with a large market share in Sweden. So for Evatic this move is more about building a dominant base in their primary sector to build upon rather than spreading their wings into different sectors or geographies.

Taken the two acquisitions separately, one may be mistaken in thinking that they were both merely opportunistic acquisitions for an ambitious company hungry for growth. Indeed, both Tesseract and WinServ were headed up by their original founders who were reaching retirement age - so there certainly is a certain grain of truth in that assertion. However, as Rødseth explains there is a much more focussed strategic approach to Evatic’s approach to acquisition pattern than merely picking up companies who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

“There are too many of these small companies that have all been around for twenty odd years that are not able to take the next leap forward in product development,” he explains.

“We see customers demanding more and more functionality. They are demanding new solutions be Cloud based, they are expecting business intelligence capabilities, they are demanding easy integrations. All of these things are only possible if you have a large enough customer base to spread the development cost across.”

“We believe that here is a need to consolidate these ten to twenty employee companies across Europe to be able to keep on developing solutions because if you don’t do that you will eventually lose your customers over time."

"You need to face up to what the bigger companies are doing in the service management space and be able to deliver the majority of that functionality down to the SMEs - which is our core customer base.”

It is an admirable approach and one that makes sense. The SME market remains largely under served and with so much money flowing into FSM providers at the moment the main battleground has become the enterprise sector - leaving plenty of space for someone like Evatic to come in and dominate amongst smaller organisations.

But of course, this can also be a very tricky path to negotiate. Will there come a point when by unifying the many smaller companies together essentially Evatic risk transforming into a big business themselves and lose the flexibility and adaptability that often makes smaller providers the right fit for their client base in the first place?

“We don’t want to become a Microsoft. We want to be able to retain flexibility and be able to take decisions quickly and work efficiently but we also want to scale the business more than we’ve done so far. We are moving into a new premise in Wycombe with Tesseract and that facility will have additional space for a good number of employees so we are planning to ramp up the Tesseract business and also expand into Europe.”

 

So how quickly can we expect Evatic to build their empire? With two quick-fire acquisitions back-to-back Rødseth perhaps wisely is planning a fallow year.

“We need to be realistic in what we are doing,” he explains.

“There are challenges in integrating businesses and there are challenges in getting people to work together when there are cultural differences and so forth - so I don’t think we will be making another acquisition in the next 6 to 12 months. We are more focussed currently on getting operational excellence in place. Doing M&A is challenging and the majority of such projects fail - we want to make sure ours doesn’t.”

“But we do have a list of 8 to 12 companies that we follow and we are in dialogue with them and we have investors that back our strategy and we do have the ability to move quickly if we need to.”

 

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Evatic, a leading software vendor within Service Management, has acquired WinServ Software in Sweden.

Together Evatic and WinServ will have more than 800 customers in 30+ countries and be the leading European service management software supplier. WinServ Software has its main office in Stockholm.

“We are extremely happy to add WinServ to our product family” says Pål M. Rødseth, CEO of Evatic. “We have known Ronny, founder and CEO of WinServ, for years and we believe that the two organisations will be much stronger together when it comes to developing the service management software solutions for the future.

This is our second acquisition in less than a year, following our acquisition of Tesseract in the UK in September of 2016, and it is in line with our strategy to become the leading player within this space”.

 

“I believe that WS Software are in the best hands going forward”, says Ronny Fransson, founder and CEO of WS Software. “We have known Evatic for many years, and we are confident that the WinServ solution will be in the best hands going forward. Being part of a larger software group will add strength to the product development that is needed to be a service management solution provider in the future”.

Evatic is a leading European service management software company with the head office in Trondheim, Norway and offices in the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Holland and Singapore. With a global reach and more than 800 customers in 30+ countries providing customers with service management solutions under the Evatic, Tesseract and WinServ umbrella, Evatic offers a broad product suit for companies that need to make their services profitable. Evatic is a private company owned by the founders and Viking Venture

 

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