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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