White Paper Overview: Selecting Service Management Software

Oct 24, 2016 • Features • resources • White Paper • White Papers & eBooks • IFS • Software and Apps • software and apps

Resource Type: White Paper
Published by: IFS
Title: Software selection for enterprise service management

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Synopsis:

white paper by IFS on selecting enterprise service management software. Click the links wihtin the page to download now!

Choosing to invest in a new service management solution is one thing, selecting the right system for your organisation is an entirely different challenge...

Service is becoming a central pillar of most organisations operations and investment in the tools to improve your service delivery are well documented to deliver clear R.O.I. However, the market for service management systems is highly competitive with numerous different vendors offering a multitude of solutions.

This white paper written by IFS's Tom Bowe, one of FSN's 20 most influential people in Field Service, offers some excellent, impartial and objective advice as to how you can identify the right solution for your organisation...

Overview:

This white paper, published by IFS, discusses the following key topics:

Common business challenges including rising competition, greater margin pressures and burgeoning communications demands
How the right software can address these business challenges including improving vision, knowledge sharing and flexibility
A dozen key questions to ask when selecting the right service management solution for your organisation

Common business challenges:

Rising competition:

Competition in services is rising, from both big players and small players. Consider a manufacturer providing field services to customers that have purchased their equipment. Today there are huge service players that come in saying they can service everything, as well as small, nimble service organisations with a regional focus.

So for the manufacturer, sophisticated global competitors pressure service at the top end and agile competitors with a local or regional focus pressure service at the bottom end. They’re getting squeezed, and in this they are not alone among service organisations.

Greater margin pressures

In many business sectors, markets have matured for strong product growth, threatening revenue streams and driving down margins. The challenge and opportunity here is service growth: a part of the business heretofore an afterthought has moved to the front in executive suites. The immediate need is to turn service from a cost centre into a profit centre. The window of opportunity to do this effectively will not stay open forever.

Burgeoning communication demands

The proliferation of technology has had multiple effects, all of which act to increase the need for fast and pervasive communications. We see this embodied in the ubiquitous smartphone, conditioning a generation to expect access to information 24/7/365 and answers to questions immediately at the touch of a screen or click of a mouse. This has changed the game in service delivery, where performance issues (i.e., risk) have become more pronounced with lack of responsive speed or inability to deliver as promised.

The flip side of this risk is the opportunity that comes with new technology.

The flip side of this risk is the opportunity that comes with new technology. Consider what McKinsey reported from a survey at the decade’s outset, as emerging Web-based technologies were beginning to create the networked enterprise: “The attainment of higher operating margins ... correlated with a different set of factors: the ability to make decisions lower in the corporate hierarchy and a willingness to allow the formation of working teams comprising both in-house employees and individuals outside the organisation. These findings suggest that Web technologies can underwrite a more agile organisation where frontline staff members make local decisions and companies are better at leveraging outside resources to raise productivity and to create more valuable products and services.”

How the right software can address these business challenges:

The right enterprise service management software supports an organisation’s ability to meet emerging challenges and respond to constant change by providing the foundation for enterprise agility. The concept of business agility involves the development of capabilities to achieve sustained competitive advantage in an unpredictable environment. Agility is the product of three foundational blocks—vision, knowledge, and flexibility—that effectively designed and developed software facilitate across the business.

A dozen questions to ask when selecting service management software

DOES THE SOFTWARE PROVIDE ESSENTIAL ACCESS TO DATA—THE RIGHT DATA FOR
THE RIGHT PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT TIME?
SOFTWARE SELECTION FOR ENTERPRISE SERVICE MANAGEMENT
DOES THE SOFTWARE ALLOW FOR FUTURE GROWTH?
IS THE SOFTWARE APPEALING TO TODAY’S GENERATION OF WORKERS?
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To get the full list of questions (and why these questions are important) download the white paper by clicking the link below and completing the brief for and it will be sent straight to your inbox.