Field Service News Back in November Last Year)

FIELD SERVICENEWS Issue #12 fieldservicenews.com May/June 2016 Banging the drum

can certainly see evolving rapidly. You can find my review of the RP1600 on page 36.

And if new technology launches are the drums being banged, then it is also important to note that there have been a number of new band leaders coming to the fore lately to.

Perhaps the highest profile of these is the new CEO at industry stalwarts ClickSoftware. Following the sale of the company to Californian private equity firm Francisco Partners, Tom Heiser has been appointed and in his own words one of his first tasks is to start ‘banging the drum’ a bit more about the innovations his R&D team are developing.

Another new CEO on the block is Chris Proctor of OneServe who has had a meteoric rise through the Exeter based company within the last year. Proctor also sees the need to raise the bar in terms of shouting about the Exeter based companies successes, and is not afraid to call out his competitors (as he did back in Field Service News back in November last year).    See us “We can’t talk about new developments from solution providers s the field service conference season enters full swing there have been with out mentioning Microsoft who have arrived firmly back within at stand M1500 at Runs on every device type. plenty of solution providers banging the drum of late... And our mobile apps work offline too. A the field service sector with all the swagger of the Rolling Stones Service Management Expo, Protection & Indeed, the list of field service solution providers at Field Service USA held announcing yet another world tour...” Management Series, in Palm Springs a month ago was a certifiable who’s who of the industry, and 21-23 JuneLondon. @ ExCeL  alongside what was a truly fantastic three days of education, there were a In this issue we’ve exclusive interviews with both Proctor (page 18) and number of big announcements from some of the industry’s key players. Heiser (page 40) as well as another new face to field service Rei Kasai who Cloud software-as-a-service. recently joined ServiceMax from SAP and spoke to us about what exactly That’s right... you don’t need any server stuff. ClickSoftware announced a new solution that takes advantage of some Service Performance Metrics means (page 32). pretty slick artificial intelligence algorithms, Trimble Field Service Management introduced an entire new end-to-end FSM suite called Of course, we can’t talk about new developments from solution providers  Pulse whilst ServiceMax announced a very interesting tool called Service with out mentioning Microsoft who with their purchase of FieldOne and it’s Performance Metrics that brings together analytics and best-practices in a subsequent recent re-brand to Field Service have arrived firmly back within Simple all-inclusive pricing. highly innovative solution. the field service sector with all the swagger of the Rolling Stones announcing One fee. Nothing else. Upgrades for life.* a new world tour. Then there were the new kids on the block such as Help Lightning, whose ‘mobile merged reality’ solution we’ve championed in Field Service News Like the Rolling Stones, Microsoft having been around seemingly forever,  previously as a great use of an emerging technology that could have a truly yet they still have it in them to mix it with the very best. By incorporating disruptive impact on the industry. FieldOne into their wider Dynamics platform, the software giant have put Editions to suit everyone. together a very attractive solution and I spoke to Carsten Groth about Choose what you need starting from £15 per user.** Another honourable mention should also go to Co-Tap whose collaboration Microsoft’s plans for Field Service which you can read on page 50. tool is perfectly set to help empower knowledge sharing and intra-engineer collaboration, a perfect tool for the emerging millennial workforce. With so much development and innovation in the sector it is truly an exciting time, and such fierce competition amongst field service solution providers is Not to be out done by their software counterparts, there has been plenty not only indicative of the growing importance of service within industry, but of innovation coming from the hardware side of the industry of late as well. also can only be a good thing for practitioners when it comes to finding the Getac have announced the launch of the next-gen S400, a fully rugged laptop right solution for them. Visit solarvista.com, email us at [email protected] that has the footprint of a regular business notebook, whilst the Toughbook or call our Customer Success Advisors now at +44(0)114 221 1000 20 (which Field Service News first reported as being in development back Bang on. for more information. in March last year) is the world’s first fully rugged detachable and has been picking up some very positive comments since it became available at the beginning of the year.

Another impressive looking piece of kit is Gen2Wave’s RP1600 which I got

* Remote training included (professional services extra) my hands on this month. The RP1600 sits in the relative embryonic niche ** Per mobile user per month, desktop users start at £29 per user per month based upon Essentials Edition, annual contract between rugged smartphone and handheld computer - a form factor that I

p3 solarvista.com @solarvista solarvista-software \solarvista +Solarvista fieldservicenews.com Contents Contents: News: Getac unveils next-generation S400 notebook page 6 Industry tools developing at breakneck speed... page 8 Pentalver cuts fuel spend by more than £50,000 by improving driver behaviour page 10 Coffee in the Cloud page 10 Your Field Service Iot service insights are re-shaping product design page 12 ClickSoftware experts release new book page 13 Management Software Solution! Features: Monetizing digitisation: start with the customer experience and work back page 14 Selling maintenance agreements and professional services – It’s probably much easier than you think! page 16 Hidden in plain sight... page 18 Schedule a Real-time field service should not be an afterthought for SMBs page 21 Demo Rugged Decoded: Touch-screens page 22 Case Study: Transforming service with the latest field service technology page 25 Today! 9 reasons why millennials are a perfect fit for field service... page 26 Servitization: Are we Set for the next shift forward? page 28 It’s time to move your focus to the field... page 31 www.servicepower.com/demo One step beyond... page 32 Empowering field service engineers through mobile technology page 35 Hands On: Gen2Wave RP1600 rugged smartphone page 36 Full Schedule NEXUS FSTM Advanced Business Dispatch and The elusive Return on Investment page 39 Optimization, Mobile Dispatch with Intelligence and Claims with Time to start banging the drum.... page 40 Nurturing your top talent... page 44 Including End-to-End Field Predictive 3rd Party Scheduling: Integrated or standalone? page 46 On-Demand Options Service Management Simulations Management Technicians, customers, spare parts and profits: how strong are the links in your supply chain? page 48 Customer centric software solutions page 50 Risk or Revolution: Rise of The Machines page 53 The Big Discussion: Fleet Management page 54 Intimus International transforming their field service operation... page 56 The need for a flexible approach to scheduling page 57 Don’t give me more, give me actionable data page 58

Recent Awards

Hidden in plain sight: p18 Rugged decoded: p22 Customer centric solutions: p50

Advisory Panel Named Company of the Year Top 20 Enterprise Mobility Top 10 Workforce 50 Most Promising Bill Pollock, President Strategies for GrowthSM, | Nick Frank, Managing Partner, Si2 | (WFM Technology) Solution Providers - 2015 List Management Provider - 2015 List Utilities Technology Prof. Andy Neely, Director Cambridge Service Alliance | Alistair Clifford-Jones, CEO Leadent Soltuions Solution Providers - 2015 List Tim Jones, Northern Europe Service Manager, Waters | Ian Mapp, Director, Wyser Stewart

Contact Field Service News: [email protected] | [email protected] | [email protected] www.servicepower.com

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p4 fieldservicenews.com News Getac unveils next- generation S400 notebook

Getac’s new-generation S400 series notebook has the footprint of a business notebook, the features of a full-rugged device and incorporates Intel’s latest Skylake micro-architecture to boost performance...

etac’s new-generation S400 series notebook compared with the Broadwell series it replaces. an optional SSD drive. The 11.1-volt 4200 mAh Ghas the footprint of a business notebook, the battery should last a full day, but the S410 also features of a full-rugged device and incorporates Windows 10 operating system is standard.The comes with Getac’s optional a hot-swappable Intel’s latest Skylake micro-architecture to boost S410 incorporates Getac’s newest proprietary battery feature with a light indicator to flag to performance. composite materials to enhance ruggedness. users if there’s enough power left for the main battery to be switched. Rugged computer manufacturer Getac has It has a splash-proof keyboard; rugged I/O unveiled the first model in its next-generation door; flexible and durable handle and rubber There’s also a range of in-vehicle docking S400 series semi- rugged laptop, the Getac S410. bumper and footpad, with ventilation provided accessories. Wireless communications include At 2.2kg and 35mm wide, it has the footprint by the footpad from the bottom of the unit. Intel’s dual band AC 8260, Bluetooth 4.2 and of a business notebook but incorporates many Environmental credentials include an IP51 rating optional GPS, GOBI mobile broadband and RF features of a full-rugged device. for dust, MIL-STD 810G certification and the Triple Pass-Through. ability to cope with 3ft drops. “The S410 builds on our success in the semi The S410 also offers multi-factor authentication rugged notebook space, providing a combination A 14in TFT LCD HD 1366 x 768 display is standard, including fingerprint touch technology. of design, performance and versatility,” says Chris with a 14in TFT LCD FHD 1920 x 1080 high Bye, President of Getac in the UK. resolution screen optional. I/O options including a docking connector slot, USB 3.0 connectivity and expansion bay for, for The S410 can be specified with Intel 6th Getac’s Lumibond sunlight readable technology example, PCMCIA. In-vehicle and office docking generation Core i3, i5 or i7 processors can be specified on either screen. Capacitive units; a battery charger, and vehicle and AC incorporating the latest Skylake U-series micro- touchscreen technology means the S140 can Adapters are among the accessories available. architecture which boosts both CPU and GPU be used in touch, gloved and pen modes even The S410 comes with Getac’s standard three-year performance and reduces power consumption when wet. Up to 1TB storage is available plus warranty. p6 p7 fieldservicenews.com News Round Up Industry tools developing at breakneck speed...

With the industry event season in full swing a raft of new technology launches have dominated the industry news across the last two months...

FIELDAWARE CONTINUES EXPANSION WITH NEW MASTERNAUT TELEMATICS MODULE SPOTS BrightHouse has implemented Kirona’s Job access to Cognizant’s Digital Fabric robust mobile businesses across a wide range of industries, we’re to predictive.” INTERNATIONALIZATION AND LEADING ACCOUNTING VEHICLE FAULTS, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO Manager mobile application to connect their middleware back-end service, based on Kony’s uniquely suited to provide a best-practice software SOFTWARE INTEGRATIONS Masternaut, a leading provider of fleet telematics central team with their field-based Customer MobileFabric for enterprise-grade mobile services. platform that helps our customers deliver a best- More @ http://fs-ne.ws/OTgP300uelq FieldAware, a leader in mobile, cloud-based field and vehicle tracking services, has launched a Agent Advisers. This ensures accurate, up to in-class service experience in the field.” -Athani service automation solutions, has announced maintenance module for Masternaut Connect, date information flows seamlessly and securely In addition, Kony’s advanced mobile app design Krishnaprasad, ServiceMax TRIMBLE LAUNCH END-TO-END FIELD SERVICE the availability of its Spring product release, the giving fleet managers the ability to adopt a between the two, enabling real-time visibility and capabilities will be integrated into the offerings of MANAGEMENT SOLUTION latest software release for its mobile field service proactive approach to vehicle maintenance. that processes are streamlined to significantly the Cognizant Digital Collaboratory in New York, More @ http://fs-ne.ws/PLTA300udEU Trimble has launched an end-to-end field service management solution. improve customer service. further enabling clients to envision the “art of the management suite called PULSE, designed to Masternaut Maintenance is based on Masternaut’s As well as Kirona’s Job Manager application, possible” as they architect their digital future using CLICKSOFTWARE ANNOUNCE LAUNCH OF ARTIFICIAL improve productivity across mobile workforces This release includes integration to leading patented non-intrusive CANbus technology to BrightHouse are also benefiting from Kirona’s Cognizant’s Digital Works methodology. INTELLIGENCE BASED FIELD SERVICE TOOL accounting software packages and moves the collect vehicle data. This provides automatic and InfoSuite management information software, ClickSoftware, a leading provider of field service The PULSE suite is a comprehensive portfolio of solution forward globally with its availability in real-time information on servicing and vehicle ensuring the business has real-time actionable More @ http://fs-ne.ws/7aeF300udbR management solutions for the enterprise, today end-to-end field service management solutions French language localisation. faults on cars and commercial vehicles. It can save insight. introduced Click Field Service Edge, a new cloud- that enable businesses to deliver field service time and improve operations for fleet managers SERVICEMAX ACCELERATES FIELD SERVICE BUSINESS based, mobile workforce management platform excellence across a range of industries, including “We continue to focus our software releases on by helping to proactively plan fleet maintenance Alasdair Skeoch, Head of Credit Operations at RESULTS WITH SPRING ‘16 RELEASE designed to meet the needs of the largest and construction, agriculture, telecommunications and bringing additional value to our customers and operations, and gives an instant overview of a BrightHouse commented “Kirona’s Job Manager New products include Service Performance most demanding field service providers. utilities. adding market-driven features and functionality,” fleet’s condition, improving vehicle availability. and InfoSuite software has enabled us to improve Metrics, the mobile Field Service app, and Catalyst, said Andy Murphy, director of product customer service and empower our Customer a new implementation package based on industry Adoption of the cloud has more than doubled over It is cloud-based and modular, enabling businesses development at FieldAware. The Masternaut Maintenance dashboard Agent Advisers. Job Manager provides our best practices the past two years and, with that, cloud-based to performing critical field service operations to provides users with a top down look of their fleet, Customer Agent Advisers with accurate, secure software solutions have become entrenched in the transform the effectiveness of their work, workers “Today we are announcing our latest accounting highlighting the percentage of vehicles that are customer information when they meet with ServiceMax, a leading provider of cloud-based business world. and assets to improve productivity, customer integrations to further strengthen our integration fully operational, the number of vehicles that need our customers. They have the latest account field service management solutions, yesterday satisfaction and their bottom line. Whether portfolio. This means businesses with established servicing now or in future, and the number of information, credit agreements and customer announced its Spring ‘16 product release. Recognising the technological benefits for field businesses need to streamline efficiencies in the technologies already in place can seamlessly add vehicles with faults. This enables fleet managers data to hand enabling them to serve the customer service companies, ClickSoftware’s first, cloud back office, with technicians out in the field or FieldAware to their current infrastructure with to reduce vehicle turnover and improve vehicle efficiently.” Built on the Salesforce platform, the ServiceMax only, SaaS-based solution delivers field service both,PULSE provides an extensible portfolio of minimal risk and accelerated benefit.” lifetime, with improved maintenance also helping Spring ‘16 release is headlined by ServiceMax management in an entirely new way. capabilities to meet a wide variety of operational to reduce fuel consumption. More @ http://fs-ne.ws/dOT6300uc4I Service Performance Metrics™, a new product requirements. “In addition, we have quickly reacted to increased that creates a clear link between field service With patented artificial intelligence, Click Field international demand by leveraging our agile This information helps fleet managers to keep KONY AND COGNIZANT JOIN FORCES ON NEW CLASS best practices and field service management Service Edge connects enterprise customers “The Trimble PULSE suite enables businesses to software to release our first in a series of language vehicles and employees safe and ensures a OF MOBILE SOLUTION technology. with automated real-time insight and intelligent manage all of their field service operations in one localizations. high level of fleet compliance. Masternaut Leading mobility specialists Kony and Cognizant decision-making tools that provide a new level place, with one provider,” said John Cameron, Maintenance keeps a complete record of service are joining forces to deliver a new class of mobile Business leaders have taken notice of the high of productivity and efficiency to field workforce general manager of Trimble’s Field Service The integration of FieldAware’s mobile solution and fault history for each vehicle which can reduce enterprise solutions. margins, growth, and differentiation that service performance. Management division. with the Sage, Xero and Quickbooks Online breakdowns and improve safety on the road. can deliver, and with ServiceMax Spring ‘16 field and Desktop platforms enables customers to The two companies have announced they will service leaders will have the business insights, “As a company that has successfully managed “Our combination of telematics, back-office, streamline invoicing. More @ http://fs-ne.ws/fotJ300uh0k jointly develop and deliver solutions spanning mobile apps, and workflows to deliver on these billions of service engagements, and is exclusively scheduling and mobile workforce solutions allow enterprise mobile applications, mobile app design, expected outcomes and achieve operational focused on providing field service technology – us to offer the most complete set of end-to-end When a work order is complete, and a job is BRIGHTHOUSE IMPLEMENTS KIRONA SOFTWARE and mobile back-end services to enhance business excellence. since creating the market – we know what it takes capabilities on the market today.” closed-out on a field worker’s mobile device, an TO HELP CUSTOMER AGENT ADVISERS DELIVER process efficiencies and security. to help our customers always be a step ahead invoice can be automatically generated in the back IMPROVED SERVICE “With our Spring ‘16 release, we’re creating a way of the demand, not just move in lockstep with Built upon Trimble’s robust infrastructure office. The invoice includes all costs related to the BrightHouse is the UK’s leading rent-to-own The suite of cross-platform mobile applications for field service organization to measure their it,” explained Tom Heiser, ClickSoftware’s Chief framework, the PULSE suite offers a work order, such as the cost of service and any retailer providing high quality, branded consumer will be suitable for industries such as banking, businesses in ways they previously never could,” Executive Officer. comprehensive portfolio of capabilities to manage, parts/inventory consumed, and can be sent to the electronics, domestic appliances and furniture healthcare, manufacturing, retail and government, said ServiceMax co-founder and Chief Strategy schedule, mobilise and monitor the complete customer immediately. via affordable weekly payments. They have 3,000 as well as horizontal mobile applications that can Officer Athani Krishnaprasad. “We designed Click Field Service Edge to help operation in real-time. employees in a growing network of over 300 be used by sales and field services, workflow, and prepare for the future, and transform the business More @ http://fs-ne.ws/BGAr300ufvy stores. human resources organisations. Clients will have “After working with hundreds of field service of customer field service operations from reactive More @ http://fs-ne.ws/yzn7300ueHK p8 p9 fieldservicenews.com News A low-code Pentalver cuts fuel spend solution... by more than £50,000 by improving driver behaviour

Road transport specialist Pentalver is saving more than £50,000 a year by improving driver To Field Service behaviour across its 107-strong Cannock truck fleet... Management. ollowing the introduction of a performance “WEBFLEET has given us the tools to introduce the “WEBFLEET has given us the Fimprovement programme underpinned by bonus scheme and has empowered our drivers WEBFLEET, a Software-as-a-Service solution for to optimise their mpg by giving them real-time tools to introduce the bonus businesses to increase fleet efficiency, the company feedback and advice,” said Nick Matthews, has seen fuel efficiency soar from an average of 8.5 Pentalver, General Manager scheme and has empowered mpg to 9.6 mpg per vehicle. “Idling time, in particular, has been cut dramatically our drivers to optimise their OptiDrive 360, a key component of WEBFLEET, since we introduced the initiative and we have scores drivers on a range of performance indicators been able to offer driving training support for those mpg by giving them real-time Introducing Field Service from fuel consumption, speeding and idling to employees that have most needed it.” driving events, gear shifting and constant speed. feedback and advice” Pentalver has also integrated WEBFLEET with Management Software Pentalver has incentivised improvement with container transport management system TOPS, time visibility. Pentalver’s investment in WEBFLEET drivers receiving a quarterly bonus if they hit enabling more accurate job planning, scheduling was supported by TomTom Telematics partner, you can implement and agreed performance targets. and customer service with full fleet and journey Auto Electrical Services (AES). configure yourself. Coffee in the Cloud

GMS Espresso has woken up and smelled the coffee. In order to bolster its efficiency and lay strong foundations for the future, it is teaming up with Tesseract...

MS Espresso has been supplying, installing and will pay a monthly subscription to use the service whereas the new software is a lot more efficient Gmaintaining coffee machines and equipment management components of Tesseract’s Service and easy to use. for nearly fifteen years, but have been relying on Centre 5.1 (SC5.1), which are centrally hosted by a server-based piece of software that just isn’t Tesseract. It was actually one of GMS Espresso’s own moving with the times. customers who recommended Tesseract, because The benefit of this is that GMS Espresso will receive of their own experiences with the software — “The problem is, our current software isn’t new features, improvements and updates regularly testament to the company’s influence in the FIND OUT MORE: adaptable or future-proof,” says Seamus Doyle, and instantly. service management industry. Operations Manager of GMS Espresso. oneserve.co.uk It also means, if there’s an issue, fault or “We’ve had a really good experience with “This is partly because it’s server-based. If we want inefficiency anywhere in the system, Tesseract will Tesseract,” Doyle adds. to change something or introduce a new kind of fix it immediately in-house. report, we have to give notice and wait for them to “They’re always on hand to answer our questions come and install it” The coffee enthusiasts were also encouraged by and make sure we’re understanding everything.” SC5.1’s user-friendliness, which is a huge cut above “That’s one of the reasons we sought out Tesseract, their current system. “They’re also providing regular training to help our because they offer SaaS.” people get to grips with the new system, and are Doyle explains that they would often have to go always willing to work around our schedule.” oneserve.co.uk @oneserveco SaaS – Software as a Service – means GMS Espresso round the houses to get even basic things done, p10 p11 fieldservicenews.com News fieldservicenews.com News: ClickSoftware release new book on service excellence

Iot service insights are ClickSoftware experts release new book Re-shaping product design Best practices, customer insights and reccomendations distilled from 20 years of experience... ver the last 20 years, ClickSoftware’s the employer’s face to the Ocustomers have managed billions of customer. successful service engagements, and have seen The way products are serviced is reshaping their design at the R&D level, and providing new firsthand just how hard service delivery can be. These companies—from SERVICE the smallest service insights into product usage, according to field service management specialist, ServiceMax. Our new book Service is Hard: Turning Common contractor to the largest Field Service Challenges into Customer global enterprise—see Service mechanisms are increasingly seen as the common denominator of accurate product Engagement Opportunities, contains insights, best superior service as a primary IS HARD practices and recommendations from experts, competitive differentiator development and maintenance... thought leaders, and analysts, representing and growth engine. hundreds of person-years of experience. This shift in thinking This book addresses eight of the toughest recognises important truths he Internet of Things and intelligent field specific to consumer requirements.” challenges in achieving consistently exceptional about business today. Tservice automation is creating a connected “Before IoT, R&D teams relied service, from best practices for customer service loop built into products, enabling With IoT enabled field service automation, experience to managing spare part consumption Customers want (and can manufacturers to track, pre-empt service companies can collect data automatically mainly on interpretation and in the field. mainly get) what they requirements, understand usage and ultimately from machines and devices to determine their want, when they want it. improve the way customers are using products. condition, performance, potential for error anecdotal input from field The book’s chapters collect insights from leading You no longer compete or malfunction, foresee problems, identify service companies, implementers, industry only against others who do Turning Common Field “Before IoT, R&D teams relied mainly on troublesome parts, and equip field service service engineers to get a experts, and software developers and provide what you do, or sell what interpretation and anecdotal input from field technicians with the right tools and materials. recommendations on steps to take to successfully you sell. You compete with Service Challenges into Customer service engineers to get a full understanding of full understanding of how address each challenge. every experience that your Engagement Opportunities how products were faring out in the field,” said Companies can also gain new levels of insight customer has with every Mark Homer is Vice President, Global Customer into how their products are actually used post products were faring out in They are: company that provides Transformation for field service management purchase and aggregate the data for better your customer any type of specialist, ServiceMax. design, maintenance and user experience, the field,” 1. Holding the customer’s hand – why service. redefining the relationship between businesses customers expect superior service “But faced with competition and diminishing and customers. maximum customer satisfaction and greater 2. Aligning conflicting stakeholder interests A Business and Technology Mike Karlskind, Stephen Smith & Alec Berry returns, manufacturers are using IoT and insight into how consumers are using products. 3. Metrics for measuring field service Perspective connected field service to make products more The result is minimum product downtime, management The nature of assets, 4. Integrating field service management and equipment, tools, and knowledge used by regulatory requirements and deliver the highest legacy systems service-led businesses addressing different vertical levels of customer satisfaction while addressing 5. Managing in-day schedule disruptions markets is unique. the variability of each business and industry of 6. Integrating parts into field service operation. management Regulators, competitors, geography, customers 7. Achieving mobile application adoption and the supply of qualified service professionals Embracing the challenge is only step one. Field Service 8. Turning the Internet of Things vision into are some of the varied characters of these service Customer service excellence is a journey rather value operations’ external influences, while internal than a destination, a cliché that is as true as ever in influences include available capital, corporate the context of transforming service. Funnies... The Customer Service Imperative history, reporting structure and executive strategy. Global economic growth over the past century, As noted in our book’s title, “Service is Hard” - it ife never goes the way it should. But at Field driven by the manufacturing and selling of Regardless of type of business or industry, Excel is challenging to implement business changes LService News we’re pretty sure that for those products, has created two groups of unsung heroes spreadsheets and legacy tools historically used for to improve service delivery and enhance the of us working out in the field there are always whose work is mainly out in the field: technical field service management (FSM) have facilitated customer experience at the same time. Our advice: more challenges than most folks have to deal professionals who install, maintain and repair only tactical and reactive approaches to the field keep your eyes on the prize. with. products; and service-based people who provide service challenge. services such as home-based health care. Building world class operations is not easy, Thanks to the good team at ServiceMax and While these tools allowed individual managers or otherwise every business would already have done cartoonist Jerry King now your epic field service Both groups have typically been viewed as dispatchers supporting a small part of a business it. Focusing on the top 8 challenges with the right fails can be immortalised in cartoon form and we operational cost centers to be contained and or service to make decisions that suited a granular team, the right mindset and the right technology can all laugh at...we mean with, you to! optimised. part of the business, achieving total operational solutions makes excellence in field service awareness was not possible, much less efficiency operation possible for any organisation. sponsored by: The more recent realisation is that these service and effectiveness. Today’s FSM solutions need heroes are the driving force for effective customer to support an approach that can consistently Order your copy of the book @ engagement, the brand ambassadors who present deliver against the defined strategy, meet http://bit.ly/1VeadXy p12 p13 Euro_Event_Ad_B.pdf 1 5/25/16 2:00 PM

fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Nick Frank, Si2 Monetizing digitisation: start with the customer experience and work back

Nick Frank, Founding Partner at Si2, discusses the importance of understanding the metrics you are measuring to asses both internal performance and external perceptions of your service delivery in the eyes of your customers, and how the two are closely aligned...

espite the bigger plan, do you find that Although a pretty straightforward way of thinking, For a product company, this could really start Dthe barrage of every day problems and most managers can get caught up in the everyday to challenge their ‘Go-To’ market thinking. The deliverables makes it difficult to achieve your activities and lose sight of the bigger picture. fact that piloting propositions for services is vision? an important part of their design process runs To illustrate this, lets look at one of today’s hot contrary to many product development processes. Most of us are driven by the everyday objectives of topics, ‘How to maximise the potential of the our boss, organisation and stakeholders. Internet of Things(IoT)?’ The pilot process will also impact the ‘Service Delivery’ operations that must consistently and The best performing leaders are not only able to Many companies are still confused as to what profitably deliver the value proposition. deliver tactical results, they seem to be able to rise the IoT means for them, especially as most above the daily noise of business, see the bigger commentators are also struggling to see how In particular with digital technologies, having picture and figure out how those small wins can be companies can move themselves forward in a the software and analytical expertise in house to turned from haphazard steps into a coordinated practical pragmatic manner. develop robust solutions is often a challenge to be journey. overcome. We see lots of ideas and case studies focused on A key challenge is that ‘service’ is a business in its what the potential could be, but few suggestions Increasingly it is necessary to work with partners or own right. on how to achieve the goal. even as part of an inter-dependent ecosystem.

To be successful, all elements of a business have “This goes deeper than Lastly and most importantly, it is critical to have to be coordinated and managed from sales, to a ‘Plan’ that is backed by the leadership with a operations, finance to people as well as resources. customer needs. It is commitment to resources.

Put this in the context of a working business, important to understand what Probably the biggest frustration from managers where different levels of capability and maturity driving change is that great ideas do not receive will exist in the organisation, and it can be pretty makes customers successful the resources they need due to short-term hard to figure out where your priorities lie. One budgetary reasons. way is for leaders to constantly see their challenges in terms of growth and profit in relation to the whole business, so that they keep What we see is that even in this relatively high a perspective on how these elements fit together. within the industry value level simplistic example, there are a complex interacting set of factors that leaders, as drivers of Join us in Amsterdam The Leading Field For example one could view a service business as chain.” change, have to manage in parallel. requiring four essential elements to be successful: Perhaps companies should first focus on the This complexity is a fact of life and will not go away. Service Event in Europe 1. Value: Do you deeply understand the ‘Value’ that the IoT capability can bring to their This is why a factor that makes top performing Join the field service industry’s most innovative users, experience and value outcomes you deliver customer’s value chain as well as their own bottom managers successful, is having a perspective of to the customer within the industry value line. how the daily grind fits into the big picture. technologists, and executives at Maximize Europe 2016. chain? Have you clearly defined your Save the date & business model and how you will organise This goes deeper than customer needs. It is An even simpler way of cutting through the Discover the new strategies that define this era of field your business to deliver success? important to understand what makes customers confusion of developing a services business can be pre-register service, experience the technology that enables them, and 2. Go To Market: Are you effective at creating successful in terms of growth and profit within the summed up by a Steve Jobs quote: today and selling products, services and solutions industry value chain. Then it is possible to identify learn how you can apply it to your business. that can access this value? the expertise or data that can be generated to ‘You’ve got to start with Customer Experience and 3. Service Delivery: Can your operations make a difference to the customer’s profitability. work back towards the technology, not the other consistently and profitably deliver services to way around’ the expectations of the customer? As companies explore value, they will start to want CALL 4. Plan / Leadership: Is there an explicit plan to try ideas out, perhaps a few very low key pilot +44 (0) 20 300 48 920 MAXIMIZE EUROPE 2016 that is financially backed and supported by projects with customers, to open their minds up NOVEMBER 8-9, AMSTERDAM the organisations leadership? to new opportunities and potentially business maximize.servicemax.com/europe 300+ Attendees | 25+ Breakout Sessions | 10+ Technology & Consulting Sponsors models. p14 on stand P1600 visit us fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Bill Pollock, Strategies for Growth

Selling maintenance agreements and professional services – It’s probably much easier than you think!

Bill Pollock, President and Principal Consulting Analyst with Strategies for GrowthSM explains why the key to successful service sales lies within understanding youru customers and their needs... FIRST RAMP ICONS FIRST BAG ICONS

ost people would seem to agree that a For some, the acquisition of new equipment also existing business imaging system. These are both Mphysical product, like a copier, printer, or requires moves or changes to their physical facility classic cases where your existing accounts may scanner, is the easiest thing to sell. Companies can to create space for a new business imaging system already be clamoring for enhanced maintenance, Baggage SERVICE DESK RESOURCE & PLANNING CONTRACT & ASSET Passenger App Messaging Gateway Management include photographs and hardware specs for these or copier machine, as well as additional training or warranty agreements, or for various other types MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT types of products in their brochures and catalogs; for the individuals who may be tasked with various of professional services that your company may FIRST RAMP ICONS FIRST BAG ICONS photographs can be included in the company’s web internal maintenance and/or administrative already offer (i.e., user training, train-the-trainers site descriptions; and demos can be conducted responsibilities. The general rule of thumb with assistance, custom documentation, etc.). “ I’m Smart because right at the customer’s site, etc. respect to TCO is that, over the course of several years, the “actual” cost of ownership for any Whether any of your existing accounts have either I empower my field CONTRACT & ASSET Baggage Passenger App Messaging Gateway QUOTE MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER WEB CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP BaggageSERVICE Reconcili DESKation AutoRESOURCE Reflighting & PLANNING Workforce Management But, in many cases, selling a product can actually particular piece of equipment may be up to twice mis-planned - or didn’t plan at all - when they PORTAL MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT MobilisationMANAGEMENT be one of the most difficult things to do, especially the initial purchase price (or more). made their initial purchase decision, they have workforce with mobile FIRST RAMPFIRST RAMPICONSFIRST RAMPICONS ICONS FIRST BAGFIRST ICONS BAGFIRST ICONS BAG ICONS if you have never sold anything to a particular one thing in common: at some point, they will prospect in the past, or if they are not familiar “Even the most sophisticated recognise that they need additional support over with your company’s lines of copiers, printers, or and above what they initially received when they applications to drive

scanners, etc. This is why we are suggesting that a business planners may purchased the equipment, and that this support Baggage Baggage Baggage INVENTORY & STOCK FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SEFIELDRVICE W ORKFORCEDESKSERVICE DESKSERVICE DESKRESOURCE RESOURCE& PLANNINGTransQU RESOURCEf&er OPLANNINGTE MANAGEMENTC &ONTRACT PLANNING C&ONTRACT ASSETRFIDCU C& PONTRACT ASeSSETTrmaneOMERnt WEBT&ags ASSET CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP Passenger AppPassenger AppBaggagePassenger R eAppcMonciliessaagtioning GMatessaewayg ing GAutoMatessaew Reflightingayg ing Gateway Workforce ManagementManagementManagement maintenance agreement, or professional services, will typically manifest itself in either the need for customer satisfaction”MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTOptimisMANAGEMENTation MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTPOMANAGEMENTRTAL MANAGEMENT Mobilisation FIRST RAMPFIRST ICONSRAMP ICONS FIRST BAGFIRST ICONS BAG ICONS for an existing business imaging system (or any sometimes misjudge what an enhanced maintenance agreement, specific other type of equipment) may actually be easier to professional services, or both. sell than the original product itself. Let me explain. the ultimate TCO will be If you have been observing and monitoring your

Baggage Baggage Chances are, some of the accounts for whom for an individual piece of accounts all along the way, you probably can SERVICE DESKSERVICE DESK RESOURCE RESOURCE& PLANNINGQU &O PLANNINGTE MANAGEMENTQUCONTRACTOTE MANAGEMENTQU C& ONTRACTOASSETTE MANAGEMENTCU &S ATSSETOMER CUWEBSTOMERINVEN CUWEBSTTOMERORY CU& WEB SSTTOCKOMER CURELSTAOMERTIONSHIPFINANCIAL CURELS TAOMERTIONSHIPPassenger MANAGEMENT REL A AppTIONSHIPPassenger AppBaggageFIELD Re WcBaggageMonciliORKFORCEessaationging R e GcBaggageonciliMatessaewaytiong ing R e GAutoconciliate wReflightingaytion Auto ReflightingTAutoransf erReflightingWorkforce Workforce WorkforceRFID Permanent Tags SYSTEM BUSINESS SERVICE ManagementManagement MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTPORTAL PORTAL MANAGEMENTPORTAL MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT Optimisation Mobilisation Mobilisation Mobilisation you provide copier service and support purchase already pick out which ones are “ripe” for selling MANAGEMENT INTELLIGENCE CAPTURE FIRST RAMPFIRST RAMPICONSFIRST ICONSRAMP ICONS FIRST BAGFIRST ICONS BAGFIRST ICONS BAG ICONS dozens, if not hundreds, of individual pieces of equipment..” maintenance agreements or professional services. equipment every year. For most of your smaller accounts, any single equipment purchase is, in a As such, it is easy to imagine that any one of your If you have also been keeping up-to-date with your relative sense, a major consideration for them, accounts that has already planned to purchase a company’s product and service support offerings, Baggage Baggage Baggage FIDS both from an absolute and a financial perspective. major piece of capital equipment such as a copier, you are also ready to speak to those accounts SERVICE DESKSERVICE DESKSERServiceVICE DESKRESOURCE RESOURCE& ResourcePLANNING RESOURCE& PLANNINGContracts,AIRCRAFTC &ONTRACT PLANNING AssetsQU C&ONTRACT OASSETTE MANAGEMENT QU &C ONTRACTAOQuoteSSETTE MANAGEMENTFLEET & ASSET CUCustomerSTOMER CUWEBSTOMERINVENWARRANTY WEBWarrantyTORYINVEN &CU S STOCKTTOMEROPassengerRYINVEN & CURELInventory STSOCKTA AppTOMERTIONSHIPOPassengerRYFINANCIAL & REL ST OCK AAppTIONSHIPPassenger MANAGEMENTFINANCIALFinancial AppMessa MANAGEMENTFINANCIAL ging GBaggageMatessae wMANAGEMENTFIELDayg ing FieldR e WGcBaggageORKFORCEonciliMateessa wFIELDaaytiong ing R eW GcORKFORCEonciliatewFIELDaBusinessytion WAutoORKFORCE Reflighting Auto ReflightingTransfer TWorkforceransfer TWorkforceransfer RFID PermaneRFIDnt T agsPermane RFIDnt T agsPer manent Tags ManagementManagementManagement SYSTEM BUSINESS SERVICE MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTTURNAROUNDMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT PORTAL PORTAL MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT Optimisation OptimisMobilisationation OptimisMobilisationation However, once they have made the decision to scanner, or printer would have already examined with respect to what you believe will make their Desk & Planning & Billing Management Web Portal Management & Stock ManagementMANAGEMENTWorkforce INTELLIGENCEIntelligence CAPTURE purchase a particular piece of equipment, they the anticipated TCO for that unit, and would have ultimate “total cost of ownership” less in the long have already “bitten the bullet” with respect to its budgeted accordingly. However, even the most run. Armed with this information, you will find importance to their business operations, and they sophisticated business planners may sometimes yourself in the perfect position to make the sale of have accepted all of the financial considerations misjudge what the ultimate TCO will be for an maintenance agreements and professional services Improve customer satisfaction and increase contract renewals with instant visibility of business intelligence FIDS QUOTE MANAGEMENTQUOTE MANAGEMENTQUOTE MANAGEMENTCUSTOMER CUWEBSTOMER CUWEBSTOMERCU WEBSTOMERINVEN CURELSTATOMERTIONSHIPORY INVEN& CUREL STS OCKATTTIONSHIPOMERORY & REL ST OCKATIONSHIPFINANCIAL Baggage MANAGEMENTFINANCIAL RecBaggageoncili MANAGEMENTation R ecBaggageonciliFIELDation R WeAutocORKFORCEoncili FIELDReflightingation WAutoORKFORCE ReflightingAuto ReflightingWorkforceAIRCRAFTTWorkforceransfer TWorkforceransfer FLEET RFID PermaneRFIDnt T agsPer manenWARRANTYt Tags that will be tied to its acquisition and use. individual piece of equipment (or not forecast it as easy as possible - certainly easier than making a SYSTEM SYSTEM SYSTEM BUSINESS BUSINESS BUSINESS SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE PORTAL PORTAL PORTAL MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MobilisationTURNAROUNDOptimisMobilisationation OptimisMobilisationation CAPTURE CAPTURE CAPTURE at all). “cold” sales call to a new prospect. Mobilise your workforce with real-time customer insightMANAGEMENT andMANAGEMENT accessMANAGEMENT to INTELLIGENCEinformationINTELLIGENCE INTELLIGENCEin the field You may have already heard the expression “total Increase workforce productivity with comprehensive resource optimisation and standardised scheduling tools cost of ownership”, or TCO; what this means is For example, they may have only anticipated All you really need is the understanding of what that, in real life, there is usually more to the “total requiring warranty service for one year or so your customers require, matched against the Reduce reactive jobs and increase ‘first-time fix rates’ with trend analysis and diagnostic data cost” of an individual piece of equipment than just following acquisition, without planning for any products and services your company offers, and FIDS FIDS FIDS INVENTORYINVEN & STOCKTORY INVEN& STOCKTORYFINANCIAL & STOCK MANAGEMENTFINANCIAL MANAGEMENTFINANCIAL FIELDMANAGEMENT WORKFORCEFIELD WORKFORCEFIELD WORKFORCE Transfer TransAIRCRAFTfer TransAIRCRAFTfer RFIDAIRCRAFT PermaneRFIDnFLEETt T agsPermane RFIDnFLEETt T agsPer manenFLEETt Tags WARRANTYWARRANTYWARRANTY the price that was paid for its acquisition. further post-warranty support that, if provided many of these prospective “sales” will simply be SYSTEM SYSTEM BUSINESS BUSINESS SERVICE SERVICE MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT Optimisation OptimisTURNAROUNDation OptimisTURNAROUNDation TURNAROUND Improve asset up-time with Predictive Preventative Maintenance (PPM)CAPTURE CAPTUREremote monitoring and M2M capabilities on a time and materials basis, would end up waiting there for you to “close” them. MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT INTELLIGENCEINTELLIGENCE In addition to the specific purchase price, there being quite expensive. Some may not have is also the cost of ongoing hardware and software anticipated losing the staff that was originally maintenance support, replacement parts, help trained on a particular piece of equipment, and Do the Smart thing. Contact the Zafire team today: desk support, consumables (like paper, toner, etc.) may ultimately find themselves in a situation FIDS FIDS AIRCRAFT AIRCRAFT FLEET FLEET WARRANTYWARRANTY T +44 (0) 1295 701 810 and many, many others. where new hires may need “fresh” training for an SYSTEM SYSTEM SYSTEM BUSINESS BUSINESS BUSINESS SERVICETURNAROUNDSERVICETURNAROUNDSERVICE [email protected] MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTMANAGEMENTINTELLIGENCEINTELLIGENCEINTELLIGENCECAPTURE CAPTURE CAPTURE www.zafire.com/smart p16 p17

Zafire - Smart - SME Advert June 2016.indd 1 5/27/2016 2:38:55 PM

FIDS FIDS FIDS AIRCRAFT AIRCRAFT AIRCRAFT FLEET FLEET FLEET WARRANTYWARRANTY WARRANTY TURNAROUNDTURNAROUNDTURNAROUND Hidden in plain sight...

For five years UK based field service software provider Oneserve have been quietly going about their way, winning significant clients yet flying under the radar. Now with a young, dynamic new CEO at the helm they are ready to stop being the industry’s best kept secret and step into the limelight...

he story of Oneserve is not that of your However, perhaps more importantly they already a few, it is fair to say that such success has largely was promoted from Sales and Marketing Director speaking to him it is clear that this was not just a “One of our core tenants is that we are always Taverage field service software provider. had an intimate understanding of what good remained under the radar for many in the field to CEO after just eight months with the Exeter simple marketing ploy. Proctor, is a passionate guy focussed on the end user – always focussed on service, and the tools to enable that, looked like. service industry. based company, has already made an significant who truly seems to get the importance of service how do we make life for that client better?” For a start the company actually began life as an impact in the market with a blistering attack on in today’s modern world. in-house field service management tool developed After a few quick wins on ‘home turf’ within the However, with the appointment of a new, young his peers, accusing field service software providers It is not only a noble sentiment but also an for Connaught PLC - a company that focussed on social housing sector, the team at Oneserve have and dynamic CEO Chris Proctor in February earlier of ‘holding innovation hostage’ in a press release And in his eyes technology providers should be approach that is ultimately winning them business, repair work in the social housing sector. After an quietly yet steadily expanded their footprint across this year, it seems that Oneserve are now ready issued shortly before he took over as CEO. simply making it easier for companies to deliver although Proctor himself admits that it is now time employee buy-out in 2010 Oneserve emerged as a a number of different verticals picking up some top to step out into the limelight alongside their more the levels of service excellence that twenty first for Oneserve to step out of the shadows and kick fully fledged solution with the advantage of being tier customers such as Lovell, Islington Borough established peers and start shouting about just And whilst his background as a marketeer would century customers both expect and demand. on, building upon their success to date. unencumbered by the initial costs of R&D that Council and Sky along the way. why it is that they feel they are ready to become a suggest that he is certainly savvy enough to many start-up software companies may have faced disruptive force within the sector. understand the power of such an assertion in “One of the key things for us was that we really felt “We’ve been working incredibly hard and diligently when entering what is both a complex and busy Yet when compared to some of their competitors terms of getting people to sit up and pay attention we wanted the system to be as intuitive and easy for the last five years but we’ve been pretty quiet market. such as ClickSoftware, ServiceMax and IFS to name Indeed, Proctor, a passionate digital evangelist who to Oneserve and what they have to say, when to use as possible,” Proctor explains. about it,” he comments. p18 p19 fieldservicenews.com Hidden in plain sight: Oneserve fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Manuel Grenacher, Coresystems Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems A “We want to turn the paradigm on its head, we want to turn Real-time field service should not be an every negative into a positive. We can’t control the negatives, afterthought for SMBs things will always go wrong, and things will always break. But

if we can enhance the interactions we can control, if we can Manuel Grenacher, CEO Coresystems provides four key points that small and mediums size make those better, we can improve the end experience and it businesses should consider to help them move towards real-time field service... comes back up the chain and makes everything work much xceeding customer expectations is not just for engineers the tools to quickly identify a problem incentivized to perform. What are some concrete more effectively.” Eenterprise-level companies. Customers are and understand how to fix it. steps SMBs can take to ensure a better performing demanding the same level of service performance service team? We’ve listed three steps below. - Chris Proctor, CEO, Oneserve whether their service provider is a large Provide real-time visibility of service activities multinational corporation, or a small, local field If there is one top driver for sustained revenue Put a CSO in charge of your SMB field team service company. growth in service, it’s executive visibility. Haven’t heard of the term Chief Service Officer? “I don’t have a quarter of a million pound give you the car, really the emphasis should be on want to turn every negative into a positive. We Aberdeen’s research has found that having a view Most SMBs are not yet familiar with this C-Level marketing budget, I can’t attend all the shows we the strength of the car, the strength of the support, can’t control the negatives, things will always go But how can SMB service teams compete with into the field helps management, the back office, title that’s only recently started to infiltrate don’t get involved in a lot of that stuff and as a the strength of the training and really the overall wrong and things will always break. But if we can their enterprise counterparts in this era of and the service team react quickly and deliver enterprise-level organizations. result we’ve kind of kept under the radar of a lot proposition to allow you get in and drive.” enhance the interactions we can control, if we increased competition and empowered customers service at the speed necessary to excel. of people. I know it was a surprise not so long ago can make those better, we can improve the end demanding perfect service? To ensure service excellence spreads throughout when we won the Islington contract with a lot of Given their background as an in-house field service experience and it comes back up the chain and Predict demand the entire firm, large enterprises are hiring CSOs people saying who are these guys?” solution which previously had a 360 degree role for makes everything work much more effectively.” Recent research from the Aberdeen Group found No matter how top-notch your engineers, without to ensure that a strategic service vision is carried enabling service delivery at Connaught, is it a fair that trends were emerging among SMBs that have real-time insights, the field team will still have to out, with accountability and incentives put in place “Today we are powering about three and a half assumption to say that the understanding of good “And that really is our prevailing thought that is put a roadmap in place to ensure better service. scramble to meet fluctuating demands. However, across the entire organization. million working hours, I’ve lost count of how many service delivery remains closely entwined in the what we are striving for.” the increase of IoT technology is aiding service engineers, we are working across multiple sectors DNA of both the Oneserve product and indeed the These are their top strategies for driving service: teams, by helping them identify problems quickly. Train your entire company to value service and now we are being pragmatic in that we are team itself? And whilst empowering their clients through a Typically, most companies focus on equipment now starting to talk a lot more about what we do.” self-service based product is core to the ethos at • Increase the availability of service knowledge sales. But service should not be an afterthought. “Absolutely” Proctor concurs. “For me it’s really Oneserve, Proctor also outlines how closely they in order to diagnose and resolve service “Aberdeen found that even in At best, customers expect equipment to work In fact there are two key facets to the Oneserve simple. The vast majority of service calls start continue to work with their clients in order to issues faster (51%). flawlessly; at worst, they expect service to know approach that appear to resonate with the needs with a negative. For example ‘my boiler has just make sure that those tools they are providing allow • Develop real-time visibility into field assets top organizations, only 53% when the machinery or part will fail and solve the of field service companies today. blown up’ or this has gone wrong or that has gone companies to ensure they can deliver a positive (i.e. people, parts, vehicles) (48%). issue effortlessly. wrong. Yes there are other more planned things service experience. • Improve forecasting of and planning for of machinery is IoT-enabled Firstly it is a model based on licences rather than but by and large it always focuses on a negative” future service demand (41%). Service can be an opportunity to drive new professional services which will appeal to those He explains. “It remains something very important to us so we • Invest in mobile tools to provide technicians for asset management, revenue opportunities, but only if every team from more cost conscious Finance Directors (are there do spend time with our clients, we do spend time with better access to information in the field marketing to sales to service can communicate the any other kind?). And it is also a fully deployable “And we’ve all been on the end of those with them understanding how they are using the (38%). tracking, service, and value they deliver to customers. self service product which will be of interest to experiences, those times we’ve waited for an system,” he comments. • Develop standardized scheduling processes. both Operations folks and IT alike as it means more engineer that doesn’t turn up or turns up late, but (35%) maintenance...” Make real-time visibility your goal control of things like reporting and configurations, we’ve also all had those really good experiences. “In the same way we do that digitally in terms of • Increase frequency of training for field Small field service organizations are investing without having to go back to the vendor every- Where they’ve told you they are going to be with heat mapping and workshops and understanding technicians (32%). in technology because they see the benefit of time a change is necessary. you around this time and then an hour or so before really what that UX means to the end user - that But IoT is not yet a widespread reality. Aberdeen increasing their efficiency and want to understand they are due they call you and tell you actually I’m is very key to us. Understanding how we can These strategies fall into four main points to help found that even in top organisations, only 53% of where they can add further value. This is a big plus in Proctor’s eyes and he uses a going to be with you at exactly this time.” make those interactions more effective, more SMBs deliver better service. machinery is IoT-enabled for asset management, neat metaphor to explain his thinking. streamlined and more engaging is very important,” tracking, service, and maintenance. However, the goal of investing in technology “Where the engineer has come in, they’ve be really he concludes. Diagnose and deliver should be to give your entire firm real-time “If you buy a car and you drive off the forecourt nice, they’ve been really efficient and professional, One of the most important metrics for customers Invest in the right tools and team visibility into field service performance and the you turn left – why should you have to call an they’ve had all the tools they’ve needed, they’ve It is this commitment to understanding exactly how is how long a repair will take - or “mean time-to- As machines and equipment become increasingly customer experience. engineer out to configure your car to be able to fixed the problem and they’ve been on their way their clients are using their system that will keep repair.” This metric shows just how effective the complex, service teams need the correct turn left, and then right and then left again?” really quickly. And the difference between those Oneserve close to their roots as part of a service service team is at resolving customer issues. technology to help them solve more difficult As customer expectations increase, only two experiences is palpable.” orientated organisation themselves, which in turn issues. companies - both big and small - that provide “Whilst that may make your journey really allows them to develop their product in line with But to fix an issue quickly, engineers must be able preemptive service can expect to survive. efficient, it makes it very efficient for a snapshot “It’s the same in the logistics world. We all the needs of their customers. to diagnose what’s wrong; determine what they The last piece of the field service puzzle comes in time but if you need to diversify, if you need to groan into our hands when we see our parcel is need to fix the problem, including knowledge, the down to the engineers themselves. As Aberdeen take a detour or a change in direction you have to being delivered by Yodel instead of DHL, it’s that Hopefully this outlook won’t change as the right tools and parts; and figure out the correct points out, an SMB can make the leap from paper go through the same process again.” differentiation in service,” He adds company continues to grow, but one change that procedure to follow. As equipment grows more to mobile, and put the right tech tools in their seems inevitable is Oneserve will not be a best complex, not every engineer will have the ability engineers’ hands, but service teams themselves “Our principal is exactly the opposite in that if we “We want to turn the paradigm on its head, we kept secret for too much longer. to do this “on the fly.” It’s important then to give must be engaged, skilled, and most importantly, p20 p21 fieldservicenews.com Rugged Decoded: Touchscreens Rugged Decoded: Touch-screens As we continue our series of features helping you decode the jargon and terminology of rugged device manufacturers, we turn our attention to one of the most important yet potentially fragile areas of any device, the screen. Kris Oldand takes a look at what some of the key screen technology developments mean exactly when it comes to selecting devices for your field service workers ...

e live in the age of the touch-screen. Indeed my own son, who is now The older of the two technologies is resistive which relies on pressure Wan inquisitive three and a half year old with an obsession with the to register input. This pressure can be applied by your finger, a stylus or word why, really struggled to understand recently why when he swiped back any other object - think of the handheld computers that many delivery and fore on the TV it didn’t do anything. companies use, often covered in ink because when the original stylus is lost, the delivery driver often just uses a regular pen to collect a signature instead. In a world of smartphones and tablets touch-screens have become a universally understood means of interacting with a device. Whether it is Resistive touch screens consist of two flexible layers with an air gap in- inputting data or simply navigating through an operating system, I would put between and in order for the touch-screen to register input, you must press a hefty wager on the fact that anyone reading this article is both familiar and on the top layer using a small amount of pressure to make contact with the comfortable with using a touch-screen device, such is the prevalence of the bottom layer. The touch-screen will then register the precise location of the technology today. touch.

Touch-screens are an important, even critical part of the user experience of Rather than relying on pressure, capacitive touch-screens instead sense A Broad Range of Tablets Built for the Way you Work. almost all modern tablets, smartphones. conductivity to register input—usually from the skin on your fingertip but also from dedicated styluses. Also, amongst handheld computers that for many years were the go to device for field service teams, touch screens are becoming more and Because you don’t need to apply pressure, capacitive touch-screens are more increasingly common, whether combined with a keypad like the more responsive than resistive touch-screens. However, because they more traditional form factor, or on their own as is appearing in new hybrid work by sensing conductivity, capacitive touch-screens can only be used Inspection Automation Asset Monitoring Maintenance Customer Safety Audits and Service products such as the Gen2Wave RP1600 (see our review on page 36). with objects that have conductive properties, which includes your fingertip & Management Compliance Reporting (which is ideal), and special styluses designed with a conductive tip. Yet at the same time, the screen is of course the potential Achilles heel and When you choose from the most complete line of rugged tablets on Earth, you don’t have to compromise obvious weak spot in a rugged device. Initially one of the big advantages of capacitive touch screens was that they enabled multi-finger gestures - perhaps the most obvious example is on mobile computing power, rugged strength, or real-time, around-the-clock connectivity. You get every The balance therefore between delivering a screen that is sufficiently pinching or stretching a document to zoom in or out. However, resistive specialised tool you need to work the way you want to work. When you choose to work with Xplore, the capable of with standing drops and knocks, whilst maintaining high usability, touch screens have also supported multi-finger input for about three or four is absolutely critical for a rugged device. years now also. market leader in rugged mobility, you get all of the above – plus a long-term partner committed to providing you long-term investment protection. So lets look at some of the various options you may find in differing rugged The big advantage resistive screens have over their capacitive counterparts devices when it comes to the screen and what these mean. is the fact that the operator can still use the devices whilst wearing gloves - as the input is dependent on pressure rather than the electrical Visit www.xploretech.com/fieldservice-uk/ current being completed through a conductive material such as a finger. Capacitive vs. Resistive An additional benefit is that light touch, such as rain landing on the screen, Almost certainly the biggest debate when it comes to screen choices in won’t register so the devices are far better to suited to being used in the wet. Ready to see firsthand how Xplore’s rugged tablet-based solutions can serve rugged devices is whether capacitive or resistive screens are better suited for all of your specialised mobility needs? Contact us today: +44 (0) 1926 356 560 the task. But what is the difference between the two? Both of these factors are of course particularly useful in a number of field p22

Xplore_FSN_UK_Ad_May2016.indd 1 5/24/2016 1:52:44 PM fieldservicenews.com Case Study: Konica Minolta Transforming service with the latest field service technology

Rebecca Barnett, VP Marketing Cognito iQ guides us through how they worked with Konica Minolta to improve far more than just service standards...

t Cognito iQ, we love seeing what we do, Customer Service aggregated individual score at the end of each day. Acome to life in the businesses we are lucky Via their handheld devices engineers are able to This then feeds into the League Table which enough to call customers. request customer feedback on completion of their shows, at the click of button, who the highest jobs. The number of customers giving NPS (Net performers are over whatever period of time you Konica Minolta UK produces business and Promoter Scores) scores has more than doubled choose. industrial imaging products, such as MFP’S (multi- over the past 18 months. service environments. However, a quick look at the spec sheets of some devices at the higher end functional peripherals), copiers, laser printers and By understanding exactly where improvements of the rugged spectrum from the likes of Panasonic, Xplore, Getac, et al, will digital product print. However, what’s really impressive is that, on in service needed to be made, Konica Minolta However, another key factor for rugged devices is of course reliability and reveal that Gorilla Glass isn’t quite so frequently used amongst such devices. average, the Konica Minolta field team are developed a whole new engineer career durability and in this respect capacitive touch screens have the advantage - The company has over 275 service engineers achieving an NPS score of 85. development programme. especially in heavy use applications. One reason for this is that the whole point of Gorilla Glass is that it can providing planned, reactive maintenance and deflect impact significantly without breaking and while extreme deflection support to businesses throughout the UK. As a sustained average, 85 is fairly unheard of in To move up the levels an engineer has to Resistive screens can have a tendency to eventually begin to wear down in seems on the surface like a great a great characteristic for rugged devices, NPS terms and here’s the really clever bit - the consistently achieve certain KPI’s and undertake frequently used areas. Such areas may be prone to becoming faded and may once a Gorilla Glass touch panel is installed over an LCD and a point impact Over relationship with Konica Minolta started scores are received by the back office in real-time. and pass certain training programmes. Pay and ultimately even become unresponsive. occurs, the Gorilla glass deflects and the impact is transferred to the LCD 15 years ago and exemplifies much of the recent Managers have a KPI to call every customer who reward is linked to this development and guided glass which could potentially break, leaving you with a an undamaged sheet history of mobile workforce technology. From scores a 10 within an hour to say ‘thank you’ and by quality markers taken from the Cognito iQ OPM Also in terms of reliability, if a capacitive touch-screen does happen to of glass covering a no longer working tablet. simple automation to today’s solution which enquire as to why they felt the service warranted solution such as NPS scores, levels of productivity become pierced or cracked it is still likely to function - think how many provides unrivalled visibility of operational and such a high score. etc. times you have seen someone using a smartphone with a cracked screen? Visibility employee performance. However, a break anywhere on a resistive touch-screen will often mean that Finally, whilst the ability to use a touch-screen in various conditions is In parallel, any customers scoring a 6 or below Sharing performance information transparently it no longer works. important, being able to read the screen in direct sunlight is the other Konica Minolta originally selected the Cognito iQ (NPS calls them Detractors) are called to enquire has enabled productive conversations and Konica significant factor to consider for field service operatives - who will be often mobile application to automate and mobilise their what the engineer could do better next time. Minolta have quickly developed a reputation for In terms of field service this is a potentially huge advantage for capacitive working outdoors. field operation. In 2004, following the merger of being an ‘Employer of Choice’ enjoying many screens as it allows for a field service technician to continue to utilise their Konica and Minolta, the UK business implemented The insights from all calls are recorded and used benefits such as reduced recruitment costs, device until they can get the screen repaired. The key terminology here that you will often find listed in the spec list a Europe-wide SAP ERP system which replaced the to drive a programme of continuous improvement reduced attrition rates and a happy, motivated, of rugged device is a level of NIT. Basically a NIT is a unit of visible-light incumbent mobility solution. through training, feedback to the engineers and loyal workforce. Going Gorilla... intensity, commonly used to specify the brightness and it is the crucial the process change. A special mention here really needs to go to Corning, a specialist materials number to look for in device specs for devices that are used outdoors. After a few months, the UK team reverted to the Now, I’m not all that keen on tech buzzwords. manufacturer based in New York whose Gorilla brand glass has achieved Cognito iQ solution which we then integrated into Productivity Frankly ‘transformation’ is about as overused as what very, very few component manufacturers have achieved by becoming a On average, your general consumer device will offer something between their SAP application. The Cognito iQ OPM solution gives real-time they come. However, having worked with team recognised brand beyond the confines of the technologically minded. 300 and 400 NITS, which as anyone who will has tried to watch a movie on visibility of what is happening in the field. With at Konica Minolta on this story, I really couldn’t their iPad (iPad 4 is specced to 364NITS) at the beach will attest is not bright In 2014, Konica Minolta following a market review, this comes a greater understanding of where justify using anything else. Other than chip manufacturer Intel, can you actually think of a component enough to use in direct sunlight. By comparison, the ultra-rugged Xplore we took the opportunity to showcase our new improvements can be made. manufacturer with a brand you recognise? Such is the impact that Gorilla XC6 boasts 1300 NITS, whilst Panasonic’s Toughbook 20 and Getac’s V110 solution, Operational Performance Management You can read the full transformation story on Glass has had on smartphone and tablet manufacturing, with devices ranging convertible laptop both offer 800 NITS, which makes the devices far more (OPM). Cognito iQ OPM represents the very latest By analysing the data through the Cognito iQ www.cognitoiq.com/case-studies from Samsung’s latest consumer flagship smartphone the S7 Edge, through usable in the direct sunlight. in field service analytics. dashboards, significant savings have been made to Motion F5M by Xplore Technologies rugged tablet, proudly declaring their by reducing travel times between jobs. Over the use of the product. In fact Gorilla Glass has been designed into over 4.5Bn Also, in addition to improved NIT levels, many rugged manufacturers With easy to understand dashboards and the course of year, small savings in time have added devices globally also offer their own enhancements to improve visibility such as Xplore ability to drill down into granular detail, be it at an up to significant savings in pounds. Technologies’ ‘View Anywhere’, Getac’s ‘sunlight readable technology’, or individual employee or indeed at a task level, the In addition, the team have measurably been able The process developed by Corning to create Gorilla Glass is to chemically Juniper Systems’ ‘Sun-to-Shade’ solutions. team at Konica Minolta quickly understood how to service many more machines per man through strengthen the glass through an ion-exchange process that creates a deep powerful this would be for them. improvements in training and process. compression layer on the surface of the glass substrate and this layer Of course, as with all other considerations around device selection for your essentially acts as “armour” to reduce the introduction of flaws. engineers, an understanding of their workflow and working environment 18 months on and the Cognito iQ OPM solution Employee Engagement should be considered. Are they likely to be working in direct sunlight for is firmly embedded at the heart of the service The Cognito iQ OPM solution produces what Produced in thicknesses ranging from 0.4 mm to 2 mm, Gorilla Glass is example or are they likely to be wearing work gloves? operation. Here’s a snapshot of just some of the we call the Worker Scorecard. In simple terms, positioned as an ideal cover sheet for touch-screens. It’s tough enough to results. it measures each engineer against 6 Key handle the surface pressures intrinsic to these devices, and exceptionally Such questions should shape your requirements when it comes to the type Performance Areas and produces an overall, thin to enable more sensitive and accurate responses. of touch-screen you require in your field service engineer’s devices. p24 p25 fieldservicenews.com 9 reasons why millenials are a perfect fit for field service 9 reasons why millennials are a perfect fit for field service...

The shift from boomers to millennials represents one of the greatest cultural workforce shifts perhaps ever seen, but for field service companies the rise of the millennial is nothing to fear writes Kris Oldland...

s a card carrying member of Generation X Millennials are digital natives and natural centric approach to service. AI’ve always felt some empathy with both the collaborators and as such any knowledge left Baby Boomer generation that preceded us and the behind from their boomer predecessors could be Millennials are well educated Millennial generation that followed. more easily disseminated across the workforce In fact, Millennials are on track to become the provided they have the tools for collaboration. most educated generation in history. However, the two inhabit very, very separate worlds with very, very different ideals, beliefs and Millennials are practical and Given the previous point about field service outlooks on life. results-oriented companies beginning to recruit based on softer, As a generation Millennials have grown up with an more customer centric skills the fact that With the ageing workforce posing a potential crisis expectation for processes and service to work and Millennials are comfortable with learning is you introduce to the workforce to improve if they have multiple different challenges to keep Add to this that Millennials, whilst having a strong for many field service companies, they now face speed up their interactions. They are practical, important as it allows companies to hire based productivity than their Boomer predecessors them busy. For these guys variety really is the work ethic, also highly value a positive work-life the unenviable task of migrating from boomer to and despite some claims to the contrary they are on these soft skills, whilst training recruits in the were. spice of life and a key to keeping them on site is to balance, then a working role that provides them Millennial and somehow balancing a shift from in fact generally a pretty hard working bunch. more technical skills required. give them that variety within the workplace. with the opportunity to travel could be the key to two generations that contrast perhaps more than Similarly digital privacy is a much more foreign a happy (and therefore loyal) Millennial workforce. any other before. In field service, where often the customer is Millennials are people pleasers concept for many Millennials meaning less (if any) One potential danger is that a company could end dependent on the engineer to achieve their Again a massively important factor when it comes objections around the implementation of tracking up with an entire workforce that are ‘jacks of all Millennials are everywhere However, the good news is that despite being fix to get their business back operating at full to delivering great customer service. technologies such as telematics where the ‘big- trades but masters of none.’ Finally, Millennials are the largest generation famously labelled the ‘me, me, me generation’ capability as soon as possible, being practical brother is watching’ syndrome has often been a in Western history. It has been estimated that actually Millennials could quite possibly be the and results orientated are absolutely critical Millennials tend to have a preference for merit barrier to adoption amongst a Boomer workforce. However, with Millennial’s natural tendency to there are 80 million Millennials in the US and 14.6 perfect match for modern field service. traits. Fortunately, millennials tend to have this in based systems and as such have a common desire work in a more open and collaborative manner million UK Millennials. abundance. to gain approval. At the same time they are a more Basically Millennials are far more used to leaving than the Boomers they are replacing, there is less Here are nine reasons why... conscientious group than both Boomers who are a digital footprint and doing so in work via vehicle need for the Millennial field service engineer to be According to Pew Research Centre analysis of Millennials are confident often focussed on financial remuneration. tracking for example, is just the way the world an expert in all areas - essentially knowledge and U.S. Census Bureau data, last year Millennials Millennials are natural For more and more companies, often the only works for many a Millennial. experience can be shared across a team rather surpassed Generation X to become the largest collaborators face to face contact they may have with their Therefore the often superhero like status of the than trapped in the silos of individual Boomer share of the American workforce so reality fact is One of the biggest challenges of an ageing customers is when a field service engineer arrives field engineer who is able to fix the problem and Millennials are multi-taskers engineers. they are already dominating the workforce. workforce in the field service sector is that for on site. get a clients business right back on track is going Ever get frustrated that, that Millennial in your many baby boomers knowledge and experience is to appeal to many Millennials. life doesn’t seem to be listening to you when your Millennials are natural travellers The simple fact is that for field service, as with a badge of honour and as such they are not natural This has led to an ever greater importance in the talking to them as they are also simultaneously Dubbed by some as ‘generation rent’ Millennials all of business sectors Millennials are the future sharers of that knowledge. need for field service engineers to be positive Millennials are tech savvy watching TV, updating their Twitter status and are showing a different mindset to that of their workforce as well as the future leaders. brand ambassadors. Indeed, many field service As the art of field service management becomes having an IM conversation all at the same time? Boomer parents. The concept of getting onto the Whilst capturing that knowledge before it walks companies now see strong customer service skills more and more entwined with technology the property ladder is far less attractive to the more However, as service continues to take centre stage out your door is vital, distilling it and transmitting as equally as, if not more important than, technical more important it is that your field service The truth is that Millennials have a both the ability nomadic and adventurous spirit of the Millennial. and as technology continues to become ever more it to a new generation of workers is an even skills. workforce is technologically savvy. to multi-task and also a relatively low boredom embedded with the improvement of field service greater challenge. threshold so are often juggling five or more balls. Indeed far more Millennials than Non-Millennials delivery, it does indeed appear that the future of Millennials, having been raised by their Boomer Fortunately for the majority of Millennials using Yet the fact is that they are also able to keep those report a desire to visit every continent and travel field service is safe in MIllenial hands. However, that challenge can be lessened by parents to believe they can accomplish anything technology is as much of a natural skill-set five balls in the air quite comfortably. abroad as much as possible, according to Boston encouraging the emerging Millennial workers are one of the most confident generations to have as walking and talking. Whether it be digital Consulting Group. The challenge however, remains to ensure that to work collaboratively using a dedicated ever entered the workforce. collaboration, quick and easy adoption of apps For field service companies, particularly those the knowledge embedded within the ageing Baby communication platform such as CoTap or even or the ability to utilise emerging tools such as with a number of different products within their So what better working environment for this Boomer workforce is captured and retained in something simpler like Skype or iMessanger. Such confidence focussed correctly can be augmented reality and smart glasses, Millennials install base, this trait could be particularly useful generation than field service, where they are not order to allow the transition from the past to the harnessed to deliver a truly positive customer- are far more likely to adapt to the new tools as Millennials are far more likely to be engaged trapped by the confines of an office cubicle? future to remain as seamless as possible. p26 p27 fieldservicenews.com Servitization: Are we set for the next shift forward servitization: Are we Set for the next shift forward?

As the worlds of academia and industry came together once more at the annual Aston Spring Servitization Conference the message was clear. Servitization has moved from concept to reality and now it is time to start moving the conversation beyond the theory and into real world applications...

he concept of servitization, whilst still fresh to broadcast services division by equipping Tele- very much around isolated individual companies Tmany is not actually particularly new. Madrid with an entire new TV suite on a cost per in many instances, and the type of benchmarking usage basis, an agreement that put the full onus that makes industry sit up and listen more Indeed, many of the often cited examples of on Sony to ensure they delivered 100% uptime. attentively has been somewhat lacking as a result. servitization such as Caterpillar, MAN UK and Xerox have been providing advanced services and Yet at no point in our conversation did the word This sentiment sat very much at the heart of outcome based solutions business models to their servitization come up. the opening keynote presentation of this year’s clients for many, many years. conference given by Prof. Rogelio Oliva, of Mays Then their is Air France KNB. Business School, Texas A&M University. Rolls Royce, the much celebrated poster boys of the servitization movement have been When Field Service News interviewed him at last “We’ve basically got stuck in a research mode,” delivering ‘power-by-the-hour’, their own brand of year’s Aston Spring Servitization Conference, began Oliva servitization, ever since the late sixties when they Harman Lanser of AirFrance KNB admitted that were given an ultimatum by American Airlines to he hadn’t come across the concept until he “We like to go out and work with companies, do a offer a new business model or lose their business. saw Prof. Tim Baines give a presentation at the case study, write it up and then we’re very happy Aftermarket Conference in Amsterdam, whereby with it.” From an academic standpoint, the first reference he immediately identified with the concept as to Servitization as a concept is widely accredited exactly the process he was trying to take the MRO “The problem with doing that is that it is very to a paper published by Vandermerwe & Rada unit of the world’s 2nd largest airline through. difficult to aggregate and come up with a theory entitled “Servitization of Business: Adding Value by that is realisable across several industries or even Adding Services” which appeared in the European So is there this disconnect between the theoretical across several companies.” Management Journal in 1988. world of academia and the world of industry, especially when the evidence would seem to point “What you end up with is a whole bunch of Yet here we are some 28 years later and still the out that they are indeed both heading in a similar anecdotes. ‘Company A did this and Company B terminology is foreign to many, outside specific direction? did that and it’s very difficult to make progress circles of industry and academia. under theoretical developments.” What hasn’t helped is that academics in the past Yet, at the same time, we are seeing a growing have used a number of interchangeable phrases “I think we as academics, have fallen short of number of examples of servitization by significant like ‘life-cycle through services’, ‘advanced delivering a set of theories, a set of concepts and a companies. Last year in Field Service News, we services’, ‘outcome based solutions’ and set of principals that managers could actually use.” reported how John Cooper at Sony Professional ‘servitization’ when discussing the topic - which Services had moved their business towards what has weakened the focus somewhat. Add to this “Of course they [the theories and concepts] was essentially a servitized business model in their that the research community has tended to focus are going to need to be modified to a particular p28 p29 fieldservicenews.com Servitization: Are we set for the next shift forward fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Charlie Jackson, FieldAware

situation, but overall there ought to be some that can help them get out of the mess that “We have now established the language overarching principals to navigate this and we they‘re in and then there is the third set, which of servitization the notion of these base, It’s time to move your focus to the have failed to do that.” are companies that are competing but are getting intermediary and advanced services is becoming some kind of feeling that the world that they well established, most of the presenters are using A similar sentiment was also offered by Prof. Tim operate in is changing.” those terms and those languages now. We really field... Baines, Aston Centre for Servitization, Aston don’t want any other papers coming along offering University when he gave us his reflections at the “It is the companies that are seeing new business different frameworks for this topic because we end of what was a busy, two days. models emerge, those who’ve still got stability but have moved beyond it,” he continues. The new wave of field service management technology is here writes Charlie who know they’ve got to evolve the way in which “I think what we have to accept that the lens that they capture value. These are the businesses So how can the academics move forward to Jackson, CEO, FieldAware... we are using to look at the different adoptions that we want to work with because if we can support their counterparts in industry? of services throughout the world is imperfect,” help those, we can learn an awful lot about this admitted Baines. transformation process and we can position these “I would say the first thing we need to do to move e’re all customers and have increasing ability to manage the workflow seamlessly and first time, how do you choose the right software companies to compete better in future years.” forward is to leverage what we have done,” Oliva Wexpectations around the service we expect, keeps all operational elements connected. for your business with the many solutions on offer “It’s useful to reflect on services gaining traction, explains. both in our personal and work lives. For service There is visibility of the work and the day’s today? but as yet we haven’t got the techniques to say However, Baines believes that there is definitely a organisations these expectations bring increased performance and the mobile piece allows decisions with certainty economy A is competing more synergy growing between academia and industry. “We have been out there writing case studies, pressure to get it right. to be based on real-time activity and updates. From working with a range of companies, we’ve interacting with firms, learning from them. Lets found that there are some common principals. step back and spend a bit more time with those Field service management software is part of the For the back office, a mobile solution which easily cases, do the hard work of thinking about what it answer and has been around since the late 1970s. integrates into existing systems is critical, as often a • Ease of integration is key. You don’t need to means as opposed to just documenting the story.” Highly complex, it was originally designed as on mix of best of breed solutions are used due to the have to think about changing your whole “We have now established the language of premise, server-based scheduling solutions and niche nature of the work. field service solution. Extending the life of “Then we need to look at the phenomena that we was very much focused on enabling the work of your current systems is important, so look servitization the notion of these base, are researching. the back office. Work orders were dispatched, at mobile solutions which will leverage and but technicians had only limited access to job “With the advancements expand their use. intermdiary and advanced services is “We are looking at servitization, which is a and customer information due to the cost and • Implementation needs to be as quick and transformation that is hard for companies and performance limitations of the devices and in field service straightforward as possible. A lengthy becoming well established, most of the there is a very long tradition in research that says networks. implementation process will defeat its if you as an academic get involved in the change management software objective. So being up and running in days, presenters are using those terms and journey, you can learn from this process - this is With the advancements in field service not months, should be the realistic goal - something that we call ‘actual research’.” management software going hand-in-hand going hand-in-hand with delivering a much faster ROI. those languages now...” with the mobile evolution, the focus in service • Any mobility solution should be easy to use. “So the next strategy is engaging in that process, operations is now firmly on the field worker the mobile evolution, Overly-complicated systems will be bypassed - Prof. Tim Baines, Aston University the research will take longer because we are going themselves. and worked around or ignored all together. to walk with that company, but that is what it the focus in service The easier to use, the quicker the adoption takes to get the work done.” And this is quite right - the technician has long and the better the ROI. been the company face and often the only direct operations is now firmly • All mobility software needs to be agile and “The final strategy I propose is a push for being contact a customer will have. The customer able to move with the next generation of on the basis of servitization whilst economy B is “This is the fifth time we’ve done this conference” relevant,” Oliva continues. experience they are able to deliver counts for on the field worker mobility. Developments are moving fast so it competing more on the basis of productization.” he begins. a great deal. Complete knowledge of the job is is important that your provider is keeping up “If we put relevance at the front of our research often fundamental in the delivery of this service themselves...” to speed. However, that is not to say that the move to “The first year we did the conference we created goals: how we design research questions, how we excellence and turning up to site with this • It is crucial for any mobility solution to work servitization is floundering, in fact the opposite is an event where we had practitioners and we had design research hypothesis, how we design and information at hand or having access to it, delivers across mixed digital devices, especially with very much true. It is now in a stage of evolution academics and actually there was a huge gulf develop research implications, if we do that with a an improved customer experience. This can mean that systems are used in isolation the growth of BYOD and the rise in the use of where it is beginning to move from the fringe between them which was really quite hard to manager at hand and thinking about the manager and data from one system doesn’t always contractor workforces. The apps will need to slowly towards the mainstream. reconcile. We didn’t have a language to describe and about being relevant, I think that will also help The technician needs a mobile solution which assimilate with another. Integrated mobility work across different operating systems too. what was actually going on.” us shape our own work.” helps them to do their job in the best possible way. means that the two-way flow of data is captured, That said, there is still a long way to go towards The workflow to and from the back office has just once, and in a consistent and efficient way. It Essentially, mobility is about the anytime, more widespread understanding. Currently there “I think what has happened is that the academics One thing is certainly clear after the two days of to be seamless as this quick and easy access to means that no data is left unused or delayed while anywhere access to and sharing of information is a very specific type of company that is suited to have accelerated in that they now have a better exhaustive presentations and debate, servitization information enables better decision-making and waiting on paperwork or downloads and an audit that makes it the vital, valuable next step a service servitization, especially when it comes to doing so understanding of industrial practice so they has begun to move forward both as an industrial ultimately improved resolution. trail is in place reducing the chance of any missing organisation can take. hand in hand with the academics. can talk more coherently with practitioners movement and as a topic for academic research. information. and conversely the practitioners are starting to So how can an organisation manage this shift To download our white paper – ‘Making the Move “There are three types of companies,” explains understand the language of servitization.” The key questions are moving from what and why to focus on the field without losing sight of the The result of the right mobility solution is to Mobility: The Digitalisation of Field Service’ Baines. to how. As Baines commented in summing up the importance of back office operations? extending the work of the back office out into – please visit http://www.fieldaware.co.uk/ “Through conversations around base, conference in the final session: the field in a robust and reliable way, connecting movetomobility “Firstly there are those companies that are doing intermediate and advanced services they are Taking the back office into the field the operational workflow and ultimately ensuring incredibly well selling products and they don’t beginning to be able to converse with the “Really, now the conversation needs to be about While back office processes remain essential service objectives are met. want to talk about servitization at all. Then there academics. There are still differences and there how do we get traction within an organisation, components of any service operation, we’re seeing are the companies that are struggling financially always will be - we’ve got different sets of how do we advance this concept.” far more return from putting the focus on the field Focus on the right mobility solution and they are prepared to look at servitization priorities when we are both doing our jobs, but where greater value can be derived. The right So, whether you are looking at developing your because they are prepared to look at anything there is a definite sense of it coming together.” “That’s where the real challenges are.” mobility solution gives the whole organisation the mobility strategy or introducing mobility for the p30 p31 fieldservicenews.com One Step Beyond: Service Performance Metrics One step Enabling your beyond... business to improve With the recent launch of ServiceMax Service Performance

Metrics™ the Californian based field service software provider have Meet us on stand N1555 at created a new tool that sits between the worlds of consulting and technology. But what exactly is Service Performance Metrics and will this see a shift towards professional services for ServiceMax? To find out more Kris Oldland spoke exclusively to Rei Kasai...

KO: You’ve mentioned previously that you see ServiceMax very much as measure, you can’t improve. So we start with what should I measure? Well, Efficiency & productivity a field service company providing technology rather than a technology we have an opinion on what you should be measuring and that is based on Reduce travel of field based workers, eliminate paperwork and wastage with the leading company providing a field service solution. How big of a differentiator is what the best-in-class companies are measuring and then we codify that as that amongst those other companies in the space? eight standard metrics within the technology. dynamic resource scheduling software; Xmbrace DRS and mobile worker application solution; Job Manager. RK: I think to be fair, it’s why we have been successful. Going back to How do I visualise that in a dashboard, how do I slice that data over time? comments from customers on why they choose us; they view us as experts, That’s the technology aspect. Visibility & reporting they view us as “You are field service”. It’s interesting seeing it that way Improve the visibility of your field based workforce in real time, have the ability to monitor because it’s not just the technology, that’s just one aspect of it and there are But to even come to an opinion on first time to fix, time to repair with and report on productivity to enable optimised planning and deployment. many great technology companies out there; but the big difference is, how do a contract attached etc, you need to understand what you should be you apply those things into real-world business problems and solve them at measuring. Save money scale? In the second piece, we have what we call ‘catalyst’ and catalyst is what you Reduce mileage costs and travel time through optimised scheduling and route planning And I think, if you look at what we’re doing, it’s not just taking these can imagine as the packaging of process. together with the cost saving benefits of massively reducing no-show customer technologies but empowering them into these common practices and I think appointments as well as admin costs. that’s what the big difference is. Service has not really changed from a procedure point of view over the last 20 years. How you execute that process has changed over a period of time We need to democratise this and make this knowledge more widely available, because as technology evolves more and more and we get into the IoT era Trusted by over 25,000 field based workers each day that’s our job as a company to bring this value set to everyone in our and age you keep on pushing that, but these are just extensions of how you ecosystem. So we brought those best practices, from a measurement point of use that to utilise the process, the base processes haven’t changed. view and then put them into a product so our clients can take advantage of it. Some companies may or may not know what those processes should be and These are common metrics, all interpreted in a different way, but we made it so going back to why they come to us, it’s like “Oh, you understand how so that it could be available to anyone as a customer. service business should run. You understand how we run” and so we could even help them run better. KO: So what makes this new development so exciting, because let’s face it, every FSM software company out there seems to be talking about analytics KO: Would you say that this is positioning ServiceMax essentially as a much tools right now... as a consultancy as you are a technology company?

RK: They’re talking about the technology aspect. RK: No, we’re still a software company.

But there’s two components of what we are doing; one is that if you cannot KO: But there’s something more here, isn’t there? To find out more visitwww.kirona.com Email: [email protected] Call: 01625 585511 p32 fieldservicenews.com One Step Beyond: Service Performance Metrics fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Chris Beling, Zafire

RK: I ‘d say it’s really about capturing the knowledge of hundreds of years KO: Coming back to the Service Performance Metrics specifically as a tool, Empowering field service engineers of domain experience by all these industry people that we’ve hired onto our how much is it about the technology and algorithms and how much is team. about the insight from your customer transformation team? through mobile technology Because it’s one thing to consult a customer, to gauge and understand their RK: This is where we get into some of how we design products, in effect it’s problems and eventually come up with solutions to them but how do you about not coming up with technology and then trying to find use cases but enable that into the technology so you can scale this? instead everything is brimming out from the use cases. Chris Beling, Commercial Director at Zafire, looks at the connection between ‘empowering

You may not be able to afford those expensive services but how do I I think that with some of the team we have on board, especially on the field service engineers’ and customer satisfaction and some of the business benefits those democratise this for everyone in the ServiceMax family? customer transformation team, they know exactly how businesses measure success and failure. organisations, who have already made the connection, are experiencing... KO: Is this something that’s going to embed ServiceMax ever closer with your customer’s processes and the way they work - basically build more And so, with that foresight, it’s very easy to engineer those things because if long-term relationships? you have that foresight to know where you want to go with it, it’s much easier ands up if your customers don’t expect data, it’s about enabling them to collect insight More specifically top service management to plan and much easier to execute and I think that has Hexceptional service anymore they demand it, if whilst on-site and feed that back into a central software providers understand the need to keep really helped us. they expect you to exceed SLAs and not just meet database allowing other areas of the service mobile solutions simple whist actually providing “You don’t want to re-implement again in the them? organisation to leverage that information and also more functionality to support on-site real time- I think with the global customer transformation team provide added value for the customer. insight. near future so instead of looking at it from the and the engineering team being in close partnership has Fierce competition and evolving customer enabled us to deliver these analytics but that’s just the expectations mean that meeting SLAs, fixing assets This could be an update to asset information, Key areas such as on-site quoting, allowing point of view, of ‘I’ve got to get this solution live first stage. You have 96% contract attachment rate - and simply turning up on time don’t really do the not only identifying but also generating quotes engineers to quote for, and customers to authorise great, so...what does that mean? job anymore. or processing purchasing orders whilst on-site, work within a few quick steps eliminates the need as fast as possible and just re-do what I have with the customer or having direct access to parts for office staff to follow up on quotes, improving But the reality is it’s comparisons that will add value. Why empower your engineers? suppliers. both first time fix rates and customer satisfaction. now, but with some automation’ understand So we also have a notion of time-based series analytics We are now seeing more and more leading service At the risk of getting overly technical, direct system built in. It’s analytics of how you do in comparisons organisations shifting focus from product to service interfaces play a big part in ’empowering the that this is a time for change” over a period of time as it relates to revenue, cost and and, by equipping their engineers with the right “The introduction and engineer’. time. Those are some of the metrics that we are able to tools and knowledge many are seeing year-on-year measure. improvements in customer satisfaction, which as adoption of mobile solutions For example, systems are now linking directly to RK: Exactly. I think in the end, from a customer point of view, there’s a whole you would expect, reflects in contract renewals, 3rd party parts suppliers to provide ‘Live Part Look- personal connection - but how do they drive value? How do they become the KO: There’s a position I firmly believe in, which is that in field services the client retention and positive noise about the to empower your mobile ups’ which means engineers can view the entire champion within the organisation? They become the leader and we enable implementation of any service provider software should be viewed as a company and the brand. parts database, search for and order parts, and them in that way. business investment rather than a technology investment. workforce is not just about manage the requisition-to-receipt process from According to recent reports published earlier end-to-end allowing on-site ordering and receipt KO: Is it applicable across all different verticals? RK: It is. this year the number one compliant made by saving paper or improving the directly from the mobile device. customers is ‘technician was unable to resolve the RK: I think at minimum it’s having the understanding and part of that KO: So do you think products like Service Performance Metrics will help issue’. speed at which a work order The ability to be reactive on site by using ‘Live is education, some customers may not know any better. So, how do we service directors make this distinction to their executive boards? Checklist Lookup’ functionality means that if the empower them with the knowledge to do something better for their business The key reasons for failing to resolve an issue is processed...” situations changes on site, engineers can reflect and then drive that? RK: Absolutely. Because it’s ‘How do I translate the business case into true include things such as; lack of knowledge about this in the paperwork they raise, decreasing time requirements for a solution.’ But also keep in mind the day to day realities of the customer or asset, incorrect skill set, wrong spent altering or changing job details or forms. I think that’s part of our major difference why people choose us. executing the processes. tools, no parts – these are not new issues so I’m How do you empower your engineers sure you know how the story goes in terms of Today, top service management solutions So the introduction and adoption of mobile KO: That’s an interesting point because obviously there’s a journey of It’s not similar for many places and it’s too flippant to say, “make it simple,” business impact – multiple customer visits leading will provide enhanced engineer planning and solutions to empower your mobile workforce is not continuous improvement for most companies so how easily does the and so I think it’s important that you’ve got to balance the two. And I think to poor customer satisfaction ratings, increased optimisation tools that can automatically plan a just about saving paper, reducing errors generated solution evolve? Because obviously today’s best practice may not be it’s important that when you get back to your observations, ask can we costs and ultimately a reduction in client retention job based on any number of parameters including through manual processes or improving the speed tomorrow’s... connect these two worlds in an easier way? and new business generation. SLAs, customer opening times, skill set etc. at which a work order is processed.

RK: Exactly. And that’s why I think, how do we make it flexible? Because we Having that point of view and the team understanding that as a goal, and as Communication between back office and field They will also have the ability to auto plan multiple It is also about giving your engineers the tools to know that we want people to change as part of how we believe we can make an outcome focussed point of view -it changes the way that you implement. service engineers via mobile devices and software engineers to a single job whilst allowing the adopt a truly customer centric approach on every the biggest advances. applications has been around for years. The step capture of individual times on site and eliminating job they attend. You really don’t want to re-implement again in the near future so instead change we are seeing comes from providing the double entry of data. We want people to change so how does the technology allow that? We have of looking at it from the point of view, of ‘I’ve got to get this solution live as engineer with real-time insight. And that customer centric approach will also lead to measure that change so we can improve it, it all circles back to if you can’t fast as possible and just re-do what I have now, but with some automation’, All aimed at getting the jobs/work orders allocated to improved ‘first time fix rates’ and will help measure, you can’t improve. understand that this is a time for change. And if you were to think of it in that So rather than simply firing a job out to an to the right engineer as quickly as possible. reduce downtime and loss of productivity for way, what should you measure and act on? What are the key things that you engineer with the focus of arriving within the customers – things your customers really want But at the same time a measurement and also a solution, is a point in time of need to measure to move the business forward? Then think about how you agreed SLA, service organisations need to ensure Once allocated the engineer needs the right their service organisation to deliver. where that company was in their lifecycle. As it grows and we help companies can implement the solution to achieve that. that the engineer not only gets on site with the parts. Automatic stock replenishment for the go through that maturity, how do we enable our customers beyond this? customer on time but also has the parts, skills, and mobile workforce means spares can be ordered I think that approach can really help. We see our most successful information to resolve the issue. to a designated ‘Pick up Drop off’ (PUDO) point That is all part of our product strategy and as we add other elements and implementations driven this way especially compared to those companies eliminating the need for engineers to return to the components into the solutions we will see it evolve further. who go ‘Here are 300 features, go implement them’. Of course it’s not just about engineers receiving main warehouse to replenish stock. p34 p35 fieldservicenews.com Hands On Review: Gen2Wave RP1600 Rugged Smartphone Hands On: Gen2Wave RP1600 rugged smartphone

The introduction of the smartphone, and in particular the iPhone in 2007, caused a seismic shift in terms of mobile computing in field service. However, consumer devices have their limitations when it comes to durability and reliability in the field, especially when compared to devices such as Handheld computers that are designed for such use. But with the emergence of a new breed of rugged smartphones geared specifically for field use is that set to change?

As part of our hands on series we take a look at one of the latest such devices, Gen2Wave’s RP1600 rugged Android Smartphone...

What the manufacturers readable display, available in either resistive or feature which enables businesses to restrict resistance, good outdoor visibility and tested say... capacitive touch, this Smartphone is ideal for the use of applications, limit file access, allows drop resistance are all significant benefits. Launched in the UK in February this year, durability in harsher conditions. for website blocking and the control of WiFi, Gen2Wave’s RP1600, is the first octa-core rugged Bluetooth or phone usage. Then there is a secondary gap, for what are Android industrial Smartphone. With extended battery options and simple battery perhaps best defined as industrial rugged swap-out, this device is particularly suitable First i m p r essio ns... smartphones. The RP1600 has stand-out performance thanks for mobile workers who need business-critical There is undeniably a gap in the market sat to its 1.8GHz octa-core processor (Samsung, information on the move in order to carry out right between rugged handheld computers and Devices that meet the above rugged Exynos5430), 3GB RAM and 16GB ROM on an their work in an efficient way. consumer smartphones. criteria but also incorporate further Android Kit-Kat 4.0 O/S, allowing high-speed additional features such as barcode parallel processing across eight apps and This device delivers a range of communication In fact there are actually two distinct gaps. scanners, which are specifically designed sufficient RAM space for multi-tasking without options including Bluetooth 4.0+HS, WiFi IEEE to improve and enhance the workflow of their delay. 802.11 a/b/g/n, and embedded A-GPS; assisting Firstly, there is clearly a market for rugged business users. the mobile worker with real-time access to smartphones, a cross-over market that can Front on The RP1600 has a tested and proven IP64 rating important data, increasing productivity and suit the needs of both industry - including field The RP series of rugged smartphones firmly sits it looks far more like withstanding drops up to 1.5m. accuracy. service, but also a specialist consumer market for in this latter category, and the RP1600 is certainly a consumer device than many of it’s those who like the outdoor life, such as hikers or one of the best looking examples of this relatively competitors with a large 4.3 inch touch-screen devices such Adding this to the compact 4.3 inch sunlight The RP1600 comes with Gen2Wave’s KIOSK sailors for example, where high water and dust small market that I have seen to date. display and smooth curved lines, challenging as Zebra’s gorgeous looking TC55. p36 p37 fieldservicenews.com Hands On Review: Gen2Wave RP1600 Rugged Smartphone fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Marne Martin, Service Power

And whilst selecting a device for your field enhancements on the newer OS as well as some device shares woith both the Dolphin 70E and service engineers is not about a beauty parade, additional features including enhanced battery the T55. The elusive Return on Investment aesthetics shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes life, notifications and security all of which are to gaining engineer approval and thus enhancing of benefit to a device being deployed to field Ruggedity: adoption rates. workers. With an IP rating of 64 the RP1600 is fully Return on Investment and workforce management should go hand in hand but it resistant to dust ingress however, in terms of its In hand the device whilst of course not as light as Its also worth noting that the RP series also comes ability to be protected from water, it is splash can take careful application explains Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower... a consumer device, is certainly not cumbersome, in a Windows flavour in the RP1300 albeit with a proof but nothing more. whilst still feeling nice and sturdy. slightly less impressive set of specs. Compare this to the Juno T41S which is fully eturn on Investment “ROI” is such a buzz word, of on site processes and business intelligence are Has the solution decreased the number of In comparison to other similar devices the RP1600 The Ins & Outs: submersible in 2m of water for up to an hour and Respecially in field service. also important. dispatchers required to manage field technicians? comes in around the expected range of 250g The major selling point for the RP1600 and all of this could be a major negative for the RP1600 as it Has technician utilisation improved based on the (up to 300g with extended battery) which is just the devices within this bracket, is the inclusion of could potentially mean the device is not suited to Most organisations, which offer some sort of field And, look to the future. Business models, customer solution’s ability to handle intra-day schedule about 10% heavier than the TC55 but significantly a dedicated barcode scanner. certain environments. based services eventually realize that to achieve expectations and technologies change. changes, decreasing non-working time and lighter than Trimble’s Juno T41s which weighs in their productivity, customer satisfaction and cost overtime? at 400g. The RP1600 is capable of processing both 1D and In terms of it’s ability to withstand the occasional metrics, some level of automated workforce The best WFM vendors offer technology which 2D barcodes and features an easily accessible knock or two? management (WFM) technology is required. Even supports your current business model, but also Have field techs been able to improve their All in all, the RP1600 looks the part, but how does quick button for activating the scanner, which is small productivity gains bring guaranteed benefits provides a roadmap to support growth and efficiency, completing more jobs per day or it perform? pretty much the standard for such devices. Well the RP1600 is allegedly capable of surviving to any organization. evolution in the future. decreasing the time on the job site? Have first tests of 1.5m drop onto concrete, and the device time fix rates improved? Processing power Other than this, the device comes with an we had for review certainly coped with such a Making the Case Build a solid team - Cross functional project The obvious devices to look towards for additional 4 short keys for navigation, supports drop, however, it is unclear if the devices was put The business cases for WFM vary, but generally, teams, which include executive sponsorship and Have fuel costs decreased due to more efficient comparison are the TC55 from Zebra, the USB2.0 and also accepts stylus input. through the MilStd 810g testing process, which the most common goals are improved efficiency, a strong project leader with the relationships and routing? Has headcount been optimized such that Juno T41S by Trimble and the Dolphin 70E by many of it’s peers have done. increased customer satisfaction, decreased costs negotiation skills to navigate across the teams are resources can be reallocated to other tasks or Honeywell as each of these devices also belong It also has a 13mega pixel camera with auto focus and streamlined processes, such as collaboration, key to driving consensus and success. Don’t forget eliminated? Has schedule compliance improved, in what Honeywell term the ‘Enterprise Hybrid and flash, which again is ahead of its peers. This could just be information lacking from the inventory management and billing. the tribe. decreasing missed or late appointments? Device’ form factor. I.e. the cross over product spec sheet, or it could be that Gen2Wav used between Handheld and Smartphone. The one omission that would perhaps of been a different approach to testing. However, this While WFM technology does require an Much information about current operations and Have customer satisfaction scores increased due to useful for those out in the field would have been does raise a potential red flag when it comes to investment of course, it can generate huge returns, the ability to enforce the changes necessary from shorter appointment windows, improved schedule And in terms of processing power the RP1600 is a 3.5mm audio input. However, the device does comparing it with similar devices. in as little as nine months according to Gartner, the bottom up depend on the techs, dispatch, call compliance or proactive maintenance work comfortably leading the pack. come with Bluetooth v4.0+HS and has dedicated throughout the field service process. center, finance and HR teams that general aren’t supported by the WFM tool? headset support. However this is of course reliant Battery Life: initially included in the project because they fall In fact it’s 1.8GHz Octa-core processor alongside on providing your engineers with a bluetooth Finally in terms of battery life the RP1600 comes The most successful WFM deployments begin with outside to the core field service and IT teams. Collect baseline data and use a robust, integrated, 3GB Ram puts it in a similar bracket to a headsets, which are far more expensive than their with three options. a commitment to improving existing processes and in-memory business intelligence tool to measure reasonably high-end consumer device such as wired equivalents. a focus on productivity enhancements. Every functional group will have its own goals (or the baseline and post deployment data against one Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4. Amongst its peers only • Standard : 1860mA/h Li-Ion not) for the project and varying commitment to it. another. the TC55 with a 1.5Ghz dual processor comes Connectivity: • Extended : 4000mA/h Li-Ion An example of the sorts of key performance Document plans and goals. Drive commitment by remotely close. As mentioned above the RP1600 like the TC55 • Medium : 2860mA/h Li-Ion indicators that are possible with the attributing specific ROI metrics to each functional ServicePower recently helped a client evaluate supports the Bluetooth 4.0 compared to the implementation of a WFM technology that group and use a formal ROI model to measure the the ROI on its deployment of ServiceScheduling. There is also plenty of storage space with 16GB Juno T41S and the Dolphin 70E which come with Also as the RP1600 also features a built-in backup includes configurable parameter-based results. The client documented increased productivity internal memory, plus support for up to 32GB Bluetooth 2.1. battery, hot swapping of batteries should be optimization include: of 29% and a 32% return on its investment in on an external micro SD, which again compares possible, allowing for potentially infinite battery Collect data. Ensure data is collected prior to ServicePower’s mobile workforce management well to its main rivals with only the optimum This is particularly useful for field service life as long as you have an additional battery • Total capacity increased from 6,427 jobs to launch so that recalculation of the metrics after software platform, including fewer miles driven, configuration of the Juno T41S besting it. companies as we look to the future as 4.0 is especially as the charging cradle (which is 8,579 jobs (33% uplift) can be calculated the same way to provide a solid, across the entire fleet, resulting in a $1,611,055 geared much more towards IoT than its older included in the box) for the RP1600 also allows for • % jobs completed late decreased from 78% unquestionable analysis. savings per year, and improved schedule Operating system counterpart. charging an additional battery. to 33% compliance resulting in $165,600 in late penalty The RP1600 comes with Android 4.4 KitKat • Average jobs/day/tech increased from 4.72 to Calculating the results savings per year. operating system however it is upgradeable to When it comes to wifi the RP1600 is capable Conclusion: 7.18 (52% uplift) Documenting a ROI on a WFM investment is an Android 5.1 Lollipop. of working with all standards of wifi with the There is no denying that the RP1600 is an exercise which requires data from across the Continued Success exception of 802.11ac which means that the impressive device. To achieve these sort of improvement in your enterprise to accurately measure and understand Mobile workforce management software solutions Whilst 4.4 is certainly a capable OS, the option to device can potentially operate on the 5Ghz organisation through the implementation of a where you started and the productivity gains that are critical to maximizing the productivity and upgrade to 5.1 is definitely a bonus and one that channel although not as effectively as a device Its Achilles heel perhaps lies within it’s rugged WFM including algorithm-based technology to were the result. efficiency of employed resources. Measurable, isn’t available on many similar devices. boasting 802.11ac. This is however, par for the specs. If you are looking for a device that is going maximize your productivity, it starts with well laid sustainable ROI is absolutely possible. Positive ROI course within the form factor and none of the to take a bit of a pounding and definitely get wet plans. Again, the most common data used to measure depends on solid planning, cross functional, deeply Given that one of the key benefits of an Android RP1600’s competitors offer better. once in a while then it may be worth looking at success and ROI on a WFM deployment are experienced teams, agreement on the metrics, device is that there is a familiarity to the OS due some of the more robust options of the form Evaluate WFM vendors - Select a vendor based on improved efficiency, increased customer data collection and robust, integrated BI. To learn to the prevalence of the platform in the consumer The RP1600 also edges ahead of it’s rivals in terms factor. supported deployment models, especially in 2016 satisfaction, decreased costs and streamlined what your ROI on a WFM investment could be, run world, it could be well worth exploring the of mobile internet with support for 4G LTE which when SaaS deployments are increasingly important processes. the numbers with our ROI calculator. upgrade as in the consumer realm many Android is not seen amongst other similar devices. However, that said, the RP1600 is both pretty and due to speed of implementation, cost savings in devices are now running 5.0 and the look and feel powerful, is certainly rugged enough for most terms of IT resources, hardware, licensing and Specifically, measure technician and dispatcher of the two different versions is substantial. Finally there is a potential to include NFC field environments and would definitely be a good security. Integration capabilities, and features such efficiency. Has the WFM solution increased the There are also some general performance capabilities within the RP1600, a benefit the fit for many field service organisations. as schedule optimization, mobile dispatch/support number of jobs scheduled per day, per technician? p38 p39 fieldservicenews.com Industry Leaders: Tom Heiser, CEO, ClickSoftware Time to start banging the drum....

ClickSoftware have for a long time been seen as a key leader amongst field service solution providers. But the sector has gone through rapid evolution within the last few years with technology moving forward whilst the market becomes ever more competitive. Meanwhile, ClickSoftware have been through an evolution of their own, with new ownership and a new CEO Tom Heiser, at the helm. And he is determined to see the optimisation specialists stay at the forefront of the industry. Kris Oldland reports...

f you ask any seasoned field service professional to name check three field purchased by Californian based private equity firm Fransicso Partners. Iservice software providers you can almost guarantee that ClickSoftware will be one of those they mention. This was followed by the appointment of Tom Heiser, formerly of EMC as a new CEO, and whilst many of the Israeli talent that pushed ClickSoftware to For many years ClickSoftware has been viewed as the gold standard in terms the forefront of the sector remain on board, Heiser’s arrival heralds a new of field service optimisation. However, the market is going through rapid era for ClickSoftware, with both their approach to technology and culture change and is now more fiercely competitive than ever before. In such an having a delicate shift of focus to help them hold on to their position as an environment, relying on past reputations is a dangerous game to play - even industry leader. when your reputation is one as strong as that which ClickSoftware can boast. When we meet for the first time Heiser himself comes across initially as very However, across the last year, ClickSoftware have gone through rapid much something of a people person, a firm handshake is balanced by a warm changes of their own. After long running and widespread rumours of SAP ‘Hollywood’ smile and he carries that air of informality and confidence that acquiring the company proved to ultimately be unfounded, the company was seems to be becoming commonplace amongst senior executives working for p40 p41 fieldservicenews.com Industry Leaders: Tom Heiser, CEO, ClickSoftware

service centre 5.1 service management software Our software runs in the cloud, but if you'd prefer... Visit us @ The Service Management Expo

Stand N1500

US tech firms these days. development of the technology.

When we meet we are also joined by Mike Karlskind, a man with a career “The thing is, shifting and changing the culture is actually harder than getting spanning some twenty years plus with ClickSoftware. the technology right,” he begins.

Given the recent restructure of ClickSoftware, one could be forgiven for “With the technology, you just get the right people, you invest in it, and -2015 thinking this was the old guard introducing the new. However, as conversation you’re going to ultimately do it. The second area is the business model, which 1985 unravels across the next hour or so, it seems more that Heiser understands as a small public company, which is what we were, makes it super hard to go and values the talent and history embedded within the company, and intends to the Cloud.” to utilise it. “Now we have with a board of six people in Moshe [former CEO and founder] His aim it seems, is not so much a complete re-imagining and reinvention of myself and four guys from Francisco Partners, who are all super smart guys ClickSoftware, more gentle refinement, to ensure that the company remains that have done this before. So I feel with the six of us we can do it, but how do ahead both in terms of technology and of course market-share. we do this with the new business models?” 015 985-2 ARS 1 30 YE Part of that process is ensuring that the company retain a focus on R&D but “How do we go from an on-premise model with cash flow up front to a also that they make sure the market is aware of that focus. subscription model which is where we feel we need to be. Everybody wants to be on the other side, nobody wants to go through that process. But we’re set “Before I flew over here I spent some time sat down with some senior to get there.” ERA ESS CT

industry analysts in Israel “ says Heiser, “and they were saying to me, the T ...we can install it on your

technology behind ClickSoftware is right at the top, but you guys really need As he speaks, Heiser conveys a sense of the magnitude of the task not only S E

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R to start banging the drum some more.” faced by him and his team in terms of moving with the ever growing traction A V I W EuropeanC Office T driving software solutions towards the Cloud, but also faced by the industry E F M O sales +44(0)1494 465066A S own server! Indeed, in their midsts ClickSoftware have some fantastic success stories, in general. 1985 - 2015 30 Years N T AGEMEN including European automobile glass replacement giant Belron, who operate email [email protected] Supporting our 7,500 satisfied users ensures that in the UK as Autoglass. However, there is also an underlying confidence that he and his team are North American Office more than up to the challenge, that he cannot contain. our feet stay firmly on the ground. “Mike and I have been speaking to a number of our clients’ COOs, Presidents sales +1 703 437 4230 etc recently and having strategic conversations around how to best leverage “Culture is the third element we need to mention. I look at culture as the email [email protected] 15 - 30 20 Y our solution and one of the best examples is Autoglass based over here [in the biggest challenge, but then there are some people here that are so energised - E 5 A UK].” by what we’re doing it’s like, ‘let’s go faster’ I feel like I’m holding you back! - 8 R ERA S It’s really invigorating, but we need to rein it in every now and then and make ESS CT 9 T 1

“They have a net promoter customer satisfaction score which is like crazy sure we’re all on the same track.”

1985- 2015 S E

high and they’re using ClickSoftware as a tool to completely differentiate E R

R 30 years the A V themselves from their competition, and I’m really proud to see that.” Having spent an hour with Heiser, it is clear his enthusiasm could genuinely I W C T market leader! E F be infectious, yet it is also clear that he is grounded enough to see the woods O M S AN T But what about the shift in focus in terms of technology? What can we expect as well as the trees. He is also smart enough to not only keep key members of AGEMEN from ClickSoftware moving forwards? his team such as Karlskind close by, but also to admit when it is time to turn to Service Centre 5.1 is available SaaS, is browser them for support. independent and will run on any device - Well it is clear from speaking with Heiser that he sees very much the future of both ClickSoftware and enterprise computing in general, as being based in There may have been a number of changes for ClickSoftware in the last year learn more at www.tesseract.co.uk the Cloud. However, he also understands that the shift from the still prevalent or so, but with Heiser at the helm there is a good chance that their position as traditional on-premise model to a Cloud based world is not solely about the one of the leading brands in the market will remain firmly intact. Service Centre 5.1 is a true end to end web product. Developed using Microsoft .Net technology Service Centre 5.1 is a browser based HTML p42 product supporting a range of databases and having a ‘zero footprint client’.

8964 Field Service News Advert.indd 1 27/07/2015 12:10 fieldservicenews.com Industry Masterclass: Developing Talent

Nurturing your top t a le nt...

As the field workforce of many companies begins to go through perhaps the greatest cultural shift in modern history, it is vital that companies begin paying attention to the stars within their midst and help them grow into more senior roles.

Jennifer Lescallett, Affymetrix, explained exactly why and how we can achieve this during a presentation at Field Service Medical earlier this year...

pparently only 10% of companies spend time the best practices as yet, those that need a little 1. Developing success profiles around the behaviours that you want.” managers is important also explains Lescallett. performance being the y Adeveloping their top talent. This is despite bit of help. Then in the middle you have those 2. Assessing and reviewing your talent strategy axis - this is a particularly the fact that talent acquisition and retention is a people who are quite steady who love doing their 3. Executing the plan “Next you have to define those destination rules “Certainly they [line managers] have a very useful and commonplace critical area for most companies. In field service jobs and love going in talking to customers, fixing that you have and that you’ve envisioned for them. good assessment of where there team is, but it’s tool for visualising exactly where training engineers to maintain a specific issues.” “The first two of these plans are relatively easy. Maybe it is an assignment in a new territory/ important to get assessment from all of your team who in your team have set of devices can be both a long and costly You can go away lock you and your team in a geography you are expanding into, or maybe it’s leaders. Because people can see different things both the potential and endeavour this is perhaps magnified even further. “And then there is the final part of the curve, the session, leaving your phones at the door and stop leading in a small business unit somewhere else in different individuals.” the work ethic to step top performers; this is where the focus needs to fighting fires for one day to get things aligned. within the business for example.” into a leadership role, So why doesn’t nurturing our top talent take more be.” However it is the third element that could be the “Its often easy to spot the ‘racehorses’ those whilst also helping of a front seat? trickiest to implement,” she says. “It is important to help people not only build their that come in and are raring to go, always making you see who could be However, Lescallett advises that we then drill deep expertise in the service and support department contributions, they are easy to identify however potentially be in need “We are all hard-wired in service to go out and into these high performers to find those that can “For me, I find you can kind of get stuck here. but also make sure that they can rotate through there are also some diamonds in the rough that of more coaching and fight fires and by the time we get to us and our fill future leadership roles. Because you have so many things going on in a different groups within the organisation” she adds are worth unearthing to,” she explains. guidance.” needs as managers and companies, we have day-to-day basis that executing on a plan and super important customer issues that we have to “These are people that have curiosity and a figuring out how to add this into your daily routine The second process Lescallett suggest is then “People that might have the technical skills but “However, it is also resolve. And we do that on a daily basis constantly penchant for understanding knowledge and can be pretty tough.” assessing and reviewing talent. haven’t really refined some of the leadership skills important to remember fighting fires,” explained Jennifer Lescallett, Senior understanding how to connect the dots and as yet. You have to take your time with these and that not everyone Director, North American Service and Support, at resolve the issues. They are people that have However lets take a look through each of the “We actually use two or three different models, nurture them to get them to that place where you is designed for a Field Service Medical held a little earlier this year.” insight into your organisation and they have a way stages. The first step of developing your success its actually often dependent on who is driving the can envision them being a future leader. However, leadership role. Many of looking at a customer problem and resolving profiles There are also three key steps Lescallett company,” Lescallett begins. it’s important not to discount those who may not very good field service “Taking time out of our day to focus on individuals that issue.” Lescallett explains suggests. be 100% polished yet.” techs are happy being in our company that are ear marked for those “One is an approach a former CEO brought with just that.” future jobs takes time and it’s time that we need “The people with these high potential qualities The first of these is defining the behaviours that him from GE called Zenger Folkman where you The final process Lescallett suggest is a broad to allocate away from all the distractions of our also want to be engaged, they want to be drive success. get feedback from your direct reports, your review of the data. One thing is certain work environment,” she continued. engaged at the strategic level and they also have managers, and your peers on a whole range of though, building determination and grit. They face adversity, they “You want someone who can identify a need and competencies and they give you information “You should review the group data as a team of a healthy pipeline Identifying potential stars can get through it and they feed off of it.” have the enthusiasm and energy to figure out a about your strengths and your weaknesses. So managers, so make sure that marketing and sales of future leaders Given the above it’s crucial that as a first step you solution. You want someone that can think out of you get an anonymous report back which is more is evaluating their team in the same way that you is crucial for the can identify those with genuine potential. Three-part process the box, that’s truly creative, that works well in a powerful than most because its not just your are evaluating yours.” future of every Lescallett herself has adopted a three part process team or whatever the key behaviours are that you manager giving you feedback, it is everyone you business. “Imagine the bell curve” Lescallett explains for identifying and developing talent. see in your current leadership.” are working with.” “There are many means of evaluating teams, “At one side of the curve you have your low including a matrix format mapping them on performers, people that haven’t employed all The process is identified as: “Then you have to then build the competencies Assessing the opinions of more than just the line a grid, with potential being the x axis and p44 p45 fieldservicenews.com Scheduling: integrated or standalone?

With a raft of large platform providers including Salesforce, IFS, Oracle and Microsoft all now Scheduling: Integrated offering embedded field service solutions within their wider platforms is there still a market for specialist best-of-breed solution providers? We take a look at the arguments for both stand o r s ta n d a l o n e ? alone and integrated solutions....

longside the question of which type of scheduling engine is correct for Generally a best-of-breed solution will have been purchased to fit a particular The case for implementing integrated systems: This concept also, of course applies to the support IT departments are able to Ayour organisation (dynamic, assisted, optimised etc etc), there is also requirement or need (i.e. mobile workforce scheduling in this instance) and When we look at the benefits of integrated systems, again there are a number deliver. the additional consideration of whether you should opt for a solution that is you may well find that certain companies have developed a strong feel and of key arguments as to why this approach has merits. stand-alone/best-of-breed or one which is fully integrated within your other understanding for specific industry verticals – meaning an implementation It is far less demanding for an IT team to deliver support across one core business solutions such as an ERP or CRM system? can often be as close to out-of-the box as possible if you find a company Perhaps the biggest and most important of these is the easy flow of data platform than various stand-alone solutions. Similarly it can also mean that that has worked within your sector and therefore has a feel for some of the across different business units. In an age of Big Data, such seamless transition support from the platform vendor is directed to one location, and often one There are valid arguments made for both sides and, as with every new nuances of your market. of data from one business division to another can help deliver a 360 degree specific account manager rather than having to have multiple vendor support introduction of technology within a business environment, careful view of a customer – something that is seen as the holy grail of business channels in place. consideration needs to be made as to what will fit best with your existing This leads us to another big benefit of choosing a standalone option in that today. solutions and your future plans, as ultimately every organisation is unique and there is a wider amount of choice available to you. Again such familiarity can improve issue resolution dramatically and this is will have unique requirements. For example, the ability for a sales representative to see that a client has also an important factor in terms of upgrading a system. With a selection of Firstly, many vendors that also offer their solution as a part of an integrated had a number of call outs for service orientated support could open up stand-alone solutions in place your IT department may face an unmanageable However, let’s briefly look at the pros and cons of both stand-alone and platform such as IFS or Oracle, will also offer their Field Service Management opportunities for up-selling an improved service package. Similarly, an stream of continual updates and bug fixing patches, whether you are on a integrated solutions. tools as standalone as well. engineer on-site could potentially see an opportunity for selling some Cloud system or On Premise. consumable items whilst undertaking a service call and could place this The case for implementing a standalone/best –of- So when looking at a standalone option you are able to select across the information directly into a CRM directly from his mobile application With a platform approach, the vendor is likely to help ease the burden of so breed scheduling solution: entirety of the available marketplace, from the well known industry leaders – something which is relatively easily achieved in many platforms and many updates by combining many system wide tweaks in each new iteration. The first and perhaps most obvious of these is that the implementation of a through to smaller vertical specialist providers. something which could be a much more cumbersome process with multiple standalone system is not necessarily tied into the complete overhaul of systems in place. One final consideration is that as mentioned above, whilst the implementation business-wide working processes - implementing a scheduling engine really Of course such a wide range of choice can also be a challenge in it’s own right. of one standalone solution may be swifter, the implementation of a business- should be viewed as a business not IT exercise. Another perfect example of the importance of visibility across a platform wide system ultimately will be more efficient in terms of man-hours allocated And whilst smaller standalone solutions may have perhaps more flexibility and could be that if an engineer arrives at a site where the client’s SLA period has to implementation in the longer term. This means that on a one off basis, implementation and training can generally a better understanding of your business, it is important to understand their expired. All too often such information can be overlooked resulting in that be swifter than implementing a more encompassing solution such as an ERP. position in terms of business security - no matter how good their solution you engineer’s work essentially being given away for free. So in summary, whilst standalone may be more suitable in terms of degree of will need some level of ongoing support, so you need to know they will be fit, a fully integrated package is ultimately likely to be more effective in terms However, if a company is intending to roll out an entire suite of stand-alone around for at least the amount of time you intend to use their solution for. A second significant benefit of the integrated approach is that many of time, cost, resources, and project management in the mid-to long term. products then the time to implement each will greatly outweigh the time it companies will find adoption of new systems a lot easier at the end-user level would take to implement one overall system. The flip side of this is that of course with a stand-alone provider, in a worst due to familiarity of the tools. However, a standalone approach does allow you to spread the cost and case scenario there is always the fact that walking away from a solution that resources required for implementation and given the ability for scheduling The one key area where traditionally best-of-breed solutions have been hasn’t delivered all that was promised is potentially less painful than if you Platforms that have various functionalities across different business units are engines to provide clear, tangible ROI within a generally short time frame, viewed as often being the more superior option has been in terms of degree have opted for an integrated solution that sits across a number of different likely to have a fundamental terminology, nomenclature, shared short cut best-of-breed solutions could be the right option for those companies looking of fit. divisions within your organisation. buttons, and similar menu configurations etc. for direct improvements in the short term. p46 p47 fieldservicenews.com How strong are the links in your supply chain

TECHNICIANS, CUSTOMERS, SPARE PARTS AND PROFITS: HOW STRONG ARE THE LINKS IN YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN?

Whilst many field service companies have focussed their efforts on improving both customer experiences and service technician efficiency, it can all count for little if it is compromised by insufficient parts availability. Giacomo Squintani of Syncron looks at the perennial challenge of the supply chain and the role technology can play in finally finding a solution...

s the overall experiences customers have with frustrates your customers, your technicians and unnecessary, often obsolete stock – ultimately baffled and frustrated with a negative warehouse. Adurable goods manufacturers become more you as a manager? harming profits? perception of you brand. And, most critical to company success, the strides made in importantly, are the ones Hurt by online shopping, brick-and-mortar field service management to ensure these positive That’s right. The technician is on time, highly Furthermore, Aberdeen found that only 48 The solution interacting face-to-face with your retailers are providing spare part stocking brand interactions have been remarkable. knowledgeable and determined to help, but isn’t percent of those organisations leveraged “service Resolving these types of customer issues and customers. locations to bridge the gap between technicians stocked with the correct part. parts management to increase collaboration experiences is perfectly feasible. and end customers. These scenarios should be Field service technicians not only are the ‘face’ across business functions and service,” in spite of “Hurt by online shopping, embraced by service teams: the greater the of a company – the individuals interacting with So your brand’s main ambassadors are all too the unassailable notion that “the value that other Technologies exist for this very purpose – service complexity, the greater the potential for efficiency customers on a regular basis – but also key often left sinking in unsatisfactory excuses as functions can glean from valuable service parts parts management and scheduling solutions brick-and-mortar retailers are improvements in the service part supply chain stakeholders in improving performance for the unhappy customers stare and shake their heads. data is immeasurable.” . interacting together to ensure that when your business as a whole. technician arrives to the right place at the right providing spare part stocking Once routing and scheduling have been optimised, And suddenly, that value you’d created through Highlighting the efficiency losses of a disconnected time, they have the right part to keep your further benefits can only come from other As a service manager, you must put yourself in field service management technology investments service ecosystem, the report concluded that “the customers happy and encourage repeat business. locations to bridge the physical processes within the service ecosystem, and both your customers’ and your technicians’ shoes. is compromised by insufficient part availability. success of field service is very much dependent on service part inventory management, with its the parts and vice versa”. Solutions specifically built for the service business, gap between technicians and potential to reduce costs across multiple echelons Your customers’ experiences have improved The problem with all of its challenges around low-volume, within the supply chain, can deliver quick gains. greatly in recent years. You’ve reduced response Many OEMs have successfully grappled with the And yet…In a separate report, WBR established ‘just-in-case,’ intermittent availability, rather end customers. These scenarios times and improved the accuracy of the timing of age-old parts:people challenge, and are reaping its that, when establishing the criticality of future than for high volume, predictable, ‘just-in-time’ With switching barriers lower than ever, in a your technician’s visit while improving first time many benefits. investments, only 8 percent of executives were throughput. should be embraced by service competitive landscape where you are not only fix rates. considering inventory management. fighting rival OEMs but also independent service In 2013, AberdeenGroup established that only Service parts management can make your teams...” providers, you owe it to your technicians to You’ve empowered them with the guidance to fix 45 percent of the companies they interviewed Yet, when they examined the sources of customer technicians’ lives easier, and in turn positively empower them with the right tools for the job. You many problems without visiting them in-person, had “increased their focus on service parts complaints, the biggest contributing problem was impact each customer’s experience with your Room for improvement owe it to your customers, too. saving everyone time and money. management as a result of the added demands parts unavailability, cited by 55 percent of service brand. Service part inventory networks are complex from customers to improve service-issue executives. Failure to fix the issue on the first – a part may go through central warehouses, And, having established fantastic efficiencies in For technicians, you’ve reduced their windshield resolution” . visit, the engineer’s arrival time and their lack of As outlined previously, technicians’ responsibilities distribution centres, regional stocking locations field service management, there is far greater time, turned them into trusted advisors and experience generated far fewer complaints, with are broadening: their job no longer ends when and secure local collection boxes along its journey scope to drive value and ROI by optimizing your empowered them with access to all the required Why are so many organisations failing to address rates of 35 percent, 29 percent and 12 percent the issue is resolved, it entails acting as trusted to a technician’s vehicle. service part supply chain. Enable your techs to knowledge at a click. And, you’re already thinking a problem that impacts technicians’ effectiveness, respectively . advisors, identifying opportunities for further drive an awesome customer experience at every about the new world that augmented reality could brand reputation and customer loyalty, tying business and potentially maintaining other Oftentimes, technicians will end up being over- interaction by ensuring the right part for the job is open up. But, what’s the classic problem that up cash in vans and warehouses in the shape of These negative experiences leave your customers vendors’ equipment. stocked, causing unnecessary restocking at the at hand when and where they need it. p48 p49 fieldservicenews.com Customer centric software solutions: Microsoft Customer centric software solutions When software giant Microsoft announced a raft of highly service “Think of it like a Lego brick system, orientated features in the latest roll out of Microsoft Dynamics so Dynamics CRM is that lego brick it was clear they were aiming to help their customers, help their system - then you decide if you build a customers. But how does that translate into Field service, the police station or a fire station.” dedicated FSM solution acquired by Microsoft last year? Kris Oldland spoke to Carsten Groth to find out more... - Carsten Groth, Microsoft

ften when a major player in the software “Basically it is because under the hood of “Basically the only adjustment was the transition Oworld acquires a smaller, niche business one Microsoft Dynamics CRM we have something from having FieldOne as accompany to having of two things happen. called the XRM framework which allows partners Microsoft as a bigger company.” as well as ISVs to build on top of it,” he explains. Either the smaller company gets swallowed up So how is the product evolving from FieldOne to never to be heard of again, or they continue with “Think of it like a Lego brick system, so Dynamics Field Service with such heavyweight backing? their brand but as priorities and focusses change CRM is that Lego brick system, then you decide if they slowly lose a grip on what it is that made you build a police station or a fire station.” “We think of field service as a broad area,” begins them a success in the first place. Groth, “we do have small specialisations like “The FieldOne solution came from a global ISV the medical industry or automotive, but I think Either way there are usually a few fairly easily standpoint and what they did was build that ISV perhaps 69% to 75% of challenges are maybe found voices of discontent somewhere. solution based on the XRM framework so they re- equal.” used certain functionalities and entities coming But when Microsoft acquired FieldOne (now from Dynamic’s CRM because they saw that inside “But processes are ever changing and what rebranded to Field Service) in the summer of last field service there was a definite niche for certain we as a concept are trying to bring out ‘is here year the move went particularly smoothly and it types of data,”he adds. is a change management ability inside your seems to have continued in that vein ever since. organisation’. Should you buy new software “They [the FieldOne team] already knew about every-time you make changes to your processes? Carsten Groth, A Technology Solution Professional field service, what are the needs, what are the Of course not - and it would be even better if you within Microsoft explained that much of the pain points in it and then they built on top of that could make adjustments on your own.” seamless transition could be put down to the way XRM framework a field service solution.” in which Microsoft work with partner developers “For example, feedback from one of your field and ISVs, which is driven by a technology platform “So when FieldOne was acquired by Microsoft service technicians saying ‘every day I’m starting that fosters collaboration and integration across there were no pain points as it was a hundred my business day it is a lot of effort for me to give the network. per cent solution fitting inside that XRM story.” you a status feedback - can we simplify it? Is p50 p51 fieldservicenews.com Customer centric software solutions: Microsoft fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Mark Homer, ServiceMax

there a way to do that?’ This is exactly what we read news stories about the unsafe Cloud and With knowledge sharing being a critical tool for are able to do inside Field Service. We come up different types of compliance issues inside the field service companies facing a potential crisis, Risk or Revolution: with systems with an easy, simple UI experience Cloud. But that is changing, it’s changing a lot.” with the prospect of an ageing workforce set that allow companies to form a better connection to leave on mass in the not too distant future, between mobility devices and all those So does Groth see a growing momentum, in terms it would be interesting to see if this level of interactions with the back office.” of companies wanting to move their field service functionality could now be ingrained into the Rise of The Machines offerings to the Cloud? Field Service product suite as well. “We are trying to change the way field service companies engage both internally and with “Definitely, people are struggling with making Fortunately, it seems this is very much all part of their customers, by introducing what we their work easier and the Cloud and Cloud the plan at Microsoft. call Connected Field Service, which you can Services can definitely do that.” now do in the Cloud, with a concept that is a As Groth outlines “Imagine you’re a field Mark Homer, Vice President, Global Customer Transformation for ServiceMax horizontal solution which will still totally align “But it’s new technology and new methodology technician, trained on a specific device, scheduled to your vertical business. We then have vertical that we have to learn. It’s like if your not well to perform maintenance on a customer site. You explains why increased connectivity is an opportunity for service departments instruments such as healthcare for instance, trained in Outlook, you may well end up having an open up the log board and maintenance files and to provide a nice smooth kick-off within that inbox with 2000 or more unread emails – should figure out it’s not revision A that you have been everywhere Mark Homer is Vice President, Global Customer Transformation... system.” it be like that? Definitely not!” trained on but revision B that is required.”

Given Microsoft’s position as a top tier Cloud “Why is it like that? It’s because you’ve not been “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the capabilities of hile the steel industry comes to terms with Companies have good reason to want everything By having a direct, always-on connection to services provider, and Groth’s reference to Field trained in the Outlook experience. And it’s pretty accessing a knowledge base on the fly to see WTata Steel’s decision to quit the UK, it’s a connected. customers’ products it is possible to see how this Service’s own Cloud functionality, this seems much the same with the Cloud – you must be what are the differences between revision A stark reminder of the fragility of jobs particularly in will change a few things for field service. like a perfect time to address the ever-present trained to use Cloud Services and what they are.” and revision B? Maybe there are not that many traditional industries. Diagnostics through data analytics is big business, As keepers of that diagnostic data it puts service elephant in the room. Namely Cloud security. changes in the revision so the field service whether it’s pre-determining the life span of departments in a strong position, as long as they This leads us to the question of whether the technician could still provide the maintenance to Add steelmaker to coal miner, milkman, and products and proactively triggering upgrade cycles can retain control of that data through expert “One of the biggest benefits that Microsoft has is selection of a field service management software that customer on site once he sees the difference switchboard operator. or understanding how products are used better analysis combined with product knowledge. that we can do both the Cloud experience as well solution should fall under the remit of IT, between A and B?” to improve new products in the hope they will as the on-premise experience,” replies Groth. Operations or both. Change has always been rooted in technology and continue to sell, data will become the backbone of This is where field service needs to re-invent itself “We enabled this by offering, inside Microsoft shifting global economies, and we are now on the the modern economy. or at least evolve. “So if there is any reason that we cannot go with “It’s actually even more complicated because we Dynamics CRM 2016, capabilities for these verge of a new revolution. you to those Cloud services, we can still fall back also have the management conversation as well, knowledge banks. We even go a little bit Think about it for a minute. The growth in connected devices will certainly to the on-premise models.” bringing in processes and organisational structure further where we are enabling the field service Like most other revolutions before it, the change the working pattern. While the IoT will not elements as well” comments Groth. technicians as well as others to comment whether proliferation of connected sensors on everything If companies know for certain the condition of a remove the need for field service personnel it will “We do have customers struggling with firewalls, that specific article was useful or not.” from televisions to turbines will create further particular product, how would that impact the demand different skills. policies, or they might even have more specific “So we have the management coming in and change to jobs, increasing redundancies but also sales and service cycles? laws inside certain countries, so what we are saying this is the way we set out our internal So it seems again the strength of the wider creating new roles and skills. With more insight into customer products and trying to do is find spots where we can introduce processes are you able to actually adjust the Microsoft platform, is adding weight to the the potential for remote analysis through virtual Cloud services and then make their lives easier.” software, or are we able to adjust the software, feature set of Field Service. This internet of things (IoT) is not short on publicity “The growth in connected mapping and even drones, it’s possible to see how to continue to allow us to do these processes in and with good reason. this change will materialise - more onscreen work, “Sometimes the worries are simply because they this way?” Of course, other field service solutions, as Groth devices will certainly more data analytics, more upselling and more (who previously worked for German based The numbers are somewhat mind blowing. recommendations for future product design. When Microsoft rolled out the latest feature set scheduling and optimisation solution providers Research analyst Gartner has claimed that 6.4 change the working of Dynamics in the 2016 release their was a lot FLS) will attest, are easily able to plug into billion connected things will be in use this year, an Throw in the potential for localised robots to carry of focus on knowledge sharing, to empower the XRM framework too, or even add further increase of 30 per cent from 2015. pattern. While the IoT will out low level maintenance tasks and suddenly field contact centre agents by putting the right functionality to Field Service, adding ‘one more service in the future looks very different. information they need in front of them as Lego block to the tower’ as Groth describes it. The consumer market will account for the biggest not remove the need for quickly and effortlessly as possible. growth although general and vertical industry use It’s not something to be feared, but rather But there is also a tangible shift towards field is also increasing. field service personnel embraced. service solutions being part of a wider ecosystem with the likes of Oracle and Salesforce following A recent study by the Economist Intelligence it will demand different This is an opportunity for field service to be at the in the footsteps of ERP provider IFS who made Unit on the rise and impact of the smart product centre of the relationship between company and a concerted effort to embed field service within economy found that 40 per cent of businesses skills...” customer, the driving force for product innovation their platform with the purchase of Metric and plan to use smart products to automate customer and the keepers of the keys to the new industrial 360 Scheduling a few years ago. service operations, while 46 per cent report revolution. that smart products are already bringing them Imagine knowing which part is about to fail and There are of course arguments both for and information about their customers that was organising that part for the customer to avoid any And that may mean a name change too. against the case for integrated solutions previously not possible or not cost effective to downtime? versus stand-alone (see page 44), and that is acquire. Smart product analytical service, sales and consideration each indivdual company must take. This would also improve the accuracy of the innovation support agent anyone? From Cisco’s digital ceiling to Future Shape’s smart upgrade sales cycle, and also for that matter, what However, with the acquisition and integration of carpet, everything everywhere is a target for would the data be worth to insurance companies, Field One into their platform Microsoft are now a connectivity. especially in the areas of security and health? very, very solid option once more for field service. p52 p53 fieldservicenews.com The Big Discussion: Fleet Management The Big Discussion: Fleet Management

At the inaugural Field Service Summit held in Oxford last month Field Service News and Greenroad co-hosted a series of five 30 minute roundtables on Fleet Management. With Chatham house rules in place to allow the participants to speak freely about both positive and negative experiences of fleet management, these sessions provided fascinating insight for all of those who took part. Here we share with you three of the key points of discussion from across the day.

Who is responsible for fleet telematics becomes more and more embedded This last point is something that Ryan Davison, In general most companies now see the value of Driver behaviour and fleet However, it does seem to be a problem that often management? by vehicle manufacturers in the not too distant Enterprise Sales Manager, Greenroad believes is data available to them.However, there is also a management heals itself over time following implementation. One of the most crucial factors for understanding future it may be that such arrangements become becoming more and more prevalent. He explained: clear fear of drowning in data if it is not possible to It is however, the first of these uses, feeding data how field service companies manage their more common. access it in a meaningful fashion. back to the field engineers that was discussed the “Eventually they saw it wasn’t being used as they fleet operations is to understand where fleet “We are starting to get approached a lot most across the day’s sessions. And gamification expected it to be and now it is accepted” another management fits within the organisational Meanwhile, for those smaller companies with more now about the health and safety and Also as more and more providers are developing played a significant role in how a number of delegate replied before adding “some of the guys structure of a company. more manageable fleets, the responsibility for environmental factors of fleet management.” APIs for open integration the flow of data is companies utilised their telematics data to are even asking for print outs from the system so fleet management sat firmly with the field service becoming increasingly seamless. improve their engineers driving standards. they can see their own performance.” During the day there were a number of different management team. “Where as traditionally telematics has always been alternatives brought up as to who is responsible logistical and operational. We are starting to see What was also interesting was that there seemed As one participant commented” Nobody wants Yet getting that initial acceptance can still be a for fleet management. What was clear however, was if companies are a lot more around a duty of care compliance side to be a dual use for data, highlighted throughout to be the worst driver in the fleet, whether it is a tricky balancing act as Davison explained further. to get the most out of their telematics solution, of things.” the day’s conversations. fleet of 5 or a fleet or 500.” Perhaps unsurprisingly it was amongst larger which currently many companies admit they are “The two sides of the scale are encouragement organisations that we saw the role of a dedicated not doing, then the field service management “Companies are coming to us now and saying Firstly, it becoame apparent telematics data is And gamification tools can actively encourage and enforcement.” fleet manager, however, even when a fleet team must have some input and control over the effectively we’ve got our telematics system used as a day-to-day management tool, but it is improvements . Indeed, there was almost manager is in place, their role doesn’t necessarily decisions made around fleet management and running on the operational side but we are looking also used secondly as a strategic tool to help push universal acceptance that gamification could be “To begin with you can take the approach of involve the implementation of telematics or telematics. for something independent of that, that will a business forward. used as a tool to improve driver behaviour across explaining this is for your own benefit and what routing and tracking solutions. Often these take care of our R.o.I that will look into duty of an entire mobile workforce. those benefits are, but with those who are more strategic elements ,that are designed to It is also clear that the use of telematics is now care that will make sure our drivers are behaving This concept was neatly summed up by one persistently driving badly then it is a case of falling yield business improvement, sat within the field becoming far more encompassing than simple responsibly on the roads.” particular participant who said: However, the first battle, which is quite a common back on policy and saying to that engineer ‘we service division. Whilst the fleet manager role is vehicle tracking. one it seems, is getting the field engineers to need to take you off the road and explore training more logistical, responsible for the upkeep and “What we are looking at now is finding the synergy “There are two main elements. There is the data accept a telematics solution in the first place. before we can get you back on.’” maintenance of the fleet. As another participant commented “We between fleet management and performance that provides the behavioural stuff and we are a introduced telematics about two/three years ago and health and safety and where you can transfer fortunate position where there are sixteen area All too often we heard similar stories from the In terms of driver behaviour, data can also play Interestingly for a number of companies fleet now and for the same reason – health and safety that data. Data is abundant at the moment and managers and they are directly responsible for delegates – namely that of push-back from unions a crucial role in streamlining training strategies management as a discipline sat alongside the and that really was the driver, but there are so any telematics system can produce an enormous the field engineers and their behaviour and being and engineers. as Davison added “Whereas traditionally people health and safety department, which seemed to many other benefits that can be driven from it.“ amount of data, but it’s how you interpret and able to send data around whether their engineers might have used programs such as AA drive tech, be a general starting point for many companies manage that internally that is the key. Handing are driving too fast, or braking too hard etc. is “Definitely there is a kind of resentment.” Institute of Advanced Motoring or VOSPA for when it comes to rolling out an initial telematics Other comments around the ownership of fleet somebody recieve 20/30 spread sheets in their something that they can use as a tool to deal with Commented one participant. generic training what we are seeing now is people solution. management and the drivers behind implementing inbox is not going to create any value for your these issues as line management.” are using the data more cleverly.” a telematics solution included: organisation.” “It comes down to trust, they believe that you just As one participant commented: “For us it’s more “But from an organisational perspective the big don’t trust them and then it becomes an issue. “Applied driving techniques is a good example, about managing the health and safety side, health “The ownership of managing the vehicles is all Data, Data Everywhere: win is the data that outlines the utilisation of our The mind-set is ‘if your putting something in it’s what they will do is work with us in partnership and safety in the UK is now getting to a point down to our fleet department, in terms of health Indeed, one of the common themes of the day equipment.” because you don’t trust how I do something.’ and use our data to avoid taking a scatter gun where it is actually tying us up to a certain degree, and safety, telematics, fuel consumption is in our was how to harness the amount of data that a And then you get the push-back against it.” one approach, but rather focus the training on areas we are dedicating a significant amount of time to [field service] space.” telematics system could produce and how to “We have a big fleet and before, whilst this delegate commented. that it is needed.” deal with health and safety legislation in work” effectively utilise that data. information was there it was in paper format “Through risk assessment we make sure our so wasn’t easy to access. But now it is easier to “It can then become a vicious circle where the “So each individual driver will have their own risk Another option that was utilised by some service engineers are doing everything correctly, The consensus was that it was important to be access and it can inform our decisions on whether company says if your not doing anything wrong profile and therefore we can assess how effective companies was to completely outsource their and we send them on advanced driving training able to access that data in an easy to manage to buy or rent new assets, whether we can move there is nothing to be concerned about, whilst the is that training been in improving them and fleet management requirements as part of the courses, to ensure we comply with health and visual manner, with configurable dashboards being things around the country and so on.” engineers say if I’m not doing anything wrong why reducing the risk they pose on the road.” lease arrangement for their vehicles. In fact as safety regulations and procedures.” high on the wish list for most companies. do you need to track me.” p54 p55 fieldservicenews.com Case Study: Intimus fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Nick Shipton, Kirona

Intimus International The need for a flexible approach to scheduling transforming their field Nick Shipton of scheduling specialists Kirona outlines why flexibility is as much a service operation... key ingredient in scheduling as optimisation...

Company: Then, as engineers completed service calls, they to generate invoices from one day to less than a Intimus International Group is a leader in the filled out the job details on paper, which were minute. Information Security industry. taken back to the office to be input manually. A obilising field based staff is high on point of contact to firstly offer the most efficient routes until you are satisfied with the schedule, team in accounting then reviewed all completed “With FieldAware we are more efficient now,” Mthe agenda at the moment with many slot for you organisation, therefore building in but if you have an appointment to satisfy then that They offer information security products jobs before invoicing, so the entire process to bill a said Peter Gils, Service Manager, Intimus. “An organisations looking to increase the effectiveness maximum efficiency for the workforce. can throw an expensive spanner in the works as that include everything from industrial paper customer took a full day on average. engineer’s tablet has a complete list of the and efficiencies of their workforce alongside the scheduler doesn’t have the ability to move it shredders to high security and large capacity data workflow he has to do, he can plan his own route offering increased levels of customer service and Even if your organisation has only a small where it may want to. destruction machines. Intimus operates in multiple Operational improvements: without calling the office, we drive less miles satisfaction. proportion of these ‘fixed’ appointed jobs they countries across Europe and manages processes Having recently implemented Netsuite, a leading which saves us money, and the customers are become the key jobs in the solution to plan other To further complicate matters other services may and workflows across multiple divisions. ERP system, to streamline and simplify their happy with the shorter response time.” It is obviously key that in order to mobilise your work around that has a more flexible time window, be carrying out far more complex works such as accounting practices and resource planning, field staff effectively a complimentary scheduling as we can’t break the direct promise we’ve made those which have dependencies and sequencing of They offer comprehensive solutions throughout Intimus wanted something compatible to improve FieldAware optimised communications between solution is key to efficiently organise the jobs to the customer via that appointment. tasks required to ensure they are carried not only the value chain in terms of innovation, their operational service, they turned their dispatchers and field service engineers, so now before dispatching them at the appropriate time to in the most efficient manner but also in the correct development, manufacturing, sales and post-sales attention to field service management software. dispatchers enter details of each service order the mobile device. order, or have a service that needs to deal with services. into NetSuite, which instantly transfers them “Some services will a very high volume of jobs with a short duration “We knew from the start that we would need to technicians’ tablets. Engineers contact the However, what is sometimes overlooked is an within small geographical locations. Challenge: to extend our service needs and NetSuite has customer and schedule jobs themselves. The press understanding that that scheduling solution may require fairly simple “Intimus International wants to be the leading a strong partner programme and through that of a button tracks the service call and FieldAware need to react to different types of work in different All of the above pose different scheduling global supplier of security solutions for data programme we found FieldAware,” explained automatically sends this data back to NetSuite for ways, and therefore it’s key that the solution offers allocation of one off questions and of course you could look at management and cash management systems. We Grevelt. invoicing and management reporting. flexible methods of scheduling to suit how you implementing different solutions for these have over 11,000 customers in Benelux, and it is need to drive your organisation. tasks based on matching different scenarios however you lose the ability our mission to provide them with best-in-class “FieldAware has a very simple mobile app for “Results have been staggering and the outcome to get a complete view of the workforce and lose service,” said Gunther Dehaes, General Manager, engineers and at the same time, it gives me a impressive”, said Grevelt. “Most importantly, Organisations often offer a wide range of services skillsets to the type of the ability to look at whether further efficiencies Intimus. huge amount of complex information. When an IT FieldAware has taken the pressure off the to their customers which can result in diverse can be gained by carrying out more work at one solution can offer me that, I’m very pleased.” coordination team.” requirements in terms of how those services work, but if you throw location whilst you have resources there. The company offers service contracts to repair need to be accessed by the customer and how and maintain its product line and the profitability Intimus selected FieldAware because of the deep “In the past, we had to have multiple that demand needs to be planned, which can into the mix customers Reporting also becomes a trickier task as you of these service contracts depends on how integration with Netsuite, ease of implementation conversations to be able to service our customer,” cause issues if your scheduler has been built to are unable to easily view within one system how efficiently the company can meet its obligations. and ease of use for the schedulers and engineers. added Grevelt. “Now we have a direct line suit a particular vertical or service, and drives you expecting appointments different services or regions may be performing. Working across multiple countries and following The implementation of both Netsuite and of communication to the customer through to fit the service to the schedulers constraints a merger and acquisition, Intimus found there FieldAware took just 40 days and with quick and the engineer in the field. We only have one rather than configure the schedule to suit the at the first point of Analysis can then be done to look if the location were a number of bottlenecks with their existing high adoption from their field engineers, the conversation, and that’s the only conversation that requirements. and levels of field based staff are correct and workflows. positive impact was immediate. matters, and that’s the one with the customer.” contact this simple whether with a slight adjustment to these levels Some services will require fairly simple allocation and locations performance can be improved. They needed to more efficiently coordinate Together, NetSuite OneWorld and FieldAware To download our white paper – ‘Making the Move of one off tasks based on matching skillsets to offering becomes much communication between the back office and field transformed the field service workflows in the to Mobility: The Digitalisation of Field Service’ the type of work, but if you throw into the mix You can also start to look at hierarchical KPI’s, so engineers and wanted to be able to streamline company’s service operations and accounting, – please visit http://www.fieldaware.co.uk/ customers expecting appointments at the first more complex...” right down to operative level we can start to look the workflow as well as how they captured and dramatically accelerating the job completion rates movetomobility point of contact whether that is via a phone call at where and how the business can be improved. processed data to and from the field. and invoicing processes. or self-service this simple offering becomes much more complex, especially if you also want to throw Generally planned works have a more flexible The ability to implement a truly flexible scheduling “Our problem was the time it took to coordinate, Results: into the mix planned works and programmed planning window so we may need to carry out the solution such as Kirona’s DRS not only allows communicate and process everything that The newly automated processes save considerable works. job within the next X days or complete the jobs you to both improve the day to day operation happened in the field,” explained Erlyn Grevelt, time for customers, dispatchers, engineers and once a week, or once a month but we are not too of the organisation but also analyse how it can Supply Chain Manager of Intimus. Dispatchers back office staff alike. Engineers use FieldAware The key with offering an appointed service is worried about when we carry it out within that continually improve. were having to have lengthy, often complex phone mobility software to schedule their own time that you need to be able to offer and steer the period. conversations with engineers for every service based on customer location and availability. customer towards taking a slot which not only request. With each call taking up to ten minutes satisfies them in terms of service levels but also Most scheduling systems will handle this well and more than 50 engineers in the field, the calls FieldAware saves 80 hours each week for the takes into account all the other jobs in the system as there is plenty of flexibility within the large alone consumed more than 100 hours a week. dispatch team, and reduced the time required at that point in time, and allows you at that first planning window to continually optimise your p56 p57 fieldservicenews.com Expert View: Aly Pinder, Aberdeen Group

Don’t give me more, give me actionable data

Aberdeen’s Aly Pinder asks are we smarter than we were in the past, or do we just have better access to data?

hen was the last time you asked someone Connecting the field team to insights helped these capture best practices and expertise, and Wfor directions, or used a phone book, or organisations resolve issues faster, deliver more store these insights in an accessible location waited for the day’s forecast on the morning value to the customer conversation, and make the which can be tapped into via mobility in the news? field team better at their jobs! field. • Leverage machine, customer, and Well, that last one is probably something you “Top performers technician data to identify the future of still do out of habit, but the others are things service excellence. The IoT means different which have left our consciousness as we can just recognise that ensuring things to different people and industries. “Google it” from our smart phones. But the value isn’t just in the fact that we the service team has more devices are connected. The value The emergence of technology and the IoT has of the IoT is in connecting the service flooded the service leader with more data actionable data is chain to resolution, value creation, and than ever before. Machines talk to machines, collaboration. Smart machines and products technicians collaborate with each other via a journey and not open up a whole new world of possibilities mobile devices while in the field, and customers as savvy organizations can take this data and interact with the service team in rea-time owning something that can better understand how to optimize assets their experience. performance, build better machines, deliver be solved with one-off more targeted services to customers, and But with all this access to information and data ensure technicians know the answer to the comes a few challenges. How much is too much investments. It takes a problem before they even get on site in data? How can we turn this data into actionable front of the machine. insights? Who needs to know what and when? strategy, leadership, and WE WILL BE AT THE The proliferation of data in this era of the SERVICE MANAGEMENT These are all questions that the Best-in-Class resolve...” empowered customer can be a challenge for EXPO 21ST 23RD JUNE service leader is tackling right now. As seen many organisations. in Aberdeen Group’s recent State of Service All these are great, and the Best-in-Class have Management in 2016: Empower the Data-Driven some lessons for the rest of us: Too much data leads to delayed action or inaction SEE US AT STAND M1515 CSO (March 2016) research, one of the top goals all together. Top performing organizations FOR A CHANCE TO for service leadership was improving the quality • Empower the service team with the data have invested in technology and their internal SOFTWARE WIN A TABLET! and relevance of data for the service team. they need to make decisions, more isn’t processes to ensure they can turn all of the always better. Top performers ensure the valuable data being captured every minute into This is a top 3 goal, only training the need to field team has customized data views which actionable insights which drive value. improve customer retention and drive service provide only the pertinent information for To HIT YOUR profitability. Happy customers, profits, and then technician for the specific task they are Top performers were able to take improved data data quality in that order shows how the impact working on. Having the data necessary to capabilities and turn that into outperformance of data is rising on the agenda of the senior solve complex issues at the time of service is in key metrics such as customer retention, SLA service leader today. integral to ensuring resolution can occur on compliance, and worker productivity. FIRST FIX TARGET a first visit, technicians are efficient, and the But how do we get to a place where data is customer can be back up and running with Don’t be left behind looking at a phone book or useful? Is the answer to our data problem more minimal downtime. reading a map. Tap into real-time data to make technology? • Give the field team the mobile tools to have the decisions which will lead you into the future access to insights. The field workforce is of service excellence. Field Service Assisted Scheduler Remote Worker Call Centre CRM Document Management Top performers recognise that ensuring the rapidly changing. We have been fearing the service team has actionable data is a journey and aging workforce for some time now, and it not something that can be solved with one-off is finally here. But the Best-in-Class ensure investments. It takes a strategy, leadership, and that as technicians leave the business, find out how: www.exel.co.uk resolve. their knowledge does not. They are able to call us on: +44 (0)115 946 0101 p58 Email us: [email protected] VISIT US AT SERVICE MANAGEMENT EXPO ON STAND Q1600

YOU CAN TELL... If your technician is going to make his 3:30PM service appointment

Field service software that unites the whole team. A flexible yet powerful workforce management software solution. Web-based for a real-time view of your operations, allowing you to quickly understand what’s happening right now, and what action needs to be taken.

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