Industry insights — Ben Hartman, Astea International

Many processes have been streamlined in the field service industry in recent years — what further improvements are likely in 2016?

By 2020, there will be billions of connected devices communicating. As more and more smart devices join the network, service organisations will be able to more accurately predict equipment failures, create usage-based maintenance schedules, reduce on-road activity, improve inventory utilisation and meet greater service level commitments with fewer resources.

The traditional model of field service has typically been largely reactive: equipment fails, customer calls, service visit scheduled, equipment repaired, invoices paid and the technician goes to the next job. The downside of this scenario is that the asset has failed and the customer has a piece of equipment that is not performing for a period of time. Companies are now shifting their focus from just identifying the most cost-effective way to schedule and route that technician to now identifying ways to provide more predictive and proactive support to improve equipment uptime and faster resolution.

I believe that ‘Machine to Machine’ (MtM) and the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) will continually drive the field service industry to streamline operations. The ‘connected asset’ will leverage that field service visit into a more value-added experience, ultimately shifting from just a break-fix event to a more relationship- and partnership-building opportunity.

In today’s IoT and MtM world, people expect to engage and be engaged by organisations in ways that are convenient for them. This is a unique and transformational point in time for these solutions as enterprises look to improve their responsiveness to customers with service in the field — taking service directly to the customer anytime a service cannot be managed by phone or other channels.

In addition, analysis of knowledge management and business intelligence and to action the outcomes will drive revenue and efficiencies. That means that organisations can use insights that effectively provide servicing proactively while streamlining the provisioning of service to significantly reduce costs. The potential to enhance these capabilities through machine learning and predictive analytics will change the game in customer service.

What do you see as the greatest challenge for managers of mobile teams in the year ahead and why?

Talent, knowledge and collaboration are going to be the biggest challenge for managers of mobile teams. The evolving role of the service professional and the changing workforce require an increased focus on continuous learning and on employee engagement — which includes the onboarding, training and performance management processes. When combining these processes with technology and collaboration, the end result is a more engaged field service team. With the increased risk of loss of knowledge and skill sets due to turnover, ageing workforce and so on, organisations must become proactive in cultivating an environment of knowledge sharing.

Ageing workforces, onboarding new hires, increasing complexity and/or the number of assets that technicians are servicing today are just a few of the challenges that service organisations are grappling with in finding ways to support these ever-changing dynamics. There is a strong interest in finding unique ways to leverage subject matter experts, experienced technicians and other key resources in a way that is scalable, timely and cost efficient. One of the ways that organisations are helping to ease these challenges is by giving technicians easy ways to access these subject matter experts or peers via real-time video or chat. That expert can be sitting anywhere around the world providing the necessary guidance and assistance to the technician, in the field, to help them resolve that issue as quickly as possible.

How has the field service industry evolved since the advent of mobile technology and what are the downsides of rapid change?

In my opinion there are no downsides to rapid change, rather the opportunity that presents itself when dealing with change. Mobile workforce solutions can provide valuable information to your techs and can make it easier for techs to recognise opportunities and sell in the field. Field technicians are often seen as the ‘trusted advisor’ to your customer and can be a great resource for capturing additional business. When your tech is on-site, he may be making recommendations regarding additional repairs needed, parts, etc, but this sense of urgency on the customer’s part wears off quickly. In a manual environment it can take days or weeks for someone to follow up with the customer. As a result, the customer’s sense of urgency or desire to move forward with these recommendations typically diminishes and they are less likely to approve the expenditure until something breaks later down the line. By electronically capturing and quoting recommended repairs and other services, companies can experience a higher conversion rate.

What trends are we likely to see emerge in the short term — what is the ‘next big thing’?

The IoT model builds on existing M2M technologies that many field service companies have already been leveraging for years. Technology has made machines smarter, AND with the availability of low-cost sensors, higher bandwidth wireless networks, more robust batteries, cloud computing infrastructure, location-awareness technology and big data analytics, service organisations are poised to take advantage of this connectivity in ways that will further improve service, reduce costs and create new revenue opportunities.

An increasing number of vendors have been attracted to the field service segment in response to market growth. How will that landscape level out and what will it look like at the end of 2016?

Many of the established ERP vendors need to respond to their customer’s business needs when addressing service management. These companies will either continue to develop their own service management software or acquire companies that are a good fit to their product suite.

However, field service management is highly specialised; the technology is cutting edge and continues to evolve. Field service management is a critically important area of customer service. The need for an end-to-end solution that enables businesses to drive revenue, reduce costs and deliver great customer service is greater than ever. The solution must deliver a full set of capabilities that include work order management, automated scheduling, asset management, contracts, inventory and procurement management, workflow capabilities and mobile collaboration to provide enterprises with a comprehensive modern field service solution, which is essential for more personal customer engagement.

Ben Hartman joined Astea Intl. in October 2013 having fulfilled management roles at Staples, EskoArtwork, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, MAN Ferrostaal and Pentana Solutions across EU, MEA and APAC regions. Being exposed to a variety of cultures with various responsibilities which included managing country subsidiaries for Capital Equipment Sales and Service, IT Solutions, Software and Professional Services; Ben covers all facets of business, strategies, marketing, sales and service delivery processes.