AT&T on The Future of The Call Center

Ian Schmehl, Vice President, Sales, Service, and Digital Operations – AT&T Mexico, talks with Sarah about the criticality of call center and field service collaboration, the growing role AI is playing in the call center, and what the future of a “no-call” center will look like.   Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be talking about the future of the call center.` The call center and the field service functions are inextricably linked. Today we're going to be talking a bit about how the call center has evolved and how it will continue to evolve into the future and what that relationship with service should look like. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Ian Schmehl, who's the Vice President of Sales, Service and Digital Operations for AT&T Mexico. Ian, welcome to The Future of Field Service podcast.   Ian Schmehl: Thanks Sarah. Good to be with you.   Sarah Nicastro: Before we get into the nitty-gritty, tell us a little bit about yourself.   Ian Schmehl: So you're correct, as far as my opera area of operation right now, I have responsibility for AT&T Mexico. Basically it is the call center operation, including digital. I live in Mexico City. I have a very supportive wife and two growing daughters who are seven and eight, and we've been located there for almost five years.   Sarah Nicastro: Cool. How far apart in age are your daughters?   Ian Schmehl: They're 18 months apart.   Sarah Nicastro: 18 months. I have two boys and they're 16 months apart. So totally get that life. Speaking of which, I shared this with Ian before we got started, but it is raining here in Erie, Pennsylvania today. I do have not only my two children, but a couple of extras playing in the house. If you hear any background noise, just know that they are fully supervised and please disregard. Good. So, Ian, you've been with AT&T for a long time, I think around 21 years in a variety of roles. So tell us a little bit about your trajectory with the company. Some of the different functions that you've served in and how that led to the role that you hold today.   Ian Schmehl: Sure. You're spot on, it's been 21 years. That seems like a sort of flew by. I've had probably 16 different jobs working in pretty much every area of the company. From network operations, to marketing, business development, technical roles, business development, and product development. Even HR, where I had a labor role, including negotiating with the union. I've moved. I lived in seven different cities, six in the US and now the current location in Mexico City.   Ian Schmehl: As far as trajectory goes, I've been very blessed to have these opportunities and it moved up to the point that now I'm at the Vice-President level. When I would go through the different roles, it wasn't always a promotion. It was just getting more and more experience. I think that that's allowed me to have the perspective I do today. Because I really am not a specialist. I'm a generalist. I would do different roles and learn about the company and the industry. And now I think that one of the most critical parts tied to service in general, whether it's field service or call center, customer services, getting that relationship right. And that's what really excites me today, as far as the opportunities we have to do better in that area.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think that being in those different roles and seeing the organization from different perspectives, it gives you some really good context for different areas of the business. It's interesting because we see... To really keep pace with the change that exists today and to succeed in service and realize its potential. There's a lot of silos within the business that have had to, and continue to need to be broken down. Right. And that situation of a call center in a silo field service, in a silo, you know, these different things, based on the customer experience, but then also the nature of digital transformation and just how the business needs to collaborate better. Those things are really... Those lines are blurring in a lot of ways. I would imagine your experience outside of the function you're in today and being able to see that from different perspectives is helpful.   Ian Schmehl: Yeah, absolutely. I think that the piece of it, when you intertwine technology with it, the adoption of technology, the implementation of technology. Ends up being a really key skill set, not just to understand that sometimes it takes time, right? Sometimes it doesn't work and being able to adapt and overcome based upon that experience has been a real key.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting even the name of this podcast is, Future of Field Service. Right? But in some ways the name in and of itself is misleading because it's not about field service. If you look through the content we're discussing, it's really a service as a whole and the customer experience in its entirety. Right? I think that we've even had conversations about that, like should we call it something different? But the reality is the name is still applicable in terms of what people look for and the types of things we're talking about. It's just far more encompassing then it was 10 or 15 years ago. Right? So all of that being said, we know the call center is certainly a critical aspect of the customer experience. What would you describe the relationship that you typically see between the call center and field service?   Ian Schmehl: I think I see our role as being a support to the field. While there are issues relative to the wireless network, as it relates to the customer, the field for us is the retail store. What I can say is it's an extremely close relationship. My peer is the Chief Revenue Officer. I'm in very constant communication with him. And our role, right, is to provide feedback to them. I see ourselves, our team as service for the field. So we have two customers, right? Internal and external. Us being able to provide that feedback based upon an interaction with a customer makes it such that the field can get better and we can get better by giving them that feedback.   Ian Schmehl: I think that that's critical because as service evolves in today's age, the idea of measurement and the things around how those two teams work together and function together, is critical. And to your point, it starts to blend. Right? Because if the interaction is occurring in the store and then it necessitates a call, right? And we don't want to call, right? Because it typically means there's a problem. Then my obligation is to make it so that that field experience is better and maybe there's an adjustment that's made there as well.   Sarah Nicastro: So as we look at the interdependency and the connectedness of those functions and what I mentioned earlier in terms... For organizations, they're really looking to impact the customer experience. You have to look at how you break down silos. What would you say organizations can do to improve the relationship between the call center and field service and make that codependency more effective? And really drive better customer outcomes?   Ian Schmehl: Yeah. It's top of mind. Because there absolutely are silos and it's a lot of work to break them down. And many times the call center is viewed as beneath the retail experience, right? Oh, you're just in the call center. I think there's two pieces to it. The first is teamwork and accepting that you have to operate as a team. And the second is data. So go into teamwork, one of the things we've done is we've literally had learning sessions for the field. For the sales organization to better educate, what does the call center do? What does the day in a call center look like because they're totally different. The retail experience is simply productivity. How many widgets, right? Hitting my number versus a call center, and that measurement being totally different. And what do I see? And what's my experience. They're having the customers in front of them, and we're hearing the customer. And many times what we're hearing is feedback relative to what went right, or what went wrong with that first touch and that first experience. The second bucket I see is data.   Ian Schmehl: I once heard a gentleman, I work with say that, "Never believe anything unless you're coming with data," right? Everybody else is not of as much value. The reason I site data is because if you can educate the team member who you're working with and tell them the why behind what you're saying and bring them proof, I think it's an easier conversation because you know what the problem is. If you can identify... Or frankly what they're doing well. I think that the relationship can become better and has become better because you're giving everything. You're telling the whole story. It's not just, well, in this particular store, we had 17% of our calls or this region, and that's tied to this leader and that was bad. It's okay. Where are we doing right? So when I talked to my peer and I say, "Hey, here's an area of opportunity, but did you know this? And did you know this is where we never get a call?" That's how I see you break down the silos, teamwork and data.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. So if you think about your history and AT&T and the different roles that you've had, and the perspective that gives you, related with the current initiatives that you're leading in the call center. All of that gives you a unique perspective on what you feel the future of the call center will be and will look like. I want to talk a little bit about some of those key, I guess, predictions or considerations or things to think about. The first are around really operations and skill sets. Tell us a little bit about some of the opportunity for evolution that you see here, or some of the things that you have underway at AT&T.   Ian Schmehl: Sure. The traditional notion of a brick and mortar call center, I think is going to be rethought and analyzed. I'm not going to say that I think that we're going to move to a virtual distributed model, a hundred percent. I know there are companies in the industry. There's one in the airline industry that did that. But I think rethinking that with respect to the benefits, is a key theme now. And the really easy benefit to look at is cost, right? If I don't need to have this building and I don't need to pay this rent or lease or whatever, then why wouldn't I focus on that because I don't want the high cost. But the other piece of it ends up being tied to recruiting. And so if you don't have to be in one city and you could actually recruit in a specific demographic area, say... Have call center experience where there are a number of people concentrated in that particular city.   Ian Schmehl: I think that's a big help. But the key part of this is you have to still be able to achieve the operational excellence with respect to quality. Monitoring, and the hard one, honestly, is the teaming. The teamwork. Being able to see somebody, being able to relate to the people. And then frankly, that goes back to leadership. You can get the new talent pool, you can have the geography, you can cut your costs, but if you can't drive the results, then you're not going to necessarily see this huge seismic shift. I think what you're going to do is you're going to see adoption of technology and you'll see monitoring become more important speech analytics, AI. But the call center itself for it to shift, it's going to need those things.   Sarah Nicastro: Now, what does that look like in terms of the skill sets? How do you see the skills needed for, let's say the ultimate call center. What will that look like five years from now, or 10 years from now?   Ian Schmehl: I think with the adoption of AI and psychometric or personality testing, you're going to see a shift toward personality profile and matching. Said differently, if I get a call and I know that Sarah has this disposition, or as good at this, I think you're going to become more targeted with respect to who gets the call. But to your question regarding profile, I think that there has to be a passion for the job. I think there has to be a deep understanding of the experience. So you're not just answering the call and solving the problem. You understand the customer journey better.   Ian Schmehl: I think you end up having more holistic understanding of that customer experience in order to solve it. And it's no different than today, but I think you have to have people who love their job. So that will never change. I think that the obligation of companies is to make that easier. Many times what happens is the call center is the last place people go and they end up not getting their problem solved. Irritated with the company and never want to call because they're on the phone and they're told they have to wait for two hours.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. So as you think about the change in the matching of skills, the change in use of technology, the change in maybe a more distributed structure versus a central call center. How do all of those things impact the ability to successfully measure effectiveness? What needs to change related to how we look at or modernize the measurement of call center?   Ian Schmehl: I think that to my previous point, we need to be looking more holistically at the customer journey. Identifying the pain points and providing the feedback loop. There's an opportunity to measure service resolution based upon that journey. And what this means is you have to have that partnership across the customer life cycle. Now, with respect to measurement, I see an opportunity to measure the journey. Let's go back to what I said, as far as the partnership with retail.   Ian Schmehl: What I see in the future is the ability to measure the buy, the use, the pay, the service, as a team. If I live in Phoenix, right? And I'm part of the Phoenix team, we all succeed and fail together. Now, there are people in the industry who've done this at a more micro level with pods. I do think that's an innovative way to measure. You get away from AHT. While a net promoter score is important, I think that you would look more closely at churn lifetime value and ARPU with respect to the revenue that's being brought in.   Sarah Nicastro: You saying that makes me think that's almost a further progression of breaking down those silos. Right? It makes everyone have to think about the context outside of their own point of impact, right? And to really see that bigger picture. And not only see it, but feel in some way responsible for that bigger picture. Right? That's the goal.   Ian Schmehl: It is.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay. All right. So I know when we talked previously, you mentioned the vision you have for what you refer to as a zero touch approach or a no call center. Tell our listeners a little bit about what that means, what you think related to this and what you see that the future might bring.   Ian Schmehl: Sure. And so this is nirvana. This isn't necessarily tomorrow. It's a lofty goal. I see this starting with data and access to data. So everything hinges upon data and you can't make good business decisions if you don't have it. So you start with the access to data. You move into operational control. What does operational control means? Means you understand your operation, where you're going to improve it. With respect to what you now understand because of that data. From there, your goal is to drive operational efficiency through the analysis or those data analytics. That you're able to... Basically glean, the learnings that you can glean from that. From there, and this is where a number of people are today, is you need to push on digital adoption and automation. You'll hear it. You'll hear it called digital transformation, or omni-channel from a number of years ago. But that's the sweet spot that you were able to move up.   Ian Schmehl: The reason it's important is because what I do in that area with respect to digital needs to be the right thing. And what I do with respect to automation, where I'm not going to have a contact also needs to be right. The last step in this is customer delight and resource optimization. So what that means is I'm going to be able to make sure that every time I have a contact with a customer, it's going to be a delightful experience.   Ian Schmehl: If they have to call us, it's going to be great, right? And I'm going to have the correct resources assigned. So how do you get to zero touch? You have the balance between digital and automation with that end goal of that delight with the customer. Nobody wants to call a call center. What I'm going to do is I'm going to have predictive, proactive versus reactive. Leading to no touch. So what we've been able to do following this principle is to decrease our calls. They're now one-third of what they were three years ago. A digital adoption has moved up to 31%. So pushing that envelope is the vision. Like I said, it's nirvana and it's a goal, but it's out there.   Sarah Nicastro: From a digital tool perspective, what are the key ingredients? I mean, what are the tools that are foundationally critical to building out that vision?   Ian Schmehl: You have to solve for what your universe is. And what I mean by that is if you're a contact center, you have to identify which contact method you're going to go after optimizing. Most people traditionally had been used to calling a call center, right? Pretty much everyone has an IVR because you need to route efficiently. However what's happened in the future... Most recently is people are willing to text or they're willing to chat, or they're willing to interface with an IVR that has intelligence tied to it. Such that you can create a ticket. The answer to your question is that you need to figure out what the smart meds are based upon your operation, where you're going to yield initially the most savings. With a balance toward the customer experience, such that you're moving toward that delight. One of the things you can do is, make sure you're optimized first in your IVR, relative to workforce.   Ian Schmehl: Then you take your call reasons and you identify, how is it that I'm going to drive down the number one reason for my calls? An example would be, pretty typical example is bill inquiry. People call about their bill. They don't understand it. They don't know why a charge is there. They can't understand why they're being overcharged or what changed in their plan, et cetera, right? What do you have to do to explain the bill better? Or you have to fix the bill. So as it relates to digital and tools, what you could do is you say, "If you're calling for this reason, you can do this." So now you're identifying what area of pain the customer's having communicating back with them that you're solving that problem. And you're doing it as fast as you can.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay. I know that you have said you see the call center of the future as a profit center versus a cost center. How will that occur and where do you feel you are on that continuum today?   Ian Schmehl: Yeah, this is a heavy lift. It depends upon the market segment industry that you're sitting in. So this is one size fits all and you can do it everywhere. I can say that relative to where we are in the continuum, we made that shift. We did it relatively quickly. But going back to your question about what's the profile for the future, what is that call center resource look like? This is tied to personality. So the number one goal is still is absolutely serving. Resolving the customer's issue the first time they call you and making it as whizzbang, amazing as you can. Right? But then what has to happen is you have to get that broader understanding so that they know Sarah does this with my product. Sarah has bought 10 pair of red shoes in the past four years. So I'm going to offer her a discounted pair of red shoes.   Ian Schmehl: When you're able to solve the customer's next problem, it's a better experience. And it doesn't feel like it's a sale. You're actually making their life better. I'll give you an industry specific example. Let's just say you called Sarah and you've gone over your data. You've done that for the last three months and you're irritated. You don't know how this happened. You didn't know that you could go over your data. You're calling me. So what do I do? I sell you a control so that you can't go over your data. So it's simple. Or if I know that you actually have not had a new phone in X period of time, I look at your profile and I'm intelligently trying to offer something. So in the call center, it's not... Unless you're doing outbound sales, you're not going to be doing new customer acquisition, and that's not what we do. We do service, so it's upsell, cross sell and add-ons.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Makes sense. What would you say in... You said you've been in your current role about five years, right?   Ian Schmehl: Yes.   Sarah Nicastro: What would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned specifically related to optimizing and modernizing the call center?   Ian Schmehl: I think that the call center is misunderstood. First thing I recognized and frankly it came from my own perspective because I didn't understand it. I'd like to think I understand it now. It sounds like I'm repeating the same thing, but I learned just how valuable data is for the call center operation. I learned that making decisions that are data-driven is critically important. And I also learned that partnership, to your point with the field, you will not succeed without it. Because if you tried to operate in your own little silo, to your point, you're just going to stay in your own little silo. And you're going to be stuck managing and measuring in the old ways.   Sarah Nicastro: What do you think... If you think about from a technology perspective, again, looking at the future. Not what's been done so far, but what becomes possible say in the next five years. What do you think is the most exciting thing to pay attention to?   Ian Schmehl: I think AI, prediction, matching. I think those are very interesting areas. I think that if you can provide, if you can anticipate needs, if you can anticipate contacts. Such that you are predictive. Proactive versus reactive, all tied to that. But absolutely AI I see as a really interesting area. I also think that where we are today, we're not there. Particularly in the call center space. There are some interesting tools that can match personas, but I think that when we get really good at that it's going to become much more personalized. It's not going to be a cookie cutter matching with respect to that. I think it's going to be, I know, it's you Sarah, that likes red shoes.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, that's a really interesting point that you brought up that I think could be useful. I'm just thinking some of my own experiences. Where you talk about like the personality matching and stuff like that. And to your point, if you have people calling that are frustrated, what are the different ways to not only diffuse that but get ahead of it. And be proactive in offering different solutions and things like that. So, okay. So 21 years AT&T. Looking at the history overall, not just call center specific, but in general, what would you say are the biggest lessons you've learned in that time? And as a leader.   Ian Schmehl: First thing is it went by quick. I learned that. I think that the different roles and leading different teams, I've recognized, and this was... My mom taught me this actually that the two most valuable things dealing with people are patience and humility. Having the different roles I have, being able to tag onto that, hold on to that and understand that, has been very valuable. That's one of the biggest lessons. Related to it, I've always looked at it that if I've had a team, people don't work for me, they work with me. I think that realizing that you're kind of all have a common goal and while you may be identified as a leader and you have the obligation to lead and the responsibility it's all about people. And all about relationships and how you treat people is very important. I don't think that necessarily has just to do with one company. It's probably more of a bigger lesson, but that's what I've learned.   Sarah Nicastro: Good. Well, definitely true too. All right, Ian, any closing thoughts or comments?   Ian Schmehl: I just want to thank you. I really appreciate this. I think it was a great conversation. You ask some really, really good questions and obviously have a very, very good insight with respect to the industry and this area. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.   Sarah Nicastro: Well, thank you. That's very nice. I appreciate you being here and sharing your experience. Thank you for coming on. You can find more content by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening! </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="col-12 col-lg-3"> <div class="form-wrapper"> <h2 class="form-tittle">Stay Connected</h2> <iframe src="https://info.ifs.com/GM-CP-CU-2012-12-FoFS-Newsletter_IFrame.html">

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

The ability to deliver a measurable return on tech investment quickly (and to the satisfaction of internal stakeholders) is the number one concern for 64 percent of decision-makers when it comes to digital transformation initiatives. However, we know that, all too often, digital transformation desires don’t translate to reality.

When you consider the layers of complexity that exist in aligning and executing a digital transformation strategy, it’s easy to begin to identify numerous areas where the best of digital transformation intentions can go awry. But in striving for ROI, it’s worthwhile to examine the best practices and lessons learned of those who have already paved their path to success. With that in mind, here’s a collection of insights gleaned during Future of Field Service interviews that shed light on some of the defining traits of digital transformation done right.

#1: Eliminate Siloes

It is absolutely imperative to understand that digital transformation success hinges on an aligned, cohesive, and collaborative approach. The elimination of siloes between business and IT functions – as well as an overarching view of the digital future of the company – is essential. Digital transformation cannot be accomplished within functions or in the presence of siloes – it requires a company-wide agreement and effort.

Pekka Nurmi, Director of Corporate IT at Cimcorp, and I discussed this during his podcast interview. “I had a fantastic discussion with one of my colleagues from another company regarding this exact topic, and we were thinking, okay, 10 years ago how we would have solved this item at the time?” he says. “And we would have selected really dedicated IT people. Now, the business is much more involved and should be much more involved. It’s not like the IT side has become any less important, but today you have to solve the IT and business sides at the same time. This is the core change that has happened in the last 10 years.”

#2: Define Your Guiding Principles

A major barrier to digital transformation success is that it can be easy to veer off course or become distracted, even if those distractions are born of additional opportunities. When you allow scope creep within your project, ROI becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. This isn’t to say you cannot evolve your digital transformation efforts and add additional capabilities, but rather that you must clearly define your guiding principles so that you aren’t continually pulled out of focus.

Katie Hunt, Service Operations Leader at APi Group discussed the importance of guiding principles during her podcast. “Guiding principles exist so that, as the inevitable ebbs and flows of the project occur, you know exactly what to stay focused on,” she explains. “We had four that we outlined to ensure everyone was aligned. The first was maintaining focus on end user needs. Our second one was being open to changing processes. The third one was leveraging the ideas and suggestions of our steering committee. And then the last one was valuing time over process changes, which was us saying that our go live date needed to be met and viewed not as a stopping point, but really as something we could continue and use as a springboard to keep developing upon.”

Guiding principles won’t look the same from company to company and are meant to be unique. The point is that you, as an organization, should know what is most important to you – your ‘why’ for the initiative – and you should develop these principles to help you stay focused on those overarching goals. Otherwise, you will inevitably get off course as challenges, curve balls, or new ideas come into play.

#3: Set the Stage for a Data-Driven Future

One of the goals for most companies’ digital transformation efforts is to create a stronger foundation for the world’s data-driven future. Data has become the most valuable asset for many businesses, not only for internal decision making and optimization but as a customer value proposition and tool of differentiation. As such, you want to be sure that you are putting a digital foundation in place that will support your long-term data goals.

Gyner Ozgul, COO of Smart Care Equipment Solutions discusses how the company has set the stage for a data-driven future with its pragmatic technology selection. “Looking at our future vision, we wanted to make sure we had a partner in technology that allows us to dictate the inflow of the data. In all data reporting or monetization out there, the inflow of data is critical. IFS helps us to master the seemingly simple things first, like building labor and parts accurately,” explains Ozgul. “That seems very fundamental but believe it or not it’s easy to do wrong and provides a ton of value when we get it right. With IFS we have a simpler platform with less integrations – and every integration is a breakage point, so this improves integrity. It gives us the ability to aggregate data, which is very unique and imperative for our long-term vision. Every single work order in IFS generates hundreds of data points and over time this allows us to generate very valuable insights, which is where we feel we can drive a significant point of differentiation for our business.”

#4: Work Smarter, Not Harder

I began covering these topics in 2008 and the advancements in technology just in that timeframe are astounding. To achieve digital transformation success, and to maximize ROI, it’s important to acknowledge not only the sophistication of the technology itself but also of the ecosystem that exists to aid you in your efforts. Pekka Nurmi, Director of Corporate IT at Cimcorp, discusses this using the phrase “work smarter, not harder.”

Working smarter can be accomplished in a variety of ways – reducing the number of systems in use to achieve greater simplicity, outsourcing responsibilities that aren’t necessary to handle in-house, and realizing that you may be surprised how well today’s technologies work sans time-consuming and expensive customizations. The general idea behind much of Pekka’s message is that modern IT is more about strategy and vision, and less about execution.

“The strategy is that we are always reducing the number of the systems in house to focus on what’s core to our business,” he says. “We also look for opportunities to outsource. There is so much new stuff we have to take care of, like a compliance, information security, and embedding IT and IT processes, so we always are trying to find things that we don’t have to do ourselves anymore.” Pekka and I discussed the fact that there seems to be a desire for control and even a sense of ego that prevents companies from utilizing the vast array of resources at their disposals today, but when you let go of the need for control you can often get more accomplished.

“It’s so important to try not to over-complicate any of the processes and topics,” says Pekka. “If we look at ERP systems or software in general, they already have built-in processes, and tried out ways of working. Have an open mind that maybe somebody has found the golden egg of approaches that’s already built into the system. We’ve worked to accept what the platform enables, and we’ve been trying to channel our energy to provide value to the customer using that. The innovation in that is really about finding a platform that fits your business and then accepting that platform.”

#5: Focus on Function Vs. Speed

There isn’t a scenario in which you can just opt out of the need for digital transformation. However, you also shouldn’t race ahead based on an “us too” mentality – digital transformation ROI isn’t a box you can check. As Trond Aune, Global ERP Manager at Jotun says, “doing it right is more important that doing it first, or fast.”

I can’t emphasize his point enough, because there are hoards of companies whose digital transformation initiatives have failed because they mistakenly assumed there was a shortcut to success. There are no shortcuts and racing will only result in determinantal mistakes. A steady-paced path of digital transformation that includes building a strong technological foundation, optimizing processes and cross-functional collaboration, and amply managing change will get you farther, faster than looking for a quick fix.

“Our digitalization approach is not to be the fanciest or to utilize every digital tool that exists. We are very focused on making decisions either because it serves our customers or because it will improve our efficiency,” says Trond. “So, we are not jumping in all kinds of digitalization trends, but we are very focused on the activities we start. We pick our important areas which make us unique and that is where we focus our energy on digital transformation.”

#6: Embrace the Reality of Continual Evolution

The final common trait for those succeeding at digital transformation is an understanding that it really isn’t a transformation so much as a continuum – meaning, it’s a journey not a destination. Digitalization isn’t an effort you complete, but one you continually evolve and expand upon.

Klaus Glatz, Chief Digital Officer at ANDRITZ discusses this continual evolution in his podcast episode. “Digitalization for us is on one hand internal, so optimizing processes, delivering new solutions, helping our people to really focus on what they need to do,” says Klaus. “And then on the other hand, we are digitalizing for our customers, creating additional revenue, implementing new models, like performance-based contracts or revenue sharing models up to equipment-as-a-service. Technology offers a lot of possibilities and, even though we’ve already done a lot, we are still in the learning phase. For instance, with AI and machine learning and anomaly detection, we are still in the phase of learning and understanding how we can use them. We’ve started, but we have so much to further explore in how we can use these technologies to further optimize what we are doing.”

To avoid the overwhelm that can come with a never-ending journey, Klaus suggests thinking big but starting small. In other words, have a big-picture idea of what you’re aiming for but work toward that picture in consumable chunks. “Our mission is to develop a fully-autonomous solution. Starting from zero, it’s very ambitious. That’s why you need to have a very clear plan, which steps you need today in order to get there,” he says. “We started very small, very easy but it’s also important not to work two years in your protected environment, go out to the customers and learn you’re off. Failing is also okay. This is also something we needed. Think big and start small has been key to our success.”

By Tom Paquin

Nowadays, the public discourse on comic book characters is so firmly entrenched into the mainstream that summer blockbuster season (at least in a normal year) is usually clogged with capes, tights, and, I don’t know, Iron Man suits or whatever. Partially because they’re owned by the evil mouse company, much of that discourse centers around Marvel properties, like Captain America, Spider-Man, The Hulk, and so on. And yes, people study this.

Child of the eighties as I am, this is not quite where I stand (I will say, however, that in the leadup to the birth of my daughter, my pregnant wife and I watched all of the Marvel movies in order and quite enjoyed them). For me and my ilk, owing overwhelmingly to the success of the 1989 Tim Burton film, Batman was the hero du jour (And he’s still overwhelmingly popular, of course). As a youngster, I got Batman comics (and occasionally Superman comics for a while, at least, after he died), had more than one Batman-themed birthday, and routinely dressed as Batman for Halloween.

I’m Vengeance.

We can certainly debate the ethics of a “hero” whose power is that he is so rich he can beat people indiscriminately, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was a DC kid, and if I’m going to spend the lead-up to a holiday discussing a superhero through a service lens, it’s going to be the one that I actually know a lot about.

And Batman is a great fit for service, actually. Every night, Batman patrols the streets, taking planned appointments, calls from regulators (frequent visits with Commissioner Gordon), and addressing random issues and crimes as they arrive. Heck, Batman even has a dispatcher, Oracle, feeding him information and offering hacking support remotely.

So what sort of service functionality might Batman benefit from? Here are some thoughts:

Asset Monitoring

Knowing the Penguin, there’s little chance that he can stay away from Gotham’s first national bank for very long. So—why not have sensors inside the vault that ensure normal use, and send out exception alerts any time there are anomalies? In a perfect world, predictive systems can be triggered if there’s for instance, a temperature spike (if, say, his henchmen are using blowtorches), so that Batman can be dispatched, even before there’s a breach.

With more complex assets, like, for instance, Gotham observatory, which Mr. Freeze might use to amplify his freezing ray, connectivity could allow for remote access. Going a step beyond remote assistance, this could allow, in many cases, for assets to be either shut down remotely, or controlled, throttled down, or adjusted, thus avoiding a break. Or in the Mr. Freeze case, freezing the entire city.

Knowledge Management

The Riddler’s big thing is, you know, riddles. On a very basic level, having historical access to his riddles, and perhaps the computational chops to assign patterns, might help Batman crack them without needing to bring the thing back to the Batcave to brainstorm with Robin.

More broadly, though, Batman is periodically put into extreme situations where he needs to either use a machine he’s not familiar with, or perhaps find an antidote for a toxin from The Joker or Scarecrow, or simply get the schematics for Gotham’s sewer system to figure out where Killer Croc might be hiding. Batman can’t take the time to scuttle back to his supercomputer in order to do that—all of those insights need to be made mobile. Better yet—they should be tied into his cowl so that he can utilize them in augmented reality where appropriate.

SLA Compliance

This should go without saying, but when you have a rogues gallery as deep as Batman’s, it’s sometimes hard to remember whether Kite Man is supposed to be in Arkham Asylum or Blackgate prison. When apprehending any supervillain, it’s important to know the expectations that you should follow. Though Batman doesn’t seem particularly interested in complying the authorities outside of the commissioner, he certainly doesn’t want to raise their ire, either. Knowing where to deposit the criminals he catches is undoubtedly key to successfully continuing his unregulated vigilantism.

Jimmy Auw, Director of Central Asia Pacific Services at Lenovo, talks with Sarah about four major focus areas that come into play as Lenovo looks to seize the potential of service.   Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast, I'm your host Sarah Nicastro. Today I'm going to be talking a bit about the opportunity of embracing service and the potential it can bring to your business with Lenovo. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today Jimmy Auw who is the director of service operations for Central Asia-Pacific at Lenovo. Jimmy welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast.   Jimmy Auw: Hey Sarah thank you for having me in this call, interesting podcast right?   Sarah Nicastro: Yes.   Jimmy Auw: So thank you for making time, I know it's a bit late in your time zone and thank you for making up the time for this event.   Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely, my kids are in bed for the night and I'm ready to party, so that sounds good to me all right. Jimmy thank you for being here, I appreciate it. We have a lot of folks on this podcast and we're talking across industries, across geographies about this potential that service presents for business growth, business transformation, business expansion, business differentiation. And I think these conversations are really, really interesting because they vary a bit industry to industry, company to company but there is this major trend and common thread of this huge potential.   Sarah Nicastro: I think that there is this energy right now around almost being in the cusp of a real evolution of service and what is possible in terms of transforming customer relationships and really just growing business in new and exciting ways. So I love having this conversation and I'm excited to talk about what you see. But before we do that let's just talk a little bit about your history, your background. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Lenovo.   Jimmy Auw: Okay thank you Sarah. My name is Jimmy Auw. I'm currently leading Central Asia-Pacific service operation in Lenovo like you already shared earlier. So basically I'm managing the customer service operation end to end, covering the Central Asian-Pacific countries. Maybe to be precise ASEAN countries and covering also Hong Kong, Taiwan, Koreas and surrounding smaller markets, approximately for 14, 15 markets in my region.   Jimmy Auw: And personally I've been in this industry services for 15 years plus, mainly in the IT, computer and telecom industry. I'm a married man, two kids, one boy one girl. They're starting to grow up, I think that's a short introduction about myself.   Sarah Nicastro: How old are your children?   Jimmy Auw: 10 and seven.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay.   Jimmy Auw: The boy one is 10 and the daughter one is seven.   Sarah Nicastro: Mine are two sons, and my oldest will be six this month and then my youngest will be 5 this year, so they keep me busy.   Jimmy Auw: Enjoy the moment.   Sarah Nicastro: Yes, I know it goes fast. Okay, good. And how long have you been at Lenovo?   Jimmy Auw: About six years plus, I think six years and couple of months.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay, great. Let’s talk a little bit then Jimmy about your perception of this opportunity around service that I spoke about. Tell me what your thoughts are on it. Just based on your own personal experience in the different roles you've had at the industry level, what you see specifically within Lenovo. Talk a little bit about that potential that exists and your perspective on that.   Jimmy Auw: Okay, of course when you talk about services, there are some company that's specializing in the like hospitality, of course service will be their nature. But when it comes to the IT industry, the company that's usually selling hardware, services is after sales. We quite be familiar with people calling after-sales services. Service only happens after-sales, In fact maybe not all customers will ever experience the services in the past.   Jimmy Auw: Let’s say maybe the failure rate is 2%, 3% percent, assume if you're selling a million machine maybe only 2%, 3% customer will ever see you with services. I mean that could be something in the past but I think seeing the future, maybe it's happening now services is starting to change, they are transforming, at least from my own view. Now we are seeing services as something that may start as the starting point when we want to talk to our customers. It could be if you also feel everything now being take like services. People are quite familiar with device as a services even now you're buying software, in the past you're buying application you need to pay upfront, very expensive.   Jimmy Auw: But now you can buy with a subscription. It's also part of the service, so you buy per your usage. I think people are also start to shift the perception from services as after sales, with services as something to start immobilization. And if people in the past were always thinking services as a call center, I think people need to change the mindset that it's not about the cost anymore, it's about how will the image of your company with the services, in fact, how you can start making revenue, making the profit itself from selling services.   Jimmy Auw: So pretty much what I can feel from my own view, service has transformed and the transformation is now getting even faster, not sure if the COVID could be the reason but I guess once we start to do this working from home, school from home, most of the customers of a company they're expecting to have more solution. So solution itself might not be just a PC, I mean, you can always buy PC, you can always buy laptop, smartphone, but what is the solution provided to accompany those devices to meet the requirement?   Jimmy Auw: That's definitely something that is hitting up. I saw some of the market and quite interesting. It's the education, how we tried to provide solution to our education, the school government, how they can make the remote learning, remote working to be more effective. How the teacher could use some whiteboard but it's going to be online so that kids could see what the teachers are writing. I think it's better than you just send a PDF file. Like it or not, we're definitely be going there, pretty much very fast.   Sarah Nicastro: I think that's a really good point Jimmy about to what degree did COVID amplifier, multiply this potential for service. And the example that you shared around education, it makes me think, when you think about as a product based business looking to embrace the service opportunity, right? There's a lot of layers to that. Because on one side of the coin you have businesses that really see that potential and they're very intent on leading that charge and leveraging service to seize that potential.   Sarah Nicastro: And then there's businesses on the other hand that are very comfortable with the product centric approach and they're very rooted to how they've historically done things. That's tough, right? What that mindset is dictates a really different path. But if you want to really leverage the service opportunity, you have to become more customer focus. It's one thing to know as a product manufacturer, here's a product that our customers want to buy. But to your point, customers can buy that product a lot of different places.   Jimmy Auw: Yeah.   Sarah Nicastro: I think when you look at leveraging service strategically, what you're really talking about is problem solving. And I think that what happened with COVID, particularly around the education topic is it surfaced very apparently a challenge that was easy to see, identify and start to innovate around. But the reality is those opportunities in the form of the challenges your customers have are in every industry that you sell into, in every situation that your customers are in. It was just a really good exercise, I think for companies that haven't already started this path to dip their toes into thinking as a service company or a solution provider instead of just a product manufacturer. Does that make sense?   Jimmy Auw: Yes, I agree. I mean, there could be a challenge on some companies that they are very familiar, I'm not saying traditional but if you're working in the hospitality industry, it's very easy because you know everything about services, everything about knowing your customers, customer is always right, how you can give the right things to comfort for the customers. But when you think about the other company or the other businesses, they might not have this, how to say it, the nature is not like that.   Jimmy Auw: It will require some mindset change, it will require a lot of support from leadership to understand that this is the right vision of the company, we need to transform. I mean, having said that, Lenovo Luckily, we have a great support from our leadership. In fact, I'm not sure if you read the news, we did the reorg again in the last couple of months, we set up a new organization, we call it SSG, Solution and Services Group.   Jimmy Auw: So basically, we will start focusing this organization to think how we can give solution and services to our customers. So we have a different organization running the basic hardware of box solution, but then we have another organization, they're specifically running to see how they can combine all the solution, all the innovative thing from the company and sell to our customers.   Jimmy Auw: I think we believe if we have someone dedicated to really spend time meeting our customers, understand their requirement by analyzing the industry trend, they could definitely understand more. And by doing so, we expect things to definitely helping us to understand better and sell more solution to our customers. Of course, the result itself, we have a very strong year on improvement on the revenue that really set things that the company has done the absolutely right direction now, that's I think what we are trying to do.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.   Jimmy Auw: I talk with a lot of peers in the industry, they also share similar challenges. It's not easy to change the mindset not only of the leaders but the team itself. Once you’re very used to selling something physical, maybe hardware, devices. Then you need to sell something that is not yet there, even maybe you need to operate a solution architect, how they can make a solution for the customers can be very customized from customer A customer B. But it might be a bit challenging at the very beginning. You are really right, that is definitely not easy.   Sarah Nicastro: There's a couple things I want to talk about, first of all that mindset shift. Lenovo is there, right? And I want to go back to that, but what do you think it is that gives organizations that lightbulb moment to see this potential and want to undergo the transformation versus just staying very set in their ways?   Jimmy Auw: Okay, I think there could be lots of starting point. First, maybe something is always like a retention, maybe you want to hire new people, so new people start to explore the ideas, represent the leadership, and leadership started picking up the opportunity. It could be also the leadership itself, maybe they start to change the rest of the company. They know maybe selling boxes is going to be very challenging in the future because everyone could sell similar products, just different colors, different maybe physical appearance but whatever is the same CPU, same memory, same hard drive.   Jimmy Auw: That doesn't make a difference except the brand itself and the logo and maybe some color thinking. So there could be a lot of starting points. But I really think that there could be somewhere that a company need to start. Of course, the starting point could be very different, it depends on the company itself. But once the trigger is there and if you started maybe from the team, from the employee or from some new hire that tried to propose the idea and it start to be picked up by the rest of the team member, then I think that could start getting bigger and bigger.   Jimmy Auw: But of course, you always need support from the people around you, assuming that you're starting from somewhere inside the company. And then make sure that it can be amplified once the team or the people could show some result, then people will say, "Oh, somehow it's working, maybe in the past we never thought someone could do it" But once the team start to show the result... Sometime I heard in some company the leadership itself might not be supporting because maybe some of them are quite traditional, it is okay, I'm just selling boxes, I don't really care about that.   Jimmy Auw: But maybe once this has being presented and being amplified and the people have to see oh, amazing, right, we never thought we could do things like this, that may be the start to become bigger and bigger then the company will start to pick up. I believe they could a lot of starting point but the key thing is definitely the company, the executive, the leaders must support that. Otherwise, you can easily say, it's not our bread and butter, so we're not going to be doing that. So that will be a big challenge.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, you're absolutely right that whether the catalyst for the change happens from the top down or from the bottom up, you have to have that executive support. And I think that's because this isn't a transformation that can happen in a vacuum or in a department, it's something that you have to have that company wide alignment on or you're just not going to make the progress you need to make. You could have someone that really spearheads the effort and articulates the business case and is very passionate about it that brings it to leadership but ultimately, they have to be supportive of that effort, that makes sense.   Sarah Nicastro: The other thing I wanted to go back to is the group you mentioned, remind me the name again, the services group, what was the first part?   Jimmy Auw: SSG, Solution and Services Group.   Sarah Nicastro: Solution and Services Group, yeah. I see more and more of that, of companies introducing a dedicated team, group, function to really take the lead on this. And I think it's you know Madhu from Abbott, who is in the group that we're a part of, she was on the podcast and we had a whole conversation around what's the best organizational structure for service transformation. And you can argue different ways, but I think that particularly for very large companies and particularly for companies that have that really deep rich history and product, I think the idea of this dedicated team to really get it off the ground is a very smart one.   Sarah Nicastro: Because the folks that are in roles still have to focus on the day to day, so until you get this new go to market in place and until you start to make traction with the customers and the teams, there's still a business to be run and expecting someone to do both of those things is really hard. So I think this idea of, no I'm not saying it's an easy job, when you have a new function like that in the business and of, course you're going to have people that are resistant to the ideas, I'm sure it's not a walk in the park.   Sarah Nicastro: But I think that from Lenovo's perspective, being strategic about creating that group to really drive this, I think you will get better progress that way than if you tried to do it in the existing structure.   Jimmy Auw: Yeah.   Sarah Nicastro: What do you think about that?   Jimmy Auw: Yeah, I completely agree with that. Definitely that is the right thing to do. And I think you are also quite familiar when we typically think or see sales person and services person, they tend to be very different. The salespeople are very outspoken, they easygoing so they can easily catch up and mingle with people. But services, they tend to be more introvert, maybe not more, maybe it's just my assumption but it's two different type of people. But now we need to sell services, so you need someone that can come with both style. You need to be outspoken, you need to meet people, but at the same time you need to understand how to sell the services.   Jimmy Auw: So definitely, there could be a challenge but I think it's a matter of how you find the right people, how you continuously giving the right training, right education and combine with a good success story. People will get the confidence, maybe in the past the services tend to be very introvert but now they've meet a lot of people now, they start to see some engagement so they can be more proactive. Same as a salesperson, they learn about services, they understand, hmm this is also quite interesting, but they can easily talk about services, settle the customers, always bring the conversation about services when they meet the customers.   Jimmy Auw: We also took quite some time in this few years to start this collaboration but luckily, because we also have a great team inside, so those transformation was not the difficult part, for sure.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm(affirmative)   Jimmy Auw: So I understand. I mean, if you're not getting the right person and the team itself may be not so flexible, you will see some, like you said earlier, some resistance, some people saying it's not my cup of tea, I don't know how to sell services. So if they don't really learn and have intention to improve, that will be challenge.   Sarah Nicastro: Going back to the first point we made, a lot of it is just mindset. And I think that people's mindsets can change when they understand new insights. We talked at the beginning about the fact that just historically, service is an afterthought to sales, it just hasn't been their job to sell service, it's been their job to sell hardware. And so if you have this team that can help them understand no, no, no, here is why you should care, here is how this can help you sell more, here's why this is the future of the business, maybe not 100% but a good amount of those people may very well be excited about that and get on board and get behind it.   Sarah Nicastro: And it is interesting, the conversation around the need that exists not just at Lenovo, in every company that's on this journey to upscale and rescale talent. And then also, what new positions, new roles, new skill sets, do you need to bring into the business related to this change? It's a really interesting conversation.   Jimmy Auw: I agree.   Sarah Nicastro: One of the other things we talked about before, Jimmy is the idea that if you want to focus on growing service revenue, you have to be careful not to cannibalize your own ability to do that by over servicing. So let's talk a little bit about what you mean by that.   Jimmy Auw: Yeah, I think when you start to make clear products, you need to really understand what will be your customers, that's when you design a product. But when you design a solution services, you need to understand what your customers need. It could be in the past you were giving everything for free, actually not for free because there's no sense of free lunch, we know that. So there's always be the cost being factoring inside your products. It could be some customers, they don't need all the basic features that you already incorporate inside the pricing. So I think by doing more upsell, we can really customize the solution to our customers.   Jimmy Auw: It's not about always getting more money from customers but it also can let go some of the solution that they don't need. Of course we keep upselling, the sales will not be letting go business with the upsell, but it's more like we are selling the right thing to them instead of okay we give this package for you at a single price, but then the customer will say I don't need these things but I need this things, but they are still paying the same amount but they're getting what they need.   Jimmy Auw: By doing so we need to make sure that we are not cannibalizing our own because maybe some customer will be thinking in the past these things is always for free, but actually the customer maybe they just don't know what we have inside the costs, maybe they're just paying up front, they thought it's all free, whatever they ask is for free, but we need to make sure that we give what they need and those things that we are selling is cannibalizing our own basic operation or the service function that we are selling to them.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm (affirmative).   Jimmy Auw: Maybe in some country definitely customer expecting very high level means that everything must be free because that is the standard. So once we downgrade some of it customer will feel oh, why you are downgrading my services? I think it's not about downgrading but it could be we have more detail on what you can buy or what you can decide not to buy. Maybe if you have a big country with different cities, in the past maybe give some single price for every city. But now if they realize I have more machines in a certain location, can you give me better pricing for that? Maybe you can give me other pricing for the remote location, something like that. Good customer service.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. This becomes a big challenge when you look at organizations that are trying to move toward more advanced services, more service contracts offering more outcomes based service because as you begin that journey, it's almost like when you're introducing some of the functionality that enables you to do that, it seems there's a period of time where you're not quite ready to charge for it. You're getting your bearings, and then all of a sudden you want to introduce these new offerings and your customers are saying, "Hey, wait a minute why are you charging me for this now?" It does take some thought to think about what are the best? Is it tiered offerings? Or is it completely customized customer to customer? or what that looks like.   Sarah Nicastro: But this is an area of frustration for a lot of folks. I think this idea around we've made these improvements. When you think about things like Internet of Things and remote monitoring and remote resolution and people put these technologies in place to allow that functionality, and then get a little bit stuck on how they monetize that functionality. And another maybe topic of conversation is you can't look at this idea of incrementally improving functionality and then trying to just incrementally charge more along the way.   Sarah Nicastro: The way I look at that is you're on your own agenda, you're adding functionality and just trying to incrementally increase the revenue you're making simply because you have an objective to grow your service revenue. And that is the objective but the companies that are having more success doing that are stepping back from those incremental changes or those internal metrics and they're really going back to what are the customer pain points and what do we do to solve those? And then looking at whether it's custom offerings or more standard offerings but tied back to the customer needs. Does that make sense?   Jimmy Auw: Yes, I think the first thing is always right. I mean, every company wants to sell, want to gain more revenue, more profit, but we should not always use that as a starting point. Of course, first is you need to understand what is the customer pain point, what they need. Maybe now when we are talking about everything remote, first is security, the rest maybe is example. When you're talking about your remote working, you need to bolster your security.   Jimmy Auw: That could be one pain point that customer may think, now I know everyone's working from home, they're computer may be accessed by anyone so how do I ensure safety is not compromised? And so when we start with that we can see okay, maybe we have some solution, some VPN, some other application that can help you, that could be the starting point how the team will start thinking about the solution.   Jimmy Auw: Of course, it's always chargeable but something that not always about we want to get every single penny from customers. Of course, again, nothing is free but we need to start from when customer is thinking, what's in it for me, I'm paying this okay, what will I get? Okay, maybe they will think it's expensive or it's not expensive, but the values could be different. Maybe if you're talking about security to small business, they might think I don't need that.   Jimmy Auw: But when we talk to the medium sized company, it's everything about security. So again, I cannot be more transparent than this. Everyone will definitely be happy with more revenue but I don't think that should be the starting point, because when you talk about services it's about trust. You're not just trying to get money from the customers but how you can become a good advisor for the customer, every time they have some problem will come to you.   Jimmy Auw: And you're not always about the money or charging them or something, give them solution, some feedback, some idea, we can always try first if they fit the requirement. So I think that could be avoided when you can work the relationship better where they have more things to learn or to understand, they can always come to our team, okay. I trust you because it's not about the money but how you can help me running my business better. I think this will be the right starting point when we engage the customers.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. When done well, it's really a mutually beneficial value proposition. I mean, the companies that are doing this well, they are increasing revenue but they're doing it by helping their customers. And when you can figure out that right alignment, I mean, it really, really is cool to see how it comes together.   Sarah Nicastro: On the flip side, I've talked to people that say, "Well, I'm just really frustrated, because we invested in IoT, and nobody wants to buy it." And it's like, well, no, they don't want to buy it, because why would they care about IoT? They might not even know what IoT is.   Sarah Nicastro: So what value is it providing to them? And I think that goes back to one of the points we touched on earlier, which is the criticality of really talented sales individuals having these conversations to be able to dig in and identify those customer need and look at how you align value and create a go to market. You might need new people doing that than but just the people that are used to selling just the boxes. It's an interesting thing, it's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg?   Jimmy Auw: I mean, this thing is like an art. Leadership, managerial things, is always an art, there's no single way to get the job done. I'm not a believer that by reading book or by copying someone's style that always drive the same result because there's always a difference in the company culture, in the people who are managing, their maturity, the job scope. So you might need to be more flexible. Of course, like you said, developing the team. And then next to it is how to retain them, once you have develop them, they're doing good, okay, maybe other company be, okay, I want to copy the same, I just hired those guys.   Jimmy Auw: I think that could be a great short cut. But again, how we as leaders need to retain those people to make sure people feel comfortable working with us, they keep innovating, want to contributes to the company, that will be an honor, at least for myself. And there's no single answer how to do that. You need to be more flexible, maybe with employee, A employee B, you might need to have a different style, but that's something you can avoid, but it's always challenging people are moving out, they feel okay, I've done enough in this company, I want to explore something more.   Jimmy Auw: So there's something that the company likely again, will not let off. We have this culture, we allow people to move between organization, between functions. We prefer them to stay in the company in many very different role rather than they move out because we trust Lenovo and we really consider people, employee as something that is really important.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm(affirmative).   Jimmy Auw: Yeah, that's something I think, very interesting to share because there's no single answer for such problem.   Sarah Nicastro: Right. Another thing we talked about is this idea of needing to create greater appeal for new talent. We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that the service role is really changing, it can't just be that more introverted show up, fix something, and I'm on my way type persona, it needs to be a different type of experience. And there's also, I think some perceptions around service and field service and what that means, and are those appealing career paths? And things like that.   Sarah Nicastro: What are your thoughts around, as both the skill sets needed evolve and mature and then also a lot of existing talent ages out of the workforce, what's your thoughts on how we make service and this industry appealing for new folks?   Jimmy Auw: Okay, interesting question. Maybe it's just me, but if I recall back during the young age, services might not be something in the top of the mind for a student in the university. Maybe they want to become a doctor an engineer, a pilot, scientists, all of them think about these services. The people who work in the hospitality industry, they're not really like the majority of the people, and I'm not saying they are not successful in the other industry but some of them are really thinking about, hey, I want to do these things.   Jimmy Auw: Especially when you see in some countries, I believe, people working as an engineer on the ground might not have the higher rank, and maybe be different in Europe or US from an Asian country. So people working on the ground as a field engineer might not be something that's quite prestigious for some people. I mean, that's not totally right but also not totally wrong, it's about what will be the main interest, right? People always have their own aspiration.   Jimmy Auw: So of course, by seeing the changing in trend, I think we need to start really seeing who is the right candidate? Some companies start to look for a trainee right from the university, they try to educate him since the service industry you can meet a lot of people, you can selling being solution and the bigger picture of the services. So it's not about you do a break and fix, you come to the customer side, fix the machine, you're being paid for the labor, I think the scope will not be small thing anymore. But of course, some people still think, okay, I becoming an engineer, I need to go to the customer side, we'll break and fix, go back, meet another customer.   Jimmy Auw: So the scope maybe, I don't know, I feel this will in the most of people mindset, right? And then we start looking to university, we give some in the job training to some interested students, so we try to give them a bigger view of what services, not about you fixing a machine anymore but how you can sell solution, how you can learn new technology earlier than anyone in this industry, And how you can contribute more to the company.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm (affirmative).   Jimmy Auw: Maybe we start with some education to the university student, trying to get some good talent, they can do the on the job training, once they graduate, they can stop being shortlisted prior to starting a career in a corporate life. And the same time, I think we also need to look for some knowledge sharing from the experienced people in a webinar, at a event to share what actually the service industry insight, what about again doing a small thing, there's something called after sales, it can be a starting point for someone to make a new business or new or a new product.   Sarah Nicastro: And also, what do they like about it? And how has it provided for them? And what has their career path been? Things like that. You could even do an ad campaign out of that, that you use for recruiting. I think those are some good points and a couple others that you mentioned earlier. One is flexibility, so just thinking about not only how you're flexible with employees but as the role changes, as the industry changes, what words are you using in your job descriptions? And what picture are you painting with what that looks like? And what parts are you playing up that might appeal to some of the folks that haven't thought about service as a career or don't even know that it's an option.   Sarah Nicastro: And I think the other thing, like you said, within Lenovo you'd rather them stay and move to different positions within the company, I think, more and more starting a role with some idea of growth potential, and what that career trajectory could look like is really important to folks. So thinking ahead about how you articulate from the beginning that there is a lot of opportunity within the company for them is another really smart point.   Jimmy Auw: Yes.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So, here's another area I want to make sure we talk about because this is a tough one. This whole conversation is centered around this idea of service becoming a profit center and all of the potential that that exists there. But to do that, you have to innovate, you have to transform, and that requires investment. And so this is where it can get tricky because you can have these leaders that say, "Okay, great, there's a big opportunity here, go make it happen." And then you say good, well, we just need to do X, And then it's like, whoa, whoa. How do you strike that balance between not continually looking service as an opportunity to cut costs and looking at obviously managing costs, but making some intelligent investments in the ability to evolve and grow.   Jimmy Auw: Okay, so again, the question will have a myriad of answer.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.   Jimmy Auw: Because, again, it's more in and out rather than the single answer. But I will say, of course, at very beginning it's not easy to convince the leadership, the executives to support your investment. But luckily, we understand that we have shown that good traction, good result. So at the end of the day, when the company got confidence in the team, it will not be that difficult to gain investment. And of course, they trust it's going to be giving a good return. I will say there will be no single answer for that, but in general, it's more on how the team could innovate this? Something usually they got from meeting more customers, understanding the industry trend so they can start with something.   Jimmy Auw: And of course, when it comes to certain investment level, it may require more approval level, but normally when the thing is getting bigger, then people will always see return of investment, this will be the nature of the investment. But I will say it's not really a single answer to that, you're right is very tricky but it's more on the scope of the business itself and just about if you are investing a certain the amount the scope will be certain size, then you need to convince more people in the supportive level to support your project.   Jimmy Auw: But in general is always when you start with something and you could show really clear benefit for the company and it is allowing industry trends, normally, it won't be a big issue for the leaders to give a green light to the project itself but it's not easy to share how we can get them convinced but it just naturally flows. The bigger size of the innovation might definitely require bigger different investment and even approval level, but it's just naturally flowing like that. Maybe some level they just give a go ahead because it’s a small investment but when you're going bigger and bigger, you just need to talk with more people, convince more people.   Jimmy Auw: It takes months, sometimes years to get started, because sometimes we need regulatory approval, legal approval, country approval. So just about the size, the scope and the coverage, that just might be the nature of the green light of the project itself.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm (affirmative).   Jimmy Auw: I think that's something not easy to explain to be honest.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, some of the points that I took from there, one would be look for industry context. If you can show examples of how others are benefiting from similar investments, that type of research and information is helpful. The second thing is where you're able, start small and build momentum. So if there are certain areas that are either small or you are very confident in, start there so that you can show those successes because once you get that initial success, then going back and saying, "Okay, I did this, now you can trust me to do this next bigger thing." You're going to have better success that way.   Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense, and I think the third point is just, if it is something bigger that could require months, years... I did a podcast a few weeks ago with a gentleman from Schneider Electric Australia and the one thing he said is he just had to be tenacious, he just had to not accept no and continue to push because he was very confident in the opportunity and he just needed to win over enough minds to be able to move forward. He said, "It might have been easier for me to just give up, but I just wasn't going to." So that's the other thing, if it's something you're passionate about, just keep on it.   Sarah Nicastro: All right, last question for today Jimmy, two parts, what's the biggest lesson you would say you've learned as a service leader? And then part two is what are you most excited about looking to the future?   Jimmy Auw: Okay, let me start with the first one, the biggest lesson. I'm a believer in people, I think find the right people, you can connect and align with them, this will be very important. I'm not saying you need to have all the same people around you, that's not the idea but the key thing is you need to have the right people around you. They could always be the one challenging you, finding your blind spot, that should be fine. I'm not expecting people to say yes to all of my instructions, so I need to find the right people in the organization and a make sure they have the right mindset and right attitude.   Jimmy Auw: I mean, if you're working with people all having their own thinking, and that's okay but in terms of strategy, vision, aspiration, they should be carrying a similar agreement before we can move on. But as a team, they can be aggressive, they can be conservative, that's fine. People always say yes, that's also not good.   Sarah Nicastro: So you're not looking for the same people, you're looking for good people, but what would you characterize as the common traits?   Jimmy Auw: Okay, it's more on they need to be a fit for the role that I'm looking for.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay.   Jimmy Auw: Maybe as a sales they have to be a bit outspoken, but when you're looking for technical, they have to be very detailed in how to give a solution. And maybe if you need someone to become your right hand, he or she needs to be proactive, challenging you giving you some insight, this is what I say is the right people. Same style, because again if you have all people the same style then you always go to the same angle so that is definitely not something, at least for my personal view, I'm not doing things like that.   Jimmy Auw: I prefer to find the right people and the right roles so they can contribute to the company with their own style, but they will carry the same mindset, same attitude, in terms of how we agree on the goal and the future then we can move forward together as a team, they can contribute themselves inside the bigger ship as a company.   Jimmy Auw: The third, my view is you need to have the right strategy, this is very important because if people are thinking with their own and they don't have something they need to carry together, it will become things and also structure. So I really think as a leader you need to have the right strategy coming top down from the company, but the manager or the leader can cascade down a bit based on the organization itself. And the fourth one, again you need to have a control point. If anyone said central strategy, right people strategy everything you need to make sure you have the right control point.   Jimmy Auw: So make sure that whatever we agree, whatever we decide earlier, we need to make sure we execute. Otherwise, it's just okay, people are happy do but no one knows what they're doing. Maybe they can do at the end of the day, but if they're not doing constantly the things will move, from my own view can be a bit slower. So checkpoint for me again, is very important. It's not about not trusting the team, but to give them the sense of ownership, it's your responsibility you get paid, so I want to see your delivery. And last but not least, we can look back once we complete the whole cycle.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm(affirmative)   Jimmy Auw: We have understand, okay, we did great this year, but what we overlook? Maybe opportunities, some low line that we can learn for future to make our own strategy? Or maybe they are good story we can share. Again, as leader, I also have my own leaders, my other manager, so I also can share to him or to her, this is the key learning point from my region last year. So either he or she could copy or quote, share to the other bigger picture for a bigger region for the overall company or maybe there are some feedback that he or she will give to me.   Jimmy Auw: "Okay, Jimmy, I think you did something but you can try this area." Maybe he or she share from the other region, full end to end things that biggest learn for me and I will try my best to keep doing that because I believe that could be something can make a great success as leaders manager and as for the company itself.   Sarah Nicastro: Good. Okay, and what are you most excited about?   Jimmy Auw: I’m excited about new challenges. I mean, sometime when you see new technology, new idea, new opportunity, that makes me excited because I feel challenged, I like to set the challenge. Not about proving myself I could do but it's for my own pleasure. I like to accept a challenge and I also like to see how it can help to grow my team. So the success sometime is not about me doing the challenge, but how I can bring my whole team to get and accept the challenge together. Everyone could grow, and when I see they are growing, some of them even moving with the company. But they are doing even better.   Sarah Nicastro: Mn-hmm (affirmative).   Jimmy Auw: That makes me happy because I feel as a manager I've done my job, not about achieving the goal but also to help growing my team, make them even better. So I think that's the part of the excitement of my role and my own career things.   Sarah Nicastro: That's why you're the right person for the job Jimmy, because you're excited about those challenges and you want to see that progress. I mean, that's what it takes. I think everything we've talked about today requires people that are not fans of complacency and you're ready to take on those new challenges and work through problems and fail and learn and grow. I mean, that's what this is all about. So that makes sense. Well, thank you Jimmy so much for coming on and sharing your perspective. I appreciate it.   Jimmy Auw: Thank you. Appreciate your evening time.   Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. You can find more content by checking us out at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, as well as Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS, you can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening. </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="col-12 col-lg-3"> <div class="form-wrapper"> <h2 class="form-tittle">Stay Connected</h2> <iframe src="https://info.ifs.com/GM-CP-CU-2012-12-FoFS-Newsletter_IFrame.html">

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

There’s a major emphasis among service organizations on the need to modernize and master the recruitment and hiring of a new wave of field talent. This emphasis is incredibly important, and we’ve discussed this topic in some of our content – but today’s article is about what it takes to keep the great talent you already have as the service landscape evolves.

Whether your field talent has been on board for two years or 20, there’s a strong likelihood their scope of work has changed and is continuing to change. With the majority of businesses embracing the move to delivering outcomes, what’s required of field technicians from now and into the future is different than it may have been when your existing talent signed up for the job. That doesn’t mean, however, that these employees can’t commit to or execute on the new service mission. In fact, it makes perfect sense to focus ample energy on maximizing the use of your existing resources rather than overlooking a treasure trove of talent by focusing only on what you don’t have.

So keeping in mind that recruiting and hiring new talent is imperative, let’s put our focus here on five necessary areas when it comes to retaining the knowledgeable, skilled technicians you already have and fitting them into the new era of service.

#1: Invest in Connection

Change is hard for most humans, but connection is what helps your employees feel they are a part of the change rather than the change is happening to them. Regular communication, authentic interest in your employees as human beings, the ability for them to ask questions and provide feedback are all characteristics that are important to building and maintaining a connection with your talent that will fortify their relationship with you and the organization and strengthen the likelihood of their buy-in and emotional investment in your service evolution. Keep in mind, too, that COVID only increased the importance of connection and employees’ desire to feel that their overall wellbeing – physical, mental, and emotional – is important to their employer. Investing in connecting more frequently, more deeply, and more honestly with your employees will set a strong foundation for retaining talent.

#2: Set Clear Expectations

Ambiguity breeds frustration. No one can succeed at a role that is poorly defined or where the desired outcome is unclear. Even as your service business evolves, when things may be in flux, it is important for you to consider how to articulate your expectations of your field technicians. This is especially true when they may be moving from the very clear, basic expectations of a break/fix service environment to the more fluid and soft-skills centric expectations of an outcomes-based relationship. You’re of course responsible for providing your employees the knowledge and skill necessary to evolve from basic to advanced service execution, but even before knowledge and skill comes clarity around what you expect them to accomplish.

#3: Equip for Success

If you have current talent who is engaged and open to change, you must do everything in your power to equip them for success – not everyone is so lucky! It can help to build a field technician journey map to understand the various areas within their day-to-day where there is a need or opportunity for improvement in process, technology, or skill to make them more effective. User-friendly, streamlined digital tools that provide real-time access to customer history, a knowledge library, and any other information needed on-site are critical. In 2021, cumbersome or outdated technology is an unacceptable barrier to success for field technicians – especially as you look to modernize the customer experience and mature your service offerings. Beyond digitalization to automate manual processes and provide easy access to information, training and skill building are key. Most companies who are advancing services are requiring more soft skills and relationship-building capabilities from their service teams. You need to ensure you’re giving a willing employee every opportunity to build, improve, and polish those skills. If you’re unsure where your technicians are lacking in information, knowledge, or technology to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, ASK!

#4: Offer Options & Progression Opportunities

As service evolves, some long-term technicians will have an interest in or willingness to adapt and change and others will not. To the degree you can, try to offer options to your existing talent to ensure you can continue to leverage anyone that is useful to your mission. Perhaps it’s a tiered approach, where some technicians choose to grow and expand into a more evolved role and others continue to execute more basic functions. Maybe there’s an opportunity to leverage augmented reality to allow a technician who no longer wants to travel to train some newer hires remotely. A certain technician may incline naturally to some of the newer soft skills needed for the trusted advisor evolution of the role, and you may be able to call on them to lead other team members to similar success. Be as creative and flexible as you can in identifying the strengths of your existing talent and putting it to its best use, while giving ample opportunity for employees to evolve and grow.

#5: Focus on Empowerment

Your field technicians are the face of your brand. The customer experience, in many ways, rests in their hands. You need to focus on treating them like the treasured resources they are, and when you do you may be surprised how much you’ll get out of them. Some employees may be happy to show up day after day, be told what to do, and simply get it done. But for many, they want something more – they want to feel valued, important, and a part of the company’s success (or failure). The more you can foster trust, the more they will feel motivated to do good work. There’s a movement toward more of a “hire good talent and get out of their way” approach versus the more traditional micromanagement approach, and I think this is by-and-large a necessary evolution in order to continue to attract and retain the level of talent that will be needed for the modern service era.

By Tom Paquin

It feels crass, sometimes, discussing how software can help drop dispatcher-to-tech ratios for field operations. I know dispatchers, and I don’t want to support tech that makes them redundant. In spite of this, I think we all understand that automation of back office processes lessen the workload in the back office, which will lead to the flexibility to limit headcount. But I don’t necessarily think that’s the best way to think about it.

I’d argue, more than anything, that service automation software shouldn’t be seen as a way to limit back office workers, but instead as a way to eliminate the need to do simple, repeatable, time consuming tasks, like setting appointment schedules, thereby freeing up back office time to manage more call ins, develop broader service strategies, and focus on more complex, fulfilling, and consequential business decisions.

There are a few avenues where we can parse out the importance of automation as it relates to day-to-day office tasks, so let’s go ahead and put together a few examples.

Scheduling

Scheduling automation is one of the lowest automation bars that can be cleared, but its benefit for the back office is immediately tangible. Under ideal circumstances, service visits will be triaged and triggered through a variety of different channels. This starts with simple distinctions like an online scheduling portal, and can evolve into smart scheduling through alerts triggered by connected assets, chatbot-triggered scheduling, predictive scheduling through IoT, or simply automating routine appointments to take away the onus from the customer and the business.

A fully automated environment changes the role of dispatcher from order-taker to nuanced qualifier and quality expert. Their job transforms away from data entry to dynamically addressing complex or ambiguous requests, and providing the “human touch” that ties the business together.

High-Volume Planning

This, as a component of service scheduling, is one of my favorite topics, mostly because getting it right can be a huge asset for your business, and getting it wrong can saddle you with mediocre software for what can be a long time.

Let’s say you have 2,000 employees at a specific branch of your business, and they schedule, say, 10,000 appointments over the course of that day. With new appointments, exceptions, callouts, weather issues, and other unforeseen circumstances, a dispatcher could spend the entire day tweaking schedules, cancelling appointments, and doing just about anything other than ensuring exceptional customer service. Therefore, a system that automates these processes has the potential of being a huge benefit for dispatch, giving them more time back, since they don’t have to do that level of micromanagement.

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Sarah talks with Scott Lowes, Construction Supervisor at FortisBC, about his love for technology, his excitement in seeing it permeate field service, and his advice as a change champion for how to make technology palatable, how to foster adoption versus just compliance, and the joy of the “aha” moment when it takes hold.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to The Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today we are going to be getting some real world advice from a change champion. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Scott Lowes, who is a construction supervisor at FortisBC. Scott, welcome to the podcast.

Scott Lowes: Hey Sarah. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Nicastro: Thanks for being here. Before we dive in to our content for the day, tell our listeners a bit about yourself and your role at FortisBC.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. High level, I'm somebody that is always on the move but I'm always doing something, whether it's tinkering on stuff around my house, figuring out a way to brew better coffee, all that stuff. I'm always doing something in my personal life and then at work, I've been with FortisBC for about 14 years now, just over that. And throughout that time, I've had every job that we've gotten the field really. I've been through our construction department, putting in gas mains and services, then moving into our field customer service department, dealing with our customers forward, facing that way and then also working down at our liquefied natural gas plant. Pretty technical job there. And then most recently I have now made a change into our project management office as a construction supervisor. That's me in a nutshell.

Sarah Nicastro: And in case anyone isn't familiar with Fortis, give the overview of the organization.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. FortisBC is a natural gas and electrical utility in the province of British Columbia in Canada. We supply natural gas and electricity and I've been on the natural gas side of the industry. We operate and maintain our below ground gas utility and we provide all of the service for that. And so dealing with our customers that have gas meters on their houses and all that pertains to that. So there's a whole lot in there.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So you love a good project at home and at work. You like to stay busy.

Scott Lowes: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm assuming you like to be just learning new things. It's what it sounds like.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. If I'm not learning a better way to do something in my personal life, it's like learning something new at work, right? A lot of people do Netflix and chill, I do like research and chill. It's usually like, my wife is watching Netflix, I'm watching or I'm like researching how to build concrete forms or do some something random around the house.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm laughing because this is very much parallel my home life. My husband spends a ton of time watching the most random things on YouTube, I'm like, what are you watching? "I'm watching how you..." Okay. Who cares? But he loves it.

Scott Lowes: There are those people that care. It makes it really good at parties and gatherings because when people are like, "I'm in like an aerospace..." I'm like, well, I've done carbon fiber repairing and they kind of give you this like, "what? Who are you?" But yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: And it's all come in handy. I mean, there's a lot of home projects and things like that that he's tackled that are far out of his comfort level that he literally just YouTubed and followed along and learned how to do it himself so it works.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. It's handy that way. But my disclaimer is don't do any gas work unless you're a ticketed gas fitter.

Sarah Nicastro: That's really good advice.

Scott Lowes: No. But yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: We did draw the line at gas. Actually, last summer we put in a pool in our backyard and he did all of the electrical himself. Which he was pretty comfortable with but we had someone come in and run the gas line and all of that stuff.

Scott Lowes: That's a good call.

Sarah Nicastro: We have to draw the line somewhere, right?

Scott Lowes: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Scott and I were introduced by a part of the IFS team which is Clevest and we were introduced to related to FortisBC's use of remote service technology. That's how we got in touch with one another. But as I was talking to Scott, I realized there was a lot more about our conversation that stood out and I felt like if we were to do a podcast talking only about the remote service topic might be leaving some good content on the table. Before we talk a bit about how you've leveraged remote service at FortisBC, I want to talk about some of those other things. The first thing that stood out to me Scott is your passion for technology, which was very clear. Tell us a little bit about why you love tech and why you're so passionate about it to use in Field Service.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. Passion with technology started once... Okay. If we go way back, it's probably I think when my parents had I think it was our first computers, either at 286 or 386. The power switch was like the size of my head type thing. It's just like a giant toggle, the lights dim when you turn the thing on but then it powers up and it's all text-based DOS right? That was my first introduction to computers. Fast forward a few years, I'm learning a lot more about computers but I'm breaking them all the time. It was like a non-stop, revolving door of having like my dad's tech support guy in the house fixing the computers because Scott broke the computer again. And now I'm the tech support guy for my parents for their computers so it's come full circle but it was probably a painful for that period.

Scott Lowes: But yeah. In terms of technology, I've been around it for a while, I've seen it, used it, always trying to be early adopter, right? Like, okay. Something new is showing up. I want to have the newest, latest, greatest. Or if I can't have the newest iPhone I'll leverage the older iPhone to extend that lifespan right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mhhmm

Scott Lowes: Everything from back in the day when jail breaking iPhones was a thing so you could get all the little tweaks and stuff. I nerd out on that stuff and so that's where the technology for me, my passion for it I guess came. And then I guess in terms of where I think the use with Field Service stuff, it's probably one of the one... If you think of technology, everybody's using technology except the guys that are swinging the wrenches. The field techs aren't using technology to the same extent that the rest of the globe is.

Scott Lowes: If you think of like okay. We've got such high horsepower in terms of technology and stuff that's out there, why not utilize it in a field that isn't really utilizing it yet? Or to its fullest potential right? Because there's lots of cases where it could just make their job or, and make my old job a lot easier and just... Yeah. It's pretty neat to see what's out there in the marketplace right now and where we're going. I'm excited for that part too.

Sarah Nicastro: You are the epitome of the young guy in Field Service that loves technology right? When we talk to different service leaders on the podcast, one of the topics that comes up is the challenge of managing a multi-generational workforce right? And so there's folks like you on one end of the spectrum that are, technology's awesome. I love it. I want to use all the newest, latest, greatest things and then as you well know based on some of your team members, there's people that want nothing to do with that right?

Scott Lowes: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: It is challenging for organizations to strike the right balance and I think that when we spoke initially, one of the things that I thought would be interesting to share on this episode is, you very much are a change champion within FortisBC for greater adoption of technology in the field and you have a lot of firsthand experience introducing these things to some of the people that are a little bit more resistant or less excited about the tools right? One of the things you said to me that I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about is, when you introduce a new tool to one of the people that's less passionate about technology or really against the idea of it, I guess on a continuum, you mentioned you love when you can see an aha moment, where it just clicks and that resistance fades away a little bit. What do you think it is that prompts that aha moment?

Scott Lowes: I think it's the magic really. Because I've grown up with technology, I don't want to say the magic is lost but I'm expecting a groundbreaking thing and it's not like this huge thing. But the aha moment for me that I've seen, we just did finished up a pilot using some VR headsets for training and so a guy, I think he said to like retire in November right? He's on the complete opposite end of the spectrum as myself. We've got a great working relationship and I was like hey. I want you to try this out and put on this VR headset. And I'm able to walk him through all the controls because he doesn't know how to use the hand controls and all that stuff.

Scott Lowes: And he's like, "I just want to see it." He puts the thing on and his mind is blown. He's like freaking out. And so for him, he's like, "wow. This is crazy." And then next thing you know, he takes it off and he's going around the office, "hey. Go see Scott and you got to go try this thing. It's really cool." And so his little aha moment was the barrier was broken because he didn't have to learn how to use the controls of a VR headset or try to navigate into the software, he just got to get plunked into this virtual world and he's looking around and his mind is blown. Those aha moments I think it would come in all of our different texts, when there is no barriers to entry right?

Scott Lowes: When it's not like, I got to figure out how to use Windows 10 just to use a software, if we can remove that, that's when I think the most success has happened and yeah. It's that interface. Having that smooth interface so once somebody can use it, it's not cumbersome I guess. And that's like I've seen have happened where it's just... they can use the software and it works. That's probably one of the bigger things.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, user interface is obviously super important but what you just said also made me think of, and I've talked to companies that have done this as part of their change management strategy. Prior to actual rollout of a new solution, having more of a low pressure, even making it fun, introductory phase to the technology, where it's that ability to casually familiarize yourself with it and looking for different ways to maybe make that bad idea even fun for people that aren't as excited about that new thing. But having a period prior to roll out where you're going to be driving toward a very specific outcome but more of like a familiarization period where that barrier to entry is low because there isn't an expectation of immediate outcome. Does that make sense?

Scott Lowes: Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head there, where it's like having it fun is key because for me, I can get over if it's not fun or not because I've been around it for so long and I know the leverage that's there, I can get on board with a little bit of pain to get there. But to get the mass of really who we're wanting to push this technology towards, is the mass workforce and to get it there, it's got to be fun. It's got to be engaging and it's got to be a way that these individuals are going to say, hey. Man. I really want to use that. That's a really cool piece of software. That's a really cool piece of technology. I'm like, that makes my job easy or that's a really cool whatever it is, but if it's not fun, why would anybody like to use that boring thing over what they've been doing for the last decade or two decades or four decades. If it's not fun and engaging, they're never going to use the technology or the tool or whatever it is right?

Sarah Nicastro: One of the other words that you used in our initial conversation that I really liked is that, really for change to be successful, the technology that's being introduced needs to be palatable. What would your advice for listeners be on, how do you make the introduction of a new technology palatable?

Scott Lowes: That? Man. That is the magic question. And that is like the key. And I think the way it becomes palatable is having somebody that is not only passionate but willing to educate and willing to go through the tech support aspect. I remember I broke my arm so I couldn't work in the field and they said, "hey. You're good with technology, can you go sit on the tech support desk?" And said yeah. Sure. And we're rolling out a new software. This is probably 10 years ago now. And one of the guy comes on the phone and he starts griping. He's like, "computers are the damnation of the world. I don't have a computer at home so why do I need to use one at work? I just want to throw this thing off the bridge." And that just really stuck out to me.

Scott Lowes: And I was like okay. Everybody's feeling that at some point that it's not going to work. Having somebody that is aware of that as well, isn't just somebody that's going to say hey. This is a new technology we're using, you got to use it or you're done. That's not an option when you're rolling out technology especially when you've got an already effective workforce and you want to see them become more effective, the way you do it is, you've got to really have somebody that is passionate about the technology that's willing to be that change champion then says hey. You know what? I'm going to go through the hard stuff. I'm going to figure this out. But then also, they're going to see or foresee those roadblocks and those speed bumps that are going to come along and help the people through that and say hey. This is what we can do or just being available as somebody to just go through that so they're not stuck struggling, right?

Scott Lowes: Because the way that you can take any technology rollout and make it just fall flat on its face is you come up with this great idea and you say, hey. We're going to release this technology to the guys or to the girls or to whoever and you're just going to release this technology and then there's no support. And there's nobody that is... Another term I've used is the tech expert, right? Because you got to have somebody that knows just that much more than everyone else that they're always getting the call, they can say hey. Scott. How do I do this? How do I do that? You've got to have that person that you've identified that says okay. I'm going to learn this technology and all the nuances and I'm not going to learn it from a book, I'm going to learn it by using it and finding out the problems and the success with it and then they become really your technical expert on that software or technology.

Scott Lowes: When they understand it and they love it then they can make it palatable just through, "how would you teach your grandma how to use this." In some aspects right? You don't care about the gigabytes that this thing has or all that stuff. You just want to know how to turn the thing on, how to work it, how to make it work for you and make your life easier not make it more complicated. Having that change champion or somebody, your technical expert identified with anything, with software or tech or hardware to then make it palatable for those individuals to actually use right?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think that's a good point. I also think going back to what you said previous to that, no company is going to deploy a new technology just because it's cool or fun right? There's obviously a objective that's being worked towards and value that that needs to be achieved but the idea of leading a little bit with fun and trying to think about how to make it fun, to at least get people engaged enough to hear what that value to them might look like right? And to warm them up to talking about, here's how this fits, here's how this ultimately can help you be more effective at your job so that they warm up to even entertaining that discussion right? In the early phases, I think the idea of considering okay. How can we take some of the pressure off? How can we make this process fun? How can we get people engaged? And then get into to the heavier outcomes of the project makes sense as well.

Scott Lowes: I definitely agree. And so with that, we just wrapped up our pilot for this VR software and we were using it for training. Right? Or that was the intent. But how I pitched it, I said. Okay. The people I want to actually have use this technology, they're not the people that are going to look at the, does it meet our requirements for the training and all the nuance. I'm like, I want the people that are going to try it on this VR headset and they're going to get so excited and so jazzed on this that now all of a sudden they don't care if it meets the requirements, that's for later on in the project but they're like wow. This is exciting. I tried it. Scott showed it to me, I'm blown away. I want to see that thing go.

Scott Lowes: And then now all of a sudden, you have people that have bought in throughout the organization that can help push it through those roadblocks and those speed bumps that you're going to get when you say, well, it doesn't have XYZ or it doesn't meet our requirements here or there. That early stage of having it fun and exciting and just something new and cool to try, you've got to get to that first before it can go through the nitty because sometimes that nitty gritty takes a week, sometimes it might take three years to get through whatever it is in your deployment. To have somebody or a group of people that are passionate to push you through that phase to get you to the deployment, yeah. I think that's key for sure.

Sarah Nicastro: It just made me think of a point when you were saying that, taking a step back and thinking about where you want to put the pressure of the project right? Ultimately like I said, whenever a new technology as it's being introduced it's being introduced to drive a certain outcome right? And there's a business case, and there's a desired state that you're changing from and to but at the end of the day that frontline worker who you need to ultimately accept and adopt that technology, the overarching outcome of that entire project is not their responsibility, their responsibility is to leverage the new tool and to do that, it needs to be useful to them, it needs to have a good user interface et cetera. But maybe it's not a good idea to put even implied pressure of the entire project on their shoulders. Do you know what I mean?

Sarah Nicastro: I'm just thinking about a conversation I had recently with a leader within an organization that has taken a really big hit in business since COVID. And he was talking about the fact that their frontline workforce is so disheartened because the company is struggling but his point was the company's struggles aren't that worker's responsibility, they're still doing a really good job, they're hitting all of their milestones and their performance is above average and above expectation and so how do we as an organization separate the overall situation and outcome from individual performance right? I'm just thinking, when you think about managing change related to technology adoption within an organization, looking at the project outcome versus the individual contribution and making sure that you're either rewarding or coaching individuals based on their individual adoption and use and engagement versus maybe some of the complexity of the overall project. Just a thought.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. No. It does. And I think that where it gets tricky is, sometimes we come up with this project or we have this idea and we just want to see it implemented but we forget about the people that have to use it. And so when the software that we rolled out at Fortis was used, I was still in the tech role and I was the guy that had to use it. And I wanted to see it rolled out in a way that... It wasn't like, you've got to use this no ifs, ands or buts. It was like, here's the tool in your toolbox that is valuable and I'm going to show you how cool it is and how valuable it is. And the people that were willing to use it, they got to see the benefit from it.

Scott Lowes: And it's that snowball effect, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Lowes: Because you got to think if you've been doing your job for 20, 30 and 35 years and some young kid comes in and says hey. We want you to use this software, you're going to get clocked right? It's that figuring out, okay. We got to get the snowball moving down the hill and once it's going, it's picking up steam but we also got to be careful that anybody that is at the bottom of the mountain, that we're not going to just mow them over either right? We got to get them on board rather than just say, this technology is coming whether you like it or not, get on board or get out right? You can't say, get off the bus, because if everybody hops off the bus because they don't want to use the software guess what? You got no workforce right?

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Scott Lowes: It's that really tricky balance of saying okay. How do we get people to come on the bus? And maybe you don't get on the first bus, maybe you're on the second or the third. And when I think about how technology would be best deployed to a workforce like Fortis is for instance, is it's not all at once because you've got to get these people onboard that are then going to get the others on board right? And it's like with the iPhone, you get a bunch of people that started with the iPhone 3G or, and then it's like, wow. Look at this cool thing. And they show their so somebody is like, okay. Well, you can play a fun game. But now everybody's got a smartphone in their pocket because the momentum is there.

Scott Lowes: The same thing is when we're starting especially in Field Service where historically we've never used technology to the level that we can use it now. To just say hey. You got to use this or you're done, it's not fair because everybody also has that for whatever reason a differing length of time they're going to take to get used to utilizing a new software or be willing to. There's multiple buses, don't just think it's one bus and everybody's got to get on because if you think about it that way, you'll be on the bus and you'll be thinking everything's all great and then you'll look behind you and you'll realize that nobody else is on the bus with you right?

Sarah Nicastro: And I always say the goal needs to be commitment not compliance right? You're not going to get the outcome you want if you're just driving compliance, it needs to be actually them seeing the value and being more bought into its purpose and its use.

Scott Lowes: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Scott, talk to me a little bit about how FortisBC has leveraged remote service to navigate the pandemic.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. This is where I guess all this came about. Early days pandemic, just so everybody understands, our job as technicians at Fortis basically, we've got to change out our gas meters at customers' houses, which then means we'd have to shut off the gas then we have to enter the customer's house and return on all the equipment that would have been shut down. But pandemic hits, nobody wants anyone in their house for obvious reasons. Now, we're still trying to maintain this work because it's regulatory requirement and all this sort of thing. We had guys that were... They would get the customer to open windows, they're hollering through doors, trying to walk customers through how to relight a hot water tank. Even heard stories where guys were just okay. Do you have FaceTime?

Scott Lowes: Yeah. I got FaceTime. And so they just FaceTime and they do exactly what this software that we've started using, they started using that. What it was, essentially the software we're using, it allows us to have a video and audio feed much like FaceTime but we can pause the video, we can draw little circles on it or point to stuff and turn on and off the customer's flashlight. All this kind of neat stuff. I always called at FaceTime on steroids anytime I was training on the software. And so we rolled this out early days pandemic and said okay. Let's get this thing going and we're still rolling it out as we're getting more and more guys using the software. Again, it's that like, that you can't just have everybody on the bus in the first kick of the cat.

Scott Lowes: And yeah. We rolled this out and we're still going through that as we progress and we're still dealing with pandemic fears, obviously ongoing. I don't foresee this tool as I've always called it, this tool in our toolbox ever going away, I think through further iterations, there may be a different particular softwares that we use or we leverage but I think the premise is just... The thing that was probably the most exciting about it was the fact that I go up to a customer's house and say hey. I've got this cool software that allows me to just send you a text message, you click the link and then we get an audio video feed and I could walk you through relighting their fireplace or their hot water tank and they said, "really?" And I said, yeah. It's easy. And when you pitch it that way and the customers do it and then at the end of the call I'm like, how was that?

Scott Lowes: And they're like, "that was actually really easy. I really enjoyed that. That was pleasant." Obviously there were the ones where the customers were more frustrated because the technology wasn't working but again, that's just getting through those roadblocks and those speed bumps but the coolest thing for me was the fact that our technicians could use it and our customers were able to use it. And it just not just that customer service level just up another, right? Because now those customers that say, "I don't want anybody in my house but I'm willing to have you walk me through it." That for me, it was a big aha moment in that regard, that wow. Our customers can do it and our techs can do it. Is it going to work every time? No. And that's okay. But it works. And yeah. It was a pretty exciting as the software has been rolling out and we're going through it.

Sarah Nicastro: So it was put in place initially because people didn't want folks in their home due to COVID, as that continues to normalize and becomes less of a concern over time, how do you expect it will be leveraged?

Scott Lowes: Yeah. That's where I get into dreamer mode a little bit but I think it's definitely still a tool in the technician's toolbox but I think as the technology gets more refined, as stuff like that happens and whether it's for us changing our gas meters or any of anyone else in field service, I definitely think it's this really... We're right at this tipping point of saying, wow. All of a sudden, we don't have to send a technician every time because when a customer calls in and I know this isn't gas related world, customer calls in and says, my hot water tanks not working, well now, before I even roll out to that job site, I can flash up this video assist software and I can say okay. Well, it actually looks like...

Scott Lowes: Do you mind if I just walk you through trying to relight the pilot light, walk the customer through relating in the pilot light and guess what? You spent 15 minutes on a phone with some technical expert to walk the customer through that without having to roll a truck, without having to dispatch a technician onto those sites, when you think about that, it's like okay. How do you scale that up in every tech?

Scott Lowes: And I foresee a future where you've got a technical expert, whether it's some central organization, they've got a technical expert in multiple fields that now all of a sudden a customer call them, they've got a concern about electrical or a gas or whatever it may be, they can now call the technician, that technician can walk them through a very preliminary high level troubleshooting, get a good picture of the trouble shooting that needs to happen.

Scott Lowes: And then now when you dispatch a technician, you're making one visit rather than two or three. There's no parts that need to be grabbed, the technician going in knows that he's going to be working on this model of appliance or whatever it is and it really reduces not only a carbon footprint again, with driving back and forth to customer's houses and here and there and everywhere but also it's just quick, it's easy. The customers get immediate answers to their questions and I think that if we think of just how do we do customer service better, everybody wants to be able to be connected with somebody right now. Look at what COVID has done now. Now you can meet with your-

Sarah Nicastro: Instant gratification.

Scott Lowes: Yeah. It's instant gratification. But at the same time too it's like, if the technology is there, why aren't we using it? It's no different than if you need to go see your doctor now, you can set up a video chat with your doctor and yeah. Sure. He might not be able to diagnose everything but it's like hey. I've got this or that. He can get you through... or he or she can get you through whatever it is. When I think of the future of where this field service and tech in that regard, man, it's massive and I think we're right on that tipping point of where we're going to go in. And COVID as much as it's been really tricky and really hard, I think it's allowed those technologies that we're just waiting in the wings that there was one person using or a couple of people using have now really been elevated to another level where people are like, wow. Okay. This is actually really cool. We can use this.

Sarah Nicastro: You said that you see the future of field service as less field and more tech. Are there any other major I guess, technology trends or aspects of what you think this will all look like in say five years’ time?

Scott Lowes: It's hard to say, right? Technology, it's so bleeding edge but as we tried this pilot for the VR, you've got VR software then you got mixed reality and augmented reality, all these sorts of things, as these just become so easy for the technology that we're using to actually execute. I think really the sky's the limit. It's going to be exciting but the flip side with that is we got to remember that we have a huge working force that may not love technology or may not want to use it.

Scott Lowes: It's being aware of that in any future deployment to say okay. These are the people that if we can sell it and if we can make it fun and if we can engage these people, they become the change champions and they become the ones that now all of a sudden are utilizing it even more than they would have in the past. I think that's probably the biggest key, is just being in control of the change. Because that's the biggest thing where you're going to see the biggest hurdles is, with anything, rolling out change is hard but if you can do it well and efficiently and get the right people on board then yeah. You're jamming.

Sarah Nicastro: Awesome. All right Scott. Well, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your experience and insights with us. I really appreciate it.

Scott Lowes: Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome. You can find more by visiting us at https://futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS technology by visiting https://www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Sometimes it feels like the majority of content I’m creating is around the move to delivering outcomes. But, guess what? That’s because it is THE single biggest trend – in the form of a truly monumental opportunity – that our audience needs to better grasp, understand, and navigate. In a recent report published by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the firm summarizes the importance of this topic quite nicely by saying, “As the focus of creating and capturing value shifts from one-time sales to long-term partnerships, it is driving higher customer retention as well as rapid account expansion. No wonder many CEOs are convinced that deploying outcome-based business models (OBMs, for short) is the best way to win the future.”

As business leaders take note of outcomes as the way to win the future, there’s a deeper recognition than ever before around the criticality of service – as well as the need for digitalization. In fact, BCG states that “Companies deliver outcomes mainly by combining servitization with digitalization.” I’ve never heard it put this simply, but I love this statement and it illustrates why both of these themes are so inextricably linked. While the statement of outcomes = servitization + digitalization makes it look so darn simple, the reality is that the journey to outcomes proves quite complex for those that seek to cash in on its opportunity.

What It Takes

BCG discusses the evidence of how pervasive the move to delivering outcomes is becoming. The firm also examines the three common characteristics they’ve recognized among adopters of an outcomes-based model. It’s well worth your time to read the report in full, but let me summarize here briefly in my own words:

Customer focused. The first characteristic is that these organizations are customer-driven, which is absolutely necessary to have success in this endeavor. If your focus of delivering outcomes is solely the impact it can have on the business in terms of revenue, without the focus on how you can actually help fulfill a customer need, you will fail. The report quotes a Harvard Business School Professor, Theodore Levitt, as writing: “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” You absolutely have to master the understanding of what it is your customers want and need.
Measurable results. The second characteristic the report discusses is the need to provide measurable, quantifiable results. If you think about the nature of outcomes, this makes sense. Customers will want evidence and tracking of the value they’ve been delivered, so as an organization, you have to think through how you will provide that level of insight.
Enabled by digital. The journey to outcomes isn’t possible without digitalization, and BCG discusses the fact that many recent digital transformation efforts have been put in place specifically to enable this move to outcomes. The availability of asset performance information, the real-time exchange of insights, and the ability to leverage data are all foundational elements of delivering on an outcomes-based model.

What Stands in the Way?

When you begin to really ponder the layers of an evolution from transaction-based business to an outcomes-based model, it becomes easy to uncover where the complexity comes in. While the bumps on this journey vary from industry to industry and company to company, there are a few common challenges we’ve uncovered in our Future of Field Service interviews:

Lack of alignment. For an outcomes-based model to be fully embraced and adopted, there must be agreement on the value of moving to outcomes and this agreement has to be shared by the top leadership of the company. Often, we speak with service leaders who are bullish about the opportunity outcomes presents their company but are working with top leadership who is very traditional and doesn’t share that perspective. Because the delivery of outcomes relies on an elimination of siloes and a cohesive, collaborative approach, alignment among leadership is imperative.
Layered legacy and change management. For most organizations, the move to outcomes represents a massive change and legacy mindset, culture, and practices often get in the way. From sales and marketing to operations and service, from R&D and production to IT and financials, everyone has to be on board with this change for it be successful and there are a lot of historical beliefs and processes that have to evolve. Overcoming resistance to change and creating buy-in on the value of migrating away from the company’s legacy is often the hardest challenge companies face on this journey.
Digital lag. As we discussed earlier, digitalization is essential in delivering outcomes. Companies that are laggards in their digital transformation efforts must first contend with modernizing their systems and creating foundational functionality before they can really dig into the introduction of an outcomes-based model. Whether the challenge is outdated, legacy technology, disparate and disjointed systems, or functionality gaps, a certain degree of digital competency must be achieved to fulfill the outcomes-based value proposition.

Will It be Worth It?

Absolutely, undoubtedly, 100-percent yes. The reality is, in fact, there’s no choice. Outcomes is the future, for service and for business overall. I couldn’t say it better than BCG does in the summary of their report: “A word of caution. As more customers start demanding outcomes, challenging suppliers and software vendors to deploy outcomes-based models, it may be dangerous to ignore them. Companies that can’t deliver outcomes and don’t have a role to play in their customers’ ecosystems may find they are expendable. They will give up market share, miss growth opportunities, and lose long-term buyers.”

By Tom Paquin

We spend a lot of our time here discussing servitizaiton: The act of repositioning traditionally product-oriented businesses with a more service-oriented mindset. It’s obvious why we do this: Servitization is a compelling trends, especially in manufacturing, but also in the ways in which industries like utilities, telecommunications, and others are embracing service.

We’ve centralized this conversation so much on the move towards product diversification that it’s easy to overlook the companies that have been there all along. Is there and equal, but opposite move in those organizations to “de-servitize”, thus creating internal product categories with which to service? From my experience, the answer is generally no—there’s a lot more of an incentive to become a service than to become a product provider.

But the move towards servitization does have an impact on pure service providers, of course. Suddenly, relationships with product categories, vendors, are fraught, as once allies in the battle for business could potentially become competitors.

These changes mean that pure service businesses need to make sure that their core offering—service—is of the highest possible quality. So from order scheduling, to routing, to parts, to follow-up, to customer retention, and everything in between, service companies need to go beyond optimization to make exceptional service a true value-add for their customers.

We’ve certainly been able to feature a lot of stories for how companies have done this well, but there are a few constants. Chief among them is making sure that their technical infrastructure is catered to the contours of their business specifically. This means choosing software that’s built with a service-first mindset, understands, broadly, your industry, and has tools that don’t just work for you in the abstract.

Below are links to some of my favorite pure service stories. While these three all service products in specific industries they each provide exceptional templates for making sure that the core of a service business is offered at a world-class level.

Smart Care

“We needed technology that would help us build a better customer experience. From an end user perspective, I call it the Amazon mentality or consumerization that’s happened so this whole expectation of service delivery and timing a service delivery and great communication and constant communication flow, but also things like information on the equipment you’re working on and work order management systems. Impacting the customer experience was first and foremost for us.”

Spencer Technologies

“In today’s always-on world, customers demand insight. We realized about 18 months ago that we weren’t giving them enough information – they wanted more from us, and we needed to better use our technology to deliver. Customers want to know, at a glance, how we’re performing against our SLA, how long the technicians have been on-site, the reason for any delays or re-visits. They want to check in continuously to get that status update and know everything is happening as planned.”

Park Place Technologies

“In light of this pandemic, digital capability is more important now than ever. It’s been instrumental in our ability to make sure that our customers can safely work remotely, but at the same time know that their data centers, for example, are running healthy and they can support their end users, and their customers, and their essential services.”

Brady Services

“Sometimes when you’ve been successful in doing things a certain way for a long time, it’s hard to understand why you’d need to do something a different way. We’ve really focused in the last several years on our culture and have been very intentional about how we wanted to preserve the good and evolve as we’ve needed to. It’s really come down to getting good leaders in place and having a culture that is very performance-based, very data-driven and very process-focused, and helping everybody understand that that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing and it’s going to help us continue to grow and continue to distinguish ourselves from our competitors in the marketplace. Sounds easy, but it’s a lot of work to take an organization in that direction.”

Howard Bowland, VP Field Services Australia at Schneider Electric and Scott Weller, Partner at Mossrake Continue the discussion with Sarah about the company’s journey to as-a-service in talking about operationally what was required to bring this vision to life, how important agility is, lessons learned, and what they feel the future holds.   Click on the link for more information on Schneider Electric’s innovative aaS offer EcoStruxure Outcomes: Secure Power as a Service - <a href="http://www.se.com/au/outcomes">www.se.com/au/outcomes</a>   This is part two of a two-part podcast. If you missed part one, be sure to listen to it <a href="https://futureoffieldservice.com/2021/06/02/schneider-electrics-journey-to-as-a-service-part-1/">here</a>.   Sarah Nicastro: Can you tell us a little bit, Howard, about ... You just said the go to market is the biggest hurdle, right, so we've talked about that, but, even once you have that right, you're not home free, right? Let's talk a little bit about operationally what you needed to address to be able to bring the model to life.   Howard Bowland: Oh, okay. It's actually ... I say go to market is the most challenging item, and I know if I talked to my people building the operational side, they'd maybe have a difference point-of-view. The way I think about it a little bit is it's a little more well defined, the operational challenge. We've got a gap in our operational capability that we've got to fill. When you're talking about having to go to market, it's a little softer about exactly what's required and the skills, and how do you develop the people? How do you reach the right customer? It's a little less well defined. That's why I see the go to market as the bigger challenge. And you're talking about compensation or salespeople, and that's always complicated as well. Are you motivating the right behavior? It's one thing, as you pointed out, if everything was sold as a service, then that would be simple, but because we've got different offerings as well different business models.   Howard Bowland: On the operational side, what we're able to leverage is a lot of core building blocks of Schneider Electric service. The ability for field service, the organization itself, the digital connections into that infrastructure and the data lake that monitors that. We have connected service hubs around the globe that are able to roll a truck on the basis of some outage, for example. Putting together that ability to monitor the infrastructure and make sure it's running. We had to shift, also, the metering, the measuring, of what is the consumption that we're going to bill the customer for, so that required a bit of development and a bit discovery about who does what in Schneider. Some good building blocks, but then, as we try to connect, well, we need something different to fill in this piece, and it was quite a challenge navigating who is the person that can give approval to our person to get that piece of data?   Howard Bowland: There's quite a lot of navigating, finding the owners of different pieces of capability. I'm not saying connecting the capability was easy afterwards, but it was as significant piece to find, who owns what. We've got good service capability. We can make a call, go visit a customer, fix something, replace something, install something. All those basic capabilities are in place. It's about putting them in the right stack and connecting them now to a control tower that understands where everything is operating. A big shift for one of our first customers was getting thousands of alarms on new infrastructure that was running hot in places they didn't know, and so having us come and just simply take control of that and eliminate the alarms and identify the devices that are in danger of not working properly because they're environments were wrong was a really big, important improvement.   Howard Bowland: That capability to do that actually more or less exists. We've added that customer success management and a layer of advisory and evaluating pieces that. We've got some software or analytics developed with Mossrake to enable us to do metering, billing. Converting those readings into actual variable invoices for customers is itself a challenge, which we get done. So if I talk to my operations manager for this piece, she will say, "There's a lot of ... It won't really scale. We need a system-based solution," so we're ... Again, it's this agile method. We're making this thing work. The customer sees a good outcome. Inside, we've got people running around on treadmills, but we'll replace that with systems and automation and so on at the right times.   Howard Bowland: It's just keeping ahead of that curve. That makes it an affordable way to develop it. If we tried to develop all the capability and have it readied and put in place so that we could cut the ribbon it, it would be a much more challenging assignment to get the investment for it. That's a bit of a summary.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, and I almost wonder if, going back to some of the common challenges I hear of others struggling with, I wonder if there is more of the: Let's build it, then we'll develop the go to market, right? It's a delicate balance in the sense of you can't go out there selling outcomes you can't deliver on, right, so you have to be sure of that, but I think it's also nice in terms of how it can snowball your success, right? If we get the go to market right, find the right people, have the right conversations, and give them a good experience however that needs to happen, right, then we're getting success, and we build on that success, and then we build out the backend of everything. Yeah, that makes sense.   Howard Bowland: That's, again, why you have to have this ... It's really useful to have this passionate group of explorers, adventurers who are willing to do the painful thing on the inside to make this a success. Then we can develop the ... We can take that pain away internally over a bit longer period of time. But also talked earlier about the idea that we need to start with that MVP, the minimum product that can be useful, because building something that's ... If it took too long to build something that was more material, it may be we wouldn't get there. But, ultimately, the opportunity of ... Shifting this business model to other parts of the technology set is quite a logical extension, yeah.   Sarah Nicastro: Howard, you've talked about agile a lot and how important it was here to have the success you've had. How is it possible, though? What would you say are the keys to doing this in an agile manner?   Howard Bowland: Okay, I think you have to have a core group of competents, I guess. For us, that was mainly Mossrake and maybe a little bit internally. You could do it internally, but you'd probably have to stand up a few people that knew what they were doing. Then, getting people to enlist on the vision, the journey, and be ... You could simply assign agile people in an agile way to the team and say, "Your job is X or Y," but we really were defining a lot as we went, and so that wasn't itself even perhaps quite possible. Having people that are really excited about what we're trying to achieve and are willing to give that discretionary effort ... I had people, yes, I'd assigned, carving out some of their time, and other people who were willing to do it on top of their main job and nobody's giving them a relief from their main job.   Howard Bowland: They wanted to do that. Their desire to want to contribute and be part of it was really, really important. I think good clarity around not defining too much to do, some knowledge that gives us confidence that we know, generally, the direction, but we're going to go a piece at a time, and having people who are highly enthusiastic and agile and are invigorated by the vision I think are key ingredients to that. Then celebrating a bit of success, we obviously were making progress as we went through. That always helps the next sprint, if you've achieved something.   Howard Bowland: One other point I wanted to make: wouldn't underestimate how important it is, and I've talked about this, the importance of not taking no as the answer. So many times, Scott will attest to this, went out and said, "Can we access to that data? Can we do this?" "No." You've got to find the person that can say yes and get support. You could easily have stopped at various points because it looked like it wasn't going to be possible to do what we wanted to do. It was some incident contacts that I'd personally made when I traveled that turned out to be people that were critical, and it was just a little bit of luck that I'd bumped into them, and a bit of tenacity, as Scott points out, to make sure you can continue to look for the way.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I'll tell you a funny story. My husband, one time, we were in the car, I don't know what made me ask this question. It's one of those questions a wife should never ask her husband, but I said, "Hey, babe, if you had to describe me in one word, what would it be?" Right? There's no right answer. You know that it's just ... It was a complete trap, but he said, "Tenacious."   Howard Bowland: I agree. Scott first coined this for me, I think, but tenacity, for me, is the balance between ... It's not stubbornness, which says, "I'm not going to shift from my position no matter what you say." It's actually about, "I've got a strong point-of-view about why this is my position, and I can be convinced when the facts bring that to bear," but getting through what can be a pretty challenging time, it's an important attribute, for sure, Sarah.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I always say I don't mind if the answer isn't what I want it to be as long as I feel like I've fully stated my case or have been heard, right? That's ... Okay, so on the agile topic, Scott, what would you add in terms of for folks looking to do this in an agile way? Any other keys to that that you would add to what Howard mentioned?   Scott Weller: I think the software industry has now embraced agile for so many years that it's not seen as a random walk. Even in this case, applied to a different kind of problem, agile doesn't mean just winging it. You have to have a sense of where you're trying to get to. You have to have a fundamental vision and a belief, as Howard mentioned, and then that guides you. Even though, on any given day, you might be working on pricing, or you might be working on a revised channel program, which itself takes several steps to mature through, but you know where you're going. It's just a matter of accepting that you won't have a completely finished product on day one. You've already stated that. You've got a minimum product. That's going to be good enough to have a conversation with the customer about ... And even sell to them, in a pilot sense.   Scott Weller: And customers, just like you said you might want to come along as an adventurer next time Howard does this, there are customers who want to be part of that too. They're quite excited about being pilot customer number one or at least in a pilot program because they themselves are that kind of person, that kind of mindset. It is a bit of luck, finding the right people on your team, finding the right consulting partner, or finding the right first or second customer, but, really, those are the things that you can never count on. They do happen, but, really, having the strength of a great vision is so key to this, and then being willing to learn along the way. That, I would say, is the second secret to success.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's you know your objective. You just don't know every step you're going to take to get there, right?   Scott Weller: Right.   Sarah Nicastro: So I think, as a mindset, just in life, that concept prohibits so many people from moving in a direction, right? They want to see the whole map of not just where they're getting there, and then, if you don't have that, you just stay stuck, right? I think it makes sense to go about it that way, especially because, on these journeys, there's so much to learn, so the more up-front work you put into doing the way you think you need to do it, and then you start doing it and realize you weren't quite right, then you're out all of that time and effort, rather than, to some degree, learning as you go along.   Sarah Nicastro: That being said, I ... Sorry, Howard, we're you going to say something?   Howard Bowland: A little anecdote around enlisting people. I remember, as we're going through this process, here at Schneider, we have a very good intern and graduate program, so I was able to pick a few people. People, in fact, working in my organization wanted to be part of it. I was at a town hall. We have these town halls every quarter. Pre-COVID, of course, we're doing those face to face and had an audience of people. I was thanking people as we were making some progress on this journey, and I named a few people and thanked them. Even Ben, who's on the call here, was one of those.   Howard Bowland: Then, in the second row, there was this couple of interns there that I could see their faces drop because I hadn't mentioned their names, and they'd worked on the project a little bit. So this triggered in me, "Oh, yes, of course, there's also X and Y," and their faces lit up. It just triggered for me how excited they were about working on something innovative. They were interns and graduates that had just joined this company, and that kind of journey was really a big motivator for them.   Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yeah. It's a good point, too, on acknowledging the progress and the hard work, right, especially, to your point, in the early phase of this when everyone's going above and beyond to chip into this new mission. You want to let know you appreciate that sacrifice and that extra time and all of those things.   Sarah Nicastro: Okay, we said this a little bit earlier, but this was done in a way within your region that it was almost like a pilot for Schneider Electric, right? It can be adopted by other regions, globally, et cetera. I think, though, I want to talk about that concept in the sense of why that approach may work better for other organizations than trying to do a global, wholesale shift.   Sarah Nicastro: Then I think it makes me think of the agile conversation in the sense of the criticality of documentation, right? I would think one of the things that makes the agile approach work is keeping such good track of: Here's what we did. Here's what we learned. We're going to incorporate this. Now here's what we did. Here's what we learned. Right, it's you're doing that for the purpose of being successful in your region, but you're also doing it with the intent of documenting this so that it's replicable across the business. Talk to me a little bit about the idea of doing this with it in mind that it can be done across Schneider, not just in a specific region.   Howard Bowland: I'll go first. Yeah, quite right. What was interesting ... First of all, I was able to secure some funding globally. As part of that, of course, I felt that it was important that this be repeatable and we document our journey, as well, as you say, to make ourselves successful. That with important to do. As we went on this journey as well, we, I'd say, strengthened our existing process documentation for just our regular bricks of service capability. We were able to leverage on some of that, but actually just discover that, in fact, that wasn't as probably robust as it should be as well, so able to add to that.   Howard Bowland: As part of this journey, there was a systematic approach to building out the blueprint for how to do this and document that, and that was a key part of what Mossrake brought to us, what our team worked on, and we've created that repository of documentation and learnings and insights, as well as what's in paper, it's actually in writing as well, which has been really useful to keep us on track and will be useful as other regions of Schneider, for example, might want to replicate what we're doing here.   Scott Weller: Yeah, as you say, one of the key deliverables from our work together, Howard, is this operational blueprint, which covers every aspect of the value chain, and then, on top of that, the operational description for actually how the run what's effectively an engagement with the customer. As a service ends up looking like a consulting engagement that just doesn't necessarily have an endpoint. All of that is what, in our conversations with other countries and regions within Schneider, that's the foundational element is that operational blueprint. By the way, when we talk with them, we never characterize this as, "Okay, it's a slam dunk. Now that Howard's done this in Pacific zone, you can do this anywhere. It's just a couple of weeks, and you can go start selling."   Sarah Nicastro: Sure.   Scott Weller: It's quite involved, and every company is different. Schneider tends to be a lot more, I would say, operationally independent. Of course, they share systems and so on, but the regions and the countries tend to have a lot more autonomy than we see in other multinationals, so that just means that there's a bit more work to land something like this because the nuances, the difference in processes, the different tools and so on that have to be integrated to make this work is a little bit of a restart. Certainly not a true restart, but there are the nuances that have to be accommodated.   Sarah Nicastro: Scott, is this approach of starting in a region and almost using that as a pilot for a multinational, is that a common approach? Is it a suggested approach? You, as the person that does this with other businesses, what is your take on that as others are listening?   Scott Weller: Well, it's certainly the way we did it back at HP, and we do it. We've done it with Howard, and we're working on a couple of other clients as well. There is ... I would say the beauty of this is being able to do this in a microcosm, where if, God forbid, it were to fail for some reason, the risk to company is small. The reputational risk, primarily, but even operationally, even financially, the risk is very small. It lets you learn, because inevitably you're going to learn. No two companies are the same. No two as-a-service offers are going to be the same, so you have to allow for that.   Scott Weller: Being able to de-risk it and particularly a lot of companies, when they think about moving to this model, they start thinking about, well, stakeholder perception. If you think about yourself as a dividends-value company, moving to a model like this may really upset stakeholder perception, so it gives you time to succeed, learn, and really be planful about how you want to pivot the company around something like this in a way that you can talk to your stakeholders about, you can talk to your employees about. It's really, we think, is really the right approach.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. Howard, what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned in leading this transformation at Schneider?   Howard Bowland: Yeah, I think it's something we talked a bit about earlier. I think it's the change, the management of change. Don't underestimate how persistent you need to be, the importance of clarity in the vision on bringing people on that journey. Yes, there's particular challenges around the go-to-market or the sales process or quoting or operationally, but that management of change across the stakeholder group, across the people that you need to do something is really critical. Understanding ... It's not, as we know, it's not one-shot thing about explaining it one time or ... It's about making, particularly, when we're going through developing MVP, making smaller achievements over time, it's continuing to bring people on that journey of change and have a coherent program of work around that. That, for me, is the most critical thing to get right. It leads to identifying what I've said earlier about getting the right customers with the right sales conversation.   Howard Bowland: If I think about transferring this to, just to comment on that, another geography of Schneider, to me, actually, the operational capability is the most easily translatable. All the bricks that we've got here largely are elsewhere. In fact, I think you could almost run it out of a more central operation. We, for example, run here out of Sydney, and we have customer sites in New Zealand and all over Australia, or they could be in another country. Well, they are in another country, New Zealand, right? But the customer interface, the customer success management, the things that Scott talked about, about the advisory, the engagement with the customer, obviously the pre-sales and sales engagements are the really critical pieces that you've got to have localized.   Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yeah, that makes sense, and I think part of that change management puzzle is the volunteers you had, right? As you have people from the business who are opting in and doing it because they think it's a great idea, a cool journey, a new challenge, whatever their personal reason is, then others see that, right, and then they see them excited about where you're going, and that builds. I think that those two things help each other out, right? You build some traction through the folks that are involved and engaged.   Howard Bowland: That's not to say that there aren't a few stakeholder groups or individuals which we haven't quite converted. What happens, of course, is you get the passive resistance or the undermining that you can't see. We talked about it earlier. If somebody is much more comfortable with positioning their traditional offer, they'll find every way they can to do that, even if the best thing for the customer and for us is actually a different engagement. Then the payoff for the company ... The payoff for the customer is clear, I think, although that's often more difficult to translate to them. The payoff, obviously, is that we know ... Instead of selling the customer some assets and getting 10 or 20% of that value in related services, you're talking about five- to 10-year engagement where the customer is probably going to pay 1.5 to 2X for that because they're getting the value out if it. Scott alluded to this a little bit, so at the beginning, it's a challenge, but the flywheel takes over as you scale, and it creates a lot of good things.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, it goes back to the point that's been made a few times about just being persistent and tenacious, right? Some of this is just people need to see it in action, and it takes time to convert the people most resistant to the task underway. You just have to keep at it and not be easily deterred from the mission. Okay, last question that I want to ask both of you, is ... Scott, I'm going to start with you. What do you think the future of outcome-based service holds?   Scott Weller: Well, in many ways, we're at the beginning. When you can only point to a few of the bigger companies doing this, as I mentioned at the beginning, that are well known, when so many products that are part of our everyday lives on the business side, as well as the consumer side, are still transactionally bought, transactionally dispose of, we're not really focused on the value that they create in our lives. We're focused on, okay, how do I get this thing? How do I take care of it? Even our phones require us to pay attention to updates and so on, but I think the world is going to move to this model, and you see it in the strangest places sometimes. But I think every technology-product company is going to eventually move to a model like this. It's just a matter of time.   Sarah Nicastro: What's a strange example?   Scott Weller: Well, I'm still surprised that people are willing to let their car leave their driveway and let somebody borrow it for a few hours for a fee. To my mind, that's very strange, but that was the last one I saw. Apparently, that company is doing very well.   Sarah Nicastro: Interesting. Okay, yeah, it is very interesting to see how it pops up and where it pops up. I agree that it is really the early stages. I think the fact that this is a topic of conversation among so many organizations in service right now is indicative of where we're headed, but, to your point, there are a lot of people on the journey. There are not a lot of people that have really crossed a finish line yet, right? I think there's a lot of learnings and a lot of growth to come.   Scott Weller: Yeah, that's right. I think that one of the biggest inhibitors is a question of identity. If you've grown up in a company that's product ... We call it product first or product leaning, your whole identity is about we make cool stuff. That is, I think, probably the biggest challenge, the biggest, let's say, inhibitor to moving to a model like this, where you've got, really super-smart engineers now feeling like they're part of the supply chain. They're not the forefront of the model anymore.   Sarah Nicastro: Right.   Scott Weller: But I think, somehow, we have to come to grips with that because the human element of all this, both on, as I said, on the supplier and the customer side, have to be addressed. We can't pretend it's not there. In any case, yeah, as you say, it's the future.   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, it's interesting because it shifts from, "We make cool stuff," to, "We help people," right?   Scott Weller: Right.   Sarah Nicastro: Then, when you think about what that means in terms of all of these layers of change we've talked about today, but particularly in terms of skillset and those interpersonal skills and being able to interface with customers, being able to move upline in customer engagements, being able to nurture longstanding relationships. All of those things, it is interesting to see how you start to skew to those things becoming increasingly important, and then there was probably a whole other conversation of: How readily available are those skills compared to some of the traditional skills that we would be talking about having as a priority within either product manufacturers or even service organizations, right?   Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, it's a very interesting conversation. Okay, Howard, what do you think the future of outcome-based service holds?   Howard Bowland: As the demand grows, the focus on developing the technology will be focused around making it as-a-service capable already and less about color and shape and lights and customer user features. Making cool things that have got great features would be replaced by, well, it doesn't matter if it's a black brick in the corner if it's got all the attributes we need to make it scalable, for example, and accessible and so on. The product design and development that has good outcomes as its first thought would change the way they evolve. It would change the way you manufacture, potentially, and the costs of those things, the consumption of products, which is the second one, which I think is the sustainability push. While you're making products that perhaps are designed for as a service, they consume less on their input side because a lot of the smarts is maybe remote and so on, and you might have built them now to have a variable capacity that you didn't do before.   Howard Bowland: You also move to, "Actually, you don't have to worry about the life cycle, Mr. Customer." You're no longer over-provisioning it. You're going to get what you need just when you need it, and we're going to take care of it when the time is right, so cradle to cradle. We're certainly seeing, here in this zone, the very strong shift towards ... It's not just revenue growth, cost reduction, risk reduction, it's sustainability as well. I think it's going to help deliver on that sustainability promise for customer. That would be the two things.   Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely, good. Well, thank you, Howard and Scott, for being here with me and sharing the story. It's very interesting story, would love to have you back maybe in six months or so and hear what else you've learned because you guys are on that agile path, and you've learned a lot so far and are having great success, but I know you'll continue looking for those learnings and incorporating them into what you're doing. Thank you for being here and sharing, really appreciate it.   Scott Weller: Thank you.   Howard Bowland: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity.   Sarah Nicastro: You can learn more by visiting us at FutureofFieldService.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more by visiting IFS.com. As always, thank you for listening. </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="col-12 col-lg-3"> <div class="form-wrapper"> <h2 class="form-tittle">Stay Connected</h2> <iframe src="https://info.ifs.com/GM-CP-CU-2012-12-FoFS-Newsletter_IFrame.html">

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