joanna.darby@ifsworld.com, Author at Future of Field Service

By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series on the state and standards of service management software in 2020. Here are the previous articles in the series:

Last we spoke, we were discussing what happens when a brand new piece of service software gets slotted into an organization’s workflow, either replacing a few small pieces of software, or nothing at all. While that particular scenario is a rare one for large organizations to find themselves in, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. This time, we’re going to approach the much more common scenario of switching from one service management software provider to another.

So why make the switch? One might assume—wrongly—that you make a trade when you’ve been scorned in some meaningful way by your software partner. If things are honkey-dory then why change your systems and processes? Of course, you make a trade in software for the same reason you make a trade in baseball: Because you need a mixture of elements that support your business. Let’s unpack some of what might cause that to happen.

You grew out of your software
There are an inordinate number of dollar-store service management software providers out there. More today than last year at this time, as more companies realize the incredible growth potential of service. This has led to a cottage industry of limited-function home and commercial service platforms. Any one of these may be perfectly fine as digital schedulers, or very basic invoicing tools. Why would I ever need anything more?

I also don’t want to imply that outgrowing software doesn’t happen with top-tier service management software, either. At that level, what most businesses find is that they start to conform their service delivery around the limitations of their software, rather than how they want to deliver service. For instance, if your scheduling tool is dumping out useless schedules that need to manually cleaned, you are likely at a point where you’ve outstripped your service platform.

Forced upgrades to inferior products

Allow me to editorialize for a moment. The current service landscape is littered with mergers and acquisitions. There are ways to do this effectively, then there’s the common scenario where a non-service brand acquires a service platform, stripmines it, and forces its users to upgrade to a half-cooked frankenplatform that they’ve created with some of the old company’s capabilities shoved into a home-grown utility.

Service companies are then faced with a choice: Embrace a new frankenplatform, or test their fortunes elsewhere. Either way, we’re dealing with a brand new implementation, which takes away some of the incumbency bias that companies naturally feel when evaluating new software. Unsurprisingly, when companies are presented with this option, a great many of them discover that a more viable solution exists elsewhere.

Implementation problems

This is a little bit more of an abstraction, but as I have often said, your field service management platform needs to be the Grand Central Station through which your company’s aftermarket activities are executed, logged, followed up upon, and preempted. So when a new piece, usually an emerging technology, does not play reasonably well with your service platform, then it’s time to start looking elsewhere.

Does this mean that you immediately start shopping around the moment a single bauble doesn’t work with your FSM solution? Probably not, but if, let’s say your IoT system, doesn’t integrate with your solution, then that is certainly a failing of one or both system (moreover it’s a failing of your team for not identifying that at the RFP phase). As noted earlier, your software and technology needs to work for you, conforming to the way you deliver service. If that software has failed you, it’s time to look elsewhere.

Obviously there are other reasons why people choose to switch service providers, but these are a few that we see all the time. If you happen to have an interesting story about what compelling your service software change, please reach out! We would love to hear from you.

Once the decision to employ new software has been made, there are naturally a multitude of stakes, elements, and decisions that need to be made. Many of these, in one fashion or another, can be seen in previous entries in this series. Before the choice is made, though, we need to start by evaluating the unique set of challenges that businesses find themselves in when switching from one service provider to another.

How do you unplug one system and prepare your business to onboard another? Let’s look at it through three different lenses:

The software

The main consideration here is integration. Do all of your legacy systems that are not being replaced work with the current software? If not, what is the best means to proceed? How easily or directly can historical documentation, parts and employee lists, and contracts, be ported from one system to another? The best way to absolve your firm of the crushing weight of these tasks is to employ an integration partner alongside your software partner. You’ll be working with seasoned professionals who have gone through this process before many times, and can help guide you through the crossover. With the appropriate guidance in place, getting this part right is not guaranteed to be frictionless, but will at least offer a more robust system of validation.

The employees

Employee buy-in is the key to any service strategy. We’ve all been in a position where a dramatic change in the way we do business disrupts life, and sometimes adaptation to the new status quo is not something that comes naturally. This is why it’s important to engage player-coaches early in the process. You’ll need advocates to make sure that technicians are actually pressing the service buttons—especially if their new service software will automate more than it did previously (which it should). By using in-role advocates and making implementation a big deal for the company, you’ll position yourself to hit the ROI that you expect to receive from a new service platform.

The customers

This one is a bit more squishy. Does your customer care about your shiny new service platform? The answer is a resounding and unequivocal no—BUT—your customer will care if your service platform now offers new ways to go to market. If you’re now tracking more elements of your business in your service solution, then you can offer solutions around that trackability. This is the core of outcomes-based service—build your contracts around uptime and output, not break-fix. Offering customer value like that means a lot to the average customer, who prefers guarantees to warrantees. Taking this seriously can extend the ROI of a new service platform out of the obvious, and help you build business and customer loyalty. A true win-win.

CEO of Blumberg Advisory Group, joins Sarah to discuss what touchless service will look like in a post-pandemic world.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to The Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro today. Today, we're going to be talking about one of the hottest topics of the year, touchless service. In other words, remote service, the ability to deliver service remotely. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today. Michael Blumberg, president and CEO of Blumberg Advisory Group. Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Michael Blumberg: Thank you, Sarah. It's really a pleasure to be here today.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you for being with us. So today, Michael and I are going to be talking about some of the considerations for a touchless service strategy. So it's been a year of challenges in terms of the typical field service delivery that we're all accustomed to. And as such, we've seen a real spike in the use of tools like remote assistance and other technologies that enable remote service. And I think it's a really interesting trend. What I'm most curious about is what this is going to look like when things begin to normalize. So I'm excited to hear a bit about what Michael has seen and is seeing. And we're going to talk a little bit about some of the things that you'll need to keep in mind as you set your touchless service strategy for the post-pandemic world.

Sarah Nicastro: So as I said, Michael, here at Future of Field Service, we have interviewed a number of companies this year that have really relied on tools like remote assistance for business continuity throughout the pandemic and to really be able to keep their employees safe, to keep their customers safe and to continue providing service when their typical methods were brought to a halt. So tell us a little bit about what you've seen in your interactions over the year and how you've witnessed that trend from your side.

Michael Blumberg: Sure, Sarah. We're really seeing an uptick in the number of companies that are using remote assistance tools, their frequency in which they're used and in the types of applications that they're used. When these tools first came out, most people thought that they would be used in an emergency service environment, like a repair situation, but we're seeing more and more companies are using them to support installations even in a B2C environment, not just in a B2B environment. We're also seeing them for repairs, depot repairs, for site surveys, for application support.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So increased frequency and increased breadth of use cases. One of the things that I've had a lot of conversations around this year, Michael, with the folks that I've interviewed, particularly that have deployed tools like augmented reality remote assistance is the idea that... It's not like these tools are brand new, right? They were around before February or March, and certain organizations were already using them in different scenarios. However, I think it's fair to say, at least in what we've seen, that the volume of their use has certainly increased and companies that we've spoke to maybe had them on the roadmap, but were able to really quickly move on that to help them navigate COVID. But one of the themes that's come up in a lot of those conversations is how this situation, in particular, has really opened people to change a bit more than they were historically.

Sarah Nicastro: So, both from when you talk about touchless service and you talk about these technologies, both from the employee side. So employees that maybe in the past would have resisted the introduction of those tools a bit that were happy to have them, because it meant they could continue working and they could continue serving their customers. And then also on the customer side, customers that maybe were pretty comfortable with the status quo and would have resisted the introduction of something different a bit, have been very happy to have alternatives for folks to coming on-site in those old scenarios. Is that something that you've discussed with your contacts, something that you've seen as well?

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. It is something I've seen, and you're absolutely right. There were companies that had plans to do this prior to the pandemic. It was what led them to do it, because many cases they had no other choice, really needed to do it. But I think what's unique about the pandemic, what's the unique... Well, there's many unique things, but one of the things I think it did for changing the way we do things and deploying technologies like this is, we were all looking at what's in it for me? But we all had a reason to do it.

Michael Blumberg: The other part was what's unique is we're also looking out for other people. So one of the reasons why there's a resistance to change and implement new technologies is because people don't know why they're doing this. But there's a very clear reason why, because you couldn't go on-site. You didn't want to spread the germs, and there was a lot of uncertainty. So this was clearly a way to deal with it. It forced us. It pushed us forward.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And I think in this area and in others, I think that little bit of force is something that honestly will be a bit of a silver lining for folks. Because I think that it's going to spur a lot of acceleration and innovation as companies ramp up, because we've gotten a little rid of a bit of that resistance.

Michael Blumberg: Exactly.

Sarah Nicastro: So that makes sense. And as I said at the beginning, we've done quite a bit of coverage on the use of these tools for business continuity efforts. And I am very cognizant of the fact that some listeners are still in the midst of business continuity, and others are seeing things really take a turn for the better and focusing a bit on recovery and ramping back up. So I respect the fact that listeners are at different phases on this journey. But I do think what I'd like to center our conversation around today is what will come beyond the use of these tools for business continuity? As we look forward, what will the best strategy for touchless service be post-COVID? So when we are able to return to business as usual, but we have these new tools in place and we have these new methods of doing things, what strategy can we set to provide the right type of service in the right way at the right time for our ourselves?

Michael Blumberg: Sure, Sarah. That's a great question. And I've given some thought to that prior to this interview. I think for every service organization, they need to have a touchless strategy, a touchless service strategy. They can't go about business and say, "I'm not going to deal with this. It's not important." It is important. I think touchless service will become table stakes for all service organizations. Just like you can't think of a field service organization that doesn't have a mobility solution. I think that's what touchless is going to be. And while the pandemic created this buzz word, a touchless service, because the technology was always there, it really has a lot of benefits to a service organization and the customer. In my opinion, I think one of the biggest benefits is it eliminates friction, and friction is caused when there's a lot of touches or a lot of steps or a lot of additional time involved in completing a task or process.

Michael Blumberg: So, we do this with touchless. We don't have to send a technician in a car or truck and drive to a customer site. They can do it remotely, and therefore, complete more calls per day. And the customer gets a service completed faster. So it has a lot of benefits. So this will continue. Companies need to consider it. It's got to be part of their offering. It's got to be part of their service delivery. And the name may change. It may not be touchless service when we're post-pandemic, but the concept will still be there.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So what is your advice for folks on how to set the right strategy for their business when it comes to touchless service? They need to have one, but what should it look like?

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. I think the strategy may differ a little bit by industry or vertical, but some of the things you should consider is what is the complexity of the equipment being supported? What's the level of mission criticality of that equipment and what are the safety issues? So you can almost think of a grid, like a two-by-two grid or four quadrants where you look at the complexity of the equipment and is it mission critical? Is it high voltage? Is it dangerous? And then also what's the skill set of the customer? Because remember when we talk about touchless service, we're talking about supporting the customer. So if you're in an environment where it's not very complex, maybe the customer has some limited skill sets, you can use touchless service. I think it's a good solution to also deal with some of the shortages in labor right now. But in a more complex environments when it's highly complex equipment, maybe high voltage, and there's nobody on site that's qualified or certified to support high voltage equipment, then I think definitely on-site.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Michael Blumberg: And then there's another part of this is I think it should be part of an offering. So you've got, maybe it's a basic service, and maybe basic service will be remote assistance. Again, depending on the product. And in other cases, he might charge you a premium. It's a value-added service for the touchless service, if it's a more complex piece of equipment.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. All right. So when folks are thinking through how they're going to set their strategy, what criteria would you use to determine what to do remote and what to do in-person?

Michael Blumberg: Well, I was trying to answer that previously. So think of maybe... One example is cable TV. A customer has to install a set top box. It's pretty simple to do, may be hard to get a technician out there, or they may have to wait a long time. You could give them an option of the remote assistance. We'll make this feature available to you to help you install your set top box. While we can describe it over the phone, you may not know what we're referring to. We might not be able to see what you're pointing to or what you're looking at. We can use remote assistance to observe, to see what's going on. Where we might be on-site is maybe it's a transformer, an electrical distribution transformer in a power plant.

Michael Blumberg: I don't know that that's something that we can do through remote assistance. If it goes down, you might have to bring a technician out there on-site, particularly if there's nobody on-site in the customer organization that can support that technology.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. Yeah. Those are good points. And I think that they're really good food for thought. I think that what this... I think this is going to be one of the toughest things for folks to sort through once things normalize is, what is the protocol? What is the process for how this fits into service delivery as a whole. So I think the points you brought up are really good ones. What's the complexity? What's the safety scenario? What's the possibility for danger? What's the customer's skillset and ability? I think there's also this element of... And it's maybe a little bit softer, but I also think there's this element of where does an in-person video or in-person visit add value in the sense of just needing to have that human connection.

Sarah Nicastro: So maybe that's something where it's more of a frustration or an escalation or maybe that's an initial install where that person is a part of the brand experience. But I think that one of the things that I believe about the future of remote assistance and touchless service is that I think it will become a really good frontline and first wave of service delivery. I think it'll be really good in terms of triaging issues and figuring out what's going on. Possibly completing simpler repairs remotely and things like that, so that the field technician's role can evolve into being almost more of a customer service type role than just a break-fix type role. So I think that's an important and interesting part of the conversation.

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. I think that makes sense, Sarah. I think if there's a role for the technician to play when he's at the customer site, besides just fixing something. Like being an ambassador or asking additional questions, you might want to do it on-site. And then I also think we'll likely see remote assistance tools as being part of the technician's toolkit. So before they think they might have to go on-site, but let's try to do it remotely. Let's see if we can troubleshoot and triage and diagnose, as you said, before we make the commitment to travel on-site.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's an important tool to put companies in a position of power in terms of what they're capable of and being strategic in making the decision of how and when they opt to provide service in a touchless way or in a on-site way. So when we talk about touchless service, I think my mind just naturally defaults to augmented reality remote assistance, because that's what I've discussed the most this year. But there are certainly other tools that folks need to be aware of. So what other touchless tools should companies be considering as a part of their strategy or toolbox?

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. Great question. So, I think it's any tool that is going to enable self-service or take the touch requirement to be an in-person on-site out of the equation. So yeah, we could think of things like just a basic telephone call, right? That's the remote assistance, although that's not what we're talking about. We could do go to use video conferencing as a tool. You talked about virtual existence and augmented reality, but we can also talk about look at full-blown augmented reality solutions. They make use of CAD drawings and digital twins as part of the solution. Connected to an IOT platform, that would allow a company to deliver touchless service. We can also consider a self-service tools like knowledge basis.

Michael Blumberg: I think I just described the gamut from a simple telephone call to a solution where you've got IOT platform with sensors, and it's running an AR algorithm to determine whether you should dispatch a technician or notify the customer that support is required. And then perhaps using an AR session to deliver the service to the customer without dispatching a technician.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Yeah. There's a lot of options, which is exciting. So the other topic that I think is probably... So to me, the most interesting parts of this discussion are what's the strategy in terms of how do companies operationalize touchless service in a way that works cohesively with the ability to go on-site if and when it's needed? So that's what we just spoke about. The other aspect of this that I know is really top of mind for the industry is looking beyond COVID. So again, there's companies that are right now relying on touchless service a lot or entirely to deliver service in the midst of this situation.

Sarah Nicastro: But after the fact, one of the biggest considerations for folks is, how do we monetize remote service as a part of the service offering? Okay. So I actually just... I knew we were recording this today, and I just had a conversation this morning where this came up and it's a huge, huge, huge consideration. So what are your thoughts or advice for people on how do you make this a part of the service offering in a way that ideally it drives revenue?

Michael Blumberg: Yes, Sarah. That's a great question. And it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart, because I love to help companies monetize service offerings and grow their top-line service revenue, and use tools and technology to achieve that outcome. I think monetizing is going to really depend on the product and the industry. I think there's some times where a manufacturer might find, or even a service provider, like an independent service provider, that it might be in their best interest to not charge for the touchless service. But there's other times where they might find there's definitely a value proposition to do that in the use case. But to get there, to get to the monetization, there's a couple of steps I think the company needs to consider or take into account.

Michael Blumberg: First, I think they really need to gain clarity about the value in the use of the tool. They really need to be able to clearly articulate to the customer what it will do. What's the benefit it will do? Why should they use it? What advice will they get? Not advice, what value will they get out of it? Will it save time? Will it improve productivity? Will it increase uptime? So they've got to be able to talk about it in those terms, because without those terms, there's no value. If there's no value, nobody's going to pay for it. You can't monetize it.

Michael Blumberg: The second thing is, I think it's really important that they conduct market research to validate there's a value in use, and customers are willing to pay for the solution. But we don't want to force things on customers. It'll fall flat on our face. Anyone who does will fall flat on their face, and likely what's going to happen is they're going to say, "Yeah, we tried it. There's no value. We can't charge for it." No. They just didn't do their proper due diligence. So conduct the market research to validate the value in use that there's a level of interest in it, and they're willing to pay.

Michael Blumberg: Third step is construct offerings, different offerings at different price points. And determine what kind of customers are going to buy, based on those offerings and price points. So there's some research upfront, and then some research after you develop the offerings. I would suggest anyone who's considering doing the research, they should do focus groups as well as surveys. So maybe focus groups to get the customers involved. Get their feedback qualitatively, what do they think about it? How much are they willing to pay? Get some ideas, and then validate that through large scale research efforts, like a telephone survey or email survey. But then when you have all that knowledge about what it is you're going to offer, and the customers want it and they're willing to pay for it, you got an idea of the price point. And then, of course, you want to conduct your market sizing and forecast on the market that there's a market. How big is it? How fast is it growing? How much of that you can penetrate?

Michael Blumberg: And then the last step, of course, is your go-to-market plan. How do you take it to market? Are you going to pilot-test it first? Do you have some beta customers or are you going to roll it out full-scale all at once? Probably the best thing is a pilot, but each company has to make their own decision until they do it.

Sarah Nicastro: Sure. Sure. Yeah. I like the point you made about... The way I took it was speaking their language, right? So this is a mistake that I see companies make time and time again, is using internal terms to describe an external value proposition. Right?

Michael Blumberg: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: So, "Hey, we're now we're doing touchless service." Well, touchless service might not sound appealing to a customer that likes to consider themselves high touch. Do you know what I mean?

Michael Blumberg: Right.

Sarah Nicastro: So remote resolution might be a better way to put it or, "We can solve your problems faster," or, "We can guarantee X result for you," or what have you. I think it's something that oftentimes doesn't even necessarily change the tools used, the steps taken, or the execution of what's being discussed, but has an incredibly important impact on the outcome of the project's success in terms of how it's received by the end customer. I think it's a really important point to have people remember that there is most often a difference between how you talk about this and sell this and plan for this internally, and the vernacular you need to use with your customers and how you need to sell it externally.

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. I agree 100%, Sarah. You point to two things. One is what I call the difference between having a production orientation versus a market orientation or customer orientation. Companies that don't do a good job at monetizing their service or selling offerings is they're talking to the customer in terms of what works for them. You call that internal. I call that production they're talking about. How difficult is it for us to deliver service? So we've introduced this new tool to make it easier for us. That's taking production internal orientation to the extreme. Versus the market orientation is, "Look at what this can do for you."

Sarah Nicastro: Right. Okay.

Michael Blumberg: And I think the other thing is that too many companies use buzzwords. They pick an industry term and say that's what it is. In the research that I've done recently on touchless service, I find the companies that are really getting their customers to embrace it and adopt it and use it and engage it have branded it themselves. They're not saying, it's a AR solution from this company, it's they've given it their own brand name. I think that makes a difference.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. So how would you describe or summarize the opportunity for touchless service in a post-pandemic world?

Michael Blumberg: Well, I think it provides a trifecta of value in this post-product pandemic world. It dramatically improves customer experience. We're finding that the end customer likes this ability to get touchless service, to get service fast, to have somebody walk them through the solution. I know I had that occur to me when I had a problem with my cable TV. We had a touchless service experience. It optimizes service delivery, so you can do more with less, because you don't have to necessarily send the technician on-site. You could do it remotely. You can also be more productive and efficient, because you're doing the triage. You're doing the troubleshooting remotely and you get a better chance of knowing exactly what's going on. Because you could see and observe it.

Michael Blumberg: In the past, you had to do it based on somebody's description of it. And maybe there is some language issues, or what have you. Or just they weren't describing it in a way that the expert on the other end knew what they're talking about and vice versa. And then the third benefit is, we just talked about it, generates a new source of revenue for companies.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's going to be really cool to see this evolve and to see companies navigate some of these things we're talking about, in terms of how to incorporate this into their operation and how to monetize it and how to evolve those relationships with their customers and things like that. We talked a little bit earlier about this increased openness to change that we have both recognized this year with what's going on. What advice would you give folks on how to make the most of that attitude that exists right now? How could they capitalize on the fact that people are a little bit more open-minded right now than they maybe were before this situation?

Michael Blumberg: Yeah, sure. Yeah. As we discussed earlier that while the pandemic was putting these external pressures on us, that external pressure led us collectively to look at how do we make sure everyone's safe? How do we make sure we still get the job done? How do we make sure we still serve the customer? And most importantly, how do we look after one another? I think in the most simplest terms, it's how do we look after each other? How do we make sure we don't spread germs to somebody, we don't spread the virus to somebody? So part of it is like, "Let's protect ourselves. Let's look at what's in for us," but also how do we help the other person? So we could learn from that and look at applying that idea, that concept to any new technology or any new desire for change. It ultimately gets down to really being clear about the why we're doing something and answering for us and for others, what's in it for us all, collectively?

Sarah Nicastro: That's a good point. And like we talked about just in the question before, that answer is going to be different depending on which stakeholder you're looking at, right?

Michael Blumberg: Exactly. What you're getting into.

Sarah Nicastro: So going back to, in terms of... Yes, exactly. In their own language. Yes.

Michael Blumberg: Exactly. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Good. All right, Michael. Any final comments, thoughts, advice, words of wisdom that you would want to share with our audience?

Michael Blumberg: Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to do that. So when I talk to companies who have really powered through the pandemic, and even during the darkest periods, they seem to be doing okay. They're getting by. They had customers. They were delivering service. Versus other companies that were struggling and even still struggling today. Now some of them, it might be because they're in industries that are just unfortunately not doing well. But I saw other companies and spoke to other companies where the same industry, one company is doing really well through this, has customers, delivering service, generating revenue, making profit, and others are stalled. And I think what it comes down to is those companies that were stalled, were stalled all the time. It's just as they say, "High tides raise all boats." And so low tides prevent the boats from going out in the ocean.

Michael Blumberg: That's what was happening. Companies that, and that's what had happened. And so companies that are doing well were agile. They're agile companies. They had contingency plans. They were anticipating the change may happen. It was just a matter of when. Those who weren't, quite the opposite. So I think that's the takeaway is, do your best to be agile, have contingency plans, be ready for change, expect change to happen.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Very good. All right. Well, thank you for that, Michael. And thank you for being with us today. I really appreciate it.

Michael Blumberg: Sure. It's my pleasure, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more on how companies have been navigating COVID-19 complexity and how they're preparing for the post-pandemic world by visiting us at FutureofFieldService.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter at The future of FS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS service management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Regardless of your age or geography or role or industry, 2020 has challenged and stretched you. For service leaders, this year has put an extra burden on an already tall task of spearheading immense change. In the same way companies that have reacted nimbly to how the pandemic has changed the needs of their customers; service leaders have had to tap into different skills to meet the needs of their teams in this new world.

In my conversations with service leaders over the last nine months, many have shared poignant stories of how this year’s experiences have impacted them as people – and also how they’ve had to rise above their personal impact to show up for their teams, their customers, and their companies. There are three skills that seem to have been particularly critical to hone this year:

Vulnerability. This may be the lease familiar or comfortable for some of the service leaders I’ve talked with, but it is also arguably the most important. This year has been hard, and we all need a little more empathy and camaraderie. In order for your teams to feel comfortable being honest about what they’re struggling with, or sharing their feelings, or expressing their needs, they need to have a safe space to be vulnerable. We published a podcast last week with Linda Tucci, Global Sr. Director of the Technical Solutions Center at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, which I highly suggest you listen to if you haven’t. In the episode, Linda says: “People are suffering. 2020 is throwing the kitchen sink at us, between the lockdowns, job loss, wildfires, hurricanes, stress, polarization. I would say that we have to ask ourselves, how do we manage, how do we lead in these times? If we want to be experienced as leaders, we have to demonstrate both empathy and compassion. People connect with people. And being vulnerable is not a weakness; it’s an act of courage. There’s evidence that leaders who are prepared to show their vulnerability more easily gain the trust of others and are believed to be more effective leaders, and I believe in that statement. Brené Brown says, endearing greatly, that, ‘Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center of human experience.’ And I believe in that.”

Linda’s sentiment is one that is shared by many service leaders I speak with. They all discuss how they’ve become more personal with their team, more open in discussing feelings, and more connected on a human level. And, overwhelmingly, while they all wish circumstances were different, they feel increased vulnerability and connection is a very positive change. It’s important for leaders to normalize language about mental health in the workplace and being vulnerable yourself gives your team the permission they might need to do the same.

Flexibility. Chances are the way you work this year is different. Service delivery is different, business decisions are different. Customer needs are different – and employee needs are different, too. As leaders, we can’t hold to expectations, practices, or routines that worked in a post-COVID world simply because “that’s how it’s done.” We need to be willing to reexamine not only how we work to serve our customers in new and different ways, but how this year may change the way our employees work as well. We have employees now working from home that are juggling family and household responsibilities in ways that are just unprecedented.

In a podcast featuring Reihaneh Irani-Famili, VP of Business Readiness, National Grid, we discussed the need to evolve to a value-based mentality when we think of assessing productivity. “You need to replace the 8:00 to 5:00 mentality by a deliverable based mentality and a value-based mentality. And it’s both for the leaders in the companies as well as for those employees. Because as an employee, if before my success was I spent eight hours in the office, now that needs to be replaced by this is the value that I have created in the hours that I was working or being productive,” she says. “The more clarity you can give on the outcomes and the value that you’re trying to drive and less about how they would get to that, it helps people be more productive, more engaged, and it would really make sure that your productivity doesn’t get impacted by this sudden move to a virtual environment.”

The consideration around flexibility becomes even more critical when you think about how you support the women in your workforce. In this article from McKinsey & Company, they state: “Due to the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, as many as two million women are considering leaving the workforce (defined as taking a leave of absence or leaving the workforce altogether). If these women feel forced to leave the workplace, we’ll end up with far fewer women in leadership—and far fewer women on track to be future leaders.”

Fortitude. We can likely all identify with times this year where we’ve just felt like throwing in the towel. When you’re facing your own challenges, it can be daunting to show up – let alone show up and try to be positive for your team. But service leaders have. They’ve show up when they don’t feel like it. They’ve dug deep to be positive when it’s easier to give in to negativity. They’ve worked tirelessly to rally their team. They’ve had to continue showing up through hard decisions, layoffs, and reductions in workforce. Leaders too have to balance the stressors of work with the demands of home. None of this is easy, but service leaders have shown immense fortitude this year. To do this, you need to determine how to recharge. You have to figure out how to put your oxygen mask on before you focus on helping others. Fortitude is admirable, but without an element of self-care it will result in burnout.

I want you to know how much I respect each of you and honor what it’s taken to lead in a year like this. I’ve felt so genuinely fortunate to get to have conversations with so many service leaders this year – to hear their stories firsthand and to witness the greatness that is in all of us come to life in such challenging times. I’ve hoped to be a sunny spot in some of your cloudy days, and I hope you know you’ve been the same for me. None of us know what 2021 will hold, but I do believe wholeheartedly that this year has made all of us stronger, closer, and more acutely aware of what really matters.

By Tom Paquin

As we are now only a few months away from a full year of living with COVID-19, it is safe to say that governments and businesses are starting to learn the nuanced strategies needed to open safely and make smart decisions to keep people and employees safe. Of course, these strategies and remedies are not distributed evenly across industries. Restaurants have struggled to offset losses, and many have permanently closed. Many other industries, including a great many in the service sector, have needed to think creatively in order to stay afloat.

One industry for which I care about very dearly—Movie Theaters—have been dramatically impacted by lowered attendance and closures. With no new releases and restrictions on guests, many theaters sit empty.

I’ve wracked my brain on how these organizations may be able to reinvent themselves for these times. There are a great variety of creative and innovative ideas, but this being a service-focused website, let’s consider the place that service may sit in the future of these endeavors.

I’ll start this by saying I love going to the movies. I find the dark quiet of a theater therapeutic. I love that, in a world of increasing distraction, we are all forced to pay attention to a single thing for an hour—a shared experience with a room full of strangers. I even love the smell of stale popcorn. Not being able to experience that over the last nine months has been a disappointment. So much so that over the summer I got myself a nice little projector and built a screen in my backyard. Watching Toy Story with friends and family safely social distancing was such a joy. It was a taste of normalcy.

Not everyone is as big of a sentimental baby as I am, of course, and theater profits have been declining now for decades. Theaters need to rethink their strategies, and I believe this starts with memberships. Some of the bigger chains are starting to see the importance of this, which is a key first step. Most theater profits come from concessions, so getting people through the door is ultimately the main goal.

I’d argue, though, that for this to be successful, movie theaters need to start thinking about channel distribution more holistically. Perhaps $15 a month gets you unlimited access to visit the theater, but $40 a month—the price for a family of three to go see a first-run film—gets you streaming rights to first-run movies at home. For many people who don’t enjoy sticky floors or remain concerned about the threat of the virus, that would be a way to offer products to an interested audience. There would naturally have to be exceptions for blockbuster films, and certain studios will object to showing their movies that way, but by diversifying and servitizing some of these offerings a lot more than they have already, there’s huge growth potential.

Another consideration that organizations like the Alamo Draft House have started to play with are full theater rentals. This has been useful for their businesses while their real estate has sat mostly unused over the last few months, but the space itself is just the beginning. Forward-thinking organizations should consider how to build service packages around these things, for their space. Sure—business meetings and birthday parties are a great start, but there are other packages that theaters could offer. I think about one of my favorite theaters—The AMC Loews in downtown Boston—which has sweeping views of Boston Common and beautiful art deco designs. The space, frankly, is primed for a cocktail party, even for a wedding. Creative thinking is the key here. Obviously there are resource considerations—Catering, liquor serving, and so on—but with the right combination of partnerships and technology, there’s a huge amount of potential.

One last idea, which goes back to my DIY backyard movie screen. If theaters created similar packages, and made them available to customers for pickup or guided setup through field operations, I think there’d be quite the market for it, especially for things like Birthday Parties. Imagine combining the screen and the film with branded decorations and concessions. Obviously we’ve been talking a lot about service, and this is explicitly field service, but it’s a simple idea to diversify revenue screens that I do feel has appeal—especially today. Most people don’t need a permanent backyard movie theater, but for special occasions, it can be a very fun diversion, especially if you can pay to have someone set it up and break it down for you.

I am certain more creative people than I are coming up with additional plans to save the film distribution industry, and I look forward to seeing their ideas come to fruition. Innovation in cinema is an existential need today, and getting it right has the potential to help struggling businesses not just survive, but to expand their business beyond its current bounds.

Linda Tucci, Global Sr. Director of the Technical Solutions Center at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, talks with Sarah about why – particularly this year – it is critical to make mental health a priority in service leadership and how she’s done so, for herself and her team.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be tackling a topic that is near and dear to my heart, which is the topic of mental health. We're going to be talking about why making mental health is so important of a focus in service leadership. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Linda Tucci, senior global director for the Technical Solutions Center at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics. Linda, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

Linda Tucci: Great to be here with you today.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm excited to have you. Linda and I have talked quite a bit about this topic, and I'm thrilled that she's here, because she's willing to be very open and very honest about a topic that sometimes can be a little personal, a little uncomfortable for people to speak freely about. But I think it's very important that we do, so thank you, Linda, for being willing to get personal with us and share with us. Before we start our conversation and dig into the topic, why don't you just tell our listeners a bit about yourself, a bit about Ortho, and your role there?

Linda Tucci: Sure thing. Well, I started my career as a medical technologist and worked in multiple hospitals in Boston, New York City. Basically, when you go to the doctor and give blood, I was one of the med techs that processed the blood samples to generate the diagnostic results. And I really enjoyed being a med tech, and I see them as unsung heroes within our medical system. Later, I moved to the medical device industry, working for the manufacturers of those analyzers, and had various roles, I would say, over the past 20-plus years now, primarily in service management, whether in field service or in a contact center environment providing technical support.

Linda Tucci: My role here at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, I've been here now for five years. I'm the global director for the Technical Solutions Center. At Ortho, we manufacture products and equipment for blood testing that include both diagnostic analysis and also blood transfusion compatibility. My team provides technical phone support to the operators of the analyzers, medical technologists in hospital and reference labs. And we also provide escalation support to our field personnel. I've enjoyed being in service roles. That's basically what I do, and I serve our customers best by taking great care of the people that I serve at Ortho.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I think that this topic is one that has been more important than the attention it gets for quite a long time, but I think particularly this year, the topic of mental health is just critical. It's been a heavy year for just about everyone in some way, but especially for you. Tell us about that, and then we will get into how that matters and what that means when you are in a service leadership role.

Linda Tucci: Sure. Well, I would say my story is my mom passed back in March, just shy of her 96th birthday. She had increasing challenges in the last year of her life, but had a rapid decline, and passed away just as COVID was blowing up. We had the wake and the funeral just as social distancing mandates were being enforced.

Linda Tucci: And when I came back to work, I found myself in a very fragile, and I would even say hypersensitive, state. And on my first day back, I had the following thought, and that was that I really needed compassion shown to me, and I needed to have the courage to tell people what I needed, and to do so with clarity. And being an introspective person by nature, I really thought more about the topic of those three words: compassion, courage, and clarity.

Linda Tucci: With compassion, I clearly knew that I needed compassion shown to me, but I asked myself if I was really demonstrating compassion to others. In the midst of the past few months, with people working remote and having all of the pressure, in light of the environment of COVID, it was vital. And especially, you're at home, dog's barking, caring for children, aging parents. I really asked myself, was I truly being compassionate in an impactful way? Was I encouraging people to have the conversations that really were important? Especially for people that it doesn't come easy or natural, was I creating that environment? Especially, was I being very clear? Not wishy-washy, but being very direct.

Linda Tucci: I questioned, as someone who aspires to be experienced as a leader, was I making space for the conversations that were important? And in reality, the response wasn't what I exactly would've wanted to have told myself. And it wasn't that I wasn't doing it, but I questioned if I was doing it consistently, and that's something I really am trying to model now. Does that make sense?

Sarah Nicastro: That does make sense. And I think that it's... There's a lot of layers to this, right? You had this major, major loss, and I'm so sorry for that.

Linda Tucci: Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: And then that's combined with the start of this global pandemic, which is something that... In March, I know, myself, I could've never imagined what we've been up for this year and how it would impact my own mental health. I think, for me, I have really quite significant anxiety, and I've battled with depression off and on, and so I'm aware of those things and I work to manage them and take care of myself.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think when this all first started, I actually went into this crisis response, which I do quite well in a crisis. I'm like, "Oh, this is fine. Everything's fine. We're going to isolate, the kids are going to be home, but it'll be totally fine. We've got this." And then, around May or so, it just all of a sudden came... It hit me like a ton of bricks, because it's like, "Okay, wait. This was supposed to be this short thing that we had to deal with, and I thought it was going to be fine, but I can't do this forever." It has been a tumultuous year, and I think it's so important to figure out how to find your best balance between staying as mentally healthy as you can and continuing to show up in your role and be there, for you, for your people.

Sarah Nicastro: I want to talk about specifically some of the traits that you had to look internally on and say, "Okay, this is something that I need to ask for and exhibit." The first is vulnerability, and that's something that is not easy. But I think that, as a leader, if you can lead by example in being vulnerable, that is a huge gift, particularly this year, for people to know that it's okay if they're not okay. Tell us a little bit about your experience with knowing you needed to be vulnerable and how you've done that in a way that empowers your team to do the same.

Linda Tucci: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I would say, when I talk about compassion, it's clear that it's equally important to demonstrate compassion for others and also have self-compassion, and that's been a major lesson for me. If we don't stop to refuel and recharge ourselves, then we've got nothing to give the other, whether at work or within our families.

Linda Tucci: For me personally, taking time for me, which always isn't in the forefront of my mind, was something I made myself do, because I recognized how important it was. On top of everything else, I had an emergency appendectomy in July, just another gift of 2020. And then, over August and September, moved to a new home. I would say 2020 has just been a blur. Making time for me, just to relax. Walk the dogs, more prep time for work so that I felt ready to be present at work. But most important that I was focusing on what mattered most, and a lesson for me is to also to know what to let go, to do my best to be present in each moment and not get overwhelmed with all the other things that needed to get done, not get overwhelmed with all the external noise due to the state of the world.

Linda Tucci: And for my team, I felt it very important that I shared my story, my struggles, and how I responded to it. When I did my midyear global updates, a series of town halls, as a check-in, I shared openly how I'd used our employee assistance program at work and how beneficial I found that experience. And I invited everyone, if they were struggling in any way, to find someone to talk to, it didn't need to be their manager, to know of the great tools that we have here at Ortho for them.

Linda Tucci: I received heartfelt responses from individuals around the world, and a few even told me that it gave them the courage to open up to have conversations that they were struggling. And I've encouraged my managers to do the same with their teams, to make sure that they're caring for their people in the context of their present state. It was important for me that I modeled that behavior.

Sarah Nicastro: Tell me what you mean by that, the context of their present state.

Linda Tucci: Well, I believe that we have to meet people where they are, based on their emotional state, their needs, their concerns. For me, it's really important to foster connection, collaboration, and alignment. We have to personalize how we respond to people. Some people love direct feedback, some people want a two-by-four. They don't want the sugar coating. Some people need to hear feedback in a more sensitive way, and it's important that we react to where the other person is. I believe seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Linda Tucci: And maybe what had worked historically in a past relationship... Like my story. I came back to work. The work was there, it was coming, guns a-blazing. Do you know what I mean? And yes, of course, people had known that my mom had passed and were sensitive to that, but unless I spoke about it, they would not know that I really felt fragile, that I needed something more.

Sarah Nicastro: And something different.

Linda Tucci: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think that's a really good point, and I think that there can be this stigma around being vulnerable at work, and particularly as a leader. And I think that stigma is only really going to be minimized or erased by folks like you leading by example, being comfortable talking about your current reality. And also, showing that, despite what was going on in your life and despite the state you were in mentally and how you might have needed to interact and engage differently, you were still showing up. You were still showing up, you still found ways to contribute and to be effective and impactful. It just looked different than it had before. How would you summarize why vulnerability is so important in leadership, particularly this year?

Linda Tucci: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, you've touched upon it already. Just look around. All the data says that depression, suicide, anxiety rates are up. And it's unfortunate, even with my own team, there's been family members who have committed suicide. People are suffering. 2020 is throwing the kitchen sink at us, between the lockdowns, job loss, wildfires, hurricanes, stress, polarization. I would say that we have to ask ourselves, how do we manage, how do we lead in these times? If we want to be experienced as leaders, we have to demonstrate both empathy and compassion. People connect with people.

Linda Tucci: And being vulnerable is not a weakness; it's an act of courage. There's evidence that leaders who are prepared to show their vulnerability more easily gain the trust of others and are believed to be more effective leaders, and I believe in that statement. Brené Brown says, endearing greatly, that, "Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center of human experience." And I believe in that.

Linda Tucci: A couple months back, I shared a quote with my management team attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, and that's, "A good leader inspires people to have confidence in their leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves." And I hope to exemplify that and enable others to do so as well.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I love that. And one of the things that I've had a few conversations around this year that is particularly challenging in our virtual world, is picking up on cues that are easier to pick up on in person. When someone doesn't feel empowered to speak up, or they're uncomfortable sharing in an office environment or in an in-person environment, you might be able to just notice they're a little bit withdrawn or notice that something's wrong, and decide how to handle that. Maybe you address it directly, maybe you just subtly let them know, "Hey, I'm here if you need to talk," or, "Is everything okay?" Whatever that is.

Sarah Nicastro: And in this virtual world, I think one of the reasons we're seeing increases in depression and anxiety and all of those things is, it is easy to disconnect. It's not the same as it is in person. Your employee can be going through something significant and not share. I think that creating a safe place and showing that... Not saying, "Hey, it's okay," but showing that by being the one that is saying, "Hey, I'm not okay, and here's how I need you to help me." I mean, there's no more powerful gift in letting them know that they can do the same. I just think that's a really, really important point.

Sarah Nicastro: The other aspect of this, though, beyond getting comfortable being vulnerable. Some people are naturally okay with it, and others are not at all. This is going to be a real test for some folks. But besides getting comfortable being vulnerable, you need to be able to have courageous, and sometimes really hard, conversations. What is your advice on being able to do that well, both as it relates to yourself and as it relates to the folks that you're leading?

Linda Tucci: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I would say introspection is key. Self-awareness is so important. I'm someone who wears my heart on the sleeve. If you ask me how I'm doing, I'm going to tell you. But everyone's not wired that way. And to your point, moving virtual and not having these face-to-face interactions or doing it over webcams, we have to give space for those safe conversations.

Linda Tucci: I have found that, when I share my experience, and I don't mean coming from a place to make it about me, but to make connection. And when I ask the question of saying, "Hey, I'm really struggling with this," whatever the this is. "How are you managing it?" Really demonstrating active listening, but asking those open-ended questions. Leave it for the other, whether they want to respond or not. But if you have a reporting relationship or any working relationship with the other, you'll notice those cues. You'll notice if the behavior is different. But you need to keep it safe for the other.

Linda Tucci: I said already, come from the space of seek first to understand, then to be understood. But if it's not your strength, and especially being in a role as a leader, you have an obligation to get help from your HR department or others, because the people that we serve deserve to get the feedback that's required, deserve to have a leader who is sensitive to their needs. To hold back on not giving feedback or shying away from the tough conversation is not living up to our obligation.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. And we had Mita Mallick on a few months ago, and we had a... She was with Unilever at the time and has since changed into a different role, but we had a great conversation around how to have hard conversations around race. And it was, I thought, a really great conversation. But one of the things that we talked about, and I think it's also very relevant here, is you might not do this right every time. I mean, you may falter, you may say the wrong thing, you may overstep, you may under-share. But I think that if you are being authentic, if you are coming from a place of genuinely caring about those that you're leading, and genuinely communicating your needs because it's important to you, I think that's okay. And I think that this fear of saying or doing the wrong thing often paralyzes people from saying or doing anything. I think it's okay to mess up if we're coming from a good place. That authenticity shines through. Good.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. Another thing I wanted to talk about is resilience and making the choice to lead and to show up, even when we might not want to. How did you do this?

Linda Tucci: And I will also add to your comments. Vulnerability is key. This all goes back to being open to being vulnerable, because let me tell you, I don't get it right a lot of the time. I would just add that.

Sarah Nicastro: In practice. I mean, if it's something... Like you said, you're an open book. So am I. I identify 100%. I mean, someone says, "How are you, Sarah?" And then 30 minutes later, they know every ridiculous detail of what's going on. I'm definitely an over-sharer. But if you're not, that's okay, but it's an important muscle to flex and practice working. Yeah.

Linda Tucci: Agreed. I've been saying this year that now's the time we truly choose to lead. The world continues to change at an increasingly rapid pace, and we all know the human condition when it comes to change. But we've got an obligation to make sure that we don't lose sight of the big picture. For me, the resilience, I still have a job to do. I have a role, I need to fulfill that commitment. And over the past few months here at Ortho, we've had some reorganization. I have a new boss. For me, very practically speaking, to make sure that we're aligned and understanding priorities, what's most important for the business, being open with her about my need to demonstrate self-compassion.

Linda Tucci: But I would even say to myself that I needed to give myself the grace of knowing that I may not be able to get everything done to the level that I would like to, and be okay with it, that as long as I was aligned with my boss, that it was okay. That, to me, also helped with my resilience, that, "Hey, here's the level I'm working at. Let me communicate it to you," and really continue to engage in that dialogue. I have found that the more effective I am at communicating at work that it makes it easier to bounce back, because others know where I'm coming from. And that's worked for me. Now's not the time to clam up, from my perspective, especially if you find yourself struggling. I have found that I just focus on the day. It's just today. What am I doing today? Do you know what I mean?

Sarah Nicastro: I do.

Linda Tucci: That has helped me with my resilience. And if that's overwhelming, I would say focus on the hour, focus on the moment. When I find the anxiety bubbling, I'll just take a couple of minutes, take a few deep breaths, refocus, say a quick prayer. That's helped me just to stay on top. I'm not worried about all the stuff that's coming down the pike, the more I can be present in the moment. Right now, it's all about me and you, having this conversation. I don't need to worry about everything else. When I focus and feel centered in the moment, and to slow down enough to make connection in that moment, that's when I feel most resilient.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. And I think, again, people react differently. I know that there are some folks that, in turbulent times, work is how they cope. You may just pour yourself into it. And that can be unhealthy, too. To your earlier point, needing to prioritize self-care. You may find some comfort in just obsessing and over-focusing, but eventually, that will catch up with you. You have to make sure that you are... I work from home, and I worked from pre-COVID, but it's a totally different ballgame, because I can't go sit at a coffee shop and work now like I could then, and I don't get out of the house as much, and my kids are home. It does feel suffocating. And sometimes, you have to schedule, "Okay, I'm going to take a walk at lunchtime today," because if you don't, I find myself sitting at this desk from 7:00 AM until 8:00 PM.

Linda Tucci: That's easy.

Sarah Nicastro: It is. But on the flip side, I think your point is a very good point. There's exceptions, but I think most people are good people, and I think most employers that have good employees are very, very likely to want to meet their needs. And I think if you can simply articulate, "Hey, I have this going on, here's how I'm feeling, here's what I need from you." If you can have the courage to be vulnerable and communicate those needs, I think if you have a good employer, they're going to probably be pretty thankful for that open communication and pretty willing to say, "Okay. Here's what we still need to get done, but do what you need to do." I think getting comfortable making those asks is a really good point.

Sarah Nicastro: And I was nodding and smiling when you were talking about one day, one hour, one minute at a time, because that is my life's motto. And I think probably for a lot of folks that suffer with anxiety, that anxiety creeps in when you look too far, too big. I'm really big on daily to-do lists. I have daily to-do lists, both work and personal, and they're set up in terms of order of importance. Eat that frog, get to the most important thing first, and then just keep on trucking. It really helps, like you said, to just stay present and stay focused on what needs to happen right now.

Sarah Nicastro: Along those lines, you've had these significant challenges this year, and you've had to prioritize your mental health, but you've also been really busy at work. It's not like you've had the luxury to sit back and kick your feet up and focus solely on yourself. You've had multiple projects happening, and you've had to deal with COVID and how that's impacted operations, and be agile. How have you struck the right balance between prioritizing yourself and your mental health, and also wanting to prioritize the mental health of those you lead, and also continuing to drive performance and results?

Linda Tucci: Well, it's a journey, and we're learning all the time. For me, resilience and agility are critical this year. When I have the opportunities to connect with the frontline teams, and actually, I'm speaking to myself that I'm overdue for the next go-around, it's equally important to convey the state of the business and also what to expect moving forward. I think people are stressed out enough. They don't need any additional surprises. I think the clearer that we've been, because we have gotten some curve balls this year, which only creates more anxiety, which is antithetical to what we want to do, and you're cracked.

Linda Tucci: We've had a few critical projects in play, and it's important that the frontline teams, especially, know what's coming down the pike, what's in front of them. And does this impact any expectations in their performance? In light of this world of COVID, we've had lots of changes, and so we've tried to be very clear about how we serve the business at Ortho. And in some of our projects, we've had some areas of conflict with some of the high-profile projects. They have resulted in very dynamic discussions that ultimately have led us to modify some expectations moving forward that I believe will lead to a better outcome.

Linda Tucci: And this doesn't happen if you have a culture that's conflict-avoidant. But I would say, because we have a culture of customer focus and also connection with the other, it's much easier to hash things out. For me, it's also what type of culture am I building within my organization? Are we making it easy? And goes back to creating the space for those safe conversations. And as I talk to our managers, we are very focused, and we say we take care of the people who take care of our customers, are we really helping them, whether...

Linda Tucci: I'll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that one of our team members had a suicide within their family, and coming back to work, and that's because this is our culture, and she was like, "I want to come back. I need to come back, I need to do something, but I don't know if I can handle everything." It's working with that individual, and that's a gift. "I want to come back, this is what I can do, this is the state I'm in," and as a business, responding to that. And that is an act of compassion. Everyone wants to feel valued, so coming back to work to make it safe for them so that they can also feel the bounce-back and coming back in a way that's safe and best for the other. I'm not even sure... Did I answer your question?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I think so. The question is just around striking that balance of promoting mental health and continuing to drive performance and results. And I think that it's a question because, and what we're going to get to next is, again, for some folks that incline toward this, I think it happens fairly intuitively. I think for someone like yourself, and I don't mean to say that in the sense that it doesn't take practice or intention, but is it in line with who you are as a human being. Those muscles might be a little bit easier for you to exercise than some folks that this is very uncomfortable for.

Sarah Nicastro: But I think, for you, you're focused on both your people as people, and your people in terms of how the team is performing. And those things are not mutually exclusive; they're very much aligned. When you have these connection points with your team, you're focusing both on, "Here's what's going on in the business, here's what that means for you and your role and us and our team, and how are you?" It's a natural fit for you. I think that makes sense.

Sarah Nicastro: What I want to talk about next, though, is... I think you and I are on the same page, but I am respectful of the fact that there are probably people listening to this podcast that are like, "Okay, this feels really uncomfortable," or, "This very woo-woo," or, "I don't know about talking about mental health," or what have you. What I'd like to do is ask you... Let's start with three reasons that normalizing this and having a focus on mental health within leadership is important.

Linda Tucci: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I'd echo what we stated already, and the first reason is that research indicates that the situation we find ourselves right now is leading to increased depression, suicide, and anxiety, and that in itself should tell us that we need to respond to that, because it's a fact.

Linda Tucci: Secondly, it's proven that high levels of employee engagement are clearly linked to business results. And yes, we're running a business, and we have an obligation to drive results, so it's important that we focus on employee engagement, and that means focusing on people's mental health. And third, we've said that people connect with people on a human level for me. If we want to be experienced as leaders, then we want to help people be their best selves at work, at home. And if we give others ourselves, then we help people in their own lives.

Linda Tucci: I've seen many times the impact of shadow of a leader. What behaviors, practices are you displaying in your workplace? If people see you as a leader, they will follow your behavior, so I think it's time that we're very sensitive to how we're leading the way.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative), absolutely. I remember reading an article a few months ago about the idea that, pre-COVID, particularly for women in leadership, but I think everyone, kindness could be seen as weakness. And now, it's the ultimate strength, and I think that's so true of this year. I think that we do see this humanity, this human connection being prioritized from person to person, from leader to employee, from company to customer, and it's heartening to see how we can all come together. And I think, to your point, there is this big need for leaders to recognize their responsibility to step up and serve differently. And I think if we can do that by force right now, it'll be a good thing for going forward.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Those were three reasons why this is important. Let's talk about... Could you provide three practical actions for making this focus a reality in practice for someone that maybe doesn't naturally incline to this?

Linda Tucci: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think, first, and this really is sparked from my own experience, I would say, starting at making the assumption that everyone is looking at their employee assistance program. I'm assuming that they are because of everything that's happening. And are you communicating to your frontline? What services are available?

Linda Tucci: I will tell you, in my own experience by taking advantage of our EAP program at Ortho, I found out even more services that I wasn't even aware of, and then I could then communicate to others. I would say, know what's available within your own organization, ask yourselves if you're doing enough. And if you don't have a program, how can you fill that gap? I think that is, to me, the number one critical action.

Linda Tucci: Secondly, for me, it goes back to the communication. How are you communicating with your direct reports, the broader team, making yourself available? Ensure effective feedback loops, different avenues of how people can provide feedback. Whether or not they use it, it's up to them, but make sure that people have mechanisms to relay concerns, questions, and that it's really bidirectional. It goes back to making sure that your team knows what's coming down the pike next. Don't allow surprises to hit them from a business perspective. To be candid, and it's okay if you don't know all the answers, but communicate what you do know.

Linda Tucci: And then third for me is around tools, and I would say two different aspects, tools that you're providing because we've moved to this virtual world. For our frontline teams, we're looking at what tools support the virtual connection across our organization, both internally and with our customers. Make it easy for your people as they function remote.

Linda Tucci: But I would say, specifically, for our management team, my team, the majority of our team had been on-site at locations. The minority of our staff were remote pre-COVID. Our management team was used to going into the office, having face-to-face connections with the people. We've had a series of sessions specifically with the management team and key leaders in the organization, that we call Leading the Ortho Way, that focus on tools for them to help them be comfortable to have these conversations, for them to understand the importance of mental health in our world today, and to really make sure that the management team have the skills and tools to navigate our virtual world so that they can properly serve their teams. It's really just part of our culture.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Those are really good points. And the only thing I would add is just, particularly for someone that this sounds a little awkward to, is practice flexing that vulnerability muscle. I think about a one-on-one, and if you're the type of leader that you get on a video chat and say, "Hey, how's it going? Good? Good. Okay, anyway." Just asking, "How are you," probably is not enough to elicit an honest response.

Sarah Nicastro: As you said earlier, it's leading by example. I'm not saying make things up, but I'm saying practice flexing that muscle by being honest about your own journey. "Hey, how's it going? Good. Yeah, I've been struggling with X," or, "I've found myself feeling a little bit down this week," or, "I need to make sure that I'm doing a better job of taking a breather in the middle of the day." Just share a little bit so that you're teaching your employees it's okay to do the same, because they may be very hesitant of doing that if you're not doing that. And I know you made that point earlier. I's just an important one to come back to, because I think you can't expect vulnerability and transparency and clear communication and courageous conversations from employees that you are not willing and actively giving that to. Yeah.

Linda Tucci: Yeah, and I would add, and I think you said before, authenticity is key. It can't be forced. If it's hard for you, say, "Hey, this is hard for me, but I really want to make sure that you're okay. Is everything going okay for you? I know that I usually don't engage in this type of conversation, but I really want to know." As long as you're making it authentic.

Linda Tucci: I had a manager once who had a quick personality change. It was overnight. I was like, "Who are you? I don't trust this." Do you know what I mean? It can't be choppy, it needs to be natural. And I believe if people are sincere and come from the heart, then people experience it that way.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Oh, Linda. I could talk to you for days. Yes. Okay, so that being said, I've reached the end of my questions, although I could come up with so many more. But I really, really do thank you for joining and for sharing, because this is a different topic, but it's such an important one, and it's something that's relevant, really, across industry, across business, across role function. This is just something that we all need to get more comfortable discussing and being open about, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to do that with you.

Linda Tucci: Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Any final thoughts or comments in closing for our folks today?

Linda Tucci: I would add, 2020 for me is a personal experience, and I've said already that we all have our own story. But when we're on a plane, in the case of an emergency, put on your oxygen mask before you put on the other, and I think that's really wise counsel for us in life right now. I would just say self-care, it's really critically important. Make sure that you're caring.

Linda Tucci: We could even say that a lot of this is common sense. But my perspective is, we have to take the time, and I feel that time is increasingly precious. And if we truly want to be experienced as leaders, then I think we have to ask ourselves, and I would consider it a personal question, what do I need to do differently to meet people where they are, and then we have to act on that insight.

Linda Tucci: My last comment would be referencing Patrick Lencioni. I'm a huge Lencioni fan, my favorite book being The Advantage. But he states that, "The strongest people in life are the ones that are comfortable saying, 'I don't know,'" that vulnerability is not at all soft. It's the key to building great teams, and I would just end, isn't that what we want to do?

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm a mom of two young kids, and they are mostly home, and I am working here. The idea of self-care can be challenging, and it can feel like a burden on its own. You really do have to figure out how to make it a realistic priority for you. For me, I get up early in the morning before anyone else is up and I work out, because that might be my only alone time for the whole day, and I need that. I am in a better mood, and I am more clear and focused and positive if I have that time to myself early on. That looks different for everyone, but it is absolutely right. You can't just give and give and give and not fill up your own cup. You have to figure out, even if it seems impossible, and it can right now, how to make it happen.

Sarah Nicastro: Well, Linda, thank you again. I really appreciate it. I would love to have you back sometime. This was a great chat, and I appreciate you being so open and honest with us.

Linda Tucci: Well, I thank you for your time. It's always a privilege to talk to you, Sarah. I appreciate it.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter @theFutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Today’s manufacturers and service organizations have a wealth of initiatives underway to improve, evolve, and transform how they leverage service as a strategic differentiator and seize the opportunity that service provides. Top of mind for these companies is determining how to serve customers in a way that delivers increased profit margins and revenue growth. This is entirely possible, which is why the focus on service is so strong, but unfortunately companies can fall disappointingly short when it comes to execution.

I wrote an article not long ago titled “Is Your Business Structured to Seize the Service Opportunity?” that discusses some of the organizational and operational changes that are necessary to see success in shifting from a product-focused to service-centric company. It’s well worth a read as these points are very important, but besides these operational changes there’s a very common mistake I see company’s making that may surprise you – articulating their service transformation in a way that resonates with their customers. You may read this and say, “Wow, that seems so simple.” In some ways it is. But to this point, I’d say two things – first, it’s often the simple things that are most overlooked. Second, for a company that’s history is rich in product development, creation, selling, and delivery, learning to speak this new language of service is not as simple as you might thing.

When you’re coming from a product world and embracing this service future, you must learn a new vernacular. Selling on features and functionality shifts to selling on pain points eased and an intangible feeling or experience. The learning of this language has to happen first internally, by departments and functions and roles that may have little or no experience with such ideas. But then that language has to not only extend but evolve for its use externally. What I mean is, the way you articulate the value of your service transformation internally will be different than how you need to articulate the value of your service transformation externally. All too often I see companies using the same language for external stakeholders as they do for internal stakeholders and then wondering why the excitement for and adoption of new service offerings is nonexistent.

Here’s why: buzzwords and tech terms don’t matter to your customers. They couldn’t care less if you’ve invested in brand-new, world-class ABC technology that will make XYZ far easier. If you can embrace the importance of speaking in the language of your stakeholders, your service transformation will yield far faster and far better results. Internally, this gets discussed a fair bit when we talk about change management – you hear folks say that if you want buy-in from your employees, you need to explain the change in the form of the “why” it matters to them and how it will help them. Companies that do this well see a big difference in how accepting employees are of a new way of working. The same idea holds true for customers – you need to communicate the advancement or new offering to them in a way that resonates.

Let’s look at a few examples.

IoT. Not long ago, I had a call with a service leader who was immensely frustrated at the response from customers around the company’s recent investment in IoT technology. He went as far as to say the project was a failure because customers just weren’t interested in hearing about what the technology could do for them. I was so upset for this gentleman! To think they’d done this great work of investing in IoT and had the perception it was a failure simply because they weren’t communicating its value in a way customers could understand and would find themselves excited about.

Instead of: “We are introducing IoT technology! It’s the latest technology in our industry that will let us monitor your assets remotely and provide more proactive and predictive * service.”
Try: “We’ve invested in capabilities that will allow us to find issues with your equipment before they ever become a problem for you! This will minimize equipment downtime and keep your productivity high.”

Augmented reality. We know that the benefits of AR are vast, but companies have been challenged in translating these benefits into revenue gains. In a COVID world, it can be tougher since in some cases AR has become the norm, at least temporarily. But, generally speaking, there’s huge value for your customers in your investment in AR.

Instead of: “Instead of coming to service your equipment on site, we can use AR to do so remotely! This eliminates a truck role and saves both of us time.”
Try: “We’re introducing remote service to be able to diagnose – and sometimes even resolve – your issue almost immediately. We can determine remotely what the problem is so that we can speed your resolution and have you back up and running far faster than ever before.”

Scheduling optimization. Migrating from a manual scheduling and dispatching process to one that’s modern and automated is often a significant investment and major change for service operations. But what part of that investment matters most to your customers?

Instead of: “We’ve invested in a new scheduling system so that we can get to more jobs per day and set tighter appointment windows.”
Try: “We know your time is precious! We can now tell you what time your technician will arrive, within one hour. Further, we can communicate with you prior to arrival so that you know not only what time he or she will be arriving, but his/her name and what to expect.”

These are just a few examples and, again, reading this it may seem oversimplified. It is, but my primary objective here is to get across the point that you don’t want to do all of this hard work of identifying a need or opportunity to transform your service in some way to better meet customer needs only to fall short in the outcome because you aren’t properly articulating the value of that change in a way that resonates with them. It’s a simple mistake with major consequences. It’s also a great illustration of why it’s so important to have cross-functional alignment on the service opportunity and how your company is going to seize it. You need a strong marketing team to create these customer-centric value propositions; you need a strong sales team to adeptly have these conversations; and you need a frontline workforce that embraces being the face of your brand.

Tom Paquin

I’ll start this by saying I used to work for Apple, both in the retail space as a college student, and then again in business development while I was getting my MBA. Apple has always led the way in delivering exceptional service alongside premium products, from their support offerings, to their subscription services, to the physical structure of their retail stores. Servitization is the DNA of Apple’s 21^st-century success (and, sacrilegious as it may seem, this has flourished under Tim Cook while it in many ways floundered under Steve Jobs) and it has set the standard for how to redefine retail for the digital age.

This is something I care about quite a bit, and I write about frequently, but this is not what we’re here to talk about today. Today we want to talk, specifically, about the implications that the new iPhone might have for service firms outside of Apple itself. This years’ iPhone upgrade cycle has introduced a feature that will have compelling repercussions for service, and that’s what we’re here to talk about.

The technology I’m talking about is not 5G, which I’ve already discussed, it’s LiDAR. This technology first appeared earlier this year in Apple’s iPad pro, so its appearance in an iPhone is not particularly surprising. But the increased portability and near-ubiquity of the iPhone means that suddenly this new tool will appear on many more job sites—and embedded in many more mobile service utilities.

So what is LiDAR? LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging, and what it does is shoot little lasers onto surfaces in order to create very detailed 3D renders. This CNET article has a number of very compelling examples of how this works in practice with the iPhone, from 3D modeling to simulating changes to the physical space with remarkable accuracy, to creating digital twins in real-time. LiDAR tech has been a key component in autonomous vehicles, drones, robotics, and wearables for years, but this is one of the first instances that the technology will be easily pocketable.

There are, with LiDAR, a number of interesting and compelling use cases for service. The most obvious is for remote assistance, which currently is enhanced through shared view using the camera itself. Enhanced projection and modeling will aid in accurately defining the space, helping to diagnose issues that may not be easily rendered through an image alone, and provide the ability to for remote technicians to interact with depth for on-screen instructions. This is a great way to minimize truck rolls and costs associated with service delivery while providing excellent outcomes for customers.

While we talk quite a bit about remote assistance, augmented reality can be a powerful tool for self-service as well, and with LiDAR, improved ability to provide overlays for directions would help dramatically improve the quality of step-by-step instructions. Here’s an example of how you could use it in your own life: Imagine you have a flat tire. Car companies are beginning to offer mobile apps for self-repair, so you download your app, point your camera at the car, and are taken through how to safely and properly replace a tire. With today’s technology, you usually line up one of the bumpers, and the overlay begins. But what if it’s dark? Or you have a dent in your bumper, or your kid slapped a bunch of stickers all over your car? LiDAR takes a burgeoning technology and potentially makes it foolproof.

I was recently doing some plumbing projects in my basement and I could easily see the application for tools like these. Take it a step further, and imagine lifting your phone below the floorboards, waving it around, then taking it and pointing it at the floor to see a 3D map of plumbing and electrical laid out above ground. That not only has applications for self-service, but for traditional service, too.

Will LiDAR be the killer app of the iPhone 12 Pro? Probably not for the average person, who will likely care more about the camera system, or possibly (though probably not) Dolby Vision. But in service, there is now a whole new toolset, and a lot of exciting potential. Let’s hope that service providers figure out how to elevate it for their customers.

Klaus Glatz, Chief Digital Officer at ANDRITZ, talks with Sarah about customer needs driving digital transformation and service evolution as well as shares his biggest digital transformation lessons learned.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be talking about digital transformation lessons learned. We know that digital transformation journeys can be fraught with complexity, and I think it's incredibly valuable to hear from folks lessons learned when they are willing to share those. So I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today Klaus Glatz, Chief Digital Officer at ANDRITZ. Klaus, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

Klaus Glatz: Hello. Nice to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you for being here. Before we dig into to ANDRITZ digital transformation journey and some of what you've been leading for the organization. Let's first just share a bit about yourself, your role, what ANDRITZ business does for anyone that might not be familiar and we'll start there.

Klaus Glatz: Yeah, you're welcome. First staring with ANDRITZ. ANDRITZ is a global acting machine and plant engineering company. We deliver big machines and big plants for different businesses. Our biggest area is pulp and paper, where we deliver from unit machine, single machines up to big mills. The second one is hydro. Hydro power plants starting from hydropower plants to small pumps, everything related to water and energy production. The third one is metals where we do metals processing and metals forming. So we're doing big presses for them, mainly for the automotive industry and do all forms of transformation of different steels and metal products. And then we have a fourth one, which is separation, where we do liquid and solid separation. It's large sludge dissolving. So mainly from municipalities. So it's a broad range of separation of different materials.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay.

Klaus Glatz: As you said, my name is Klaus Glatz. I'm chief digital officer at ANDRITZ, being responsible for developing IoT, as well as the whole digitalization activities, which we call here smart services. Where also field service management is part of. We are delivering new services, new products, thinking about different business models, what we can offer to our customers. The ultimate goal for sure is to help our customers to be more efficient, to be more productive, to eliminate downtimes or unplanned downtimes as much as possible. And the field service management for us is a key topic here. We call the field service technicians out in the field, and we need to better optimize what they're doing, how we schedule them, how we can support them with material documentation, and also how we show up the whole reporting part, but also I guess the whole cashflow part. So to say, how long does it take for us to create invoices to send it to our customers because this has an impact on our cash flow.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely.

Klaus Glatz: So I guess a digitalization for us is on one hand internal digitalization. So I guess optimizing processes, delivering also new solutions, in order to help our people to really focus on what they should do and not, I guess, losing time in having bad products or better applications or whatever.

And then the secondhand, I guess we are doing to digitalization for our customers, creating additional revenue, implementing new models, like performance based contracts, revenue sharing models, up to equipment as a service. So we have different ideas here, how we can help our customers to better use our products. But also I guess, at the end of the day, gets to create more revenue in what they're doing.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. And so when you and I spoke last, we had a whole conversation around the fact that, evolving customer demands and what your customers are looking to ANDRITZ for is what's driving your digital transformation efforts, whether that's internally to be able to serve them better or externally in new offerings. So, we talked about a few trends that you've noticed recently with how customers are changing in what they want or how they want to work with you. So, I want to talk about a few of those.

Sarah Nicastro: So, the first we talked about is in your industry, you explained to me that historically customers have wanted to maintain a pretty high level of self service and that they are now wanting to relinquish some of that control and move to more of a full service partnership with ANDRITZ so that they can focus on their core competencies. So, tell us a little bit what you've seen in that regard, because I think that that's something that would be a shared observation across a number of different industries.

Klaus Glatz: I think that the whole cooperation relationship is getting more integrated. So I guess it's not just we deliver something, and then I guess we hand it over to the customer, and then tell them have fun, and if you need service, I guess, just call us. Our intention here is to help them to create more output by that using, which is relevant for us, energy, energy consumption, chemicals, all of this stuff. We learn what customers are doing, how they operate our machines and plants. And this is what we use here based on data to help them to optimize how they’re running our equipment; and that's why, I guess it's urgently, or it's really needed, that we work together, we cooperate and help each other.

Klaus Glatz: We help the customers, I guess, to be more efficient, and the customer helps us to better understand our machines and products and further optimize them. So, it's a win-win situation for both. And this is definitely what we're striving for, and I guess the real thing, typically what happens to customers now, industries, if they've unplanned downtimes. So, if a machine is failing, I guess this creates huge losses because each of these machines is needed to produce something. So it's in our interest, but also the interest of the customer, to avoid as much as possible unplanned down times.

Klaus Glatz: And also, I guess from an integration perspective, we see a tendency that we are heading more in other things like paper use or machine as a service, or I guess it is output based on a contract.

Maybe really I guess, make sure that we are responsible here from starting from delivering a machine to the phase where we fade the machine out, and still, I guess we help him with our service beeper, with our predictive maintenance solutions to understand what's going on and to better plan or better forecast what's going to happen.

Klaus Glatz: It's always easier that if we know that a machine needs maintenance or service in two months, then we can properly plan it. I guess if the machine is failing today, it's nearly impossible to help a customer. So it's, bad for both sides, and the wide integration between a customer and the supplier is getting deeper, and is getting more and more intense in business. I think beneficial for both sides because also our interest is to have happy customers. And that's why now like as I said before, we need to avoid unplanned down times as much as possible.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. That makes sense. And so, as a part of this evolution, customers are looking to you now, not just to provide service, but to provide a lot of insights. So, insights on how they can optimize the use of your equipment insights on, common patterns of failure points and how you can, like you said, use predictive analytics to work ahead of those, and as a way to avoid that unplanned downtime. I guess that's the other big trend is you're not just in the product or service business, you're in the insight and information business as well, right?

Klaus Glatz: Yeah, absolutely. Because if you've seen the evolution here, we used to provide our machines and now I guess we are talking a lot about sensors, collecting data, converting data into information, information into knowledge. We are experts in our domain what we're doing. We understand our purposes, but I guess with having this data available, collecting dozens of different sensory information also puts us into a position that we still learn how we can further optimize or improve our machines. If you see as an example, at a big mill today, we have 125,000 possible errors, which you need to understand in order to produce the optimal output. I guess, for people working 30, 35, 40 years in Jacksonville, they understand how to operate such a mill. The issue for the customer is that, because of demographics, the people are somehow retiring your integration services, how to capture the knowledge and how to convert the knowledge into data.

Klaus Glatz: And it's all about data. And because data helps us to understand our internal processes in our mills, hydropower plants, whatever, and help us really to do better decisions. And division here for us for sure is that at some point in time, we go more and more towards autonomy or autonomous solutions, because I guess, if you have seen such a mill operating 365 days, 24 hours, using typically three shifts, I guess it's not fine to work in such environments, and that's why I guess the more we can help our customers to guide the operators, to do autonomous decisions, the better. So, the less people you need in order to operate that.

Klaus Glatz: At the end of the day, it's a very dangerous environment. It's an unhealthy environment, and that's why it's also an interesting possibility for us, but also for the customers that with having digital solutions in place, this would first optimize what they are doing. We would guide them which decision they need to take based on historical data based on algorithm, based on forecasting, to really produce what the customer of our customers wants to have.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I want to just pause for a minute and go back to a point that you made that I think is a really powerful, and I'm kind of paraphrasing what you said a bit, but I think that one of the points you made is made me think about, to be successful as a service provider, historically, you had to be the expert of your industry, right? You had to be the expert of your business and the solutions you're providing. I think, to be successful in today's landscape and going forward, you need to not only be an expert about your business, but you need to be an expert about your customers businesses.

Sarah Nicastro: The more you can learn about the ins and outs of how they operate and what that actually looks like, the more you're able to craft services and solutions that help meet those needs, so it's I guess, more work maybe than it has been in the past, but also a lot more opportunity. Right?

Sarah Nicastro: So, I want to talk about, thus far, how have these trends both in, customer expectations and needs as well as what's possible with the technology that we have today, how have these trends changed ANDRITZ service offerings thus far, and how do you see that evolving in the coming years?

Klaus Glatz: Yeah, technology gives a lot of opportunity with this year, starting from, I said I guess, using modern solutions to better guide and dispatch our field service technicians, giving them with AR virtual reality, mixed reality, the possibility to visualize things, but also getting in contact very easily with real experts. And technology, I guess, offers here a lot of possibilities here still. We also are still in the learning phase. Even though we’ve done already a lot, the integration between customers and companies is getting more intense, which creates some challenges but also it gives a lot of opportunities. And we are really focusing on opportunities here and making sure that also, I guess, seeing how ANDRITZ is developing all the job profiles in place that we didn't have five years ago.

Klaus Glatz: It's everything, data analytics, algorithms. So this is something where we will have an own team now working on that, which hasn't been existing, I guess, five years back. Still, we are a very engineering-intense company. We are field service company. But there are additional competences and skills that will also be needed in the future. We will add a bunch of different other capabilities and jobs or job profiles to complement in what we are doing.

Klaus Glatz: I still think that we are at the beginning, even we are doing a lot, but I guess the knowledge, it gives us so much more possibilities here, which we still in the phase of learning and understanding how we can use them. Specifically, the whole thing and on AI machine learning, anomaly detection, which are key topics also for us to further improve our machines and plants. I guess we just started, and this is what for sure will be further explored how we can use these technologies here in further optimizing in what we are doing.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think that mindset of continuous learning is what drives companies to be successful. I think when you start to feel like you have it all figured out, that's when you stop making a lot of progress; because I think when you realize that the capabilities are as significant as they are, then you know, that you can keep evolving and keep changing and expanding what you're doing.

Sarah Nicastro: So, I know that you mentioned within your customer base, with the retirement and turnover of some of the skillsets that have traditionally run these plants, those customers are looking more to ANDRITZ to fill some of those gaps with your expertise. And then ultimately your goal is to provide, an autonomous solution to your customers. So that you've taken the need for those historical skillsets out. Is that I guess an accurate description?

Klaus Glatz: Yeah. I guess it's exactly what's happening. It's not just for us by us because this is, as I said before, this is demographics, and to find real experts in those areas is not easy. You need to educate them. You need to train them. It takes really years and years to be able to run those big mills, because the issue is that you do something now and which has an impact eight hours later.

Klaus Glatz: So it's not that you immediately see, I guess then they decide. It's a time series and if you produce eight hours of the wrong thing you lose a lot of money. So it's a very now intense, intense area. And that's why I guess customers are fully open here, whatever we can provide to help them to better understand what's going on to better assist them and guide them in order to avoid that they're producing eight hours the wrong part. So to say, this is definitely something they're looking for.

Klaus Glatz: Selling those solutions was challenging also because our sales force wasn't used to sell digital solutions or services, but they're more used to that now than three, four years back. I guess it's not easy to sell those solutions because if you used to sell a product, the machine, you can talk intelligently about the mechanics. But to explain now how we're going to use data, algorithm, machine learning, artificial intelligence, to further optimize what you're doing, is not easy. And this is something we also needed to learn, which competencies do we need specifically in sales in order to convince our customers that what we are doing makes sense?

Sarah Nicastro: Right. Yeah. That's a very good point, and you had mentioned a few minutes ago, the idea, and this is one of the most exciting topics to me in this space, is looking at how service businesses are evolving and what that means in terms of how current roles are changing, but also the new skill sets that are going to be needed within businesses. I think it's really interesting and really a lot of exciting things will happen over the coming years as we kind of see that play out, and a lot of good opportunity for folks. Obviously the role of the frontline field service worker has changed. To your point, these customers no longer just want them to show up and fix something that's broken. They want them to be a trusted advisor type of relationship. So, what has that been like for the frontline workers of ANDRITZ?

Klaus Glatz: Yeah. It's also for them, selling as the trusted advisors, and still also they need to develop themselves. Because you need your field service technicians, they still need to fix something. They have the tools with them, but a lot has changed. Now they’re using digital tools too, and you need a lot of experience. So if you have a junior elevate the need and send the junior and the senior together to a job site, because the senior was training junior how to do things, what we’ve seen here is with using remote assistance towards augmented reality and electronic documentation, it's not always needed that there's always a junior and a senior going together to the job site.

Klaus Glatz: So, typically we send the junior wearing HoloLens or whatever product. And the senior is sitting in his office at headquarters and still helps him to get his job done. And the cool thing is that the senior could now act as a multiplier because he can now instruct 10, 15, 20 different people and not having the need to travel that much. And this is also something, we have learned, if you're at the job site and need to do things on your own, someone remotely can instruct someone to do things correctly. Now people need to learn how to use these tools, how their role is changing, how they will be the one guiding other people.

Klaus Glatz: There we have seen some changes and our predictive solutions. We also have a performance center where we can see how different machines are performing and target finding the need for suggesting maintenance work and field service activities before something is happening.

Klaus Glatz: This is also a change because typically they were used as firefighters. Emergencies would come popping up and they were flying fully rolled like hell and today it's much more controlled. We understand our machines much better. We see, if the place needs a service in one month and then you can proactively suggest it to the customer. You can dispatch a service technician. It's not the big surprise. The technician doesn't get a call on Saturday or Sunday that you need to get onto the plane and fly to wherever in order to get things fixed. It's much more controlled. It's not saying that now emergencies are gone 100%, not at all, but it's a completely different working environment, which is absolutely beneficial for the people, but also for the customers, because customers also can better plan work which needs to be done here in order to keep this environment up and running.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Okay, so you've talked about a few, but I just want to recap real quick before we run through a few lessons. In terms of ANDRITZ digital transformation efforts thus far, talk to us a little bit about what some of the key pillars of that strategy are. So I know you mentioned FSM. I know you're using IOT and predictive analytics. Talk to us a little bit about what some of those core components are.

Klaus Glatz: Yeah. So say, I guess for the whole field service environment, it's our field service management solution, which we're using globally, or we are in the phase of rolling it out globally. On the IoT side via using videos and standard components and standard products. We are also, once it comes to our IOT offerings, I guess we are not working with one specifically because I guess customers typically have their preferences, which we need to respect so to say.

Klaus Glatz: We're very focused on internal development team where we're developed a lot of things on our own, because what we have learned is that to develop a good algorithm, requires a deep domain expertise in what you're doing. And that's why, I guess we are doing those things

Klaus Glatz: I guess still customers would like to have the solutions on premise, which creates some issues in data exchange. They are heading more and more towards cloud, but there's still a way to go. And we even start to develop our own sensors specifically for our needs together with universities and other companies, for sure. But I guess we also in the position to offer our own sensors. And that's why, I guess it's not that they're using this five building blocks or the five standard products. We do it mainly use-case based on a need pace, because the requirements or the environment in the m is differillent than in a hydropower plant. That's why we also need to use different components and different solutions for that. And we are not set, we do it selectively where we think we could get the most out of it.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. All right. So let's talk through a couple of the lessons learned. So the first comment you made is how important it is to think big, but act small. So tell folks what you mean by that.

Klaus Glatz: Yes. That's what I said, I guess, our mission was and still is, I guess we want to develop an autonomous whatever. I guess if it starts from zero, it's very ambitious. In time, all of the things should run autonomous. That's why you need to have a very clear plan, which steps you need today in order to get there. And we also started very small, very easy, took a very simple product and started to understand how we are. We need to develop our competencies and our skills in order to be able to develop those things. For sure. I guess it's important still. Things like you need a budget and you need to have a project sponsor and you need to have someone who has a vision, where I want to develop to, from a product solution perspective.

Klaus Glatz: It's easier from a business model change. It's much, much more complex from things like equipment as a service. It's also different complexity, but we started really with a set. Weak things, easy things and style to get all these models that we're developing together. And those are now today, a very strong development team. We also have distributed development with people in India, with people in Croatia, with people in Australia, with people in Finland. And as I said, you need to really see how to break a big thing into small pieces and then be quick in the delivery. We also now integrate customers in our discussions. So once we are doing a proof of value for something, we typically have already 10, 15 customers willing to test, willing to use it, and we also expand our reach. So say our chain also, including customers, and once we did with a tour cause we have a catalog.

Klaus Glatz: We had 15 customers, which we used in order to cost-check and to challenge things. But we think customer needs is really required or requested by a customer. So I think you need to open up your channels, your partnering, your collaboration, and really understand what are the needs of the customers. What he really needs and for which parts he is willing to pay it, because at the end of the day, our interest is to increase our revenue side. And that's why it's 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 what we need to learn and it's think big and start small.

Sarah Nicastro: Good. The next area of importance is understanding how critical clean data is. So tell us what you've learned around the importance of clean data.

Klaus Glatz: This is the absolute key area. If you're working with bad data, you can have the best solution and the most fancy thing in place and it will not work. And also in our case, data intake with the correctness of data is a huge topic. Data is key and of utmost importance. You cannot make good decisions with bad data. And this is something I guess, which is painful and which you need to understand in which creates huge efforts in cleaning data. But you have no other alternative than they just start picking up the data, make sure data is still valid. It's correct, it's updated, because otherwise I guess, you will fail with whatever you are doing.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, very good point. And then the third point is that process harmonization is equally important and an area that often gets rushed. So tell us a little bit about process harmonization.

Klaus Glatz: It's also key. I guess if we see that there were elements of topics, process harmonization is also very important, because to support different process variance, different process situations, with one tool always creates a lot of complexity. So, you need to have slim and easy processes in place, and then also it helps when implementing the tool. If you have 15 different deviations with 45 different process variances to support that with one thing, the solution is a mess of complexity. Not working as expected either it's low, or equating the wrong output, or doesn't integrate with anything. So both this harmonization and standardization is also really, really important because otherwise you create too much complexity.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Makes sense. So those are really good points and good food for thought. And I think it's a really interesting journey that you're on. And I look forward to following you along and talking more, as you guys progress toward the world of autonomous solutions. Klaus, any other lessons learned or closing thoughts that you would want to share?

Klaus Glatz: I think that the whole change management aspect is also still a huge topic here, because change always creates some fear, so to say. It's also important that you communicate, you get the people on board, you get a lot of visibility and transparency in what you're doing. This is also what we had to learn that maybe, I guess we missed out on change management at the beginning a little bit too much so to say. So, that's why I guess we also see this is very, very important. Two sided within the company, but also when cooperating with customers.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Klaus Glatz: Customers need to know we don't want to steal your data. We don't want to misuse your data. We just want to learn from experience what we can improve, and this is a joint journey with our customers. And still who is owning which data and who is allowed to access data is still sometimes a topic, but I will say that the whole change management aspect is also something which is key here to be successful. And if you lose some profiles, you win some others, but still it's being transparent, being also accessible for people to explain what you're doing is also key here.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I agree. A hundred percent. We'll Klaus, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your journey and your perspective with us. I really appreciate it and hope you'll come back and join us again some time.

Klaus Glatz: You're welcome. Whenever it's needed.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you. You can find more content by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter at TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS service management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thanks for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Carlsberg is one of the world's leading brewery groups with more than 140 brands in its beer portfolio, including the international brands Carlsberg and Tuborg and strong local power brands, such as Ringnes in Norway, Lvivske in Ukraine, Wusu in China as well as craft and specialty brands such as French 1664 Blanc and the Belgium abbey beer Grimbergen.

Carlsberg’s service business provides installation, repair, and maintenance to its customers in the hospitality industry. In its highly competitive industry, Carlsberg is tasked with seeking ways to deliver precise consistency as well as continually finding ways to differentiate itself. To meet these demands, the company is harnessing the power of today’s digital tools in a variety of ways. “We sell both direct to hospitality and indirect to wholesalers,” explains Per Ahlmann Andersen, Global Business Solutions Senior Director at Carlsberg. “In both channels, our ability to maximize equipment uptime and ensure product stays stocked is imperative to our success – and today’s technologies enable us to achieve the greatest results.”

Differentiation in a Highly Competitive Industry

The beer industry is highly competitive, and Carlsberg needs to focus on creating synergies between the commercial relationship and service, maintaining visibility of its breadth of assets and product stock, and reacting quickly – preemptively, even – to any equipment issues. “Our service personnel visit customers three to four times more than sales – they are very much the face of our brand,” says Andersen. “As such, one important area of differentiation is investing in tools to ensure those service technicians have complete knowledge of the commercial agreement and a thorough view of the customer’s equipment.”

In addition to considering the field service impact on the customer’s journey and perception of the Carlsberg brand, maximizing equipment uptime and product availability is critical. “The importance of customer equipment being up and running to serve Carlsberg products cannot be underestimated as a marketing investment,” explains Andersen. Further, greater visibility into customer operations helps Carlsberg to hold customers to campaign compliance.

Carlsberg is in the process of incorporating IoT into its operations to optimize its own performance as well as that of its customers. “We’re using IoT technology to provide us insights on not only consumption and availability, but also the state of our draft equipment to be able to do predictive maintenance to secure no breakdown for our customers and to optimize our service work,” says Claus Hirsbro, Senior Director of Technical Service, Carlsberg DraughtMaster. While this an important step in the company’s digital transformation journey, Carlsberg needed a central FSM (field service management) solution capable of covering all business processes while offering an open and enabled platform to incorporate this IoT data.

The Complexity of an Asset-Centric Operation

Following a thorough vendor evaluation process, Carlsberg selected IFS FSM as a managed cloud service to support its field service operations and repair centers. In its initial phase, Carlsberg is deploying the solution to field and back office staff in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, and Switzerland with plans to expand globally. “Operational efficiency and visibility are crucially important to us as we grow our service business and continue to develop our offerings,” says Andersen. “The IFS platform will manage our service operations and also serve as a central repository for our inventory visibility and IoT data. We can house space and planogram insights, Digital DraughtMaster data, inventory availability and use the IFS platform to view and maintain all of our assets. We are a capital-intensive business with costly equipment in the field – having a single view of our assets, whether fielded at customer sites or located in our repair shops and warehouses, is hugely beneficial.”

The IFS FSM system will house all of Carlsberg’s IoT data and can use that data to automatically create a ticket and dispatch a technician when service is required. The tool also helps Carlsberg to better model across its services, from installation and refurbishment to predictive maintenance, break/fix and cleaning, to realize the cost elements and invoice centrally and correctly. “With our initial deployment of IFS FSM, we expect an efficiency gain of between 10-15 percent,” says Hirsbro.

A View of the Future

Andersen feels that Carlsberg’s ability to digitize operations and master technology such as FSM and IoT will set the stage for Carlsberg’s service of the future as the Servitized world unfolds. “We are seeing the growth of hospitality chains, which compete based on cost,” explains Andersen. “As this increases, Carlsberg will need to incorporate more and more services into our offering to differentiate beyond beer. For instance, perhaps we’ll offer services related to the till, to location security, and so on. The futuristic view is delivering ‘beer in a box,’ if you will.”

“Another essential criteria for our foundational technology is the platform’s ability to allow us to scale and flex as our requirements evolve, whether that’s new geographies, new services, or incorporating additional technologies,” says Andersen. “IFS proved itself as a reliable technology partner for our current operations and for wherever our journey takes us from here.”

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Manufacturers of technical and office equipment have, just like manufacturers from other disciplines, embraced the importance of making service a component of their solutions. Offering service alongside traditional business practices makes a lot of sense for these companies—the overhead is low, the opportunity for subscription-based selling naturally increases, and there is implicit value in taking customer relationships beyond the transactional.

High tech manufacturers and sellers of both business and consumer products have embraced this approach, but with a massive diversity of devices and an uncertain geography to manage service appointments within, many manufacturers don’t know where to begin bringing service under one roof.

High tech service is by no means a new concept, as much service happens in an inter-office level, or by independent labor. Many businesses, hoping to own more of their customers’ perceptions of their products, are looking at ways to own more of that service directly, and deliver it as upsells and new products.

For manufacturers looking to extend their brand loyalty and product portfolio, delivering more service under a centralized banner is a great way to do so. On the consumer side, Apple has long been the gold standard of this, and while most high tech manufacturers don’t have a trillion dollars in the bank to build an international service infrastructure, there are many little things that businesses can do to servitize themselves. Here are three major considerations.

Exploit the lowered barriers for connected service
High tech manufacturing provides a much shorter bridge to asset connectivity than, say, industrial equipment manufacturing. This means that for businesses looking to increase internal service scrutiny, the ability to get an internal view on output and performance of their assets is often baked in. It’s possible that your business decides to leave it there—You have visibility into performance and service of connected assets, while others service products. Or—you can use that as a launchpad towards tools like remote assistance, which would allow a business to scale up service without hiring and training a global workforce of technicians.

Take advantage of your infrastructure
As stated previously, most high tech equipment has an embedded service team through office-led IT departments, ITSM organizations, and other third party servicers. While it’s certainly a viable option to allow these organizations to function independently, many manufacturers are seeing the value of taking this brain-trust and directly sanctioning it. This ends up being a win-win—it offers manufacturers a degree of quality control over the servicers of their products, and takes some of the onus of certification and business development off of the small business. Moreover, it allows manufacturers to offer subscriptions while deploying technicians of their choice on their terms. Many firms hybridize these workers alongside home-grown servicers. To do this effectively, it’s important to consolidate service appointments, and planning and scheduling into a unified system. This helps organizations learn from service interactions, and keeps all customer touchpoints under a singular brand banner, and the data of those appointments managed in an internal system.

Bring it under one roof
We’ve talked about the embedded asset monitoring tools within manufacturing devices, and we’ve talked about the embedded knowledge among third-party labor and in-house servicers. As alluded to previously, for businesses to get the full value of servitization, these systems need to be interconnected. As I say all the time, your field service management needs to be the grand central station that these external elements all pass through. This allows for the management of labor, parts, assets, work, and customers under a single banner. Doing so minimizes operating costs, arms employees with the right tools to sell and manage assets, and brings all operations back to the core of delivering for your customers.

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