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October 15, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

The State of Industrial Operations

October 15, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

The State of Industrial Operations

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By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about the current State of Service going into 2022, along with the contributing elements that have and will continue to impact the industry in the years ahead. Read this to get caught up:

Industrial enterprises have been the focus of service software efforts for decades—certainly longer than small and medium-sized businesses. That level of relative maturity is of course a double-edged sword: It means that for many industrial organizations, there’s a strong embedded infrastructure of software and potential connected assets to draw from. 

But that infrastructure might be staggeringly out of date or running a patchwork of software solutions that don’t integrate with one another. As I frequently say, bad data begets bad data in a negative feedback loop that can build unwanted biases into your technical criteria and undermine optimization efforts.

So, given the tectonic shifts in industrial operations, what is the current state of the industry. And more specifically, what can businesses do to start leveraging the accelerating digital transformation that is impacting other disciplines?

Benchmark Your Digital Transformation Maturity
So—I’d wager that for every company that has a sophisticated infrastructure of connected assets, and smartly-deployed applications, there’s another company that has a woefully underpowered, or downright primitive service solution in place. Over the time that I’ve been studying service industries, I’ve been gobsmacked by the number of big, high-profile brands that have woefully primitive systems of engagement for their customers when it comes to service.

There are tools to do this, chief among them market guides from some of the bid analyst firms, which go into the core capabilities, hype cycles, and appropriate case studies for your use case. These findings can help you answer questions like these:

Do major manufacturers have systems in place to manage remanufacturing and pure service providers that support their products? Do telco companies have asymmetrical planning utilities that support both customer and industrial appointments, and the ability to easily do crew scheduling? 

Organizations that lack these basic functions run the risk of being left behind. There are, as noted previously, some benefits to this sort of positioning, of course. It means you don’t have to rip out a bunch of old systems to modernize your current ones. But it means that developing a sequential deployment system, from hardware, to software, to people, is imperative. 

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October 11, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

What’s the Services Growth Potential around Sustainability?

October 11, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

What’s the Services Growth Potential around Sustainability?

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

The discussion around sustainability is increasing in urgency based on a variety of factors – the observance of environmental necessity, regulatory pressures to force progress toward a more sustainable future, and the impact on certain business models and processes that don’t align with sustainable standards. It’s a conversation about more than just the environment, though – it’s also a conversation about good business. 

According to Accenture, Companies with stronger Sustainability DNA are more likely to deliver financial value and a lasting positive impact on society and the environment. Recent research shows that the EBITDA margin of top quartile companies on the index is 21% higher (+3.4 percentage points) compared with the bottom quartile. Their sustainability performance is also 21% higher (+9.2 index points). This means that whether your priorities are positively impacting our environment or growing your business or both, the conversation will only become more important.

On last week’s podcast, I had a discussion around this topic with Jason Pelz, VP of Sustainability Americas and Sasha Ilyukhin, VP of Service Solutions for the Americas, both at Tetra Pak. Tetra Pak, the world's leading food processing and packaging solutions company, is a recognized leader for its sustainability initiatives and continues to work on accountability for its own progress. An area of the conversation that was especially interesting, though, was around the service potential sustainability holds for Tetra Pak and this potential begins with a holistic view of what impacts sustainability. 

“People are looking for products as consumers that are circular products, and as such sourcing becomes extremely important and recycling becomes extremely important. And I would argue that if you just go out in the street and stop the first 20 people and you ask them, they will say that it’s important to them where the product is coming from, that it’s sourced properly, and how it is then recycled,” explains Sasha. “What is interesting about this is that there is one piece in the middle there in that circular value chain that is called manufacturing. You source the materials, you start putting them together, that typically happens in a manufacturing plant. Then there may be multiple manufacturing nodes, if you will, on that value chain because then it goes further. We manufacture, for example, equipment. We manufacture packaging material. Our customers manufacture consumer products using what we had manufactured previously. So, if you take that whole manufacturing piece, our data suggests that the whole impact on the carbon footprint of the entire value chain, 48% of that footprint is actually caused by manufacturing. So, you think about, again, sourcing, extremely important, recycling is extremely important, but half of this entire impact comes from manufacturing.”

Tetra Pak’s Sustainability Services

This knowledge has led Tetra Pak to explore its ability to provide services to its customers to help them in reducing the carbon footprint of their own manufacturing operations. “What we see lately is a clear need from our customers in improving sustainability, so we are aligning our services portfolio into what it can do to help our customer reduce their carbon footprint to enable them to be more competitive versus other producers out there,” says Sasha. “When we do cost reduction projects with our customers, when we help our customers reduce their operational costs, we do it using the methodology of TPM or total productive maintenance. With sustainability, it’s a very, very similar process. We’ve learned how to do a mass balance, but using the energy, using the water consumption, using the VODs, CODs, using the waste. Recently, we’ve managed to reduce in one of our customers over 1,000 tons of CO2 per year. This is a confirmed equivalent that we have reduced. If you convert that back to the efficiency of the plant, so overall equipment protectiveness, that increases 19.4%. So, 19.4% efficiency increase plant-wide is equivalent in that case to just over 1,000 tons of CO2.”

Sasha shares more on the podcast related to the details of how Tetra Pak is approaching this new services potential with its customers, and it is well worth a listen. But the goal of this article is simply to get you thinking about the opportunity that may exist in your industry, for your company, to provide services that help your customers progress their own sustainability goals. The discussion is important in terms of examining your own business’ progress and actions, but there may be a wave of service growth tied to the overall increase in focus on sustainability. 

“It makes absolute sense that businesses are starting to pay more and more attention and put more and more effort into sustainability goals. It’s not at the bottom of the balanced scorecard anymore, it goes to the top,” says Sasha. “And I have examples in our business where in talks with our customers, some customers are starting to place these goals as equivalent to their business goals. They not only want to achieve their net sales and profitability, but they also want to achieve their goals on carbon reduction and being carbon neutral. Sustainability is becoming, has become, a license to operate.”

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October 8, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

The State of Small Business Service

October 8, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

The State of Small Business Service

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By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about the current State of Service going into 2022, along with the contributing elements that have and will continue to impact the industry in the years ahead. Read this to get caught up:

More than anyone else, small businesses have seen a tectonic shift since the start of COVID. Businesses of all stripes have been driven to technology to keep their doors open during lockdowns, completely refocusing the way that commerce and service function. Just the other day, Slate ran an article on the wellspring of “invisible customers” in food service, as the trickle-down of ecommerce technologies seep into the crevices of even mom-and-pop shops. Even my very favorite greasy spoon, a cash-only hole in the wall called Steve’s Kitchen in a grungy, collegiate neighborhood of Boston has launched a website. No one is safe.

This digital acceleration has of course impacted service businesses as well, though along a slightly different vector. For what it’s worth, I’ve been talking about the importance of small business investment in service software since before it was cool, but it’s certainly not 2018 any more, and the expectations of what small businesses need has shifted. So here are some considerations for adopting an all-new service platform, whether you’re replacing a wall calendar or a homegrown frankensystem.

Scaling Down the Big Boys
While the enterprise service software companies certainly can scale up (some better than others), their ability to scale down is more complex and nuanced, believe it or not. And it might not be as simple as stripping away features—under many circumstances, the whole architecture might be the wrong fit, or features that you want might be optimized for different use cases, and therefore will not meet your needs.

Forward-thinking vendors have calibrated for this, by offering more tailored solutions, sometimes swapping out products wholesale in order to meet the specific needs of your business. The goal of every best-of-breed service firm should be to have a solution to every problem that you might encounter, and to be able to conform to the shape, size, and specifics of your use case. So let’s take a look at what you might need to find success:

The Tools for Success
We’ll break this down by capability. A full-featured small business service platform will be prepared to tackle the following:

  • Scheduling, planning, and routing
  • Appointment management
  • Mobile access
  • Billing and payment modules
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Marketing and business development

There are some additional features that might be industry-specific, and whether there are add-on modules or specific solutions for those businesses will depend on the industries themselves. All of this raises a broader question, though, about where your new service software sits relative to other software platforms. 

Using Service as Your System of Record
The truth of the matter is that for small businesses, especially those transitioning from bespoke, low-tech processes, a good service management platform might be like and express elevator into technical literacy. And for those businesses, it can certainly function as such. If you want your service platform to manage resource planning functions like procurement, parts management, human capital management, customer relationship management, and so on, you can find a system that includes that as well. With the right tools, small businesses can approach service with a degree of ease-of-use and efficiency that offers value to customers, drives more business, and offers the tools and power to grow.

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October 4, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

3 Skills Your Frontline Workforce Must Have to Succeed in the New Era of Service

October 4, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

3 Skills Your Frontline Workforce Must Have to Succeed in the New Era of Service

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

When I interview someone and ask, “what would you say the secret to your success is?” The most common answer is the people. When I ask someone, “what is the biggest challenge you’ve faced?” The most common answer is the people. Our success and failure in service, while spurred by strategy and enabled by technology, lies with our people.

As such, many leaders are focusing more on soft skills than ever before. But what if soft skills is the wrong focus? A friend sent me this video last week and I loved Simon Sinek’s point: “There’s no such thing as ‘soft skills.’ There is nothing soft about them. Let's call them what they really are — human skills.” This struck a chord with me, because it made me think about the disservice we may be doing in thinking about and communicating about these skills as “soft” skills. I love Simon’s urge to call them human skills instead.

The focus on these human skills is more important than ever, and if referring to them as human versus soft will help in making strides, then it’s worth the effort to change the term. There are some factors at play that are emphasizing the importance on ensuring that your workforce is equipped with more than the technical knowledge to do their jobs. First, in service the frontline role is rapidly evolving. As more and more organizations embrace outcomes-based service, as-a-Service models, and Servitization, the role of the frontline worker is far more than a fix – they are demanded to become trusted advisors to those customers. They need to feel comfortable making suggestions, offering expanded services, and adeptly uncovering additional customer needs to evolve service offerings.

Moreover, the workforce is changing. Younger and more diverse workers are entering, technology is automating some tasks to allow more time for value-added work, there’s an emphasis on knowledge capture and transfer, and Covid has drastically increased remote work. From the frontline to middle management to top leadership, there’s ample need for an increase in human skills that help employees at all levels communicate effectively and work toward common goals.

Innovation also increases the need for the focus on human skills. Alignment toward strategic initiatives demands the breakdown of siloes, a more agile way of work, and the input of all areas of the company to be effective. Companies who are prioritizing human skills and a culture of open, honest communication at all layers of the organization have greater chances of success in accomplishing transformation and innovation at the pace necessary today.

3 Human Skills Every Worker Needs to Master

As I said, many companies are playing more emphasis on soft – or human – skills than ever before. But others lag, and it’s important to realize that these skills are absolutely as important to success at work as the technical skills needed for a job. As Sinek points out at the end of the video I linked, a two-day offsite or guest speaker once a year doesn’t “check the box” on your focus on human skills. These skills should be given ample energy and investment, which will be ensured best by measuring them in some way.

There are many human skills that are both important and valuable in successfully navigating both the innerworkings of a company and external customer relationships, but if asked to prioritize a top three here are the skills I’d chose and why:

  • This is a given, I suppose – but with good reason. Communication comes more naturally to some, but even for those who communicate effortlessly don’t always to so effectively. Communication is so important both inside and outside the organization and while specific training may vary based on role-specific requirements or areas of need, a focus on clarity, timeliness, honesty, and respectfulness are a must. You must also ensure that you are providing an environment in which your employees feel comfortable communicating and a culture in which they feel heard.
  • With all that’s going on in our world, empathy is a critical skill. From being able to put yourself in a customer’s shoe to acknowledging a co-worker who is struggling with something, empathy is an invaluable skill to focus on and is, in many ways, its own superpower. Empathy is also a cornerstone of conflict resolution, which is an important skill to master when dealing with customers.
  • This might not make someone else’s top three list, but it makes mine because I think it is rapidly increasing in importance. Gone are the days of companies looking to hire cookie-cutter robots to do a job. Rather, we want employees who have that certain “something” – and so do customers. Further, with innovation a high priority across a variety of industries, creativity is an in-demand skill to help bring new ideas, fresh approaches, and different ways of thinking.

I’m curious – what’s your top three? I’d love to hear! Email me to share.

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October 1, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

Don’t Let Workflow Deviations Derail your Service Software

October 1, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

Don’t Let Workflow Deviations Derail your Service Software

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By Tom Paquin

I’ve spoken about my grandfather here before, and his passive enjoyment for (and frustration with) technology, among other things. I have not, however, previously discussed how my grandfather sends documents via e-mail.

When someone requests a document of my grandfather—be it a Word document, PDF, picture, or series of pictures, he goes through the following set of steps:

  • He prints the document
  • He scans the printout into his scanner program
  • He attaches the scanned images to an e-mail message
  • He sends the message

I’m not sure how he came to divine this completely ridiculous sequence, but the man is nearly in triple-digits, so I do not consider it feasible, at this point, to explain to him how attachments work (though over the years I have tried many times).

While that’s fine among aging relatives, when you’re trying to get human workers in service to do their jobs, failing to follow a standard workflow can do more than be a huge waste of paper and ink; it can be a liability that can cripple business processes across the entirety of a business.

Establishing a workflow is one thing, and training employees consistently on using and adhering to that workflow is another, but fundamentally, your software investments should be engineered in ways that keep employees within the critical path of your established workflow, and there’s a pretty straightforward way to do so:

Your Sequence Needs to be Seamless

There are a lot of service platforms that paper over their inefficiencies through an army of third-party software solutions, or, alternatively, buying companies, cherry-picking capabilities, and slapping them into the box alongside their core product. Then what ends up happening is that systems do not pass data back and forth effectively, can’t tie ticket information to scheduling, and become beholden to inconsistent upgrade patterns and the potential of dropped support for software areas integral to business success.

That’s why it’s so important that from asset monitoring (if applicable) through service delivery, and everywhere in between, your systems need to run in a common language. A consistent handoff means that deviation from an accepted workflow becomes more difficult, because much of moving step-by-step will be automated. The onus of button-pushing moves away from the employee and onto the software itself to prompt and more through a set of standardized processes.

This is obviously not a cure-all for avoiding workflow deviations. We’ve discussed before the importance of building service software that contours to your business operations, so workflow management is natural. But seamless software solves more problems than just keeping employees on the critical path, and if it can help avoid workflow deviations, that’s yet another bonus.

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September 27, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

It’s Time for a Mental Health Check

September 27, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

It’s Time for a Mental Health Check

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Let me start by admitting a few things. I’ve been struggling lately – not every day, but a good amount of the time. I feel overwhelmed by inputs and decisions and stresses and underwhelmed at my options for turning any of it “off.” I feel a bit numb, almost like I’m watching myself do all of these things from a distance. Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy – I love my family, I love my work, and I have so much to be grateful for. But after two-under-two followed by a child diagnosed at age three with Type 1 diabetes followed by a global pandemic, I am more than a bit burnt out.

And here’s the thing, I think we all are. Yet it’s becoming harder to talk about mental health in the context of our current landscape because, well, what the hell do we say? The check-ins we all had early on in the pandemic were sprinkled with statements that perhaps we then believed, like “We can get through this!” or “The silver lining is…” or “When this is over…” No one wants to hear it anymore, myself included. Because eighteen months into this, platitudes are nothing but frustrating. But we’re still struggling, in fact many of us are struggling more. Chronic stress for a year and a half will do that.

Silence Isn’t the Answer

This is a major challenge when it comes to talking about mental health – we often don’t know what to say, so we don’t say anything. But silence is not the answer, and it is time for a mental health check. How are your work-from-home employees feeling? How are your frontline workers holding up? How are your peers faring? How are YOU? You don’t have to have a perfect response to ask a genuine question – in fact, you don’t have to have a response at all. Just listening helps. Alternatively, you don’t have to be asking any questions – you can simply share. Being honest about your own feelings encourages others to do the same.

I was talking with a connection last week and when we got onto Teams and exchanged “how are you’s?” we both sort of just shrugged. Once we got talking, we each opened up about how we’re feeling. How we are struggling at times, but then feel guilty verbalizing any of that struggle because we know many are struggling more. How we feel like we have to maintain an image of strength, for our families and our colleagues, even when we really need a break from being “tough.” It was an honest, vulnerable conversation – and it felt so good. It was the catalyst for writing this because I think that as the pandemic has gone on, we’ve become less communicative about this critically important topic.

So, I urge you, speak up and speak out. Talk to your people, check in on them with sincerity. Don’t worry about knowing how to respond, just focus on being present. If you aren’t comfortable asking the big questions and aren’t getting any more than a surface-level response with “how are you?” try to incorporate some small talk into your interactions to allow folks to feel more comfortable getting personal so that they can open up if they need to. And if it’s you that need to talk, don’t underestimate how much it might help both you and those around you to be the one to share. Please also know that I will always gladly make myself available for connection, camaraderie, and solidarity – reach out anytime.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month in the U.S. Please find resources and help here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

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September 24, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

The State of the Service Workforce

September 24, 2021 | 3 Mins Read

The State of the Service Workforce

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By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about the current State of Service going into 2022, along with the contributing elements that have and will continue to impact the industry in the years ahead. Read this to get caught up:

The service workforce has been a fraught topic since years before the pandemic. Even back in 2018, service employee turnover was nearly 50%, meaning new training, aging employees, and job vacancies that sometimes remained unfilled for years.

And COVID-19 has certainly not improved situations, with an estimated 1 million more jobs than job seekers today. We’ve felt the impact of this in every sector, and service is by no means immune to these challenges. Taking manufacturing alone as a benchmark, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that job vacancies have more than doubled. We knew that this ramp-up was coming, but I don’t know that we were prepared for the secondary effects that COVID would have on the labor market.

Hiring for technical trades was already a challenge, but today, the challenge is doubly exacerbated by retraining, changing employee wants and expectations, and shifting business priorities. Businesses are increasingly closing the windows on their ability to hire their way out of labor shortages, as apprenticeships and other incentives can’t keep up with the pace of churn.

Because of this, businesses are rightly rethinking service from top to bottom, to support their current employees, attract more talent, and do more with less, sometimes next to nothing.

Doing Something with Nothing

Remote Assistance is now well-tread ground around here, so there’s not much of a surprise that RA utilities can do quite a bit to paper over an overextended staff, and permit less seasoned workers in the field tap resources in the backoffice in real-time.

An alternative to that is the inverse—put less tensured employees in front of a computer where they have their full reference library, and have them work through step-by-step repairs with on-site customers to resolve issues. Individuals are much more amenable to managing their own destiny, so in many respects, as little as a skeleton crew with minimal training can get a service brand through lean times. Yes that might seem like an extreme scenario, but for manufacturers, it might end up being a more viable option as organizations move away from repairs altogether.

The Death of Repair

We know that, on top of workplace challenges, businesses have an incentive to maximize the remittance of materials to their original point of origin. Here’s how I described it in the linked article:

So—if manufacturers are incentivized to invest in the circular economy, that means a couple of things:

  • Manufacturers are going to want parts to be reasonably intact upon extraction from a product
  • Manufacturers are going to want parts and products back as much as possible
  • The act of repair will, in many circumstances, be eclipsed by the act of remanufacturing goods into wholly new items

The first point here hinges upon a simple premise: Manufacturers are going to focus on increasing not only quality control, in order to mitigate repairs, but part modularity, in order to make the act of repair itself a different type of process. If, for example, you need to replace a shock absorber in your washing machine, rather than 3,200 proprietary screws, if the part’s locking mechanism is self-contained, it can easily be removed and replaced.

Making parts easier to replace also means less actual service appointments. Why? Because easier parts means easier on-site service. When things break, manufacturers can ship parts to customers, and provide the packaging to allow the broken part to be shipped back to the manufacturer, thus keeping it in the circular manufacturing loop. Add in tools like remote assistance and even moderately complex jobs can be completed without a truck roll or a local tech.

This reflects yet another avenue for organizations to consider when grappling with a reduced workforce, one that has the added benefit of lowering overhead costs for manufacturing, and allowing businesses to recoup resources from themselves, thus changing the nature of new, and building a more sustainable world. A real win-win.

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September 20, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Key Observations from The Service Council Smarter Services Symposium 2021

September 20, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Key Observations from The Service Council Smarter Services Symposium 2021

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Last week I boarded a flight to Chicago for my first in-person conference in more than 18 months. When I walked into the Smarter Services Symposium at the Loew’s Hotel, it was quite honestly surreal at first. Greeting others with masks and the uncertainty of whether or not to shake hands or bump elbows felt awkward and almost had me wishing for the home-office comfort zone of my leggings and Teams meetings. Almost. It didn’t take long for me to reacclimate and realize just how good it felt to be reunited with friendly faces and to meet some new.

The energy and excitement around being back together in person was palpable – there were proper precautions in place, and for those who did decide to attend the event in person, any initial awkwardness was quickly replaced with an appreciation for the reunion of the community. In-person attendance, which was lighter than pre-Covid events, was bolstered with video cameos and attendees viewing the livestream.

The three-day event was more than just warm-fuzzies and cocktails, though there was plenty of both. Sessions featured insights from members of The Service Council’s board and then some, and many were led by the energetic team of the Nour Group. Topics included the theme “Service is Humanity” as well as discussions on all of the major trends you’d assume be incorporated: customer centricity, employee engagement, diversity, innovation, digital transformation, the talent gap, the future of work, as-a-Service models, and more.

While these are all topics we cover regularly here at Future of Field Service, I didn’t spend the three days bored. As I find is typically the case at these events, even if what’s being discussed at a high level are key trends you’re familiar with, there’s always a new perspective, point, or nugget of insight to walk away with. That said, here are what stood out to me as my key observations from the event.

#1: Innovation Demands Accountability

I hosted a 90-minute workshop at the event alongside Joni Chapas, VP of Field Operations at Brinks Home. You may remember Joni from her podcast on how Brinks Home is fueling innovation, and this session was a more in-depth discussion around this topic. We shared some of each of our stories, and then opened it up for an interactive talk around what’s driving innovation within service, what key areas of strategy are essential for successful innovation, how is innovation most effectively tackled, and what are some lessons learned.

One of the most important takeaways from this session is that innovation demands accountability. At Brinks Home, Joni’s team was created to work alongside operations to collaboratively drive innovation. The company recognizes that the operational leaders need to focus on operational excellence, but that innovation is still imperative – so the team was created to extract insight from those leaders on what innovation is needed, but to work solely on driving that innovation and strategic alignment surrounding it.

Whether accountability at your organization is achieved through a dedicated team like what Brinks Home has done or in another way, the point is that we can’t expect to innovate at the pace we need to by simply expecting the leaders already responsible for so much to just add it on top and “get to it when they can.” It’s unfair to place the burden for your company’s future entirely on the shoulders of those who are already overtaxed trying to maintain its present.

#2: Pressing Pause is Better Than Racing Recklessly

Eduardo Bonefont, VP of Life Sciences Technical Services at BD, spoke on day one about the Future of Service and how the company’s people, processes, and tools play a role. He had some excellent points around the importance of manager accountability, creating a speak-up culture, and how to prioritize various projects and objectives.

Part of Eduardo’s discussion that I found especially impactful was him relaying how BD took a “pause year” of introducing new tools to gather feedback, clarify areas of priority, and create a cohesive strategy. While the idea of a pause year may sound challenging for some, the reality is that undoing the negative impact of racing ahead when you truly aren’t ready or aligned is far harder. I loved this idea of pressing pause long enough to examine, reassess, and align.

#3: Your Customers Don’t Want Service

To kick off day two, Mike Adams, SVP of Services Delivery at NCR Corporation, spoke about Servitization. One of the first sentences of his presentation is my favorite quote of the entire event: “Our customers don’t want service; they just want their equipment to work – all the time.” To me, understanding the significance of this statement – and the action it requires from service businesses – is the core of Servitization success.

Your customers don’t want your service – they want results, outcomes, peace of mind. They want guarantees, they want less stress. This doesn’t mean, of course, that they don’t need your service – but it changes the game in terms of what the value proposition is, how service needs to be delivered, and what will achieve customer loyalty. Mike went on to deliver far more gold in his session that illustrated the depth of his experience, but this was by far my favorite point.

#4: Disruption is Inevitable, By Force or By Choice

In a panel discussion on innovation, James Mylett, SVP of Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, said of his company, “You have to dare to disrupt. Innovation is our middle name – we think fact and act faster.” This attitude alone takes energy and effort, not to mention the cultural, procedural, and technological steps necessary to make fast action a reality. But James is 100% right – you do have to dare to disrupt. Because if you don’t, the disruption will come anyway – by force. And it is far harder to come back from that type of disruption than it is to proactively master the art of disrupting by choice.

#5: The Story is More Important Than the Strategy

Karin Hamel, VP of Services for U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, did a session on day three with David Nour and Lin Wilson of the Nour Group to discuss – and show – how she’s worked to visualize strategy to create employee buy-in. Karin spoke to how much unnecessary complexity and corporate speak are put into communications with the frontline workforce that work against the mission of clarity and authenticity.

By simplifying and illustrating key points, Schneider Electric has been able to create a message that resonates far better with its workforce. The focus is on the story, not the detailed strategy, which helps employees connect more and understand better the key aspects that are important and matter most to them. Obviously, there’s strategy here, too, but Karin’s point – and it’s a great one – is that the story is more important and often overlooked. Leading with story gets people to listen and care, which makes the strategy part far smoother.

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September 13, 2021 | 6 Mins Read

5 Musts for Leaders to Increase Digital Proficiency

September 13, 2021 | 6 Mins Read

5 Musts for Leaders to Increase Digital Proficiency

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

I wrote an article not long ago on the need to build your digital “dream team,” but what exactly is the responsibility of leaders in our digital age? I spoke with Russell Masters, director of IT and analytics at DHU, a provider to the UK National Health Service, for this week’s podcast about the degree to which all leaders must develop digital capabilities. Does everyone need to be a digital expert? No, but all leaders need to reach a level of digital proficiency in some key areas.

Here's what Russell, who has worked in services for more than 20 years having notably been a part of helping build digital services at Rolls-Royce before joining DHU, has to say about the demand of leaders today to become more digitally adept: “It’s really challenging to take forward the blending of IT technology with the real world and go through what has effectively been a transition big IT to the more ubiquitous version of that which is digital. Every aspect of our life now is touched by some form of digital technology. And I would suggest that the generation of business leaders we have now are right at the forefront of being the first to take those big digital tools and technologies and deploy them into their companies, into their businesses and their teams at any real scale.”

While the digital era doesn’t require all leaders to be technical experts, it does require an effort to build more digital understanding and acumen and to think a bit differently about how you build, motivate, and measure teams who do have the technical digital skillsets you lack. Here are five key areas of focus when it comes to stepping up your leadership to be more digitally proficient.

#1: Acknowledge the Necessity

There’s no denying that digital is a front-and-center focus of every organization today. But there are leaders who feel they can leave this all “to the experts,” and this is a major misstep. It is necessary for all leaders to build a better understanding of digital so that they are able to see the opportunities it offers the company, set a strategy to digitally transform and evolve, and drive continual progress. It’s simply too critical an area of the business not to become more adept in.

“I'm probably part of one of the first generations of leaders who've really had to get their head round how do you take these digital tools and technologies and how do you deploy them successfully into your organization? With the complete democratization of those technologies, leaders are wrestling with how to make something really successful out of something that they probably haven't had a lot of chance to understand but know is incredibly important and being used by everyone everywhere to make their businesses better and more effective,” says Russell.

We’re talking about making sophisticated technology very simple for both employees and customers, and this requires immense knowledge and skill. While you don’t need to hold all of that knowledge and skill yourself, you certainly can’t opt out of educating yourself and improving your competence in such an important area.

#2: Know Your Role

While it is essential to put effort into building digital proficiency, that does not mean you need to become a technical expert. You need to find a balance of having ample understanding and capability, enough so that you can make important decisions and effectively lead a team, but not getting buried in a rabbit hole of feeling you need to become the #1 digital expert in your business. What’s the right balance for you between passing the buck (not acceptable) and feeling you must become a deep technical expert (likely not reasonable OR necessary)?

“I think the subject of digital technology starts, first and foremost, with some pretty super sophisticated content. And that can be really daunting when you're starting to contemplate how do you take digital forward,” says Russell. “And there's always a sense and a concern that really maybe you have to actually be a developer yourself to be able to be effective in these areas, maybe actually have to understand architecture. This concern is a barrier that can get in the way for a lot of leaders. The truth is, you do need to know something about the technology, and you do need to find a way of interacting with the many, many technical people that you'll meet. To be more digitally enabled, you need to understand the subject matter a bit more but not to be too worried about knowing it to the Nth degree.”

#3: Learn (and Respect) the Language

This means that the path to building digital proficiency for most leaders has a lot to do with increasing your digital acumen and focusing on creating a common language around digital within your organization to ensure everyone stays aligned. Growing your understanding and building this common language is what allows you to participate at a productive level in all key decisions and progress without needing to get lost in the weeds of the deep details.

“You do need to know enough about the technology to make yourself educated and informed, but you don't have to be the expert,” says Russell. “This comes from learning to ask intelligent questions and learning to pick out the areas where maybe it's worth digging into a big deeper. This is a far more valuable skill than, for example, taking yourself back to night school and learning all about cloud architecture. Your job is to become familiar and converse in the broad language and be able to know who to speak to about which challenge and which issue, and to learn how to bring those people together in a way that drives towards a common goal. Much the same as if you're building a house, you wouldn't lecture your architect on where to put the beams and how deep the footings would be, you trust that they know how to do their job. But you'd certainly have an opinion on what the outcome should look like.”

#4: Build a Team You Trust (and Trusts You)

While you should not shirk your responsibility to grow your digital understanding and abilities, you need to use that understanding to build strength in the technical layers that are beyond what your role requires. Good leaders know enough to define the digital strengths needed and focus on hiring a team that delivers these skills that they can trust. This trust is important, because you won’t know all of the details they do – so you need to trust their abilities and make them feel empowered to accomplish the objectives, and they need to trust your leadership and feel adequately valued.

“Your first focus should be building a great team,” says Russell. “Having built that great team, you've got to trust that that team can do the task that you put them together for. Now, by the same account, you still have to be there and show up every day and show interest and drive the energy. As a leader, your job in a number of ways is to just pour constant amounts of energy into those projects. It can be really difficult when you're leading a big project to understand how far do you go in demonstrating that you're committed and care about it and you're willing to take action and participate and how do you make sure you don't go too far and stifle the creativity and the enthusiasm and the ownership of the team around you?” This is where you use your knowledge to guide, motivate, and empower versus control or micromanage.

#5: Measure Outcomes

Russell was adamant that one of the biggest changes in digital leadership is adjusting to a different way of measuring contribution, where you’re focusing more on outcomes and less on tasks. “Digital leaders must get better at working towards outcomes. This starts with enabling the team to understand those outcomes and then really supporting and empowering them, moving away from a culture where you're the one making all the decisions and you're the one driving all the actions to the one where you're more making the team accountable for the outcome that you'll need to deliver and fostering a culture where we all work together to achieve an end result,” he explains.

This can require a shift in management philosophy and even company culture but is far more aligned to making progress the way you need to with digital projects and digital talent. “These ways of working are not necessarily well understood or well-practiced everywhere but moving away from action to outcome and focusing on creating the right culture and collaborative spirit with the right team is what leads to success in this digital age.”

Stay tuned for far more insights on this week’s podcast.

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September 10, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

The State of Connected Assets

September 10, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

The State of Connected Assets

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By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about the current State of Service going into 2022, along with the contributing elements that have and will continue to impact the industry in the years ahead. Read this to get caught up:

A few years back at Field Service USA, a group of service professionals were discussing how comparatively subdued talk of IoT was, that year. This was the first indication in a long time that the concept of connected assets was finally moving from buzzword to ubiquitous component of service delivery. Comparatively mundane. But that is not to say that the story of IoT has ended, nor that we’ve reached a fully saturated market. It merely represents how our perspective has moved away from “let’s connect everything” to “What can I connect to be more successful?”

And that defines the current state of connected IoT—practicality trumps novelty for connected assets. Organizations are making informed decisions about what to connect to—not going to market with app-enabled coffee mugs.

Oh wait they’re still doing that? Never mind. BUT—in industrial applications, IoT adoption now is engineered around a few core capabilities. Let’s discuss some of them.

True Predictive
We often talk in abstractions about how predictive systems work with connected assets: If you see one weed on your lawn, we can extrapolate that in a week, you’ll have a dozen weeds. But what does that actually measure? The reality is that for most industrial assets, the amount of data generated by any one device is far too much to manage. So how do you extrapolate from that data what normal processes look like, build benchmarks and contingencies for repair, and make the right decisions for your customers?

At the very base level, you need to ensure that your assets are accurately measuring data. Once that has been established, you need a way to clean that data fast and actionalize it without it sitting, untouched, in a data lake. The solution for that is of course thoughtful AI processing, which, when given the opportunity to study practical business processes can cleanse data and form a complex web of conditional guidelines that can, in turn, automate job assignment, or inform remote repairs.

Augmented Augmented Reality
With those systems effectively in place, calibrated to understand your processes, you now have a new channel of service resolution that goes a step beyond basic remote assistance and telestration. By combining visuals for repair with back-end conditions, you have the ability to show someone how to resolve issues while understanding, on the back-end, what isn’t working, how to get it up and running, and what it’ll look like when it’s working. There are a myriad of business efficiencies that are inherently derived from this. Leveraging them will allow an organization to offer more value to their customers while simultaneously improving margins.

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