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February 15, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Demystifying the Monetization of Data

February 15, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Demystifying the Monetization of Data

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

IDC estimates there will be 55.7 billion connected IoT devices (or “things”) by 2025, generating almost 80B zettabytes (ZB) of data and says “organizations continue to connect their internal processes across roles on a digital platform; and these same industry organizations are realizing the importance of expanding their ecosystems to meet market and customer need, and be more flexible and resilient.”

We all recognize the criticality of gathering data, but do we have clarity around exactly how to make the most of that data? Based on my recent conversation with Dr. Andreas (Andy) Schroeder, Reader for Information Systems at Aston University and Digital Lead for the Advanced Services Group, it seems the answer in most cases is no – particularly as we look at the paths for monetizing data. Andy and I recently recorded a podcast, which will be released soon, during which he demystified some of the common challenges around how to leverage data to increase revenue.

The Chicken and Egg Syndrome

The first point to get clear on is what comes first: strategy or technology? As Andy explains, data is an answer that should be answering a question that is tied to your strategy. “Technology or data, information technology is a way to answer questions,” he says. “The questions that need to be answered are defined by the business model. So, if my business model, for example, says I provide heating as a service, then the question is, for example, how much heat does my customer need, how much comfort does he or she need? This is a question, and then we can look at how we can use technology to answer this question.”

Leading with strategy and focusing on what questions do you need to answer to deliver value to your customers is the best way to approach putting technology in place to gather the right data. Too often companies get ahead of themselves by putting technology in place and collecting data that they aren’t sure what to do with or how it fits within their value proposition. This can waste valuable time and create overwhelm, so you are better of setting your strategy first and defining exactly what questions you need answers (data) to.

Clarify Your Path to Revenue

This was my favorite quote from the podcast with Andy: “We all agree that Servitization is tightly linked to digitalization, but I would go even further and say that Servitization is the way to monetize digitalization.” He goes on to explain the cohesiveness that should exist when it comes to your company’s evolution from product provider to Servitized business, digitalization efforts, and new customer value proposition.

Clarity around how best to approach this puzzle is where the majority of demystification needs to occur. “A lot of the IOT investments that we're seeing, may not pay off on their own unless they're wrapped into a business model that takes advantage of being able to monitor something at distance,” explains Andy. “There are some huge misconceptions around Servitization. Servitization is not a statement of, ‘We are not good at producing products.’ It's a statement of, ‘We can provide our product as a service because we have the best products around, because we can provide products that we can put a lifelong commitment to instead of our competitor who is more or less happy when they don't have to be involved with that product long-term.’”

When there is confusion around or resistance to the idea of morphing to a Servitized business model, the value proposition tends to be presented in a fragmented way: product first, then service after with new data capabilities added on as digitalization efforts mature. This fragmented approach is all wrong, because not only does it not embrace the true meaning of Servitization, but it pieces out the value that customers are willing to pay for into siloes that aren’t at all meaningful to them.

“If we take the narrow term of monetization, that means money for data in the way we can interpret this,” explains Andy. “We’ve found that in a lot of companies that we work with, they come with ambitions of being able to monetize the data on its own. Some make investments in development platforms and so on and so on, to be able to communicate data and insights to the customer. Very, very few are managing to convert this into actual business propositions that are being taken up by the customers.”

What Are Your Customers Willing to Pay For?

What Andy is describing is a challenge I’ve heard tale of many times – a customer isn’t receptive to paying for data or a new tier of service contract enabled by that data, because their expectation is that as their trusted provider, you will extend your latest and best capabilities to them. In other words, they are interested in the outcome – not the path to the outcome. “What we find is that a lot of times, the customer is not willing to pay for the data. There might be different reasons, there might not be enough value in the data, or the customer might say, ‘I buy your product and you want to charge me to tell me when my product will break? I mean, I'm your customer, why don't you just tell me? Why would we have to have a different loop, why do you want to charge me extra for it?’”

This is why, in most scenarios, the path to data monetization needs to be a natural part of the shift to Servitization or outcomes-based service, not an initiative on its own. “In the wider context, the way to monetize data is to make it part of the entire service proposition,” says Andy. “To be honest, the customer doesn't really care to know when the machine breaks in a service context. In a service context, you're contracted to make sure the machine doesn't break, and there's a penalty associated with the downtime of the machine. Why would the customer want to know? For curiosity reasons, yes, but it is your responsibility. By folding data into a service proposition, you can more easily monetize it because you are translating it into tangible, substantial value.”

Now some organizations who have advanced quite far on the Servitization journey have also seen success in monetizing data in additional areas beyond the core service value proposition – by leveraging data as a way to provide valuable knowledge and business insights in more of a consulting manner. While this isn’t yet the norm, it is also worth considering how data may play a part in your revenue growth if you can glean insights from it that provide value to your customer base beyond informing your service.

Stay tuned for this podcast coming soon, where Andy and I discuss these themes in more detail and also walk through important tips for collecting the right data for your needs.

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February 12, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Finding the Fit for Field Service in Retail

February 12, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

Finding the Fit for Field Service in Retail

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By Tom Paquin

I am a creature of the retail world, having spent my young and early professional life in it, both directly as an hourly employee, and then indirectly in advisement to some large retail brands. Because of that, it’s something that I talk about here frequently. Most of the discussions that I’ve had have been about the actual retail go-to-market strategy for retail organizations: Where service can fit in their current day-to-day operations. This means focusing in most instances on service rather than field service, utilizing what physical space is available to provide experiences for customers who are standing on your property.

Field operations, as they relate to retail, usually fall into two categories: building physical infrastructure for delivery, repair, and installation services, or the act of delivering service to retailers. Having discussed the latter in some detail, let’s focus on the expansion of companies towards delivering actual field operations outside of retail.

It’s easy to see this in a binary—the only field service you could provide, as a bookseller, for instance, is a product delivery service. But is that the only service that you could provide? Are there opportunities to servitize the book-buying process, perhaps through subscription-based book clubs that provide books to members each month and organizes and runs their meetings, perhaps in partnership with local catering? The technology potential and intersectionality of local businesses have finally caught up with the ambitions of business owners…let’s not stifle out-of-the-box thinking now.

Obviously I can say things like this without consequence, since I don’t need to find the money, resources, and infrastructure to make it happen. With that in mind, let’s talk about some of the logistical considerations that could help connect the dots.

Appropriating field workers

How does one “staff up” for field operations? How do you manage the vehicular costs, material costs, and labor costs associate with these sorts of additions to your workflow? Why, the same way you do everything else of course. Resource planning and logistics shouldn’t be a new tenet for your business, and these new additions should slot alongside them with ease. If they don’t, you need to evaluate the tools that you’re using to manage these systems in the first place.

Schedules for field employees aren’t the same, obviously, as in-store staff, and it’ll be up to you to decide if these two (or more) roles warrant different types of talent to inhabit those roles. If so, they should sit side-by-side on a time sheet, with similar expectations, appropriately divergent goals, and compensation commensurate with skill and out-of-pocket expenses (if any). If your in-house staff can also manage your field operations, can you hybridize their day, allocating some time to in-store work, and some time to field work? How can you make this equitable? How can you conform to labor laws? Good software and mobile oversight will help you.

On-site points-of-sale

As a retail employee, my job was never to ring out customers, bag items, deliver exceptional customer service, or show customers where a product was. My job was the up-sell. At Gamestop, I was hawking preorders and magazine subscriptions. When I worked for Apple, it was their various service programs, whether it be AppleCare, which still exists, or MobileMe and One to One, neither of which exist any longer. Checkout can be managed by a mobile phone, or, if you’re Amazon, an elaborate system of motion-sensor cameras. The value of a retail employee is how much additional money and loyalty they can bring into the organization. This doesn’t stop when they step off your property (assuming they’re still on the clock, of course).

Setting field sales goals that are realistic and respectful is a key to making field operations viable for any business, but certainly for retail. For that reason, field workers need to have point-of-sale access on mobile devices—this should include full inventory, the ability to allocate inventory, remit payment, and schedule follow-ups for delivery if appropriate. This sort of connection to backoffice processes is the bare minimum of successful field operations. Your field workers can’t waste your customer’s time calling to check on inventory or whether or not you can get something. They need it at their fingertips.

Where does all this tech live?

There are basically three ways that point-of-sale, navigation, and appointment management (and the dozens of other things you might need in the field) can be put into the hands of field technicians: Proprietary devices, company-supplied consumer mobile devices, and employee-provided devices (BYOD). Is there a right or wrong way to do any of these things? Probably not, but it’s important to think about what works best for your purposes.

If you’re bought into a proprietary point-of-sale system, a proprietary device might seem like the best option, but obviously if you’re running service-oriented applications on the device, they need to be compatible—and natively compatible—or the system loses any value. What’s the point in deploying a mobile version of a proprietary technology if it can’t do what you need the mobile solution to do in the first place.

We’re at a point where, from a mobility perspective, consumer devices typically fit the bill just fine. Whether you own the devices centrally or you rely on employee devices typically comes down to the economics. The value of centrally managing devices is that you can have a few phones or tablets that are picked up and returned centrally, and you can control the operating system, applications, and what apps the device actually has on it. With BYOD, there are mobile device management overlays that can help regulate company-owned applications, but you’re still treading in difficult waters if you’re messing with an end user’s property.

In the end, the technology is a means to an end, and while field operations might not be the defining facet of retail, for many businesses, it could be exactly what sets them apart and keeps them viable.

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February 8, 2021 | 6 Mins Read

A Cautionary Tale of How Last-Mile Logistics Gone Wrong Can Ruin CX

February 8, 2021 | 6 Mins Read

A Cautionary Tale of How Last-Mile Logistics Gone Wrong Can Ruin CX

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Customer experience has become a critical topic for every company I interview – even in industries that haven’t traditionally prioritized CX as heavily as others (like utilities, for example). Companies have learned that, ultimately, CX is what drives revenue and creates brand loyalty. Looking at some of that statistics shared in this recent article, the emphasis on CX by companies in our audience is well supported. For example:

  • 81% of marketers expect to compete mostly (or entirely) based on CX (Gartner)
  • $1.6Tis lost every year in the U.S. because of poor customer service (Accenture Strategy)
  • 74%of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experiences alone (Forbes / Arm Treasure Data)
  • $98B/yearis left on the table by companies who fail to provide “simple” experiences to their consumers (Siegel+Gale)

So, what constitutes a good customer experience? I suppose the weight of different criteria vary person to person, but some table-stakes expectations are control (self-service), ease and quality of communication (omni-channel support, proactive information), visibility (insight), efficiency (first-time fix, on-time delivery, knowledgeable employees, etc.), and effective problem resolution. We’ve talked a lot in recent years about the imperative role service plays in CX, and how it is often times the most frequent (sometimes only) face of the brand to customers. As such, equipping employees with the information, knowledge, and assets they need to delivery a positive CX has become top priority for today’s service organizations.

Technology plays a key role in delivering a cohesive and satisfactory CX. Money, time, and effort are being invested to consolidate systems and reengineer processes to achieve this cohesiveness and keep pace with the type of CX provided by consumer-facing brands like Amazon. Disparate tools and siloed data must be brought together so that the customer journey isn’t fragmented, and the service workforce must be equipped with the information, skills, and resources to deliver the experience you want to be associated with your company’s brand. It’s not an easy feat, but it’s an important one – and we’ve featured many success stories of companies getting it right.

My Real-World CX Woes

Perhaps that’s why a recent experience has frustrated me so much. We just finished remodeling a family room in our basement. In December, we ordered a sectional sofa from Joybird to finish off the space. For those not familiar, Joybird is a trade name of Stitch Industries, Inc. which was acquired by La-Z-Boy in July of 2018. Joybird specializes in e-commerce of custom-made furniture with very limited showroom locations in New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago. I’d seen Joybird pieces pop up on Instagram in beautiful colors and interesting textures that received rave reviews and was excited to make the purchase.

The online selection and ordering process was modern and user-friendly, including the ability to order free swatches of their many fabrics to evaluate in person before ordering. You can custom design your piece from the Joybird website and, for those looking for financing, that option is easily integrated into the purchasing process. Because I am incredibly impatient, I actually placed an order before receiving the fabric swatches and realized when they arrived that I much preferred a different option – so I called customer service to inquire about making the change, and they were friendly and accommodating. I was impressed with the ordering process all around.

Once we updated our order to the preferred fabric, we received an order update email confirmation and estimated delivery date (January 21st) along with a “follow your build” email which enables you to check in on the manufacturing of your product for updates from beginning to end. The experience thus far was very in line with what I’d expect from the brand’s fresh and modern persona.

On January 11th, we received an email explaining that the sofa build was complete and that the next phase would be for the sofa to go to a transit hub, where it could sit for up to a week to synergize shipping with other local purchases. The estimated delivery date remained January 21st, but January 21st came and went with no word on delivery or further email updates. On January 22nd, I called Joybird customer service to inquire about our order status – you can’t reach someone directly but have to leave a message for a call back, which I understand is likely due to work-from-home circumstances of COVID. When the representative called back, I was told only that Joybird does not have visibility into any order status once the sofa has shipped and that we must await contact from the third-party delivery provider. I was assured this would happen by January 28th.

Then January 28th came and went with no sofa, no contact by the delivery company, and no updates. I called again January 29th and was told the exact same thing I’d been told the previous week. Third time is a charm, right? Wrong. Another week and no sofa, no contact, no updates. This time when I call, now into February, I press harder because – let’s be honest – this lack of communication and lack of visibility really isn’t acceptable. I am told that the sofa is en route to last-mile logistics provider J.B. Hunt for delivery. On my own, I find the number to contact J.B. Hunt to inquire about location and status of delivery and I’m told they have our order information but have not yet received the sofa – the representative is hopeful it was on the order received end of last week and just hasn’t been scanned in yet, so I remain hopeful the sofa will finally arrive this week.

Fragmentation, Lack of Visibility Are Entirely Avoidable with Today’s Technologies

Reliance on third-party logistics providers is quite common, and I’ve never had such issues with getting insight into the status of an order. Companies I talk with that use third-party providers know the importance of leveraging both technology and training to ensure the use of a third-party doesn’t negatively impact the customer experience. The contrast of the customer experience of the Joybird sales process versus its service process is honestly shocking to me – the initial phase was so strong that my expectation for a cohesive, positive experience was set. The sofa we eventually receive may very well be phenomenal, but at this point, the impression I have of the company overall is quite poor based on my service experience (or lack thereof). The reality is, with the technology available to companies to offer a more cohesive customer experience and to have (and maintain) real-time visibility into its inventory from order all the way through to delivery, this level of disconnect and fragmentation feels simply unacceptable. This is a real-world example of the type of customer experience that ruins a brand’s perception and reputation, and the thing that gets me most is how entirely unavoidable this is.

I have a local acquaintance who recently received a beautiful, emerald green Joybird sofa – I reached out to her to inquire about her experience, and it very much mirrored ours. She said, “the sofa is absolutely beautiful and wonderfully made, but I will likely never order from them again based on the overall experience.” My point in writing this article isn’t to blast Joybird, but to use this very real-world example to illustrate the absolute criticality of asset visibility, connectedness, and a cohesive customer experience – especially when relying on a third-party delivery provider.

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Back to Basics: What is Outcomes-Based Service?

February 5, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

Back to Basics: What is Outcomes-Based Service?

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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:

In our last “Back to Basics” piece, we discussed “Servitization”, which has become the buzzword of choice in recent years among manufacturing and adjacent industries. As we barrel headfirst into an increasingly service-oriented economy, rethinking customer-centric business models around services rather than products has been a priority for many businesses.

Outcomes-based service takes that premise and extends it across all businesses that offer service functions. For many businesses, getting servitization right in the first place means focusing it on outcomes-based functions. But even businesses with well-established service functions have seen the benefits of outcomes-based service models.

So: What is Outcomes-Based Service?

Outcomes-based service is the act of restructuring service contracts to focus on desired and provable outcomes, rather than warranty, maintenance, and break-fix.

Imagine, for instance, that when you bought a new computer, you were guaranteed five years’ maximum efficiency. Perhaps that requires an upgrade after year two, new RAM or a new video card, or perhaps that requires something be repaired. All of that is baked into the price of the outcomes-based contract. This also ensures that all service emanates from the OEM. And it builds customer loyalty and ensures that when a new machine is purchased, that it’s purchased, used, and enjoyed for half a decade.

Different businesses will engineer outcomes differently for their customers, of course, focusing on some big areas. A recent study saw companies focusing out outcomes in the following areas, ordered by prevalence, from top to bottom:

  • Performance metrics
  • Asset uptime
  • Time-to-service
  • Fail rates

Obviously, for many businesses, this is a huge shift not just in go-to-market, but in how service is tracked, managed, and optimized across businesses. That’s where employing best-in-class service, asset, and project management software becomes even more important to the bottom line, and to your relationship with your clients.

We’ve explored a lot of instances of best-in-class outcomes-based service over the course of the last few years here at The Future of Field Service. Here are a few interesting stories and articles to help you see what outcomes-based service looks like in practice.

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3 Predictions for Why 2021 Will Be the Year Service Soars

February 1, 2021 | 5 Mins Read

3 Predictions for Why 2021 Will Be the Year Service Soars

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

2020 presented more challenges and hardships than any of us were prepared for, but I do believe if you look closely there were some positives among all the adversity. For me, witnessing how the leaders I’m speaking to rose to the challenges of 2020 with grit, resilience, and fortitude inspired and encouraged me. They’ve shown true compassion for their coworkers and customers alike, bonded together by a deepened sense of empathy.

Beyond the individual level, however, the challenges of the last year have forced growth upon service organizations that I am excited to see bear fruit. Elements of increased open mindedness, greater creativity and agility, a collective surrender of comfort zones, and recognition of the criticality of both people and digital tools will spur these companies forth as 2021 unfolds. Here are three predictions for how:

Prediction #1: Digital Innovation Spikes

Our world quickly turned virtual as COVID struck, and the leaders I’ve spoken to fall into two camps: those who had made significant traction in digital transformation and were relieved they had, and those who had lagged behind for one reason or another and felt the pain of lacking tools that would aid greatly in business continuity and decision making.

The moments of service that matter most, the ability to react nimbly to quickly changing business criteria, and the capacity to expand and evolve service offerings all rely on a strong, cohesive digital infrastructure. This year, we’ll see digital innovation and investment spike among service organizations. Those who’ve already made progress on their digital transformation journeys will be looking to build upon their strong foundation – and those who have lagged will work hard to catch up. An IFS study of more than 3,000 executives from six regions across the world who weighed in on their organization’s plans to invest in digital transformation technologies in automation, artificial intelligence, IoT and more – expressed that, globally, over 50% plan to increase spend on digital transformation initiatives.

In data released in October 2020, Gartner stated that, “Top performing enterprises are accelerating digital innovation and leveraging emerging technologies to come out stronger on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has arguably been the most significant ‘turn’ in 2020, according to Gartner, Inc.’s annual global survey of CIOs. 2021 will be a race to digital, with the spoils going to those organizations that can maintain the momentum built up during their response to the pandemic.”

Gartner, with findings of a survey conducted online from June through July 2020, with 402 respondents across the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, Singapore and India, points to increased investment in IoT, stating that, “Despite the disruptive impacts of COVID-19, 47% of organizations plan to increase their investments in the Internet of Things (IoT).” Another Gartner, Inc. poll of roughly 200 business and IT professionals on September 24, 2020 revealed that 24% of respondents’ organizations increased their artificial intelligence (AI) investments and 42% kept them unchanged since the onset of COVID-19.

IDC explores how laggards, which it refers to as digital resisters, are catching up, saying that, “The pandemic was a wake-up call for the digital resisters.” The firm’s study “shows 64% of organizations will either be early adopters of new technology or aggressively seek out emerging technology, a departure from past recessionary behavior. It is the digital laggards who are expected to make the boldest moves as they play catch up. 53% of digital resisters, the least digitally mature organizations, are planning to seek out emerging technology compared to the average of 29%.”

Prediction #2: Servitization Journeys Speed

Servitization has been the industry buzzword for the last few years, but has real progress taken place? I believe so, and I believe 2021 will speed Servitization journeys. The concept of Servitization on paper – that product manufacturers compete on service offerings rather than commoditized products – sounds simple, but the reality is it is a monumental shift in how a business thinks, sells, performs, and delivers and monumental shifts take time. Munters, for example, who is on the journey to Servitization, shares insight on both the potential but also the complexities.

However, COVID has brought together several forces that collectively will make strides toward Servitization. First, it has created greater customer intimacy – companies have learned more about not only what their customers want, but how they operate. This greater understanding inevitably leads to the discovery of additional opportunities to provide value. Many manufacturing companies I’ve spoken with have seen a heightened interest in service offerings, with customers wanting to maximize the lifespan of their current equipment to avoid capital expenditures. As such, they have become increasingly open to subscription models and premier service offerings which paves the way for Servitization progress.

I’m not saying that we’ll see the full potential of Servitization realized in 2021, but I believe we’ll see a quicker pace of progress than we have the last few years as these factors, and others, play out. This Forbes article discusses some other reasons contributing to the move toward XaaS business models for manufacturing in a post-COVID world, including revenue resiliency and employee safety.

Prediction #3: Field Service Becomes Anywhere Service

Remote service capabilities have been the most sought after as a result of the pandemic, providing business continuity as travel bans and quarantine restrictions were put in place. But the value of remote service spans far beyond surviving COVID and, in 2021, our concept of field service will be replaced with one of “anywhere service.” As remote service takes hold and becomes the standard first line of defense for organizations, we’ll realize that the initial service visit can be done from anywhere.

Organizations will recognize the benefit of leading with a remote-first approach that provides far faster response times, increases the odds of remote resolution, and improves first time fix rates when field service is necessary because of the insight gleaned in advance. Remote service empowers the customer by engaging them in the service process aiding in quicker resolution, and it empowers technicians by eliminating unnecessary trips and travel time allowing them to better leverage their expertise.

In no way do I believe that field service will disappear – rather, the use of “anywhere” remote service to diagnose issues and resolve problems that don’t require a technicians time or skills onsite will contribute to the progress toward more strategic service and allow for far more optimal use of resources. Freeing up the time and energy of technicians by eliminating service work than can and should be done remotely will give them an opportunity to focus time in the field on value-add work sharpening their skills as a trusted advisor, which is precisely what will propel the company forward in its service objectives.

I’ve been writing for more than 12 years about how service is becoming more strategic – about the incredible potential it holds for businesses across a variety of industries. But to seize that potential takes an immense amount of change – a full departure from “the way it’s always been.” Until 2020, many organizations simply weren’t ready to commit to the cultural, technological, and operational changes necessary to see the potential come to life. In 2021, we’ll see how navigating the challenges of 2020 results in a leap forward to exponentially speed the service evolution in the coming years. And that’s something I am eager to witness.

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January 29, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

Doubling Down on your Field Workforce in Telecommunications

January 29, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

Doubling Down on your Field Workforce in Telecommunications

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By Tom Paquin

Telecommunications companies across the board are in a bit of a crunch. For cellular companies, new technologies have converged with decreased barriers to entry, creating a harrowing landscape. On the other end, speedy wireless connections and shifting consumer behavior are changing the ways that people interact with cable and satellite companies as well. As more and more companies develop streaming solutions (in spite of my dubious assessment), that crunch will accelerate, presenting challenges and opportunities.

These pressures call for telecommunications companies to start thinking about their businesses differently. Naturally, many companies use this inflection point as an opportunity to refocus their businesses on the service experience. Are we surprised that I am making the case for service? If so, you likely are new to this website.

The march towards service requires careful consideration of the levers of business in telecommunications companies, and we’ve explored that through a variety of avenues in the past. Today let’s go a step further by looking at some specific technologies that can support the delivery of service—when done right. While backoffice service software is key to originating appointments and coordinating schedules, telco service, by its very nature, happens primarily through field operations. Field workers can certainly deliver fine service with half-baked or disconnected utilities, or just a box of tools, but these roles are improved exponentially by robust, complex mobile toolsets.

Mobile field service is by no means a new concept (I’d argue it’s one of the most mature elements of service software), which makes it easy to write off. Solutions age, technologies don’t keep up with the demands of the business, and it’s useful to benchmark your solutions every few years.

For telecommunications professionals, there are a few unique considerations that are important when reviewing your mobile service solutions. Here are some things to keep in mind:

The Backoffice and Field: One Platform in Harmony

This has been my refrain now for early five years of writing about service, but everything that your technicians have at their workstation should also be in their pockets (“Even their stapler?” some smart aleck might ask to which I say that it depends on the type of pockets). This means full schedules for themselves in their colleagues, full access to parts systems, full access to resource libraries, full marketing, customer experience, and appointment logging capabilities.

I do understand the challenge, especially among telco professionals to stop what they’re doing in order to take advantage of their mobile tools, but that is exactly why it’s important that they can access everything—and access it well—on mobile. It’s also an opportunity to enhance your mobile applications with mobile-specific elements, to make mobile a truly better-than-desktop experience.

Contingent and Salaried Labor Need to Be Brought Together

Telecommunications professionals have the added challenge of asymmetrical asset repairs, different technical fleets, and B2B and B2C sitting, under many circumstances alongside one another. For those reasons, the need to lean on contingent labor, or even just different technical pools for different types of jobs, becomes necessary. It’s easy, then for parts inventory, schedules, and resources to be siloed.

I’m not arguing that you blow down the walls of those silos, of course. That has the potential of causing anarchy for your business. However, for businesses to work effectively, field workers and backoffice, whether they’re working for you, or contracted, working in a customer’s home or on a radio tower, should be working in systems that are at the very least integrated. The future of enterprise management means that service, project, and asset management across the whole of your business should be coordinated by a unified set of applications.

Building a Field-Oriented Mindset

The last piece of this is the most complex, and requires us to step outside of the solutions themselves to the way that those tools interact with your business. Take parts management as an example. In a world that lacks field orientation, parts live in depots and warehouses. In a field-oriented world, parts live in transit, on technician vehicles, and across a wide array of channels and endpoints. Fully optimizing for mobile means tracking and coordinating all of these sometimes disparate touchpoints into a coherent strategy.

Telecommunications has long embraced the importance of service, but to take their service to the next level, it’s time to reevaluate the technologies in the hands of your employees. This means auditing not just your tools, but your whole mindset around service management. Field technicians beat at the heart of the connected telco business. Don’t leave them without the tools that they need to succeed.

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January 25, 2021 | 8 Mins Read

Eickhoff’s Mission to Maximize Customer Outcomes

January 25, 2021 | 8 Mins Read

Eickhoff’s Mission to Maximize Customer Outcomes

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Eickhoff is a family owned company founded 1864 headquartered in Bochum, Germany. The company’s 1,300 employees worldwide support two business units: mining equipment and gearboxes used in industrial and wind turbine applications. Like many manufacturers, Eickhoff in recent years has been navigating a new world of customer expectations and determining the role service will play in the company’s ability to differentiate.

Service for the company’s two business units looks very different, as do customer expectations. On the mining side, Eickhoff manufactures the mining machines used in mines. The scope of responsibility to a customer is installation and assembly, training, maintenance, and repairs. Mining service is done in extreme conditions underground and, with such large equipment, service can take days or weeks or even months. Since the equipment can’t be transported, Eickhoff needs to ensure they have technicians and inventory in close enough proximity to customers to provide the appropriate levels of service. Mining customers are focused heavily on uptime and output since any downtime of the equipment is incredibly costly. On the gearbox side, Eickhoff manufactures an assembly that is supplied to a manufacturer, and service is requested either by that manufacturer or sometimes by the operator of the end solution. Eickhoff conducts inspections, repairs, part swaps, and returns refurbished pieces for spares.

“My role in the service department is product development, to bring Eickhoff service into the future, and to use new technologies to improve service quality for our customers,” says Dietmar Schmitz, Head of Product Development Service at Eickhoff. “The market has changed. Requirements from customers are different – they are demanding uptime and they want to simple-to-understand yet detailed insights (data). And the products have changed – they’ve become digital as much as mechanical. Therefore, service has changed, and we need to keep up. We must be able to deliver that part or make that repair at the exact moment it is needed. As a manufacturer, we have to think about how to evolve our operations to ensure the outcomes of uptime and information are met. Complexity has increased and continues to increase, and the only way to streamline that complexity to meet the needs is by investing in today’s technologies.”

OPTIMIZING ASSET-CENTRIC SERVICE

While there are significant differences between the company’s two service operations, what remains consistent is the intricacy of operations in that both are very asset intensive. “We differentiate on product quality and uptime,” says Schmitz. “At a point, we realized that wouldn’t be possible without optimizing our service operations.” Eickhoff knew that optimizing service management and then building upon that optimization to differentiate through service would be a journey. That journey began with looking to standardize on one service management system; to move to a “single source of truth.”

“We had more than 15 different applications we needed to replace with an integrated and intelligent system – a single source of truth – in order to streamline our daily business and provide us the potential for growth,” says Schmitz. “As I worked with our teams for around three months to scope the different, we determined more than 500 requirements for our project – a critical one of which was integration with our Infor ERP. We wanted a single system to support both business lines and bring all of our information into one place.”

Eickhoff shortlisted three companies before selecting IFS Field Service Management (FSM) based on its performance on the company’s matrix of user experience, IT, price, and compliance. “We wanted a solution that would meet our needs without requiring a dedicated IT staff of 10 experts to maintain,” says Schmitz. “IFS was the clear winner in the matrix evaluation and had functionality vast enough for our needs around asset intensive service.”

As the IFS FSM project kicked off, Eickhoff began to realize that the undertaking of consolidating, validating, and porting over its data was going to be quite complex. “As we dug in, we found a mess of data, product data, bill of materials of up to 10,000 entries and nine levels down, contact data, and so on. Because information was stored in so many separate systems, we found many redundancies and realized we needed to do a big clean up,” says Schmitz.

Not only was ensuring accuracy of the millions of entries of data put into the IFS FSM system key to building a strong foundation in optimizing the service operations, but as Schmitz says – service success lives in data from the past. “Service success lives in data from the past,” he explains. “The ability to provide good service relies on rich product history, assembly history, service history, operation history, and customer details – you may not need all of this information each time, but when you do need it, it must be there. Taking the time to clean and transfer this data properly was an investment in the long-term success of the project.”

Once this process was complete, Eickhoff began rollout of the FSM system and started with the back office. “Our thought process was that if the back office is not stable and comfortable with the solution, we don’t want technicians running around out in the field with access to the system and risk impacting the customer experience. We chose to phase back office first, then begin rollout to remaining users on the mining side of the business,” explains Schmitz. Once the mining side was deployed, Eickhoff began deployment on the gearbox side. Once IFS FSM was fully deployed companywide, Eickhoff worked to incorporate feedback and manage change.

“We had a lot of input from users directly after rollout, with feedback and new ideas for the system. It was important to put ample time into discussing the reasons for and benefits of the new technology as well as examining what feedback to incorporate,” says Schmitz. “We put effort into change management following the rollout to ensure user acceptance and proper use.”

STREAMLINE SERVICE MANAGEMENT, THEN BUILD SUCCESS

Eickhoff’s goal with the initial deployment of IFS FSM was to make the company more fit for the future of service. “With our initial rollout of FSM, we genuinely felt we were at a point in the business that to compete effectively it was simply a necessity,” Schmitz says. “We wouldn’t be able to progress into service of the future without this infrastructure in place.”

Not long after completing its initial project, Eickhoff had an opportunity to become an early adopter of IFS FSM 6 and completed the upgrade in January of 2019. In the new version, Eickhoff was able to eliminate system customizations, begin using FSM for all scheduling of technicians, move time and expense management into the system, and benefit from IFS Lobbies for reporting and data analysis. “Being a part of the FSM 6 early adopter program was a good experience because we gained some valuable capabilities, like saving immense amounts of time by eliminating paper-based reporting and manual data entry with time and expenses,” says Schmitz. “It also gave us an opportunity the help shape the future of the product.”

Present day, Eickhoff uses FSM to manage all assets including both product and software configuration in both mining and gearbox divisions. The system holds all history, including the immense asset detail, in a single source of truth, which Schmitz emphasizes is important when there can be multiple requests or tasks running in parallel for any given customer. The technician portal serves to provide everything an employee needs to get the job done on site. FSM schedules the right person, at the right time, to the right place. All invoicing, hours, and expenses are managed through FSM. IFS Lobbies allow for detailed reporting and data analysis. The company’s next area of focus with FSM is extending greater mobile capabilities to its field technicians – currently, they interact with FSM through the technician portal. This works well because it provides a high level of detail and access to extensive data – and while Schmitz doesn’t see this use decreasing, he sees value in expanding upon it with a rugged mobile device that technicians can also take into the mines to extract or exchange data with the machine, make software updates, and so on.

“IFS FSM has been instrumental in enabling us to differentiate on service and has prepared us for the future of service,” says Schmitz. “We’ve completely redefined our communication flow – our data accuracy and visibility from the back office to the field and back is excellent. Everyone has the information – the same information – they need at their fingertips to do their jobs well. This has enabled us to deliver faster service and improve customer uptime, eliminate massive amounts of administrative manual and busy work to maximize resource utilization, and have far tighter cost control.”

IoT OFFERS MASSIVE POTENTIAL

In building upon its success, Eickhoff is working to bring IoT data into IFS FSM. “IoT and data analysis are critical to Eickhoff’s evolution,” says Schmitz. “We have projects going on each side of the business – mining and gearbox – to expand our IoT capabilities and ultimately develop new service offerings for our customers.”

Schmitz notes that a modern machine reads 1,200 to 1,400 parameters of data each second and that the ability to collect and analyze relevant data points can not only help the company to operate more efficiently and move to predictive service, but can enable Eickhoff to develop insights that are very valuable to its customers. “Porting notable events from our IoT environment into FSM is helpful in terms of history and documentation, in detecting events that are worth alerting customers to take action on, and to schedule out and even predict service needs,” says Schmitz. “But moreover, the insights we can glean are a new line of customer value. Insights from the machines on use, productivity, and output in non-technical, easy to read reports help meet the needs from them of more information to help improve their own business operations. Their ultimate goal is uptime, so not only can we provide the machinery but also insights to help them achieve that goal.”

As mining customers streamline their own operations, they can have less employees working underground which means less money spent and improved safety. Furthermore, Eickhoff can feed the IoT data back into its own R&D operation to improve future product development.

“Delivering outcomes to your customers means you take on the onus of mastering service complexity, and you can’t do that without technology,” says Schmitz. “My biggest lesson from this journey we started a few years ago is you simply must start. As we often say: there is no alternative. You also need to understand that technology is not a barrier; it is an enabler. You cannot say let’s wait a few years and see how the business is going; you may not be in business. And so, start as soon as you can.”

Schmitz stresses the importance of looking at your journey through the eyes of your customers and knowing it will be a process. “Delivering outcomes is a process and you have to do this step-by-step. We knew that, to start, we needed to optimize our back-office processes. This is something customers don’t necessarily see, but it was critical in our ability to evolve,” he says. “Putting the customers view on your own eyes is imperative. If you don’t know how your customers use your equipment and what their business operations are like, you can’t design service offerings that will meet their needs.”

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January 22, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

Back to Basics: What is Servitization?

January 22, 2021 | 2 Mins Read

Back to Basics: What is Servitization?

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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:

So here’s the deal—we talk about servitization constantly on this site. To the point that we have a whole section devoted to our servitization stories and recommendations. For those of us in the world of service, servitization is simply entrenched knowledge. And its name does, to a point, allude to its definition. Nevertheless, the word isn’t even in my word processor’s dictionary.

There are a variety of reasons why one might not have encountered the word “servitization” before. One is the obvious—they’re new to service. Another, less obvious and arguably more prevalent, is that they’ve been raised on a different service orthodoxy. Perhaps they’ve referred to the concept as service transformation, or everything-as-a-service (the phrase I used much more frequently as an analyst). For those reasons, I wanted to take a minute and add to the record a formal definition of servitization. So…

What is servitization?

In short: Servitization is the act of restructuring traditionally product-oriented businesses towards service-oriented functions, including subscriptions, repair and maintenance contracts, and outcomes-oriented guarantees.

So within that, there’s obviously a lot of nuance, and a wide variety of topics that are worth breaking down. The primary consideration, and most important is to note that servitization is not merely the act of creating a warranty program. Servitization requires a forward-looking consideration of customer interactions, not reverting to the trappings of tradition.

Moreover, the delta between manufacturers, and, say, telecoms in adopting servitization is vast. Your business structure will naturally change—sometimes dramatically—how this definition is interpreted in practice. The good news is that we’re here to help you make the most out of servitization!

If you’re looking to see how businesses are employing servitization in practice, here are a few places that you can get started:

The Road to Servitization in Product-Oriented Businesses

COVID-19 Is Speeding Servitization Progress, But These 4 Barriers Will Hold You Back

What Aren’t You “Getting” About Servitization?

Overcoming the Barriers to Creating Servitization Revenue Streams

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January 18, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

Predictive Service: From Objective to Reality in 2021

January 18, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

Predictive Service: From Objective to Reality in 2021

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By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

Like most of the major service trends, predictive capabilities come up in almost every conversation I have. Some organizations have already achieved this nirvana, but many are still at the point of recognizing the potential but not yet translating it into their reality. I expect we’ll see significant evolution in this area in 2021 and that’s because while there are challenges to overcome, as with any change, the opportunities are simply too immense to delay in pursuing.

IFS conducted a global study with 3,000 participants in the Spring of 2020 to examine digital transformation priorities, and as Bob De Caux discusses in this article, found that intelligent technologies (AI, machine learning, predictive analytics and cognitive services) lead the charge with 64 percent identifying investment in this area as important. This aligns with what we see within service, because the role intelligent technologies play in enabling the shift from reactive to predictive service is a natural progression for organizations that have mastered the basics of service management.

This natural progression makes perfect sense. We know that customers are demanding far more from the service experience than for an issue to be resolved when it occurs, regardless of how efficiently. Customers want peace of mind, they want guarantees, they want uptime. Intelligent technologies and the move to predictive service are how you deliver upon these expectations. We know that predictive models eliminate or at least minimize downtime, reduce costs for both company and customers, improve customer satisfaction, and enable you to expertly orchestrate both your resources and assets because you’re gaining insights into what will happen instead of reacting to what already has. In many instances, the superior level of predictive service can be monetized to create additional revenue.

So, with all this potential, why haven’t we seen more companies master predictive service already? Well, there are a number of reasons. First, before the progression to more advanced intelligent technologies you must master some foundational aspects of optimizing service. This simply takes time – companies have been hard at work standardizing, optimizing, and automating service in order to reach a point where they can successfully move to predictive. I see that time as now for more and more organizations. Second, the shift can be a bit overwhelming. The potential is vast and opportunity significant, which means the stakes are high and the change is big. One point to consider if this rings true to you is the idea of thinking big but starting small. Just because the opportunity of intelligent technologies is vast doesn’t mean you have to realize the whole of the opportunity at once. Moreover, as De Caux discusses in the article linked earlier, these technologies build their learning upon data, so the sooner you start, the more sophisticated you can become – when you’re ready.

In addition to “think big, act small,” here are a few points to consider as you chart your path to predictive service success:

  • Choose your intelligent technologies wisely. The idea here is to master complexity in order to delivery the ultimate simplicity to your customers – uptime. To do so, you need to choose technologies and technology providers that will streamline, simplify, and offer cohesiveness – not complicate matters. Doing as much as you can in one platform is helpful – which means finding a provider that can not only address your short-term objectives but build upon your success over time.
  • Be ready to feel uncomfortable. In a reactive service world, most everything is manual. In a predictive environment, you must begin to trust the technology. Using AI where you’ve previously used manpower can be an uncomfortable feeling, for you and for your employees. You have to remember why you’re introducing the technology and what it can do and fight the urge to step in and override out of habit.
  • This is because predictive tools learn over time, and if you don’t allow them the space to do that, they won’t achieve the optimal output they’re capable of. Give the tools time to learn and time to work and be ready to be in awe of what they can do.
  • Harness the wins. As you see success, shout it from the rooftops – internally to help manage change, and externally as you recreate the customer experience. Once you start down the path of leveraging intelligent technologies, you’ll be on a path of continual opportunity – once you achieve success, you can look for ways to build and expand. At first this may feel overwhelming, but once you experience those first wins, you’ll quickly transition from overwhelm to excitement at all the possibilities.

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January 15, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

How Retailers Like GameStop are Failing their Customers

January 15, 2021 | 4 Mins Read

How Retailers Like GameStop are Failing their Customers

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By Tom Paquin

As a college student, I had the decidedly unglamorous job of overseeing the launch of the Nintendo Wii as a shift manager at GameStop. Due to a variety of supply chain challenges at Nintendo, the Wii launch was notorious for a supply drought that lasted well past my tenure with the company. Several years at least. That first holiday season was brutal, as furious parents took every opportunity that they could to berate the twenty-year-old me behind the counter for not possessing the ability to generate a pile of Nintendo Wiis with the power of my mind.

This was not GameStop’s fault, but it represents the natural disadvantages that go along with being a third-party purveyor of in-demand consumer products, and one that is available to be verbally abused in the flesh. Now, nearly two decades later, on top of the natural challenges of retail, digital games downloads and online commerce has led GameStop to dramatically scale back its brick and mortar footprint.

This week, though, GameStop’s stock suddenly shot up on the news that they’d tapped Ryan Cohen of pet ecommerce site Chewy to help fortify their ecommerce business on the news that online sales had shot up by over 300% during the last holiday season.

I think this is a mistake.

Listen, digital sales are great, and the Chewy guy can certainly help GameStop increase digital sales, but there’s a reason why even Amazon is investing in brick and mortar operations. The infrastructure is there, it’s up to businesses like GameStop to use it appropriately.

GameStop is, at its heart, a boutique outfit for game sales (It should come as no surprise that their Canadian footprint still carries the name of one of their acquisitions, Electronic Boutique). While brute forcing a transition to ecommerce may seem like the most expedient way to generate funds, it ignores the fundamentals of its products.

When you buy something from GameStop (assuming you’re not buying a Mega Man keychain or something) you’re not buying a commodity, you’re buying an experience. You’re buying roughly 10-100 hours of entertainment in the form of a game, or a console. You are, ostensibly, purchasing a service. It’s tangible, it’s experiential, and it’s criminal that GameStop is not using its brick and mortar footprint to capitalize on that. Experience is just the tip of the iceberg, too! Here are some ways that GameStop could rebuild themselves as a service company:

Experience

So yes—in-store demo kiosks are not new to gaming stores. They’ve existed for years, typically installed by hardware reps that want to highlight a specific game or feature of their system. But in the land where the point of sale is so often online, a video game store should be about 70% kiosks—home-grown kiosks. Kids—being the primary consumers of games—should be compelled to come in, play around, and try before they buy. In a time of near-ubiquitous digital gaming, it’s easier than ever to have consoles ready to allow kids to play demos of whatever game they want. Smart companies (especially digitally-minded ones) would allow customers, once they reach the end of a demo, to purchase the game right from this interface.

There’s obviously a lot of back-end that would have to go in to building proprietary demo machines for a place like GameStop. You’d always want one employee manning the demo areas to keep an eye on kids, make recommendations, and answer questions. You’d likely want to tie playing to a GameStop membership, so kids wouldn’t be compelled to treat the store like an arcade. You’d also want to track plays and purchases (and services, which we’ll talk about in a minute) in a single place. With that in mind, you’ll need to consider a best-in-class customer experience tool. This, combined with some proprietary software, could completely reinvent how a company like Gamestop manages customers.

Subscription

When I was a Gamestop employee, we sold a card that got you 10% off of used games and a subscription to a magazine. Not very interesting. Today, that same card…gets you 10% off of used games and a subscription to a digital version of that magazine. Redefining the footprint of a Gamestop means redefining subscriptions, too. Perhaps the subscriptions allow extended play inside the store (Gamestop’s own pasta pass) or perhaps access to a digital library of games, similar to what Microsoft has built with its own Game Pass. This one will require careful thinking about value, but should ultimately focus on loyalty, experience, and retention.

Repair

An obviously large amount of product that accounts for GameStop’s sales would be video game consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation. These things break down periodically, as do all electronic devices. An in-store service that permitted repairs alongside the typical GameStop buy-back of used merchandise (one of the tenets of their business that we haven’t talked about). By taking that a step further and offering a service alongside the buy-back, you’re building in new revenue opportunities, and, crucially, getting people into the store. Is that difficult as a third-party retailer? Of course it is, but by hiring skilled laborers (the same ones that refurbish systems at depots, another thing that GameStop already does) the potential is there.

By doubling down on digital, GameStop might think that it’s solidifying its business position for the future, but cutting and running on brick and mortar is not the recipe to success, when you already have the infrastructure in place to build an industry-defining service business. Will it require institutional changes? Yes, absolutely, but getting it right might mean the difference between success and failure.

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