The internal and external factors impacting the effective use of data
In this edition of the Field Service News Think Tank Sessions, our focus was on digging deeper into a finding within a recent FSN Research study that revealed that 57% of field service companies surveyed stated that while they were able to access asset data, they felt they were not leveraging that data effectively.
As always in our Think Tank sessions, this initial starting point for the discussion led down many interesting avenues of debate, all of which are summarised in the executive briefing report currently available for a limited time on our forever-free FSN FREE subscription tier.
In this article based on a section of that report we reflect on how there are both internal and external factors that are impacting the way that field service organisations are able to effectively utilise data that must be taken into consideration.
As we have seen so far in this briefing report, one of the most significant issues that appear to be preventing organisations from effectively utilising the data at their disposal is a lack of trust in the veracity of the insights such data sets might yield. However, when seeking to overcome these challenges, we must also acknowledge that there are both internal and external factors that are at play that must be fully understood.
As Chris Hird, Editor, Field Service News, explained.
“One of the areas we were interested in exploring in the initial study was whether the challenge around effective asset data analysis was more centred around deploying new technology or fresh processes. From the discussions today and in both the qualitative and quantitative phases of the study, it appears to me that the technology is there, and that is perhaps the easier part of the equation.
“However, coming up with processes to ensure that the technology and data is used correctly is the wider challenge many service organisations face.”
However, in many instances what the customer wants, and what the regulations of the industry allow can very much be at odds. As Clinten van der Merwe, EMEA Service Director, Smiths Detection explained.
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"Some of these contracts that are based around near 100% uptime or 15 minute SLAs tend to assume the service provider has enough engineers and the parts readily available. Yet, of course, what we saw over the last few years with the pandemic was that some of these things weren’t as accessible" - Sumair Dutta, ServiceMax
“Our customers, as you can understand, are pushing to 100% uptime availability for the equipment. It is becoming a big part of the discussion because we operate critical infrastructure equipment running in airports.
“Certainly, for our organisation, that is where the customer drive is, although a significant challenge for us is that the industry as a whole is highly regulated. Therefore airports don’t allow us to tap into their networks from a remote standpoint because they want to have them in a closed loop, so it’s complicated for us to move to remote service delivery,” he added.
“There are things that we could do as an industry that would allow us to perform better in terms of predictive analytics, but at the moment, in order for us to actually get better uptime availability, we have to throw people at this. You have to have twenty four by seven a person standing almost next to that machine can respond within 15 minutes and can have that machine up and running very quickly. It’s a difficult challenge to get this balance, and unfortunately, it’s the beast of the regulated market that we have.”
This friction between customer expectations and the service providers ability to deliver within those expectations has only been exacerbated by the challenges we have faced since the pandemic argues Sumair Dutta, Senior Director, Product Marketing – Customer and Market Insight, ServiceMax.
“Some of these contracts that are based around near 100% uptime or 15 minute SLAs tend to assumes that the service provider has enough engineers and they have the parts readily available. Yet, of course, what we saw over the last few years with the with the pandemic was that some of these things weren’t as accessible,” Dutta commented.
“Now in the wake of the pandemic, the ‘new’ industry might be very different, but it seems still that there is a lot of discussion around the challenge with parts and the challenges with people and how some of those external pressures are impacting the types of transformation initiatives, whether that is data driven, technology driven or whatever business process changes we are discussing here.”
However, sometimes, the challenges are wholly internal and the result of differing objectives across business units. As Dave Hart, Managing Partner, Field Service Associates explained.
“I think more often than not, the problem [regarding trusting data] is that you can come up with thirty reasons why that data can’t be trusted for it. For example, let’s say the data shows service revenue is declining. However, if you go look at the master data records, you can see that a lot of our contracts are not being cleansed correctly.
"I would even say the business wouldn’t be able to operate now without these levels of insights and I think that’s quite a powerful transition that we’ve gone through." Terence Horsman, MCFT
“Therefore, if the department that has ownership of that data got their processes in order we would not see such a negative impact on the service revenues that you are being challenged on. That example for instance is precisely in line with many conversations i’ve personally had with the CEO in a board meeting when I’m having to justify my service teams performance and explain why the numbers are the way they are,” he added.
“Therin lies the problem. I think there’s for every interpretation of the data you give me I can probably give you ten reasons that I can counter with that point to a lack of truth in the data. That’s the difficult reality with trusting data across different business units.”
Terence Horsman, COO, Orca Service Technologies/MCFT the solution to such challenges is to meet them head on with transparency and dialogue.
“The way we approached this [building trust across departments] internally was for our BI experts work on a weekly basis directly with the operations team,” he stated.
“We took this approach because when we released the first dashboards, obviously, the first thing you’re going to hear is, ‘oh, this is rubbish. And this one, you know, this job wasn’t beyond SLA, because x, y, and z etc.’
“What we did was really stick to an iterative development process and every week, the conversation would be ‘oh, you’ve got a reason why this data is wrong? Great, let me fix it straightaway’”
“Then two days later, we come back with another version. We did this slowly and steadily and this was really I think the transformation journey for which took around six months to get everyone on board with the approach and we reached an outcome that everyone can trust in and really depend on,” Horsman continued.
“I would even say the business wouldn’t be able to operate now without these levels of insights and I think that’s quite a powerful transition that we’ve gone through, but it requires constant work because as soon as you have that one job or that one P&L that doesn’t match up in accordance with expectations, you’re back down to zero in terms of that level of trust with users.”
It would seem that there are different approaches required for both internal and external challenges preventing effective application of data to drive improvements. Yet, an ethos of co-creation and collaboration, whether that be across different business units internally or working with customers to find a balance that is obtainable when facing external challenges is vital.
If you wish to read more from the group on how the challenges, benefits and barriers to effective use of asset data then download the full executive briefing now (available for a limited period on our forever free subscription tier FSN FREE)
Want to know more?
This content is available exclusively for FSN PRO/PRO+ members. If you already have a valid membership but cannot see the watch now button below, please ensure you are logged in to access this content.
Not yet subscribed? Instantly unlock this content and over 600+ hours of industry-leading education with FSN PRO now!
SIGN UP TODAY! Use the code TRIAL9 to claim an incredible introductory offer for your first month for just £9 (regular price £45)
Many thanks to our Think Tank members present during this session.
- Sumair Dutta, Senior Director, Product Marketing – Customer and Market Insight, ServiceMax
- Mark Homer, Managing Partner, Field Service Associates
- Rajat Kakar, Managing Director, QuickWork EMEA
- Chris Hird, Editor, Field Service News
- Dave Hart, Managing Partner, Field Service Associates
- Daniel Kingham, Vice President and Head of Service Innovation and Design, Elekta
- Mark Homer, Managing Partner, Field Service Associates
- Mark Wilding, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax
- Terence Horsman, COO, Orca Service Technologies/MCFT
- Clinten van der Merwe, EMEA Service Director, Smiths Detection
All members of the Field Service Think Tanks are speaking from their own personal opinions which are not necessarily reflective of the organisations they work for.
