The story of 2020 was as much a story of innovation and ingenuity as it is of pandemic and lockdowns. The story of 2020 is the story that has flowed throughout the history of mankind; it is a story of standing tall in the face of adversity and finding new ways to continue. 

That story is no more evident anywhere than within our sector. In field service, we have long understood that it is our field service technicians and engineers who are the unsung heroes of industry, quietly keeping the world turning, keeping the lights on and making sure everything just works.

We had known this long before the term ‘essential workers’ became part of our everyday lexicon, where field service workers, alongside frontline medical workers, delivery teams and others were rightly acknowledged for their role in helping us get through the hardships we faced. 

For our part, as field service managers and leaders, we had to rethink the old processes that had served us so well for so long, and we had to do it on the fly. The digital transformation projects that had been neatly planned and scheduled for seamless implementation across a period of years suddenly became accelerated with timeframes reduced to months, in some cases weeks, out of sheer necessity. 

Overcoming new challenges that most of us had never even considered, like protecting the rapidly, yet carefully arranged bio-security of our clients and delivering service in a zero-touch environment, became urgent priorities almost overnight. The most direct result of responding to these challenges being the rapid, widespread adoption of remote service delivery tools. 

Yet, the adoption of remote service delivery was an answer to a significant problem we faced as a result of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

However, as is often the case having found that initial answer, we have now revealed further questions that need our attention: