With the lockdowns now over in many parts of the world and the light at the end of the tunnel emerging in many others, we may be forgiven for taking at least a small sigh of relief. The worst of the pandemic is over, but for many, that means the hard work of recovery is now ready to begin. So what does that recovery look like and how long will it take?

“I don’t believe that COVID-19 is going to disappear completely,” commented Rajat Kakar, Executive Service Leadership, EMEA, IBM.

“We will need to manage that is some way whether it’s with vaccinations or whether it’s with something else. I believe it’s going to be here,  perhaps in a smaller form but that means that the quote-unquote recovery mode will also be here, I would say, for a long time.”

This is something that many around the table agree with, however, we approach the we must acknowledge that it is going to take a long time to return to a fully operational ‘normal’ version of reality. Yet, try we must as businesses and people alike are desperate to return to some sense of normalcy.

It is a complex balance of many, many moving parts and there are more than operational factors to consider as much of the world is still cautious about a potential second wave and as such anxiety levels remain high.  However, equally, it is critical that businesses return to some semblance of regular operations wherever possible. 

“We need to consider that those customers probably don’t want our engineers turning up to their offices between nine and five anymore….”

– Ged Cranny, Konica Minolta

As Ged Cranny, Konica Minolta (BEU) commented “With the new laws and the new rules, we will still need to go back and be a business. However, we must consider how to approach that. We’re going to have to rotate people into offices and so are our customers.

“We need to consider that those customers probably don’t want our engineers turning up to their offices between nine and five anymore. We’ve got to start thinking about how we use remote services to cover that time, and we’ve got to start thinking about our costs which are going to further escalate because people are going to need to start working unsocial hours.”

These are just a few of the considerations that are going to be an intrinsic part of the equation in terms of just how quickly we can move firmly into the recovery phase of the pandemic. However, as Daniel Brabec, Director, Digital Transformation, ServiceMax comments, it is the smart service organisations that are using this fallow time to best prepare themselves for what comes next. 

“Right now is the time for organisations to be looking at the training of their technicians, cleaning up their inventory, assessing their install base…”
– Daniel Brabec, ServiceMax

“I think right now, what a lot of organisations should be focusing on is implementing many of the changes we’ve discussed as we see the spikes of the pandemic hopefully die down somewhat,” Brabec commented 

“We need to make sure we have all of our tests and our teams trained up to to be successful in the future. Right now is the time for organisations to be looking at the training of their technicians, cleaning up their inventory, assessing their install base, making sure that they are implementing these technologies we’re discussing and evaluating their whole service operation.”

Ultimately,  we’re in the eye of the storm at the moment, whichever way things go.

We’re at this critical point where conversations like those held in the Think Tanks are crucial and must be happening at every board in every company everywhere.

Now is the time we need to make some of the most important decisions we’ve ever made as we work out where we go as a sector, as an industry and as a society.

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.