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For many industrial and technology companies, service still behaves like a cost centre: fragmented teams, inconsistent delivery, and knowledge locked in the heads of a few experts. Yet expectations around uptime, sustainability, and responsiveness are rising, while experienced engineers are approaching retirement. The structural weaknesses in traditional service models are becoming impossible to ignore.

At Field Service Forum 2026 – Power of 50, Frank Jans, senior leader at Ricoh, shared insights from the company’s transformation in Europe, and how it repositioned service as a growth engine, not a repair function.

From Fragmented Service to One Connected Model

A recurring challenge in large organisations is fragmentation. Ricoh operates globally, with around 50 different entities in EMEA alone. Each has its own legacy tools, habits, and workarounds. The result is disconnected systems, data in silos, and teams that only interact when they have to.

The consequences are tangible:

• Blind spots between handovers where no-one sees the full customer context.  
• Inconsistent customer experiences that were never consciously designed.
• Slow, manual coordination that threatens contracts and erodes trust.  
• Critical expertise concentrated in a small number of senior engineers.  

Ricoh expects roughly half of its service staff to retire within ten years. That single fact turns fragmentation from an irritation into a structural risk. When knowledge lives in people’s heads rather than in processes and workflows, it walks out of the door.

The company’s answer is to build one connected operating model across field, remote, managed services and even partners, all delivering a single experience using the same language and playbook. The intention is not just standardisation for its own sake, but to prevent value from leaking between teams, systems, and geographies.

Three Sources of Lost Value – And How to Close Them

The transformation is guided by a clear diagnosis of where service organisations lose value today.

1. Lack of end-to-end visibility  

Without a complete view of the service lifecycle, it is impossible to see where outcomes break down. A customer might receive five-star treatment in one interaction and something very different in another, with no deliberate reason for the gap. Behaviour becomes inconsistent because the organisation is blind to what happens between handovers.

2. Too many handovers  

Every extra handover introduces delay, complexity, and risk. Tickets bounce between teams, information is re-entered, context is lost, and customers wait. At worst, this can put contract renewals and long-term relationships at risk.

3. Knowledge that does not scale  

Most service leaders recognise the super engineer who can solve anything and the panic when they approach retirement. When know-how is stored in individuals rather than in workflows and content, performance depends on who turns up on the day, not on the maturity of the operating model.

Ricoh’s solution combines operating model and technology choices:

• One model: A unified way of working across all service layers, using common practices and shared terminology, whether in Milan, Munich, or Manchester.
• One platform: A single workflow engine orchestrating the full lifecycle. All data, automation, and visibility flow through this layer, whether service is delivered directly or via partners.
• One experience: Customers see consistent outcomes and interactions, regardless of channel or geography.

The underlying principle is straightforward: you cannot scale what you cannot see, and you cannot orchestrate what you do not control.

Why Execution Must Come Before AI

The industry-wide enthusiasm around AI is hard to miss. The risk is that service leaders jump straight to AI pilots without fixing the underlying execution issues. Ricoh followed a specific sequence: Simplify first, unify second, then scale.

The order matters for three reasons:

1. Complexity multiplied becomes chaos  

If workflows are inconsistent, data is fragmented, and responsibilities are unclear, adding AI on top will accelerate bad decisions and amplify noise. AI relies on clean signals; a messy foundation produces untrustworthy outputs.

2. Platforms before point solutions

A platform approach enables orchestration across cases, contracts, assets, and channels, with shared SLAs and ownership of outcomes. Only once this layer is in place does it make sense to automate more aggressively.

3. Embedded AI, not AI on the side  

AI tools should not be isolated but embedded in the workflow: augmenting dispatch decisions, suggesting next best actions, summarising case history, and creating reusable knowledge as a by-product of normal work.

This progression creates a path from human by default to machine by default where it makes sense. Routine decisions and obvious cases can be handled algorithmically, while engineers concentrate on judgment calls and complex scenarios.

Fixing Field Service Execution as the Starting Point

To make this real, Ricoh started with field service and dispatch. Rather than beginning with the simplest market, it chose the most complex, high-performing operating company in Europe as the first implementation of its new dispatch automation engine. If the most advanced, demanding organisation could adopt and improve with the new model, the rest would follow more easily.

The approach unfolded in stages:

• Measure current performance and behaviours.
• Identify improvement opportunities and share practices across teams.  
• Reach a performance plateau using existing tools and processes.  
• Introduce the new platform and workflow to break through that ceiling.  

Automation in field service increased from roughly 10% to about 80% in the first deployments, with further gains expected. Several operating companies are now live, with a European rollout targeted within a year of the initial launch.

The company treated field service execution as a foundation, not a side project. Visible, quantified improvements were used to build credibility and accelerate adoption elsewhere.

Platform Thinking as a Control Mechanism

A shared platform is not just a technology investment; it is a mechanism for enforcing accountability and enabling compounding value over time.

With a single service platform:

• Every customer and workflow becomes visible end-to-end.  
• SLAs and outcomes are explicitly measured and owned.  
• Variations in performance can be traced to specific steps, rather than guessed.  

The benefits are cumulative. Each month on the platform enriches the data set, sharpens the workflows, and clarifies where to intervene. As the picture becomes clearer, the organisation can move from reactive fixes to systematic improvement.

From Ticket Closers to Value Creators

The most profound change, however, is not technological. It is about identity.

In the traditional model, field service is defined by trucks rolling by default, paper-based or fragmented tools, reactive break-fix work, and knowledge concentrated in a few veterans. Success is measured by closing tickets.

The emerging model looks very different:

• Predictive rather than purely preventive or reactive.  
• Remote resolution where possible, deflecting what doesn’t need a truck.  
• One workflow and one screen, showing full customer context, history, and next best actions before anyone arrives on site.  
• Proactive ownership of outcomes; engineers see signals, act on them, and are accountable for the result.  
• Best practices embedded in the workflow, so quality is consistent regardless of who is assigned.  

The implication is a shift in how field teams see themselves and how the organisation positions them. They move from fixers of problems created elsewhere to value creators in their own right, central to customer satisfaction, contract renewal, and revenue growth.

For leaders, this is not a matter of rebranding roles. It requires aligning incentives, tools, processes, and language around outcomes rather than activities. It also means involving field teams early, since they are the ones who will live with the new workflows and whose adoption makes or breaks any platform initiative.

Conclusion

The lessons from Ricoh’s experience are straightforward:

• Simplify before you scale. Multiplying complexity with AI or automation produces chaos, not efficiency.  
• Choose platforms over isolated point solutions. Visibility and orchestration are prerequisites for consistent outcomes.  
• Prioritise execution before AI. Fixing field service and dispatch create the credibility and data foundation needed for more advanced automation.  
• Treat service as a growth engine. When service is tightly orchestrated and knowledge is embedded in workflows, it becomes a differentiator, not a cost to be contained.  

Above all, the shift is cultural. When field engineers and service teams see themselves and are treated as value creators, not just ticket closers, the organisation’s posture towards customers changes. For manufacturers and service providers facing talent shortages, ageing workforces, and rising expectations, that shift may prove as important as any technology decision.