These are undoubtedly unprecedented times, which have caused important changes for field service companies and the way they manage work with their custom field service software, like Synchroteam

Now that we’re already in mid-2020, it’s time to take a look back at the past six months and analyze the top trends in field service. A necessary time to take a break, reflect on what has happened so far and foresee possible effects on the remainder of 2020.

 

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 IN FIELD SERVICE

Like it or not, COVID-19 is the main character in this year. The pandemic seems to be under control in some countries while some others are still facing a terrible battle against it. No matter what the current situation is in your area, the truth is that coronavirus is here to stay, at least for the time being - or until we have a reliable, safe medical treatment or vaccine.

The sanitary emergency has caused a huge impact across all industry sectors, of course and including field service. What’s more, the effects of these disruptions are expected to be deep-reach and long-term. It’s just something not even the most advanced custom field service software could have predicted.

We’ve already talked about how field service companies like yours can adapt to the new situation we’re living in 2020. In previous posts, we’ve covered important points such as keeping your technicians and customers safe, allowing working from home whenever possible, and making the most of the features included in your custom field service software to digitize all sorts of tasks.

The main takeaway of these articles, also considering the impact COVID-19 is having in the industry worldwide, is that now technology is more important than ever. While we’ve always defended the idea of a technology-based field service company, adopting the appropriate custom field service software right now can help your business communicate, operate and work through the coronavirus crisis without losing too much along the way.

 

IMPROVING OPERATIONS IN FIELD SERVICE

Another key element for field service companies in 2020 is optimization, especially when applied to daily tasks such as scheduling and team dispatching. Besides, these are precisely two areas in which the usage of a custom field service software can be more helpful.

When you rely on people’s memories (or just the good old pen and paper), you’re prone to mistakes. You don’t even need to be running a large company; a medium-sized team is already complicated enough to try to manage it on your own.

A proper custom field service software application can be the perfect ally in task scheduling and team dispatching. It helps you automate the whole process, thus making a better use of your time. And the more tasks you can fit in in your work hours, the more money you make - it’s as simple as that!

 

INVESTING IN TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE RESULTS

It’s not just a question of using a custom field service software in your company. In general terms, technology can help you improve many aspects in your daily business. And with the coronavirus pandemic, it has become even more important.

The adoption of tech solutions in field service means also, for instance, using mobile devices to access necessary information about your customers anytime, anywhere. Or making use of GPS devices in your vans to plan the best route to the next job - saving both time and fuel. 

And what about technology in COVID-19 times? Well, think about being able to assess a customer’s HVAC installation in a video call, or sending your invoices via email in order to maintain social distance. Little changes in our daily working routines that may as well save lives!

 

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Further Reading:

• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Read more about Field Service Software @ www.fieldservicenews.com/field-service-software
• Read more about Managing the Mobile Workforce @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/managing-the-mobile-workforce
• Find out more about Synchroteam @ www.synchroteam.com
• Follow Synchroteam on Twitter @ twitter.com/synchroteam

 

As part of its go-to-market initiatives, and in response to strong demand for its products, OverIT, a global leader in Field Service Management and Augmented Collaboration solutions, has opened its second location in North America in Miami, Florida. The new office will become the US Headquarters, as the company plans to triple its US-based headcount by the end of 2020.

 

OverIT Accelerates North America Expansion to Meet Growing Demand for Asset-Intensive Field Service Management and Augmented & Virtual Reality Collaboration Solutions.

During the past twenty years, OverIT has been reshaping the operational processes of over 200 Fortune 500 companies. Their goal has always been simple: leading their clients into a new Field Service Management era, where on-field tasks are carried out efficiently, safely, and increasingly hands-free. Given the extraordinary results achieved in FY 2019, and the gap left in the market after vendor consolidation, increasing their international presence is a priority to sustain the ever-increasing demand for their solutions.

“Given the increased demand for our products in United States and Canada”, said Marco Zanuttini, CEO at OverIT, “we have invested heavily in our US subsidiary, growing it over 300% during the past six months. Our company is aiming at top industry leaders and has already hired a new SVP and General Manager for Americas, to guide the business during this new period for the subsidiary. Also, even though North America is the main focus in our strategic expansion plans, we are also in the process of drastically increasing our presence in the UK and Australia by opening up new offices to support efforts in those regions.”

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Further Reading:

• Visit the OverIT website @ www.overit.it/
• Read more news and articles about OverIT @ www.fieldservicenews.com/blog/overit
• Read more about Augmented Reality @ www.fieldservicenews.com/augmented+reality
• Read more about Digital Transformation @ www.fieldservicenews.com/digital-transformation
• Follow OverIT on twitter @ twitter.com/OverITSpA

 

Contact information: 

To learn more about FieldAware solutions or to schedule a demo:

Phone: 

• US and Canada: 800-935-0736
• UK: 0800 098 8487
• Australia, APAC: 1800 821 628 

Email at sales@fieldaware.com

Web:t www.fieldaware.com

 Services Provided by FieldAware:

• Mobile Applications
• Scheduling and Dispatch
• Work Order Management
• Asset Management
• Barcode Scanner

 

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All About FieldAware:

FieldAware is re-shaping the field service industry. 

FieldAware has a solution to automate field service workflows and activities that is a made-for-mobile, cloud-based software architecture. We designed our solution to address the decades old challenge of automating field service activities and workers from the ground up. We enable them to capitalise on a modern technology infrastructure for ease of use and incredible flexibility. We combine our software with the industry’s best implementation, on-boarding and support services enabling companies to take full and rapid advantage of today’s mobile environment throughout the organisation.

FieldAware delivers an end-to-end solution encompassing a robust suite of core functionality bundled into the primary solution that automates most field service organisations. In addition, FieldAware offers value-add modules for enhanced capabilities, such as analytics, optimisation, dynamic workflows, all with the benefits and accessibility that only a made-for-mobile platform architecture can bring.

Our focus is 100% on field service management, which means we can continuously expand, improve, and optimise the end-to-end suite of capabilities we deliver to best serve field service organisations. This allows us to deliver on our vision to help our clients drive value across functional and organisational boundaries. It enables them to evolve their field service maturity to address their changing business requirements as dictated by strategic direction or growth.

Field service is complex, and our clients want to fully enable their remote workers. They want to provide them with easy access to the information they need, when they need it. They also want to provide the back office and management teams with complete visibility too. This means providing transparency to the workflows, the worker, assets and parts that are being used in the field, so that operations can be managed effectively and productively. But the need for transparency doesn’t end there. In order to drive value within and across the organisation, our clients need their data and business intelligence to lead to actionable outcomes to support the strategy, growth and profitability of the business.

FieldAware provides the comprehensive solution to address all of these requirements.

For more information on FieldAware visit www.fieldaware.com

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Latest Video from FieldAware:

 

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Contact information: 

To learn more about OverIT solutions or to schedule a demo:

Website: www.overit.it

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Services Provided by OverIT:

OverIT creates innovative Field Service Management solutions to support and optimize task execution on field. The company helps its customers boost productivity and efficiency, while improving worker safety, customer experience and overall revenues.

OverIT masters the business processes of several industries, including Energy & Utilities, Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Services, Transportation and Telco. With a global focus in mind, the company works together with diverse enterprises to help them find the optimum path to excellent performance and achieve +100% productivity thanks to our Geocall product for Field Service Management.

In addition, at OverIT we believe that building applications on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality is key to streamlining field processes. Leveraging the virtual collaboration, knowledge sharing and remote assistance capabilities provided by the SPACE1 application suite, companies can arm their technicians with the tools to perform field tasks faster, better, and hands-free, relying on mobile and wearable devices.

 

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All About SPACE1:

SPACE1 is the all-in-one extended field solution that leverages Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality to support the modern technicians during the on-field execution, broadening their capabilities thus to help them complete their repair and service tasks more quickly and efficiently.

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Latest Video from OverIT: 

 

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Contact information: 

To learn more about simPRO solutions or to schedule a demo:

Key Contact: Simon Tushingham Jones, Sales Manager

Tel:  0800 622 6376

Email  simon.tushinghamjones@simpro.co.uk

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Services Provided by simPRO:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service & Dynamics Advanced Field Service from HSO – powerful end-to-end field service management software with integrated CRM functionality that makes it easy to stay on top of all aspects of the field service process, benefiting planners, technicians, and service managers alike.

 

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All About simPRO:

simPRO offers a range of solutions to help field service and maintenance businesses to work smarter, deliver exceptional service, gain complete visibility and boost profitability. Intelligent features provide a complete end-to-end solution from monitoring and managing preventative and reactive maintenance to keeping field engineers connected with the office. As simPRO is cloud-based, data can be accessed from anywhere, any time.

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Latest Video from simPRO: 

simPRO IoT from simPRO on Vimeo.

 

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FLS Contact information: 

Key Contact: Jeremy Squire, UK Managing Director
Phone: +44 (0)1183 800189
Web: www.fastleansmart.com
Email: jeremy.squire@fastleansmart.com 

 

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Services provided by FLS: 

A new entrant into the Field Service Management Sector which offers both desktop and mobile software has been developed specifically for the SME contractor segment.

The solution which includes both desktop and mobile software, called Orthinc, works by connecting a company’s office administrators with their field engineers so that jobs can be more easily managed day-to-day. especially praised for its ease of use.

After sending job details to assigned engineers, it effortlessly collects and stores important data from the field such as materials ordered, stock used and time spent on-site. This information is then displayed on one simple page and can be used for fast, accurate invoicing.

Simon Jackson, the earliest adopter of the software, said that the system was an invaluable asset to his electrical business.

Simon Jackson, the earliest adopter of the software, said that the system was an invaluable asset to his electrical business. Since being approached by the Orthinc team one year ago to trial the so ware, I think it’s been moulded into the perfect tool for small and medium-sized contracting companies. We use it every day to send our engineers out jobs and receive information back from them. As well as improving our daily workflow, it has directly saved us time and money. For example, when seven invoices for parts went missing last month, Orthinc highlighted that we hadn’t charged our client for them which saved us around £350. We would never go back to our old system, it’s changed the way we work.

The Orthinc team began developing the software over 18 months ago with the goal of helping reduce contractors’ dependence on inefficient job management systems, such as complicated software, excel spreadsheets and order code books. Now, the team hope to go beyond that by providing the easiest, most accessible solution to job management.

Orthinc lead designer, Kieran McIntyre said: Time and money are the most important resources to contractors and poor processes can waste lots of both. Although so ware has attempted to provide a solution to this, none before Orthinc has really hit the nail on the head. For job management so ware to truly benefit contractors, it has to be genuinely easy to use – otherwise, you are just giving them another hurdle to jump. Simplicity has been our main focus here at Orthinc. We’ve worked hard to make a system that can be picked up by anyone and used straight away, so that its benefits are instantly felt.

The Orthinc software is available on both desktop and mobile devices and is accessible anytime and anywhere with an internet connection.

The team offer contractors a handy, no-contract 14 day free trial so that they can see if the software is right for them.

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Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower, takes a lens to the recent spate of merger and acquisition activity amongst field service management solution providers and explores why it seems everyone is moving towards a fully integrated platform approach...

With a high velocity of M & A activity recently in the field service sector, many solution providers claim to be moving towards a “fully integrated platform” solution...

But just what does that mean and why would that be preferable to traditional best of breed solutions that tend to focus on specific functionality within field service management?

There’s a simple answer really.

It’s the customer. The customer is number one.

Customer satisfaction is the key to increasing profitability for organisations offering field based services. The analysts acknowledged this fact some time ago, and the industry has finally come around to acceptance.

 

To simplify service delivery and maximise profit, field service organisations must now consider customer satisfaction and the customer experience to be as or more important as the goal than the traditionally expected outputs from a mobile workforce management or field service management deployment.

To that end, field service organisations are looking to solution providers to offer truly end-to-end service and mobile workforce management functionality in a single cloud based platform, which addresses more than simply scheduling and mobility.

Service providers are looking for integrated self-entitlement and real time consumer communications, contract management, hybrid workforce management inclusive of optimisation and contract dispatching, warranty claim management, mobile dispatching for both employed and contracted labour, and integrated business intelligence, which increase productivity and reduce costs, while improving the customer experience and creating new ways to grow revenue from each customer.

Within the industry, solution providers have traditionally fallen into two categories. They were either a mile high and an inch deep, or a mile deep and an inch wide.

 

Mile wide solutions tend to offer more functionality to cover the spectrum from entitlement to scheduling, but failed to develop real expertise in must-have features like real time optimisation or hybrid workforce management.

So, though they offered more, they offered less, in terms of quality schedules, productivity and intelligent hybrid workforce dispatching.

Mile deep solutions tend to specialise, becoming expert in one or more functionalities, like enterprise mobility or schedule optimisation, but don’t offer end-to-end process support, like intelligent consumer portals, entitlement or warranty claims management.

As service providers realise that to grow, they need to simplify service delivery and offer more valuable services to customer to build loyalty, NPS and ultimately, more revenues long term, a single vendor solution which supports end-to-end process becomes very important.

Customers have driven service providers to offer more, and the service providers are driving solution providers, like ServicePower, to offer more, and offer best in breed functionality for the entire service process.

ServicePower realised this back in 2004.

Working with long term client, GE Appliances, we realised that offering mobile workforce software which only provided schedule and route optimisation, albeit the best optimisation on the market, wasn’t enough.

We began to develop additional functionality to provide mobile dispatching, asset tracking and most importantly SaaS hybrid workforce management. The industry realised that the best way to control service costs, while maintaining customer satisfaction was to integrate contractors within their labor models.

We also realised that managing contractors was very different than managing employees, so added functionality to intelligently select employees or contractors, dynamically selecting the best contractor based on ranking and rules logic.

We’ve also realised that ERPs, and many CRMs in fact, don’t provide the depth of service and maintenance contract management or entitlement logic needed when managing warranty reserves.

 

So, we’ve added that functionality, as well asset and inventory management.

Even more recently, we added an intelligent consumer portal which allows consumers to schedule jobs with our client’s hybrid workforces, increasing the number of digital touch points, creating a seamless, satisfying self-service experience, which increases the lifetime value of each customer by as much as 6 times.

So, are best of breed dead mobile workforce management providers dead? No. Best of breed means something different now than it did just two years ago.

To be best of breed, providers must offer end-to-end field service management capability that’s a mile high and a mile deep, to ensure every single part of the process is digital, optimised, and fast and offers more than the customer expected.

 

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Contact information: 

To learn more about HSO solutions or to schedule a demo:

Key Contact: Debbie Perry,

Address: HSO UK, Enterprise Point, Sharston, Manchester, M22 9AF  

Tel:  0161 300 6060   

Email  info-uk@hso.com

Web: www.hso.com/

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Services Provided by HSO:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service & Dynamics Advanced Field Service from HSO – powerful end-to-end field service management software with integrated CRM functionality that makes it easy to stay on top of all aspects of the field service process, benefiting planners, technicians, and service managers alike.

 

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All About HSO:

Intelligent, world-class Field Service with end to end management from HSO

HSO specialises in implementing, integrating, optimising and maintaining Field Service Management solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX, CRM, SharePoint, Azure, Power BI and Office365.  

We ensure that you have an intelligent, world-class, field service management solution to manage all aspects of the end-to-end field service management cycle. We deliver positive and connected on-site customer experiences, increasing first-time fix rates and revenue for your business. HSO, as a Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service partner, helps companies build long-term customer relationships that are personalised, proactive and predictive across all of their business functions – enabling the transition from a cost centre to a profit centre and ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction. Our close relationship with Microsoft allows us to keep you up-to-date with new developments for the whole Microsoft stack of solutions. 

A positive customer experience is an increasingly important ingredient for field service companies to win and retain their customers. Our close understanding of the Field Service industry enables us to configure Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service precisely, ensuring that we achieve the very best implementation for any shape or size of field service company. 

Dynamics Advanced Field Service from HSO, on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service, provides all the tools a company needs to satisfy the most complex of Field Service requirements. Dynamics Advanced Field Service from HSO offers significantly enhanced functionality with extended case management integration and capabilities within Customer Assets, Warranty Control, Extended Case Management, Agreement Coverage for Charging, and Improved Work Order Actuals Registration.  

HSO employs 700+ professionals and maintains a worldwide presence with locations in Europe, North America and Asia. Our project delivery capabilities rely on more than 30 years’ of practical experience, having delivered 1500+ successful implementations in countries all over the world. HSO is a member of the Microsoft Inner Circle and proud to be honoured as the ‘most customer-focused’ Microsoft Partner.

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Resources from HSO: 

TRENDBOOK: The lights are on green for Augmented Reality in field service

 

It is not a question of whether field service organisations will use Augmented and Virtual Reality tools (AR/VR) on a large scale, but when.

This detailed 16 page trend book outlines the key information field service organisations need to digest to prepare themselves for harnessing the power of this important new technology, 

 

 

  

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Infographic: A day in the life of a Field Service Engineer, with HSO Advanced Field Service