How Field Service Companies Can Unify Diverse Operations for Maximum Value

In this blog series, and the accompanying eBook, The Future of Commercial Field Service Companies, we’ve been highlighting how technology can help field service companies attract and retain qualified employees, elevate the customer experience, increase worker efficiency, and boost profitability. In this final installment of blog series, we touch on what we think may be the area when technology delivers the most value — uniting the operation.

Complex, diverse, and disconnected operations

From opportunity tracking, bid management, project and work order management, equipment optimization, procurement, scheduling, cost management, and billing — and then through ongoing support, field service and more, commercial service companies are diverse operations with complex workflows.

In our work with field services companies, we typically see that they rely on several disparate software applications to run the business. For example, nearly all have an accounting application, some have CRM or job costing, others may have a dispatch or scheduling application, and everyone has lots and lots of spreadsheets.

The challenge with this approach is that visibility is hindered, collaboration is difficult, and efficiencies are lost. It’s hard for management to see the big picture since each business process is being managed by a separate application, with its data stored in silos. This highlights the importance of digital transformation in the field services sector, including a shift to cloud applications that promote integration and data sharing.

Data, data everywhere

And what a lot of data there is. Today, 75% of service organizations have rolled out sensor-equipped products, creating a steady flow of data. It’s data that can be used to fuel advanced analytics and the integration of solutions leveraging IoT, AI, and machine learning. The ultimate goal is to transition from service models based around a reactive, break-fix model to one that achieves near constant uptime.

In addition, tools such as mobile field service applications, fleet management, and mobile workforce management now allow technicians and their vehicles to contribute to and benefit from a wealth of data available to support them in the field. Field services managers can use that data to build more efficient schedules and weigh in on problems junior technicians may experience in the field. Over the longer term, field service data can be melded with financial data to provide deep insights and fuel informed decision making.

Technology tools grow more powerful, sophisticated, and accessible every day. For example, they may incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate scheduling, make preventative service recommendations, perform bid trend analysis, monitor opportunities, better connect sales teams to customers, accurately forecast workloads, and much more.

It is the overarching ability for technology to unite the diverse aspects of the business and deliver near real-time visibility into the operation that may be the most valuable to field service companies. In years past, gaining a full picture of such a diverse operation would have been impossible. But today, it’s a growing reality. As technology continues to become more powerful, more connected, and more accessible, contractors gain a level of insight. It’s that insight that will allow them to not only face future challenges but anticipate them — and turn them into opportunities. We invite you to download our new eBook, The Future of Commercial Field Service Companies, to learn more.