Field Service Automation: Turning a loss into a profit (page 2 of 2)

"This project will play a major role in helping us achieve our goal of trimming 40 percent of our cost base," says Black.

As for hard numbers, according to Black, Scottish Water now averages one call per incident instead of the usual two or three. They've also been able to bump up the number of blocked water line repairs completed during a workday from four or five to an average of nine.

Keep Your Project Out of the CRM Obituaries
You may be asking yourself, "how do I prevent your venture from ending up like one of those failed CRM projects one reads about?" With so many choices on the market, it can be confusing for customers to know what solution is right for them. A short list of "must-haves" to look for when considering your options includes:

• Functionality that provides for integration with back-office applications—including vital processes such as billing, financials and inventory. Everyone knows that field service does not happen within a vacuum; it is a part of business processes that span all organizations. Software for field service should be designed with that in mind.

• Advanced scheduling capabilities, including the ability to plan routes.

• Spare parts integration that provides visibility into parts availability and logistics, putting service engineers in a position where they're never at a jobsite without the right parts. This also helps suppliers maintain minimum inventory levels and avoid the risk of stock-outs and obsolescence.

• A wide range of mobile and wireless connectivity—laptops, PDAs and voice recognition capabilities built on proven technology that can be customized according to business needs of the intended users. Questions to ask here include: Will my technicians benefit from the information they access on-site? Am I able to reduce the billing cycle and eliminate errors? Will my technicians be able to use the technology comfortably?

• A comprehensive customer data model that provides a single view of your customer and direct access to any equipment using installed-base data. Combining these pieces of information leads to cross-selling and up-selling opportunities and higher revenues.

Automate or Be Left Behind
And while Scottish Water is an innovator in its field, it is not alone in identifying the benefits of field service automation.

The demand for field service management solutions is growing at roughly 8 percent per year—analysts at Aberdeen Group forecast field service management applications will be a US$752 million market by 2005. With the market growing to that size, clearly someone is going to be buying field service software.

And while you can't be certain if it's one of your fiercest competitors, can you really afford to ignore that possibility and not at least explore field service management solutions and what they can do for your organization?