Industry insights — David Younger, Managing Director, The Service Manager

Many processes have been streamlined in the field service industry in recent years — what further improvements are likely in 2016?

The big thing now is industry within industry templating eg, HVAC in field service rather than just a generic product fits all approach. This has been the domain of ERP (big end of town operators) until now. But scalability and hybrid cloud are changing all that. Scalability is now affordable for the SME customers who still think it costs a fortune. Providing the total cost of service using a platform tariff approach over the economic (read current technology life) for small and larger users is what the market wants.

What do you see as the greatest challenge for managers of mobile teams in the year ahead and why?

Mobile will become the handset device of choice of the back-end scheduler as well as the field technician from now on starting with the owner manager that schedules work at morning, lunch and afternoon tea breaks moving up to larger field service operators of fleets. Offline is a problem for large screens, smartphones and tablets; and let’s face it, at present 80% of the Australian market is Samsung and Apple. HTML and tools that enable browser offline are now available to overcome this problem. Having a 50/50 balance of employees and contractors is now reality if the operator wants to make money in Australia; having the ability to have duel synchronised scheduling capability for the contractor as well as the operator that uses his service is where the market will go. SME operators can now achieve these productivity benefits provided by SME Platform tariff providers; it’s happening now.

How has the field service industry evolved since the advent of mobile technology and what are the downsides of rapid change?

I have been involved for over 25 years so I have experienced everything from the HP Jornarda through to today’s leading mobile devices. Android and iOS built for the handset will move towards HTML browser devices and the change out will go from two years to 6 months if it’s not there already. The slowdown of Apple and Samsung is because the cost of the new handset is too high and the older handsets are besieged by upgrade triggers that, once adopted, ‘muck up’ the handsets’ form factor settings; it’s in the vendors’ interest to build in obsolescence. Seriously, platform tariff providers are the new disruptors and need to provide over a sensible contract term handset replacement so that their customer has the latest  technology for productivity. Watch the emergence of these platform tariff service providers.

What trends are we likely to see emerge in the short term — what is the ‘next big thing’?

From what I have said already, it’s the platform tariff service provider, plus the UBER of field service and logistics, that for the first time in the industry looks after the most important ‘person’ — the service person, who is not recognised, and has until now been the employee of the service operator. Watch this space.

An increasing number of vendors have been attracted to the field service segment in response to market growth. How will that landscape level out and what will it look like at the end of 2016?

This is what I think is happening in Australia. Overseas operators in declining economies are looking to a stable economy like Australia, even though its only has 23m-odd population over a huge geographic area. So what do they do? They pick industries that need shaking up, and field service is one of those. They are usually ERP operators wanting to pick an industry like cleaning or field service where 80% of the incomes are controlled by 20% of the operators at the big end of town. However, they are mainly foreign and should be Australian. The Australian thing will happen because we are a creative population but no longer at the app level; it has to be the platform service provider and we need Australian companies to fill this space.

How big a role does customisation play in delivering the most suitable offering to your client and can off-the-shelf ever compete with a fully tailored solution?

The market was, and still is, divided into Lite, Pro and Enterprise. The Australian market has moved upwards and generally does not have the technology to customise economically. Lite should start at husband and mate with wife using Xero but be capable of growing with ‘chunks’ of functionality as the business grows and can afford to increase monthly spend. Pro is the existing mid-market most under pressure, the “should we get bigger or smaller?” scenario is what the owners face — both these products should be capable of adding chunks but not customisation. However, at a time when most subscription software companies are stopping customisation, a platform tariff service provider, with the technology to customise without having to upgrade every customer, is what Australia needs. This technology is available right now.

David Younger is Managing Director of The Service Manager and has been involved with the field service industry since 1986. For the last 10 years, he has specialised in all aspects of field service through his TSM software suite, which has evolved into an ERP TSM solution. In 2014, David published his ‘Instant Profits’ guide identifying and finding solutions to common problems faced by field service business owners. In 2015, he merged Proware with Wireless Accounting to create TSM Evolution, with a renewed focus on delivering a broad platform of solutions to the field service industry.