Seeing both Immediate and Long-Term Benefits

We have seen in our series of blogs about visibility, how an improved understanding of what is happening at any given time helps managers make better decisions. Through the improved visibility that field service solutions deliver, managers and other staff can have confidence that they have the right information and, as such, can make the best decision based on this. Nobody wants to leave anything to chance or to give answers based on gut feel so being able to see at-a-glance the information that is most important to them means they are on top of performance.

For you to track the performance of your service operations and understand your business, in the immediate term and longer term, you’ll need visibility of the right information, when you need it and in a way that is meaningful to you.

Immediate Benefits

A day in field service operations can often change and be unpredictable as even the best laid plans are affected if emergency work comes in or jobs overrun. On-the-spot decisions need to be made to keep up with and manage those changes and get the day back on track.

Lack of visibility into what is happening out in the field may mean poor decisions are made, which can have further impact on the day’s work. Having access to information can mean that better decisions can be made then and there, keeping the most effective plan for the work. The impact of making changes can be seen immediately and decisions can be based on that, taking into account this impact and any potential outcome on service performance, cost and the rest of the day’s work.

So, field service management technology gives you greater visibility into your field service operations. With that visibility comes a lot of data which is useful to the business, but the amount of data can often feel overwhelming in where to start or how to analyze what is needed. It can sometimes feel so overwhelming that data then sits unused. 

Understanding your Business

You don’t want to be overwhelmed by data, neither have the time to wade through masses of numbers, so let your field service management solution organize the key information for you to identify the crucial stuff you need at any time to make decisions.

With this view into your field operations, you will be able to answer questions like:

• Which services are most profitable?
• Which are the most productive crews and technicians?
• How are changes affecting specific operations?

The visual presentation of data in dashboards needs to be easy to understand and should be easy to filter by service type, individual, crew or any other data point collected.

Business intelligence (BI) dashboards do just that and organize key metrics about your company’s service operation so that you can make fully informed business decisions.

Longer-Term Planning

Day-to-day access to data is critical to the management of daily performance, but business intelligence is also vital in the longer-term view. Week-to-week or month-to-month comparisons can surface meaningful trends that can help fine-tune a service organization to run at maximum productivity – while maximizing profit.

Identifying business trends is critical to growing revenue, retaining customers and increasing the productivity of field workers.  It’s important as a means of discovering problems before they can impact the business.

Improved visibility from field service solutions brings greater understanding of what is happening. Straightforward reporting and being able to access the relevant information easily and quickly is fundamental. This information will then help manage not only the day’s operation, but also feed into the more strategic business planning around budgets, resources, targets and areas to focus on driving performance in the future.

For the best results, you need a field service solution that meets these business needs. FieldAware simplifies field service management to get the information that is needed for instantly better decision making and ongoing business success.

For more information on improving visibility and where to start see our infographic on The Key to Visibility in Field Service: Twenty Questions to Ask Yourself.

To find out more about FieldAware join one of our 30-minute webinar.