For the past 13 years, ServiceMax has been enabling the digital transformation of field service organizations through our asset-centric field service management solution. Today, we are the only leading software application that is 100% dedicated to equipment and asset maintenance. Our focus on equipment and asset maintenance has brought the idea of asset-centricity to the forefront for many service businesses and is allowing them to move from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance. This focus on the asset has also led to our ground-breaking joint solution with Salesforce Field Service--Asset 360 for Salesforce. As we look to the future of field service management technology, we see emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the Internet of things playing a big role in advancing asset-centric field service management and supporting new outcome-based business models.

As new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) transform organisations across industries, the potential business benefits are a powerful argument to help a business go through the transition. An example of this would be within the ever-evolving nature of the field service industry; companies can now schedule a technician to come and check a network fault or conduct a service call for their customers almost immediately, thanks to AI. This is worlds away from ten years ago when the only option would have been to call and talk to a dispatcher as they flicked through employee logs and schedules manually to find an available, and properly skilled, technician. And often, the right technician required to resolve the issue was generally not available for a week, or longer. For any business, seven days without a resolution is a definite failure.

A smart FSM solution should bring these pieces together in a seamless way, on a single platform. In this blog, I will examine some of the key capabilities and benefits this integrated approach to FSM enables. A recent Gartner report found that in field service organizations, 40 percent of the workforce is mobile. Businesses still using paper work orders, or those who aren't leveraging mobile technology in the field work are already falling behind. Technicians in the field need a mobile platform that will give them instant access to critical data, even if they lose connectivity.

The study also looked at how well ERP, enterprise asset management (EAM) and field service management (FSM) software prepares industrial companies for digital transformation and to consume IoT data within their enterprise software. "The technology has a huge potential to enhance the visibility in industrial operations by gaining insights to every step of the production and supply chain process in real time," said Global Market Insights. "The virtual tracking of the firm assets, operations, processes, products and other resources enables businesses to have complete visibility resulting in streamlined process and optimizing the industrial demand and supply," according to the market research firm. "Early Industrial IoT successes demonstrate that manufacturers can achieve operational improvements that significantly impact the bottom line, but this survey shows that adapting to advancing technology is a significant challenge," said Mike Train, executive president of Emerson Automation Solutions, in a statement.

The study also looked at how well ERP, enterprise asset management (EAM) and field service management (FSM) software prepares industrial companies for digital transformation and to consume IoT data within their enterprise software. "The technology has a huge potential to enhance the visibility in industrial operations by gaining insights to every step of the production and supply chain process in real time," said Global Market Insights. "The virtual tracking of the firm assets, operations, processes, products and other resources enables businesses to have complete visibility resulting in streamlined process and optimizing the industrial demand and supply," according to the market research firm. "Early Industrial IoT successes demonstrate that manufacturers can achieve operational improvements that significantly impact the bottom line, but this survey shows that adapting to advancing technology is a significant challenge," said Mike Train, executive president of Emerson Automation Solutions, in a statement.

Are you giving your field service management (FSM) staff what they deserve? Safety, efficiency, productivity – it's what we all want for our field service technicians. Safer practices, real-time weather feeds, optimized routes, access to supply systems, automation. Mobility and analytics are at the heart of each of these aspirations and will continue to drive significant productivity gains, improve worker effectiveness and safety, and eliminate errors by capturing data directly from the work source, while integrating real-time data input from the cloud. How quickly you adopt mobility and new innovations into your FSM practices will define your organization's ability to stay ahead of the competition.