Connect with us
Finance Digest is a leading online platform for finance and business news, providing insights on banking, finance, technology, investing,trading, insurance, fintech, and more. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

BUSINESS

Why Would You Straighten A Croissant?

Published On :

Mark Homer is Vice President, Global Customer Transformation for field service management specialist, ServiceMax.

Mark Homer

I saw an article recently about Tesco’s recent decision to ditch the crescent-shaped croissant. My first thought was, why? Surely a croissant not shaped like a crescent ceases to be a croissant? Turns out that’s what consumers want.(Straight croissants make it easier to spread the jam apparently). Products should always try and meet the needs of the consumer and Tesco’s customers have spoken.

Across industries products are changing to an even great extent than just supermarket pastries. Automation is driving change. The Internet of Things is reshaping products and services to the extent that manufacturers are now looking at how to bake service into the design of products, as service mechanisms are increasingly seen as the common denominator of accurate product development and maintenance.

This is something which global energy management and automation business Schneider Electric is already working towards. At a recent conference Schneider Electric senior vice president Manish Gupta spoke about the company’s installed base as being key and the need to “track how customers are using our products,” he said. Why? “We want to improve products and improve the experience,” he added.

What we are talking about here of course is servitisation. Although not a new concept – it’s been talked about in a theoretical manner for a few years now – we are starting to see the emergence of a change in manufacturing. This change is not a choice either. It is essential for the survival of manufacturing in an increasingly lean world. Faced with competition and diminishing returns on products, making products more robust or more specific to the requirements of consumers becomes increasingly important and service is at the core of this shift.

IoT is playing a massive role here. Before IoT, R&D teams relied on interpretation and anecdotal input from field service engineers to get a full understanding of how products were faring out in the field. Service reports were arbitrary. In many instances, there was ‘No Fault Found’ which, according to Cranfield University accounts for around 20-30 per cent of cases. Post-IoT and the picture is becoming increasingly different.

Thanks to IoT and intelligent field service automation, we are now able to collect data automatically from machines and devices to determine their condition, their performance, and their potential for error or malfunction. Using data analysis, we can build predictive models to foresee problems and identify troublesome parts, equipping field service techs with the right tools and materials to ensure minimum product downtime and maximum customer satisfaction.

Most companies get it. Seven out of 10 business leaders claim that customer experience is now critical to their success, according to Forrester. It’s not surprising, but with IoT, the ability to streamline the information flow while also increasing accuracy is a game changer. Service is evolving. But with this evolution, service has to change too in order to utilise the technology and increase efficiencies.

So is this a threat to field service workers? Far from it. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US, there will be 800,000 additional service workers in the US by 2022. If that’s an indicator of how automation will impact the industry, then it’s pretty clear that field service can do more than just survive – it is integral to the changing landscape.

It’s a view supported by the McKinsey Global Institute, which in a report last year claimed that “IoT is starting to have a real impact by changing how goods are made and distributed, how products are serviced and refined.”

And this will lead to further change. Consumer habits and tastes, even ideas can be fed back through a mix of automation and field service recommendation, ultimately redefining the relationship between business and customers. Less risk and more products that people want – a bit like the straight croissant.

INFOGRAPHIC
Continue Reading

Why pay for news and opinions when you can get them for free?

       Subscribe for free now!


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Recent Posts