Field Service Software Selection: Defining Your Non-Negotiables
By Sarah Nicastro, publisher/editor in chief, Field Technologies
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I’ve had countless conversations with field service leaders that feel overwhelmed by the process of selecting technology to improve their businesses. This holds especially true for field service software, because there are so many solutions to evaluate. With the exception of large organizations that may have a dedicated solution selection and implementation team, field service leaders are trying to fit this process of solution evaluation in amidst their already busy “day job.”
The stress and frustration of trying to weed through all the options often results in one of two scenarios: they put the project off because they feel like they just don’t have the time for it or they rush through the selection and end up with a solution that doesn’t best fit their needs. I think where many of these teams run into trouble is that they are evaluating these solutions against one another, versus against their company’s specific needs.
Rather than trying to thoroughly evaluate all of the field service software solutions out there based on understanding all of the functionality they provide, start by focusing internally to create your own list of solution non-negotiables. These are features of a system you need to address your biggest challenges. I recently interviewed Tom Dishman, VP of branch operations at parking solution provider Amano McGann for an article that will be coming out in our September/October issue. As Dishman told me the story of the company’s successful field service transformation, one of the aspects that stuck out to me was how well Amano McGann navigated the often complex field service software selection process.
“There is a big disparity between some of the software providers out there. As we evaluated their capabilities, we did so using a matrix of how they address our non-negotiables as well as the features beyond that,” says Dishman. “There were companies that could not meet our non-negotiables, they were eliminated and that narrowed our search. Evaluating this way helped us to ensure we were selecting the solution that was really best able to address our company’s needs.”
Stay Focused In Your Software Evaluation
Every company’s non-negotiables will be different, but the point is that it is important to know what they are so that the evaluation process is streamlined – and so you can stay focused on addressing your biggest business challenges. Today’s software solutions have almost endless possibilities, so if you are working to compare each and every one it does become unruly. If you instead look for solutions that can address your non-negotiables, you will narrow your search and you lessen the risk of being enamored by some “cool” feature that isn’t essential.
Once you have your list of solutions that address your non-negotiables, then you can go on to evaluate those based on other criteria such as what additional features and functionality each solution has, how the solution will be able to grow and scale with your business, cost, and how you feel about the vendor’s support and approach.
Creating your list of non-negotiables won’t make software selection easy, but it will help you to ensure you don’t waste time evaluating solutions that aren’t going to help you address your core needs. I urge you to not fall into the trap of becoming overwhelmed and either putting this off or rushing through it, because both of those missteps can be detrimental to your business. If you’ve been through this process and have insights to add on how you kept it manageable, I’d love to hear from you! You can email me at sarah.nicastro@fieldtechinfo.com.