From The Editor

91. 3 Strategies For Growing Your Service Revenue 8/22/2014

    It’s no surprise that the top goal of today’s service organizations is increasing revenue. Service has evolved from often an afterthought to a differentiator, and as such, the view of the service function within the majority of organizations today is one of a profit center vs. cost center. With that evolution comes mounting pressure on service organizations to maximize revenue.

92. Could Gamification Improve The Performance Of Your Mobile Workforce? 7/23/2014

    Gamification of mobile apps is a trend I heard about at an industry event a couple months ago. I found the idea of gamification of mobile apps — and the potential for what it can do — pretty interesting, so I thought it’d be worth exploring a bit here. The idea of gamification of mobile apps as it relates to use in business is that you can use game-like mechanics within a work-related application to motivate workers to complete certain tasks.

93. IoT Is (Finally) Permeating Field Service 6/24/2014

    The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to an ecosystem of devices or products connected with M2M (machine-to-machine) technology that are able to communicate information through (most commonly) cellular or (sometimes) satellite network connections. Want to know what I find most interesting about IoT at the moment? How much it’s being talked about in the industry right now. Field Technologies first began covering M2M in June of 2008. That first article was likely met with a lot of blank stares and glossed-over eyes. Why? The majority of the field service industry just wasn’t ready for M2M or IoT quite yet.

94. Technology Is Awesome, But Don't Forget The Human Side Of Field Service 5/22/2014

    Field mobility is pretty amazing. I’ve become a bit of a nerd about this stuff in my tenure at Field Technologies, which I never really saw coming. It’s happened because I’ve witnessed so many incredible stories about how readers such as you are leveraging mobile technologies to truly transform organizations.

95. The Telematics Trend: It's Time To Get On Board 4/23/2014

    We’ve done plenty of coverage in this magazine about how companies of all shapes and sizes are leveraging telematics solutions to their benefit — but just in case you’ve missed any of that, I’m going to take this opportunity to reinforce the point. Here’s the punchline: Telematics solutions are not just for trucking companies. Any company with a fleet can benefit from a solution that enables you to track the location of your vehicles and gather a variety of other pertinent information related to their performance and status.

96. Have You Considered A Hands-Off Approach To Mobility? 3/26/2014

    It’s tough to keep up in the extraordinarily fastpaced world of technology we live in today. For companies deploying mobile solutions, the game has changed a lot from what it was even two or three years ago. Cloud has become the de facto software, mobile device life cycles have drastically shortened, BYOD scenarios are increasing, and security is a constant concern. I’m getting a headache just writing about it! For those of you who simply don’t want to get bogged down in the fast pace and complexities, you’re in luck — the emergence of MMS (mobility managed services) means you don’t have to.

97. Putting Everyday Mobile Apps To Work In The Field 2/21/2014

    Using mobile apps is an everyday, nearly every minute experience for the masses. When’s the last time you left your smartphone at home? It’s incredible how much doing so impacts your ability to function at this point. In my opinion, there are some significant drawbacks to the always-on environment we live in today — but this isn’t a column about the detriments of constant connectivity. Because, despite some of those issues, the apps we have access to today are also incredibly valuable — they help us to be more efficient, effective, and informed in our everyday lives. Take mobile banking, for instance — the need to visit your brick-and-mortar bank has been all but eliminated, saving us all time and enabling us real-time access to all of the information we need.

98. Are You Paying Attention To The Wearable Technology Trend? 1/23/2014

    You’ve probably seen or heard the wearable technology buzz. It was a hot topic at the International CES event in January, and was getting plenty of coverage before that. As it relates to the markets we cover, wearable technology usually refers to smart watch devices like Samsung’s Galaxy Gear or smart glasses like Google’s Google Glass. What’s most interesting to me about this trend is what some are saying about how they see the adoption playing out. Typically, a trend begins with consumers and eventually makes its way over to the business realm. Take, for instance, the iPad — after extreme consumer popularity ensued, businesses began looking at how their operations could benefit from tablets like the iPad.

99. Are You Getting What You Should From Your Field Service Software? 11/20/2013

    I was reading over Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management report, which was released in October, and it got me thinking. At the beginning of the report, there are five objectives listed that Gartner says a field service application should have the “scope to achieve.”

100. Rules To Follow For Field Service Success 10/25/2013

     I was sent a book recently titled 42 Rules For Superior Field Service: The Keys To Profitable Field Service and Customer Loyalty, written by Rosemary Coats and Jim Reily. As you can imagine, the title caught my eye since field service is a topic near and dear to me. The book consists of 42 different “rules” or pieces of advice, split into five sections — sales and marketing, operations, supply chain and finance, people, and internal departments. The authors come from supply chain and consulting backgrounds, and you can tell from much of the advice in the book that they’ve had their fair share of experience with the ins and outs of a field service organization.