Six Trends That Will Impact Field Service In 2016

By John Cameron, general manager, Trimble Field Service Management

Field service organizations have reached an unprecedented transformative stage, as an array of advanced tools continue to storm the market helping businesses to transform the way that their field service organization operates. Last year saw the expansion of the Internet of Things and the widespread introduction of advanced analytics tools to tackle Big Data. These trends will continue into 2016 along with the need for greater integration. Furthermore, with technology development moving so quickly and companies continually having to modernize their solutions to keep up with the competition, 2016 will see an increase in businesses entrusting one provider to deliver all the functionality and modularity they require to manage their work, workers and assets out in the field.  

1. The Internet of Everything - The IoT has been on service businesses’ radar for a while, so the trend isn’t exactly new heading into 2016, but as more businesses invest in connected technology, we’ll see it become an established industry best practice. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 26-billion devices other than smartphones, tablets and computers to be connected via the Internet of Things. For field service organizations, connecting equipment with technicians’ mobile devices and the back office in real time is a necessity. Information captured in the field provides diagnostics and performance metrics that mitigate certain issues as well as tracks patterns and trends for long-range planning. The goal is to ensure an intelligent and preventive—not reactive—approach.

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