In addition, the research confirms that success comes from constructing a successful strategy and delivering it into an effective operation, creating loyal, satisfied customers, while strongly growing revenue and profit.

However the research also confirms that establishing an operation that best delivers the business strategy is a major challenge, but when successfully accomplished is shown to deliver a handsome financial reward. Finally, the research highlighted that in the current economic climate, there is a great need to optimise existing solutions and generate as much value as possible from what is already in place.

Detailed information

As part of this research, a number of service directors identified the type and level of information they required to manage their operations. They agreed that in many instances, prior to the use of a service management solution, they had struggled to capture the necessary level of detailed information to effectively manage their operation. It is important to recognise that information deemed necessary today is very different from only five years ago, and a large number of service operations seem to owe their success to individuals - managers and directors - who have worked their way up through the ranks and are able to closely manage simpler operations in a hands-on mode, achieving success through close relationships with engineers and customers.

Front-line staff can be utilised to develop a people-driven operation affording success through long-term personal relationships that will provide the ability to understand and address specific customer needs and co-create solutions that will generate customer centricity and intimacy.

In many companies this does not always exist at the more senior positions and at the service business information interface - in part due to a significant increase in the complexity of business operations and the unrelenting increase of demands placed on the operation by the customer. Many more service managers and directors, who have come in from other parts of the business and expect to have the necessary information at their fingertips to run the operation, are quite often taken aback at how little data is available for reference in the ‘typical’ service operation of even quite large businesses.

Visibility

A much more business-like approach to investment has been demanded, supported by service management solutions more able to fulfil the promises they are sold upon. The research also confirms that the current crop of service solutions can allow businesses to gain a much greater level of visibility of their operation than ever before. This has been shown in further research undertaken earlier this year, which indicated that mobile solutions are now firmly a part of the service software solution scene and the large number of suppliers offering mobile solutions certainly indicates that demand has created a supply.

All the factors would seem to indicate that mobile solutions are now considered a most important component. Ninety five per cent of participants would include a mobile solution, confirming that, as companies gain experience of the software, they begin to understand the value that it can bring, particularly the potential value from unexpected benefits from the solutions.

Opportunities and benefits

There is now perceived to be a breadth of value being generated from these integrated solutions and this explains why they are proving so popular. Importantly, the value gained by service operations only results when organisations are prepared to work differently. Accepting mobile solutions will reveal opportunities and benefits that old ways of working could not have achieved, including: improved remote fixing; instant invoice production at the close of the job on a customer’s site; visibility of the location of another engineer with a part that is required.

The effective implementation and utilisation of service management systems is enabling the once poorly-informed service director to utilise information, automatically captured by the system, to quickly solve problems and deal with new challenges.

Existing measures within the business may adequately gauge efficiency, yet impose limitations on the service operation because they do not adequately measure the value of the customer to the supplier, or identify the customers’ opinion of the value of the supplier.

The best course is to recognise that some existing basic business efficiency measures are required to provide an historical perspective, but that there is a need to gradually modify a number of the other measures so that they accurately reflect the overall performance and effectiveness of the operation, while capturing the value that the customer receives and the customer’s perception of the value.  These insights will also indicate trends and changes in the service environment and prove that measuring effectiveness is the only way to safely drive the business and sustain success.

The following table summarises the top 10 measures of performance, as agreed amongst the participants of the benchmark. They are in no particular order of preference and represent the key measures that service operations need to efficiently and effectively drive the operation.  The difference in performance is evident in companies successfully using a service management solution.