Sarah shares a synopsis of the topics discussed at Frankfurt Future of Field Service Live Tour stop on May 19th and the Stockholm stop on May 24th.
Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to The Future Of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, I'm going to be doing a bit of a recap of the last two of the European future of field service live tour events, which were Frankfurt and Stockholm, and happened over the last week or so. So for those of you who maybe haven't been following along, we have been doing a live tour of this podcast this spring. There's five cities that we have on our tour schedule. We started in Paris, London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, and our last event is June 14th in Austin, Texas.
Sarah Nicastro: So I just got home from a trip where I did both the Frankfurt and the Stockholm events and thought I would give a little bit of a summary of those here. Again, we have been recording the content of the live tour sessions as we've gone along. And once we have an opportunity to review all of that and get speaker approval on what we can and can't share, we'll certainly be releasing some of the content in its full form, but in the meantime, I will share with you some of the highlights. So first up was Frankfurt. That event was Thursday, May 19th.
Sarah Nicastro: And that day was in a really neat, but very, very hot venue. There was no air conditioning, and it happened to be a very warm day in Frankfurt. So it was toasty, but it was a great event. So we started the day off with top 10 global thought leader, Frank Mattes, talking about scaling innovation and some of the ways that in traditional businesses the operating structure and the way the business is set up really work against innovation.
Sarah Nicastro: Frank shared some really, really interesting insights on how companies are working past that, so that they don't sort of default to the tendency to do what they've always done because the business is set up to support that versus innovation. So it was a really interesting discussion to start the day. Next up, we had Christina from ANDRITZ join. She leads the companies smart services projects. And we talked about some of the things that come up when you're trying to take a manufacturing business with a lot of history and evolve into a service business.
Sarah Nicastro: And so, we talked about some of the vision she has for the type of smart services that ANDRITZ's customers could be interested in and how she's working on bringing those things to life but also some of the challenges that arise in doing so. We then had a session with Mark Ringwelski who's with REMA TIP TOP about their move to outcomes based service and how they're working toward delivering outcomes and uptime for their customers. And Mark talked a lot about the work they've been doing to put a foundational system using IFS in place to sort of build this future upon.
Sarah Nicastro: We talked a lot with Mark about the work that he's done in the business to spend a lot of time with frontline getting their input for not only the new technology, but the vision the company has and where it's headed and how helpful that has been for them with managing change. Next up, we had a session with Rainer Karcher of Siemens and Tiago Charréu of Atos and talked about the intersection of service, collaboration, and sustainability. So it was a really interesting conversation and one that I was thrilled that both gentlemen agreed to come and share because while field service specifically is a bit out of both of their direct wheelhouses, we chatted a bit after the event about the importance of bringing the sustainability message to pockets of folks that maybe aren't thinking primarily about that.
Sarah Nicastro: So we talked about how some of the technologies that are becoming more prevalent and enabling different ways of collaborating have a positive impact can have a positive impact on the environment. We talked about how servitization ties in with sustainability and the circular economy. And we talked about some of the overall trends in sustainability and the growing criticality of everyone paying more attention to the topic. Next up, we had Sonja Haavisto from Cimcorp and we had a session on communication and the role of the employee experience and employee engagement in meeting customer experience and customer satisfaction goals. And then we had a session with Dietmar Schmitz of Eickhoff talking about the organization's evolution and transformation of service, putting foundational technology in place to sort of evolve with what customers need and how their businesses are changing and what that means in terms of what Eickhoff needs to deliver in its service.
Sarah Nicastro: At the end of the day in Frankfurt, we actually did a really cool sort of think tank session. So we created a circle of chairs and people kind of spoke freely about their challenges and gave one another advice. And it was really, really neat to see that happen. So it was a great event. And then on Tuesday, May 24th was the event in Stockholm. And so we had a good amount of people join us there for that event. For me personally, this one was important because I've shared in a blog on future of field service that my very first day on the job at IFS, I flew to Stockholm for a user group, customer user group event, and having left a role that I was in for almost 12 years, I was a bit emotional about that.
Sarah Nicastro: I was a bit jet lagged. I was a bit overwhelmed and I felt not myself, if you will. And so for me, coming back to Stockholm these three and a half years later, and bringing the future of field service tour there was something that made me very happy to do. So the Stockholm event, we started with author Dan Toma. He has co-authored two books, the corporate startup and innovation accounting. And we had a conversation about the differences between digital transformation and innovation, some of the complexity with both, some of the things that organizations need to be thinking about as they work on either of those two things and both of those two things. And Dan shared some really great real world examples of the points that he was making. So that was excellent.
Sarah Nicastro: Then we moved on to Rafael and Kristoffer of Electrolux and had a conversation about the service transformation that is underway at Electrolux and how that affects the three points that we often talk about: people, process and technology. So we dove into each of those in some detail and talked a bit about how change in each of those three areas is coming together to evolve how Electrolux delivers service, what service means to its business, and what its customer experiences look like. After that, we had a session with Pekka Nurmi Cimcorp, who talked about modern IT, and sort of thought some of the traditional beliefs of IT that are maybe a bit outdated. So some of the things that were certainly true 10 or 15 years ago, but maybe companies are still holding onto those beliefs when in reality, the technology and the ecosystem has changed a lot. So that was a really interesting session.
Sarah Nicastro: After that I was joined by Berit Hallgren of Tetra Pak. Berit is leading a team who is working through Tetra Pak's service transformation project. And she is leading a cross-functional team that is responsible for sort of aligning various stakeholders and making sure that transformation goes smoothly, as smoothly as transformations do and delivers results for the business. Berit has been with Tetra Pak for 30 years and has had a variety of different roles. So it was a really interesting conversation to be able to ask her how she's grown within the company, how the company's perception of an approach to service has evolved, and based on a lot of experience, what her advice is for success with service transformation.
Sarah Nicastro: And then to close the day in Stockholm, we had Roel Rentmeesters of Munters join and talk about the company's servitization and remote service journeys. So that was a very interesting conversation as well. Both events were really, really great. I had someone ask me at the end of the Stockholm event if they had all been very different, and each event was different. Each event had a different feel. Obviously each event had different speakers, which meant that the topics all varied a bit, which was good for me because it kept things interesting. But there was also a lot of commonalities. I think if you are a follower of this platform, this podcast, our content, that's what we find a lot is that there are some universal challenges, some universal opportunities that are very shared, regardless of what particular industry you're in, what geography you're in.
Sarah Nicastro: And I think that was certainly reinforced through some of the common themes that came up during each of the events. I was also asked if I had a favorite, which is a very unfair question. And no, I didn't have a favorite. They were all my favorite because they were all fantastic in different ways. I think, I just feel very grateful. One to have had the opportunity to visit each of those great cities and meet some new people and see some that I've had relationships with for quite a while, and really just to see how this podcast and this platform can become the basis for a community.
Sarah Nicastro: I think that in each location, the people that joined were so very happy to be able to have these open discussions with one another and to be in person and talk about their businesses and their challenges openly with peers. So it was really, really great to see that happen. So not a favorite. They were all my favorite. And I'm looking forward to the last event, which is coming up in Austin on June 14th. And hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to do a live tour again in 2023. So if you're in the US or fancy traveling and you would like to join us in Austin, you can visit the website to find the agenda and the information for registration. Would love to see you there. Hopefully we're going to go out with a bang and have a wonderful last event.
Sarah Nicastro: So big thank you to each of the speakers that joined in Frankfurt and Stockholm and all of the people that came to be a part of the discussions and be a part of the audience. So thank you all for taking part in the future of field service live tour. If you want to find some more of our content and/or stay tuned for some additional content coming out of the events, please visit us at futureoffieldservice.com. The future of field service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com and as always thank you for listening.