With so many having recently returned from summer holidays, Sarah recaps the highlights from our podcast episodes this summer so you can be sure to go back and check out what you missed!

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro.

This episode is going to be a little bit different than our normal format. I do not have a guest with me today. And this is going to be a bit of a summer roundup. I recognize that a lot of people have been on vacation or holiday, whichever your preferred term is, throughout the last couple of months. And I also realized that sometimes with a content platform that produces content on a weekly basis, not everyone catches everything. And so I wanted to do a roundup of some of the summer highlights because there have been some guests on that I certainly would not want anyone to miss. So you can use this episode as a way to have a quick listen at some of the guests we've had and the key points that they've covered. And then if those sound interesting to you can go back and check out those individual episodes.

So we're going to start with podcast number 174, which featured James Galloway, who is the head of product marketing for commercial in the UK and Ireland at BDR Thermea Group. So one of the brands that BDR owns is Baxi Heating and James was on to talk about the process that Baxi has gone through, or is going through, introducing heat as a service. And so he shares openly where they're at on that journey, what some of the challenges have been and what they have left to do and what some of the lessons learned are.

He brings up the point that it's very much a business transformation, and even though it's referred to as heating as a service, so we think of service and service transformation, it's a journey that wouldn't be possible if it wasn't perceived internally as an entire business transformation.

He talks a lot about how, when you're thinking about migrating toward as a service, you need to be focused on designing that offering from the outside in. He brings up a metaphor he heard once that was you design the key for the lock, not the other way around. So he also mentions that there are a lot of assumptions that need to be challenged when you're going through a change, this significant and a lot of work. But we also talk about why that work is so worthwhile, not only for Baxi itself and the impact on the business, but also for its customers as well as the environment. So it's a great episode to checkout.

The next one I wanted to talk about is episode 172, which is with author advisor and top 10 global thought leader, Frank Mattes. Frank is on to share perspective on some of the most common reasons that innovation fails, particularly when it comes to scaling innovation to drive business impact. There are so many nuggets of wisdom in the conversation with Frank. The book that Frank has written, The Lean Scaleup, he did so with a number of different organizations. So it's very much rooted in real world perspective, and that's very clear through the messages he delivers.

So he talks a lot about some of the common failure points around innovation and scaling innovation. He talks about some of the tactics that these businesses have leveraged to overcome those challenges and barriers. And he also talks about how it takes courage to innovate. So it isn't just about the right thinking or the right tools or the right management. It's also about courage. So he says it takes courage to leave a little ice, a piece of ice, where the company has lived comfortably over the last 30, 40, 50 years, and venture out into the wild, into unknown. But it's possible because some leaders recognize that little piece of ice where a company is based is getting smaller and smaller by the year. So it takes courage but it is a necessity for organizations to improve and his content is super helpful for those looking to scale innovation.

Episode 170 featured Rainer Karcher, who is the global director of IT sustainability at Siemens. And we had a great conversation about why service based businesses should be prioritizing sustainability, some of the ways to do that and what that can look like and what the future holds related to regulatory pressures and more. So, I love Rainer's passion for sustainability and the environment. He is incredibly committed to the cause. In the podcast he talks a little bit about why that is and where his passion for this topic came from. But we also talk about the fact that people approach or prioritize sustainability for different reasons. So there are people like him who are incredibly passionate about it as humans, and we all should be, but there's a lot of different reasons that we should be talking more and doing more related to sustainability.

So he talks about the fact that there are regulatory pressures. He gives some insight on what these look like not only in Europe, but across the globe. He talks a lot about how customers are coming to expect more from organizations related to their environmental initiatives. He also talks about how it factors in with public opinion and overall brand reputation. And finally, he talks about the increasing interest from investors in looking into organizations, sustainability initiatives. So there's a lot of good reasons to think more and do more related to the topic and this podcast is a great place to start.

Episode 167 features Tony Black, who is the president of service at Husky Injection Molding Systems. Tony was actually the very first podcast guest I ever had on episode number one when he was with Otis Elevator. In his role at Husky, they have recently moved to a predictive service model and he talks about some of the different facets of what this has looked like for the organization, as well as where they're headed and what will happen next.

One of the things I really like that Tony discusses is he says, it's a fallacy if you think you can kind of have magical AI and bots and automation do all of the work, it doesn't work that way. So they are leveraging all of those things, but he's very quick to point out that there is a real personal human connection component that will always be very, very important. So he talks a little bit about the tools that they are using and the approach they're taking to predictive service. But also how they're balancing that with some new roles that are building and those customer relationships nurturing those customer relationships and serving that purpose of marrying the data and the automation with the human touch. He also talks a lot about what the move to predictive means in terms of field service and that in his opinion field service onsite work will always, always, always be an important part of what they do, but how this predictive model is helping to evolve the way that they do work onsite. So there's a lot of good things in there.

Those are some episodes you should check out. We also featured a number of episodes from our Future of Field Service live tour events in the spring. Episode 169 features Jean Claude Jobard, who is the vice president for EMEA at Marmon Foodservice Technologies, and Jean Claude talks about the pace of change we're seeing in field service, how we need to become more agile. He shares his thoughts on four major trends that are shaping the future of field service, specifically what those things will look like in the three-to-five-year timeframe. That's 169. Episode 171 is from the Stockholm stop of the Future of Field Service tour and features Roel Rentmeesters, who is the VP of services at Munters.

Roel talks about some of the considerations for creating a remote service strategy. Munters deployed remote assistance at the start of the pandemic for business continuity and it has now shifted gears to examining its overall remote service strategy, how that factors in in the longer term on their journey towards servitization. That was a good conversation. Episode 173 from the Paris event is with Jean de Kergorlay, the digital buildings services director for Europe at Schneider Electric. Jean has been with Schneider Electric for 34 years, which gives him a very unique perspective, and he talks about some of the ways that despite the digital world we're living in, some of the ways we need to focus more and prioritize people.

Even though he is leading digital buildings, he is sharing his perspective on why and how our focus on people needs to continue to be a priority. In episode 175, we share a session from the Austin event. It is a session with both Katy Chandler, vice president of learning and development at DuraServ, as well as Roy Dockery, vice president of field operations at Flock Safety, about the tactics that they've implemented in their roles to not only find new talent, but to accelerate their time to value, as well as maximize retention. It's a really good conversation.

Episode 176 is also a session from Austin featuring Sonya Roshek, who is vice president of B+T Group, who talks very openly about what her experience is being one of few, if not the only woman in a series of male dominated industries and roles has been like. The intent here is to really understand what the experiences of a woman in service look like and get that firsthand perspective on what progress we've made, what progress we've yet to make to attract more women into field service. That gives you some food for thought of episodes to go back and check out and listen to and lets you know that we've been hard at work over the summer and there is much more to come this fall.

Stay tuned for a new podcast every Wednesday as always, and also stay tuned for information on the 2023 Future of Field Service Live tour. You can find more and stay up to date by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, as well as Twitter @thefutureoffs. The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.