Episode 291
In a session recorded live at IFS Unleashed, Steven Van Eyck, Center of Excellence Lead for Field Service at Proximus, joins Sarah Nicastro to discuss how to define “excellence” in the arena of field service today and what Proximus is focused on in creating it.
Steven is leading a Center of Excellence that caters to the Field Service Management activities for Proximus' Customer Operations Business Unit. The Center serves as the primary link between the operational field teams, the Proximus IT department, and IFS. Steven joined Proximus in 2003 as a Developer.
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Episode Highlights:
Steven - 00:00:00: I think there are three elements in that. The most obvious one being delivering the best possible service at the right time, at the right value for your customer. Second element for me is trying to find that sweet spot between customer's expectation and operational cost. And the third one, I think, is having a really agile model to keep up with all those changes that are happening in that industry, which is fast moving, rapidly changing, constantly evolving.
Sarah - 00:00:41: All right. So welcome to the UNSCRIPTED Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro, and we are here at Future of Field Service Live at IFS Unleashed in Orlando. I'm excited to be here today with Steven Van Eyck, Center of Excellence Lead for Field Service at Proximus. And we're going to be talking about the facets of field service excellence at Proximus. So, Steven, welcome to the podcast.
Steven - 00:01:21: Thank you. Good to be here.
Sarah - 00:01:23: Thanks for hanging out with me for a bit while you're in Orlando. So we're going to talk through a number of things today related to this topic, how we define what field service excellence is, the different areas we need to examine when we are working towards field service excellence and much more. But before we get into that, can you just tell everyone a little bit more about yourself, your role, what the company does and anything else you want to share?
Steven - 00:01:50: Okay. So I'm Steven, I'm 44, from Belgium. Been with Proximus for only four years now, which is quite a while. I have two kids, I hope. Love sports, love field service, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't be in that branch. For those of you that don't know Proximus, Proximus is a Belgian telecommunication company. We do about everything that Telco is doing for B2B, B2C, B2B2X. We build our network, mobile and fix. We deliver services to the customer, on-site remote services. And my role in all of this is trying to understand how we should be doing field service, how we want to be doing field service, how we are actually doing field service, and how our tooling, our systems, our technology should best support those field service activities in a nutshell.
Sarah - 00:02:49: In a nutshell. In a nutshell. All right. So we're talking about field service excellence. Let's start with a really important question, which is how do you define that?
Steven - 00:02:59: Okay. Well, I think there's three elements in that. The most obvious one being delivering the best possible service at the right time, at the right value for your customer. Second element for me is trying to find that sweet spot between customer's expectation and operational cost. And the third one, I think, is having a really agile model to keep up with all those changes that are happening in that industry, which is fast moving, rapidly changing, constantly evolving. I would see those three elements really as a field service excellence or excellence.
Sarah - 00:03:41: Yeah. Okay. So with... Those three things in mind, how does Proxmos determine What focus is needed at any given time to attain and maintain excellence in those areas?
Steven - 00:03:56: Okay. So obviously what we have is our strategic goals, where we want to go to, what we want to achieve. We have our objectives, we have our vision, we have our targets, if you will. And these kind of define the overall strategy, what we want to focus on. At the same time, we know what our customers are expecting from us. And in that combination is trying to identify the short and midterm actions that we need to do in order to achieve excellence. It's a continuous conversation. I think this is not real. This is everybody's kind of day and hoping to find the things we need to improve on the short and the midterm.
Sarah - 00:04:36: So bonus question. Short and midterm. What about long term?
Steven - 00:04:41: Yeah. Long term, we have about a five-year target that we always know. Long term is always about... Where do you want to go to as a company? What do you want to achieve? For us, for example, one of our objectives is to become or having to have the best network, obviously the fastest network in Belgium, both fixed and mobile. And from there, we have like a clear strategy that we want to connect every household in Belgium to the fiber network. This means constructing a network, making sure it's deployed, making sure we have the necessary resources to build that network, to connect all those houses, to convince customers to move from the old network to the fiber network, and dealing also with challenges like... Competition, we see our competition also building networks in the same areas, which is not always that optimal. If you think about it, if you have multiple networks in the same area, you're basically overbuilding. So it's also trying to find strategies that allow us to have the best network in place for Belgium without spending a fortune in building that.
Sarah - 00:06:01: Yeah.
Steven - 00:06:02: All whilst, making sure that we have our operations under control because we cannot just focus on building that one network. We have our current assets also that we need to maintain and our current customers that we need to maintain. So that long term, yes. And at the same time, making sure our existing, our business continuity is there in place.
Sarah - 00:06:23: Yeah. Is it, would it be fair for me to, I guess, summarize in thinking that within the center of excellence, to me, it would make sense that your focus would be short and midterm? Because you're working to ensure that excellence and that focus on the strategy versus really looking to what's next. Like you're going where the company is going next once that's incorporated into that up to five-year timeline.
Steven - 00:06:53: Yeah.
Sarah - 00:06:53: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
Steven - 00:06:55: It does. And maybe... I think kind of explain what my team is doing.
Sarah - 00:07:01: Yeah.
Steven - 00:07:01: What our role is in the company. I already told you that we are trying to understand how we should be doing field service, how we are actually doing. But what I didn't say is where are we positioned in the organization? We are kind of a team between the actual operational teams doing the actual work on the field. Between our internal project teams, our delivery teams, and also kind of, if you will, the outside world. What we are always trying to do is to best support those stakeholders, if I may call them like that. The operational teams will also come to me with their short-term day-to-day challenges. They will say, we want to be better at this kind of activity. And they will look to me to say, how can you help me solve this problem? But at the same time, We have so many projects ongoing that are on the mid-long term that often will... Change or improve or simplify our business processes. Without always having the knowledge of what will this mean or how will this create collateral damage maybe somewhere else. And this is where we are as kind of advisors.
Sarah - 00:08:22: Yeah.
Steven - 00:08:22: And say, be careful because if you touch this part of the process, you will hit something else over there. And when we finally have found the process we want to change or want to implement, it's making sure we get those things implemented and that it's my team interacting with the IT teams to make the necessary changes to the systems if necessary and making sure our operational teams have what they know to do their job.
Sarah - 00:08:48: Yeah.
Steven - 00:08:49: So we are really in between those.
Sarah - 00:08:52: Yeah. And this position you're in between the business and IT, right? This is sort of like... A long history relationship between the two, who owns the power, who makes the decisions, who knows best what the company needs, et cetera, et cetera. So I can understand the value of having a function like the Center of Excellence that... Sits in between those and is responsible for... Not only in some ways mediating, but also really determining what is the best, considering everyone's needs. And like you said, the context of what's going on in the rest of the business. So. What would you say in your situation, you're kind of serving as the function to be that bridge? In a lot of organizations, they're trying to figure out what that relationship should look like between the two functions. And I guess... Whichever model you're using, like, do you have thoughts or advice on what makes that working relationship a more positive one? Or what are the big challenges to avoid to kind of eliminate that friction that I think... You hear about and has existed for a long time.
Steven - 00:10:04: I sometimes joke to my teams and my internal stakeholders saying that we are always between a rock and a hard place. Because to the operational teams, we are often too theoretic. Because we approach the problem from a process theoretical point of view, but we are not actually operational people. So they will say, what do you really know about field service, right? And linked to that challenge, we will sometimes be presented with a solution rather than a requirement. Or a problem state. Operational teams will come to me and say, this is my problem. This is what I want as a solution.
Sarah - 00:10:42: Yeah.
Steven - 00:10:43: So the first thing. We will always try to do. Is to understand the underlying need. So we won't give. Directly into that solution proposal, we will always ask, why do you want this? What is your underlying requirement? What do you really want to solve? What is actually your problem? So we can have that conversation and try to flush out the actual business requirement. From there, we can take it to a potential solution. We were talking before about the complexity in all of this. And we also are facing that complexity where we always want the solution for every type of scenario. We hardly ever want to say no to anything. This means that... In terms of finding standard solutions or generic solutions, it's often a challenge because not everything fits with one generic approach. You always will get exceptions or you always will get variations or deviations on your ideal process. To serve that one particular case that only happens from every now and then. So this is one challenge I'm constantly facing that discussion with our operational teams. Always trying to find the best way of solving a problem without necessarily going to a new solution. And towards the IT teams, it's kind of the same. We are helping our business teams trying to figure out solutions to their needs without necessarily going to new stuff or new developments or customizations, if I can use that word. I have a lot of discussions also with my IT colleagues, trying to find the best way to solve or to turn the requirements around into workable solutions. And we need to be there always to inject that business context and explain to them why we need to do certain ways. And then to take that solution back to our operational. So we always kind of like in between these two worlds. And it is interesting and challenging at the same time.
Sarah - 00:12:56: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like a top spot to be in sometimes.
Steven - 00:13:00: I would say it's an interesting spot to be in.
Sarah - 00:13:02: Yeah.
Steven - 00:13:02: A very dynamic spot to be in.
Sarah - 00:13:04: Yeah.
Steven - 00:13:04: It's challenging and interesting. The skills, I think, that you need to be in that position is not only hard skills that you need, you also need decent soft skills to be able to deal with that ambiguity, to flush out that conversation. And also often... Go into dialogue and say, often for the first time, no to the initial proposal and really engage in that conversation. So dealing with ambiguity is really a must in our case.
Sarah - 00:13:33: But I think to your point, one of the things you said that I took note of is seeking first to understand, right? So I think when you do that, it earns you the right then to push back, right? If you, I think... Being in the position you're in, you would have a much harder time if you weren't genuinely looking to understand the root need first, and then saying maybe no to the initial suggestion. Even if you already know that initial suggestion is not ultimately what's going to work. That idea of just shutting someone down before hearing them out and fully understanding what it is that they need. I mean, that is a very important communication skill, right, in this whole thing. So you mentioned. That obviously technology plays a huge role in this. Ongoing continuum of field service excellence, right? But you also mentioned understanding in each given situation if there really is a need or a requirement for something new or if there is an existing solution that can be leveraged in some way to solve that problem or meet that need. How do you determine that? And then I would also imagine that at any given time, there's different priorities, different needs, different issues at play. So how do you prioritize? The investment.
Steven - 00:14:59: Time is always the number one challenge, especially when you're dealing with the operational teams. They want the solution right here, right now. They don't want to wait for next month or next three months. They want something now. So I think if you have the possibility to leverage something existing, you should. They will always be happy. It might also be that the early suggestion is a good one and it can just rapidly go to an implementation. So that's the thing. Like if there is nothing that can be leveraged to fulfill the request that we have to go to something new, the prioritization aspect is really important because there will always be more requests than there are resources to fulfill those requests. So what works for me is really to understand the company's priorities. Where do we want to land in the end?
Sarah - 00:15:53: Right.
Steven - 00:15:54: And if I can relate that request to one of those objectives or key priority, it will give me more possibility to go and find a sponsor or somebody with resources to fulfill that need.
Sarah - 00:16:08: Yeah. And that's also understanding those priorities then is also where the long-term in addition to the short-term and the mid-term comes into play, right? Because you want to be able to keep that in mind.
Steven - 00:16:17: Exactly. And what I find very positive about Proximus is that We have a very transparent way of communicating those objectives and those key results to actually all the employees. Every three months, there is a big info session that's done to make sure that everybody is kind of aligned to what we are hoping to achieve in five years from now, in one year from now, three months from now. So we can use that in our day-to-day sessions. It is a good tool to have. It's not always... The answer my internal stakeholder is hoping to get, especially when there is a note coming from the guys.
Sarah - 00:16:57: I have to give you credit because you remembered the second question and you just went right into it. So it was great. So we talked a little bit about the technology piece. I want to talk about process optimization. Yeah. Right. And how that factors into the quest for field service excellence. Yeah. So how do you look at that? How often do you look at that? How do you determine maybe when someone's coming to you with a problem? Okay, well. Is this problem because we need a new system or is it because the process is no longer effective for the way the business has changed, et cetera?
Steven - 00:17:33: My point of view and point of view shared by many of my colleagues, but not all, I have to be transparent in that, is that process documentation is... Important. I would say even very important. And as Proxmos, we are sometimes very tool oriented. We have a problem, we need a solution, it's a tool and that will get the problem solved. And for every scenario, there is some solution we can put in place. What we have seen as a result of that is that we have a standard process and a lot of deviations and variations on that standard process. Which is understandable if you have a broad business and a fast moving business, you get those. But it's equally important to have those on file. So you can always find ways to simplify and to go to that standardization of processes. Too many deviations and too many variations is ultimately not good, but there's great complexity in your overall company. So we are putting in quite some time. Documenting the processes. It helps to understand how we are supposed to be doing field service in my case. We can leverage also technology like process mining to actually see how it is really happening.
Sarah - 00:19:00: Right.
Steven - 00:19:01: To from there flush out the deviations and the variations.
Sarah - 00:19:04: Mm-hmm.
Steven - 00:19:05: And this will allow us to start building actions to... Those deviations out and move more to standardization.
Sarah - 00:19:13: Yeah.
Steven - 00:19:13: So it's really important to have that. It creates a knowledge base also that we can use in a lot of projects.
Sarah - 00:19:21: Yeah.
Steven - 00:19:22: Knowledge is often in the heads of people. Not everybody is always available to help a project. So having those informations on record, on file really helps to... Deal with a lot of stuff at the same time.
Sarah - 00:19:38: Yeah. I think it's interesting thinking about process optimization, like to question ourselves on how often are we reflecting on that? And is it often enough given the dynamic landscape of service that we are in today, right? Because I think historically, let's just say excellence, which is always going to be subjective to some degree, right? It was... A pretty consistent formula in service, right? So even if you weren't necessarily hitting the target and achieving it, for the most part, knew what needed to be done and you could kind of pinpoint what needed to change to get there. I think today with changing customer expectations, the rapidly evolving pace and increasing sophistication in technology, the ability within technology to be more agile in how you change what service delivery looks like or what the customer value proposition is or any number of things, right? I just think it's something we need to be thinking about in terms of. Making sure that we're doing that reflection process enough, often enough to make sure that we're not trying to hold ourselves to a process that was optimized and standardized three years ago. And in three years time, I mean, a lot has changed, right? Part of this reminds me, the conversation that was on the podcast last week was with, or maybe the week before, a gentleman, Ben Williams from 3D Systems. And when we were talking to kind of come up with his podcast topic. We landed on this theme of being brilliant on the basics. Okay. So the theme in and of itself, easy to understand. You're talking about like. Building foundational strengths. What got really interesting in our conversation, though, was the distinction for him and my reflection of that in our conversation of the difference between being brilliant on the basics versus mastering the basics, because we were basically talking about how in service today, mastery is probably a outdated term because things are changing too fast to master a basic. There's categories of basics that you know you need to be brilliant on, and that's his point, whether it's customer communication or strategic alignment or process optimization. But this idea and something you said at the beginning of going back to continuous. Reflection, continuous analysis, continuous improvement, because The targets are constantly shifting. So it's an interesting, interesting world we're living in today. Absolutely. So we talked a little bit, Steven, about the importance of applying a lens of simplification, both on the process and on the technology side. Can you talk a bit about that?
Steven - 00:22:36: Yeah. I think. Not only as Proxmox as a company in general, we kind of like to over-complexify certain situations. And we want to kind of say yes to every situation. Just create complexity. And if you drag that along with you, get a bunch of stuff that you have in your organization, in your processes, in your IT system that are very complicated. Maintaining that is costly, especially when you're moving from one big system to another, that transformation, dragging all that complexity with you, that ultimately becomes really a burden. So I think getting that simplification into your culture is an interesting thing because it will allow you to finally get rid of some of that legacy complexity that you have been pulling along with you for some time. I'm sure everybody can think of many use cases that you say, yeah, we have built this because maybe one day, exceptionally, we might need this because this and that. But how often is it that you actually need it and how? Big of a problem would it be if you were to met with that situation with a more standard or simple approach?
Sarah - 00:23:56: Yeah.
Steven - 00:23:57: And often just by asking yourself that question, is there a simpler way to approach this? You might finally introduce some optimization level simplification in your business.
Sarah - 00:24:09: Yeah.
Steven - 00:24:10: And it's the same for business processes. And also the same for IT implementations of them. Sometimes we implement things, too complicated, putting pieces of the logic in multiple systems and then linking that together through integrations, which ultimately works, but then when you scale up, you see that, okay, performance-wise, you're not meeting the standards.
Sarah - 00:24:35: Yeah.
Steven - 00:24:36: So you have to revisit that anyway. And often it's because during that engineering process, We often don't ask ourselves, can we do this in a simpler, straightforward way?
Sarah - 00:24:48: Right. Yeah, I love that point. And I'm thinking like. In the what's next world that we're living in, people are very focused on adding. Not thinking about, okay, so maybe we do need to add something here, a tool, what have you, but Also, what could we maybe take away? What could we maybe remove? In this process, right? And I think, you know, from a technology standpoint, you get to a point where you've compiled so much stuff, it can be a nightmare. I think though, also from a process standpoint, this is where sometimes people get stuck because it's working, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's... The best way or the best way for where the business is going versus where the business has been, right? So I really like this idea of... You know, not only thinking about what's next and what more do we need to do, but also where are we and what could we eliminate? What could we remove? How could we streamline this? This also gets incredibly important when you think about the customer journey, right? Because once you start to put yourself in the minds of the customer and think about if we're adding this and adding that, are we creating friction points or potential friction points? Or are we making things easier for everyone involved? So I think that's a really good lens to think through. So we've talked about the fact that in a lot of ways, excellence is certainly a moving target. You're continuously looking at what needs to change, where do we need to optimize, where do we need to add, et cetera, where do we need to streamline? What? Are you doing in terms of managing all of that change?
Steven - 00:26:30: Trying to find-
Sarah - 00:26:32: Trying to survive.
Steven - 00:26:33: Trying to survive. That's for sure. Trying to survive. Now the challenge is time.
Sarah - 00:26:37: Yeah.
Steven - 00:26:38: Because you have all these objectives, everything you want to do. There just isn't enough time to do everything. So you really have to pick your battles time to time. What I'm trying to tell my team also is always to keep that in the back of your minds. If you see opportunities to simplify, just go for it. And always ask that question. In every interaction you have, always ask that question. Can we do it simpler? Can we do it easier? And the more early you top the question, the higher I think the chances are that you will get it clean and lean first time, right?
Sarah - 00:27:13: Yeah.
Steven - 00:27:14: And that's sometimes where I think the agile way of working is sometimes working against us because with agile, it's like getting stuff out quickly. Try fast, fail fast.
Sarah - 00:27:25: Yeah.
Steven - 00:27:25: But you don't spend enough time, in my opinion, on thinking about the next run. Or there is no time. You just want to get it out very quickly. And sometimes you end up... Putting quick and dirty solution in production that is there to stay for a long, long time. Because we doing that, there is often no time or no resources to make it better. We often have the discussion with the IT teams also have a huge backlog of technical depth that they just can't work through because there is always, like you say, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. So. That's what I'm trying to achieve.
Sarah - 00:28:04: Yeah.
Steven - 00:28:04: No, always easy, but If I need to take a priority point, It's It would be that.
Sarah - 00:28:12: Yeah.
Steven - 00:28:13: Making sure we get the simplification dialogue as going as soon as possible, as early as possible.
Sarah - 00:28:18: Yeah. I think there's two things that you've said in this session that I think are very relevant to this point. And maybe I'm stating the obvious. I mean, I've probably been guilty of that as much as asking two questions at once, but I do so because I think there are points that are worth reflecting on, right? There's two things you've said that I think... Have an incredible impact on an organization's appetite for change. One is you are seeking to understand. So just keeping that lens in mind of you're not just pushing change or orders to people, you are taking the time to listen. Doesn't mean you're going to give them the answer they want to hear. It doesn't necessarily change the outcome. What it does, though, is make them feel respected and appreciated and that they have a voice. And I think in change management, that's crucial. The second thing you stated is that Proximus is very transparent. And I think, again, more of a communication aspect, but When you're in a... Landscape of continuous and rapid change. Just cutting the BS and just being honest with people, being direct with people, explaining the why, listening to feedback, but also just not... Painting pictures, not telling stories, just being real, I think also helps a lot. So those are two things that you've mentioned that I think probably play a big role in the organization's ability to... Put up with that continuous change. Because it's a lot for everyone. So. You talked a little bit, when we think about looking ahead to the future, right? You talked about the pressure of time, right? And this sort of, there's never enough time. You can't get to everything you need to get to. That's a reality for everyone. But how do you figure out how to take the step back? To be intentional in the decisions you're making and not just buckle under the pressure of just race, race, race, and get caught in only the short term, not the midterm and the long term.
Steven - 00:30:32: Now, well, it kind of links back to that story about objectives and key results and having that few, unfortunately you won't win them all. Sometimes you have to just make the hard choice and say, okay, I don't really have an alternative now, so I will let this one slide. It's nicking. The right decision at the right time, it's not always easy because there's so many things that are coming in, as you say. For me, the North Star keeps on being those objectives of those key results, as always is a good anchor point for me.
Sarah - 00:31:05: Yeah, I guess that works in an organization where the objectives are not only short-sighted.
Steven - 00:31:10: They're not only short-sighted.
Sarah - 00:31:12: And I say that because there are leaders that are in situations where maybe that framing wouldn't work as well because there isn't enough mid and long-term thinking at the levels that are setting the objectives. And then that can become a challenge as well. But as long as you feel like the objectives are well-balanced. Then you're right. That gives you sort of the way to look at things and make sure, okay, I could rush into this decision, but am I sacrificing this or this in doing so?
Steven - 00:31:43: What I'm always trying to tell my team also to develop as a skill is the ability to sometimes let go. Because in general, I'm tracking about 50, 60 initiatives that have an impact on the domain. I'm kind of responsible for the skill service domain. And it will be impossible for my team to be involved in every single one of them. They will not all go at the same time, but even 10, 15 initiatives at the same time, you'll be able to manage. So having that ability to sometimes say, okay, I'm going to let this one slide and I'll pick it up in a later phase is a very good skill to have. Because you can't control them all.
Sarah - 00:32:24: Yeah. I struggle with that.
Steven - 00:32:26: Yeah.
Sarah - 00:32:26: Yeah.
Steven - 00:32:27: I struggle with that as well.
Sarah - 00:32:28: Like, I like to think like, no, no, I can do it all. Trust me.
Steven - 00:32:31: I won't be involved at all.
Sarah - 00:32:33: Ged's smiling because he knows.
Steven - 00:32:34: Exactly.
Sarah - 00:32:35: Yeah.
Steven - 00:32:35: It's a skill I always need to develop myself.
Sarah - 00:32:37: But you're absolutely right. Yeah.
Steven - 00:32:38: The ability to let it go, let it slide and say, I will pick it up when I have time in some near future or not.
Sarah - 00:32:46: You'll pick it up when it is the most important thing to pick up. If it is the most important thing to pick up. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Any other thoughts or advice on this quest of continuous improvement to achieving field service excellence?
Steven - 00:33:02: Well, I think having the organization in place to make sure your documentation is as up to date as possible will really help you to scale up if needed and to always have something you can go back to if you don't have directly the answer. That's one. I think very interesting today to have as an ability or a capability is measuring the implementation of your processes, how healthy are your processes, and with today's capabilities you have, I think all that you need from a technological perspective to use the data in your organization to measure how healthy your processes are working. And this is a very good tool to have as a team such as mine, which is basically an advisory team, to factualize some of the incoming requests or concerns. Yeah. And this is a good thing to have because often what I have seen is that sometimes the problem is not as bad as it appears to be.
Sarah - 00:34:05: Right.
Steven - 00:34:05: And it can allow you to sometimes quickly send back a request just by factualizing the incoming concern. So if you have that possibility to invest in this measuring, process mining, factualization of your theory, that's really a good thing to have.
Sarah - 00:34:25: Yeah, that makes sense. And I appreciate you coming and sharing with us today and joining us live at IFS Unleashed. So it was a pleasure.
Steven - 00:34:35: Thank you.
Sarah - 00:34:35: Thank you for being here.
Steven - 00:34:36: Thank you very much.