Episode 300
In this episode of the Unscripted podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Joern Lindstaedt, SVP for Global Customer Service at Rolls-Royce Power Systems, who was acknowledged as a Future of Field Service Stand Out 50 leader last year. Joern shares his views on what service leaders must do to navigate the looming silver tsunami.
Joern has over 20 years of experience in customer and product support in aviation, transportation, and power generation. With a career that began in aviation as an airplane mechanic and evolved through various service roles at leading OEMs, Joern brings a wealth of experience in leading global, cross-functional teams, as well as developing and implementing global service support strategies and MRO networks.
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Joern - 00:00:00: I learned about the term silver tsunami during the service council event last year in Chicago. And I knew there is something like that. It's like an animal sitting in a bush and someday it will jump. But when I heard those staggering numbers for the US, the amount of people going to retire in the next couple of years, I was quite shocked. So it is something where, okay, everyone knows the demographic change and the boomers going to retire.
Sarah - 00:00:41: Welcome to the UNSCRIPTED podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today's episode is a very special episode. It is our 300th episode. And I recorded this episode while in London and actually got on and recorded the entire thing without realizing that it was, in fact, the 300th episode that we were recording. So I wanted to add this bit just to acknowledge such a big milestone for the podcast and really to say thank you to the guests, 300 guests that have joined me to share their insights, their wisdom, their passion, their opinions with myself, the Future of Field Service community, and the broader service landscape. It's been an honor to be able to have these conversations. I know I've learned so much from them myself and I absolutely enjoy hearing feedback from our listeners on when they listen, how they listen. Some people take the podcast on their morning walks, some people listen on their commute, some people listen when they're on an airplane and however, and wherever you listened. And however, you got here, I'm glad you are in. And it's an honor to be able to share our guests and these conversations with you. Today's episode is no exception. You will be hearing from Joern Lindstaedt of Rolls-Royce Power Systems. We have a great conversation about how he is taking responsibility and doing his part as a service leader in the face of the silver tsunami. So I hope you enjoy the episode. I hope you will join me in celebrating the milestone of 300 episodes, and I hope to keep them coming. Joern, welcome to the podcast.
Joern - 00:02:45: Thanks, Sarah. Nice to meet you.
Sarah - 00:02:47: Thanks for being here.
Joern - 00:02:48: I hope you had a good break over the new year and Christmas.
Sarah - 00:02:53: Very much so, yeah. With eight and nine-year-old boys, it was a lot of fun. Very energetic, a lot of excitement, a lot of fun. Yes. Some of you may remember Joern spoke in 2024 at our Future of Field Service live event in Cologne, and his session from the event was featured on the podcast, so you may have seen him there. You also might recognize him as one of the recipients of the Future of Field Service Standout 50 Leadership Awards that we did last year in 2024. So he was nominated, selected and acknowledged for the impact that he has had as a service leader. So that's excellent. And that standout 50 acknowledgement correlates into the conversation we're going to have today because it's really about doing some introspection and some deep thinking about what it is that's going on in the service landscape today and how we can really start to not only think differently, but act differently to navigate the challenges that are in front of us to make sure that we're seizing the opportunities that are in front of us. And you have some very compelling thoughts on this topic that we're going to get into today. So before we get into talking about the silver tsunami, just tell everyone a little bit more about yourself.
Joern - 00:04:17: Okay. Thanks Sarah. Well, I'm Joern. You may have heard that from my accent give-as-away. Born in Berlin, and for most of my life, I worked in aviation, so I worked as an airplane mechanic. So basically always in the service industry. I studied aeronautics and worked for several OEMs, including Pratt & Whitney Canada, MTR Aero Engines, and Rolls-Royce. Always in service roles, service function, very service operational. And exactly six years ago, I swapped planes for ships and trains and other products of the power systems portfolio. And I really enjoy it. It's the role I have, really focusing on day-to-day customer and product support, sheet service. That's, I think, how we connected. Training, very important. 24-7 support. So all the very essential service delivery functions and tasks a service manager can deal with day by day. And I can tell you, swapping from aviation to an industrial side, I never had a dual day in those six years. And it's really an amazing job.
Sarah - 00:05:27: Wonderful. So the silver tsunami topic that we are speaking on today, it's a very multifaceted challenge for service leaders to work through. And I want to start by just defining a bit some of the layers of the challenge. So to start, can you just describe in your words what we mean when we say the silver tsunami?
Joern - 00:05:49: Okay. So for me, actually, I have to confess, I learned about the term silver tsunami during the service council event last year in Chicago. And I knew there is something like that. It's like an animal sitting in a bush and someday it will jump. But when I heard those staggering numbers for the US, the amount of people going to retire in the next couple of years, I was quite shocked. So it is something where, okay, everyone knows the demographic change and the Boomers going to retire, many of them retired. You can go ahead with the Gen X soon that we need to deal with. I personally looked at the numbers for us. It's not that dramatic, but it will come. And I started in Chicago. Imagine we waves. When it comes in waves like a tsunami. First, the stuff goes away, the water. And then the huge waves of problems come in. And actually, the term describes the problem quite well. Because nobody can walk away from that, right? It's so huge and this is nothing a single company can just deal with on its own. It needs new thinking, new approaches to actually deal with it. And in this case, come out better than before. It has so many impacts on so many levels and fronts. I guess we talk about this in more depth.
Sarah - 00:07:22: Yeah. No, and I'm glad you mentioned that you heard the term first at The Service Council Event last year, because I shouldn't assume that listeners have heard the term. So in the field service arena specifically, and probably, maybe not probably, perhaps in the US more so, it's a term that's been used over the last five years, maybe longer, talking about this looming issue of how many people are going to reach retirement age at one time or in a condensed period of time. And so that's essentially what we're referring to when we say silver tsunami. But when we think about field service and service specifically, can you talk a little bit about what are some of the facets of that challenge? So obviously, there's a lot of people leaving the workforce in a short amount of time. That's one. What are some of the things that compound that?
Joern - 00:08:21: Of course, service really relies on highly skilled labor and technicians, right? And the loss of workforce also means loss of skills, experience. I mean, each company can make the math how many thousands of years will disappear in the next couple of years. And that skill and experience somehow, it's not easy to transfer, right? So even if you get in the younger generation, it will take time to bring it up to that level. So that will mean, and obviously not only for the business to deliver the business plans, there will be a lot of disruption. There will be disruption in the teams, in the organization, because also team dynamics will change the, let's say, institutional knowledge will get lost. Each of the people had their own network, so to speak. So for me, this is something, A, you got to deal with it, and B, it's not just like a battle for talent. And B, the quickest shark in the pond and grab the talent, it's really a big strategic item each company has to deal with on sea level and to address many areas starting from HR, right? So what is our culture and brand? How do we want to approach those new generation of employees? Which, by the way, also the new generation on the customer side, right? And what's career development? I certainly don't see like in field service that you have an apprentice and then you work through 40 plus years as a technician. So what are the career development plans? What are the flexibility we give to those employees? And with that, other aspects come in, right? Employee experience, so to speak, will be very important. The use of Gen AI. So where do you use Gen AI? Of course, where you can improve the employee experience, like in planning the job and enabling more remote services. And I don't know who said it. I think it was in Cologne. If a technician can do his job, his work in a coffee, on a laptop, in his Birkenstock sandals, and can help the customer immediately and not just sit and jumping in the car and driving to the customer side, only then to learn that he could have done it remotely.
Sarah - 00:10:50: Sure.
Joern - 00:10:50: Or if he had to go there, that he's missing parts and other things. So that's important, right? So make that job and employee experience better, because I've fundamentally believe that a great employee experience is fundamentally important for customer experience.
Sarah - 00:11:08: Absolutely.
Joern - 00:11:09: Then I also think less is more. If you listen to a TOMRA and the leadership there on the service side, they actually want to really reduce the amount of sheet service jobs. And while in our industry that's not really possible, or I don't really want it to that scale, it allows us to think and really say, where can we do more kind of use of connectivity, monitoring, transfer the maintenance programs into more like an on condition type of maintenance regime. And with that also reduce maintenance costs and disruption for the customer. Because if I ask 10 customers in my area, either aviation or marine, everyone would repeat the same what's important for them. It's availability, uptime, and the slow cost of life cycles. And that's equal for most of the industries, right? So we also have to think about the less is more approach in the future.
Sarah - 00:12:12: Yeah.
Joern - 00:12:12: Other aspects, maybe training. It's often the first experience for people onboarding. So to really invest into e-learning hybrid. And especially, and maybe one thing, which is another kind of, not the silver tsunami, but the technology tsunami, right? So, hybridization and electrification is changing in a speed which hadn't been seen before. So, in the past, there were mechanics, right? And there were weapon engines, etc. And now we need people with mechatronics, electronics, pro-electronics, high voltage. And you really need to know your stuff, right? It also has implications with regards to health and safety. And so, it's that basically there are more waves coming together and overlaying each other. And that's certainly a big challenge.
Sarah - 00:13:05: Yeah. No, absolutely. So to your point, it isn't just about the fact that a lot of people are going to be retiring. You have combined in that that in the amount of time those folks have been in the workforce, we haven't always been doing a good job of capturing their knowledge. We haven't necessarily been leveraging technology in a way that that's been documented and is accessible or usable by other folks, right? And so they're leaving with all of these skills and knowledge that really only exist within them.
Joern - 00:13:35: That's so sad, right? After 40 plus years, some of the technicians go, they have such a knowledge and nobody really in like a structural fashion asked them about the input, download your experience and they're just gone. And it leaves them also empty. And that's also something which is on my agenda to see how you can do a pairing up like a mentoring type of relationship with the younger generation, send them out together on jobs in effect and even use them for the e-learning for the training where you say, oh I need to explain something to somebody. Then you have the school book that that the manuals and then you have like the tips and tricks of experienced technicians. And so that's on my radar to more put it into a structural approach.
Sarah - 00:14:26: Yeah. And then one of the biggest factors that is exacerbating this challenge is that we don't have talent coming into these roles at the pace that we need to replace them. And like you said, there's the technology tsunami alongside, right? So the way that we can and arguably should deliver service is changing in addition to the workforce landscape. So what I want to do is talk about some of these areas of responsibility that service leaders carry to navigate the silver tsunami. So the first thing I want to talk about is avoiding a victim mentality. You phrase this as falling in love with the problem. So can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that?
Joern - 00:15:14: They're just saying falling in love is a problem rather than the solution. A lot of in the service arena where people have lots of experience and for every possible scenario, they think they have an answer. It's basically really to take a step back and take time to think it through because it's so many layers. It's just not a battle for the talent. And if you have that battle, how do you need to go about this? How do you even praise? I think in Cologne, we had someone talking about how do you actually make your role advertising stuff on what criteria you hire them. So the problem is much bigger than just like, okay, I have less people. Okay, it's not my fault. It's big demographic things. I can't change that. And after the Second World War in the 50s, despite of birth rates, but it's an issue, right? In all markets, the science are really good that the industries can grow, right? And the thing is, if you don't really pay attention and go into the details, service could in the rows, to be honest. And so it can have a business impact for those who was not addressing that. And that's why I think it belongs into the C level, because even if you manage it practically somehow with outsourcing, even this outsourcing, then you increase the cost because it's not cheaper, right? And in the same instance, you really need to think, if I go for outsourcing as a route to mitigate some of these effects. Then you should also ask, okay, what tasks, what things do I outsource? So what is the core competence I want to maintain? What are the transactional service jobs I want to maintain with me? Because it has to do also with something with keeping the customer relationship and not just like outsource everything and then be totally disconnected by the operators. And last but not least on the problem, the thinking I said earlier, I don't think something massive like that each company can solve on its own. I think you also have to talk about collaboration across industry, collaboration with colleges, universities, with training academies. Maybe there are ways to bundle those training academies and really attract talent in a way that they really want to work in service. And what is a potential career path for being, let's say, moving from field service then into service management and into company management positions? Because I think what I also learned in Chicago is that's not only the silver tsunami, which is happening, also the younger workforce is not staying as long. So we have to double whammy of talent exiting after five to 10 years. And so that basically reflects that we have to address the needs of that generation.
Sarah - 00:18:26: So one of the things that becomes important in service is for the service leader to act as a conduit within the business between the service function, HR, and executive leadership. So can you talk a little bit about the responsibility to bring these parties together and help them understand the layers of what this challenge is and what it means for the business?
Joern - 00:18:50: The C-level leaders and executive team leaders, of course, they need the story, but they also need facts and figures. So basically, you have to describe the problem. So for which functional areas, for which skills, how does it look like for your particular company? And basically, as people go out, then the experience, how people come in through apprenticeship programs, through universities, etc. Then basically, you show the growing problem in the next years, which if you do the nothing case, would likely increase the risk of not delivering the business plans. And that's true for every company. And you grab their attention pretty quick. And because of those multi-layers, because it's not just like in service, in service and field service, it's very obvious. Right now, it still goes through each of the company function. It will not just stop in service and then purchasing or engineering. You don't have the same issues. You do have the same issues there. So it needs basically sponsorship by the C-level because it's like it's not a project, right? It's not a silver tsunami project. It's something where a company fundamentally needs to address that. And I call it riding the waves of the silver tsunami. So how do you ride it? What are the strategies to come out as a more resilient company and make the problem to more like hey guys, it's actually an opportunity, right? If we do it right. Because you want to, basically now we need the future employees and we want them as long as possible to stay with the company, right?
Sarah - 00:20:42: Yeah. Now, you touched on this a bit earlier, but let's talk about the need to prioritize solutions for knowledge management and also be a bit more inventive about how we might leverage our aging talent longer or in different ways.
Joern - 00:21:00: There are two aspects. One, we're already doing, and it's what we introduced last year. It's a new e-learning platform for technical training, but we also will use it for sales and service management. But on the technical training, we went back to very experienced technicians and went through and creating those e-learns together with learning management, because I haven't put it more like the editorial, the content type of work. And then we did videos for key tasks, with their help, and capturing that knowledge in videos. And those will never go away, right? And you do tips and tricks, safety topics. So I said, okay, there's a pound. The manual would say remove the pound, but they would say, okay, be careful. The pound is 15 kilos, so you need to kind of protect yourself and be ready. There's like some weight coming. And they felt it, and it was quite good. So they see that this is like, it's already capturing their knowledge, and they're happy to support it. And that's ongoing. And we have a couple of thousand customers, what technicians from our network now owns on that platform. So it's quite good. The learning we is changing from in the past, okay, you have to send people to Singapore, to Germany, to the US to do a training course. And now they can even prepare online. They do the testing and exams. And then when they come to a training, and e-council training, they can address the knowledge gaps, et cetera, and really accelerating actually the onboarding of
Sarah - 00:22:39: people.
Joern - 00:22:40: And the others are really what I mentioned earlier, which I haven't done really yet, but it's more like a mentoring program and buddy system pair people up. Where you bring on the older generation with the younger generation. It would be good that the pairing is based on sympathy and rightness, like it also needs to kind of click even to a point where you would think, hey, do you maybe need to, like in Germany, with 65 or in the future, 67, the contract stops. You can't continue to work like in other areas of the world where you can continue to work. So it's like if people are fit and want to work, so what is the framework that can still contribute and contribute with their expert know-how? And that's how we have to work with our global network and with human resources to come up with respective approaches, right? I mean, a lot of these people, I found it funny when I had a post on LinkedIn on the silver tsunami following the Chicago visit. And I had like a general eye doing the picture of the guy retiring. He had actually a smile on his face. I didn't put in the proud thing, the smiling technician, but what it told me is, hey, the guys can look back at a very fulfilled life, stressful and sometimes really crazy at times, but a very rewarding job, right? They leave behind and they should also enjoy their retirement. But for those who really want to continue to contribute and whatever means, I think we should give them an opportunity, right?
Sarah - 00:24:26: Yeah, another example that I've seen when you pull in what's possible from a technology standpoint is companies leveraging remote assistance or augmented reality solutions. So instead of what you're saying, having a one-to-one mentorship, you could have an older technician in the office or even at home who can virtually connect with three or five technicians every day. So if they get stuck, they tag that person in to see what they see and walk them through it, etc. That's one of the overarching points in this conversation is there are so many potential solutions and parts of the solution that you just have to be willing to think differently and explore and try new things. Speaking of that creativity, we talked about the fact that updating job descriptions or changing the way that we describe or market these roles certainly isn't the solution in its entirety. But we do need to continue to push to be more creative about how we attract new talent into field service. What are your thoughts on what this might look like or what people should be thinking about or trying to get more of the younger talent interested in these careers?
Joern - 00:25:48: It starts with speaking to those generation. I'd go out to the colleges, the schools and talk about that those are the jobs out there and how interesting they are and actually travel the world and be kind of supporting customers. Last year we did a program where we have like in Germany like an apprenticeship program which then goes for three years and but every country has such a like an apprenticeship program. But in that way and then from time to time, we put like experienced technicians. And they talked about the jobs. We took people on a voluntary basis out into the field. And with that we actually recruited three times more of the apprentice who finished for service that's been in the past to really talk about it, listen to them, what's important to them and then what type of flexibility they need. And with that, it put then you can talk about what roles we need, right? So we started creating a hybrid role where we say, okay, what is the relation between working at the customer and at the system in turning branches where it was working from home in the past? There's always like a percentage level. Boom. You have to work with the customer and utilization is the most important KPI for a technician and you need to have a utilization of 90%. So we have to ask ourselves, what does utilization consist? Is it just turning branches or is it actually solving a problem for a customer? And how you do it, it's totally different. So you have to break through some of the older kind of KPIs and methods and really give it a new perspective. And I think if there's discussion, if you always go back to what does the customer need and what makes a company more efficient, often it doesn't conflict with what the new generation, what their expectations are. So what you said earlier, the ability to work remote, remote assistance and remote troubleshooting, having expert joining those sessions, because I think like chatbot, I'm not a big fan in private life using a chatbot, right? I'm very picky. And so, but the younger generation, they use chatbot all the time, but also in customers, they would be more. Open to use those type of new technologies. So, hey, we should look into this and see in the next years where Gen AI can help us planning the jobs. If the planning of field service is so, the results are so disruptive. And this is like a pain in itself, the traveling and the way we're doing it and pushing too much in and always be with the back against the wall. Nobody wants that. And that's why I'm also very happy that we signed up this IFS on a workforce management. So reintroducing that in the next couple of years, that is also part of the employee experience. And all that together, the employee experience, the customer experience, use technology on purpose to make that better, have a career opportunity for them that they can grow and choose technology. Okay, instead of 10 jobs a week, now you can do 12 or 13 jobs a week. And by the way, you do it until you retire at 67. I mean, how many kids really volunteer? I want that. I don't think so.
Sarah - 00:29:29: Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, it's looking at the bigger picture. I did a podcast last year with ABB and they talked about some of the specific applications within their service business for augmented reality and AI. And the time they've gained back from that. And he mentioned specifically, not just allowing the company to absorb all of that time to expect more, right? But to give some of that time back to the employee. It's the shift in thinking from just the short term, how much can we wring out of people to the longer term? How can we create a balance where we're hitting the productivity we need to? We're making our customers happy, but we're not doing it to the detriment of our employees, because we know that they're not going to tolerate that, the younger talent, they're not going to stick around, right? And then to your point, the importance of just acknowledging that it's very unlikely to have young talent join and expect them to stay in a role for 10, 15, 20 years the way that has been normal, right? And so it goes back to the point you made about not taking a victim mentality. Sometimes where companies get stuck here is that rather than accepting the problem and deciding to see it as an opportunity. They spend time thinking, I wish it would go back to the way it was, right? And it's just, it's futile and it's not going to, right? So we really need to do things differently. When it comes to the technology piece, you just talked about some of the things that you are doing to take these important steps. And to your point, particularly, let's talk about the workforce planning. It's a good point because when you're thinking about something like utilization, it can also be very common for the company to focus on maybe where the employee is falling short. But there's also a responsibility from the organization perspective of have we invested in the right tools to make our operation as efficient as it can be, right? That's a conversation on both sides. When it comes to how you're looking at technology's role in this overall puzzle, though, are there things that you keep in mind in terms of the way to leverage technology well? And in a way that will benefit everyone versus looking at it the wrong way or either rushing or expecting that you can replace the workforce with AI. Like, are there certain things that you kind of think through in your own filter of where technology can help in this conversation?
Joern - 00:32:17: I mean, when I talk about technology with purpose, the purpose comes from A, delivering an outcome to a customer, to a partner, whatever. But then also that delivery, that it's really at the point to the cost on time and smooth. And the field service teams, they all have the knowledge how it works and what can go wrong and how many dots you basically have to connect to actually have that great experience from the customer and employee experience. Being on time, being there, the sun is shining, the parts are there, the tooling is there, and the scope is clear. And if you need support, you get the backup from the headquarter with remote assistance and connecting the dot. That is where the Gen AI and the technology can help to basically with the thousands of jobs each of us has to plan over a year with that complexity, the scheduling changing. You need the assistance of really technology of tools to help making the right decisions, because right now it's people sometimes just sitting in front of an axle or a whiteboard. And making those assignments and then trying to manage that complexity with, okay, it's that job. What skill do I need to have to do this? What visa or whatever other kind of legislation requirements, export control? So the world is getting more complex. The technology is getting more complex. And to really deliver excellence in these days requires that we get help and that we do a proper planning and it's seldom the quality and the way of the wrench turning. It's basically do all things count to place when required and then have that dynamic scheduling planning tool and which includes the customer, right? So sometimes you maybe do you have the technician, but you don't have a part in their region. And then you say, okay, it's not Monday, but I will be there Wednesday and you can count on me. And he says, okay. Or for scheduling, hey, I'm there. Something happened. And the customer says, I need to deploy technicians immediately. Okay, get the data and say, hey, and one week we have downtime planned anyway, and you can still go on until that week and your operation does not be at risk. Have that conversation, but you need information and data and help to have that conversation with the customer.
Sarah - 00:34:56: Yeah.
Joern - 00:34:57: And their technology plays a role. And if that in the end helps too. Have less stress and make a job. In time and no overtime and maybe have half an hour time to have a conversation with the customer, then that's a good investment in technology, but not in a way, oh, it looks great and it's kind of the sexy label, right? Hey, look what we can do. Okay, so why do we need this? And raised us what's in for the customer, what's in for the employee. Employee, if they don't like certain things, they can, there's the saying, culture eats strategy for breakfast. If they don't like certain things, they will find all means to stop it. So we were always very hand in hand when we introduced new solutions with people who are actually doing the job, right?
Sarah - 00:35:51: Yeah. And I think that's what it comes down to. I love your point about technology with purpose, right? And you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation how strongly you feel that a positive employee experience leads to a positive customer experience. And I think that's the mentality that some lack when they're not necessarily taking that part into account. I attended Field Service Europe last fall, and Marco Hugo Gutierrez from Tetra Pak did a great presentation where he talked about company performance or company financials, customer experience, and employee experience making up a triangle. And his point was, if you take any of those three out of balance, it crumbles. You have to think about every decision you're making, every strategy you're putting in place, every investment, et cetera, through the lens of all three of those factors. And I think in a lot of ways that's similar to what you're saying is it's important to keep all three things in mind when you're thinking about not only the technology piece, but how to solve this overall problem.
Joern - 00:37:04: And as it stands here, keep it simple. In service, you have to keep things simple and really keep asking the question, what does the customer need? What's important? Where should we focus? Can we look at processes and ask them, do we need to continue doing these processes like that? Or can we review it, script certain paths, be faster? And yeah, I totally agree what you just said.
Sarah - 00:37:31: Yeah, more is not always more. And the last thing I wanted to talk about in terms of the components of navigating through this challenge is how imperative the role of the service leader is in this sort of transitional phase in our industry. So thinking about how we work through the waves of this tsunami, how do you view the role of the service leader?
Joern - 00:37:57: Well, A, there is the recognition that there is an issue. And basically, in service, you can, I sometimes say, we work for yesterday because there's always like so much work that you can work 24 hours every day. So basically, acknowledge that there is this issue, put the numbers behind, and then really take time to deal with it personally. So it needs a personal commitment to address the issue with the teams, with your peers, and also with the exec teams. And that takes time. If you just duck and say, well, I'm so busy with delivering the day-to-day business. I mean, look at myself. I have 10 years to go. But also, one part of my role is to look at the new generation and say, who can do my job in the future? That means also, okay, if you need more time, then delegate to the talent who can one day maybe go into your footsteps and invest time because that's what you need to do. And then just go through the stacks of data and making a projection of potential impacts and what do you need. Because if you go to the C-suite and say, hey, we have a problem. I say, okay, we see the problem. It's obvious. Okay, so what do you need? You need to have answers. And so you need to come up with proposals. You need to work out the proposals in like really cross-functional, cross-regional way. Because if a tool spits out certain numbers, you really, again, have to invest. And so how's it looking in the US versus Germany versus Asia, right? And it's time you need to invest. So that would be my ask to all service leaders to not duck away and to address it, deal it, and act now.
Sarah - 00:39:43: Absolutely. Sarah, if you look over the next, let's say, five years, okay, what are you most excited about when you think about the landscape of service over the next five years?
Joern - 00:39:55: I think it's, again, to learn that we have to bring in a new generation on board who's then dealing with the future technology. We are just putting in place everywhere because the service you do is basically on staff which is out in the field, right? So normally when you bring in new products, it will take some time until they become more service intense. So it's the technology and the onboarding of new talent. It's the use of technology with purpose. And again, it's the responsibility of a service leader to also look at those and say, I need those solutions going forward and talk to IT and make sure that they then look jointly for solutions, that you get the budgets agreed for the next couple of years, right? So long-term thinking. And then I think what will be important to really get your grips behind how that future ecosystem look likes. And ecosystem is what are you doing? What are your partners, partner network doing? What are the customers? Where are all the IT landscape and digital landscape? How it fits? How is everything connected and draw, that's what we do right now, draw the future, that ecosystem where it's like how customers request coming in and how do you bring all that together? And that's going to be exciting.
Sarah - 00:41:27: Yeah, very much so. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing. I admire the passion that you have, not only for falling in love with the problem, but for really taking control of the role that you can play in your organization and even sharing knowledge with the industry for moving this forward. So I only wish everyone was so excited about what they can do and what's to come and really appreciate you coming on and sharing.
Joern - 00:41:55: My pleasure. And with that, your role, you having this Future of Field Service podcast is also very important because that gives us an opportunity to reach out to our peers, industry peers, and discuss those items.
Sarah - 00:42:11: We're all stronger together. So thank you for that. You can find more by visiting the home of the UNSCRIPTED podcast at futureoffieldservice.com. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.