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August 19, 2020 | 14 Mins Read

Evaluating Today’s Wearable Technology Options

August 19, 2020 | 14 Mins Read

Evaluating Today’s Wearable Technology Options

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Sarah welcomes back to the podcast Roel Rentmeesters, Director of Global Customer Service at Munters, to discuss the company’s evaluation and addition of smart glasses to its merged-reality solution.

Roel Rentmeesters: Yep, that's correct. We didn't think really of using smart glasses at that time, or the wearables, because we wanted to have a quick solution, fast implementation, and our people were mostly sitting at home, so they did not have to wear the glasses at the time.

Sarah Nicastro: And that was... You guys had a very fast deployment of that technology. And one of the ways in which that's possible is the ability to just deploy it on whatever device that is in use. But as you did that, how did you determine the need or opportunity for migrating that to wearables?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yeah, as it wasn't initially a solution we wanted to use towards our customers and those customers would not have the wearables. But quickly, internally, people from the operation side, the factories, who are also stuck in their country and could not travel to other countries. So for the internal use, it's where they came up and said, "Yeah. But you have people on the factory floor maybe want to start up lines or change lines to other locations. Since we can't bring expert from one factory to another factory, is there another solution that we can have a hands-free way of working?" And that's when I started looking into those smart glasses. So it came from an internal use because of the non-travel.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. And the remote assistance solution is in use both in the field operations as well as in some of those manufacturing applications?

Roel Rentmeesters: That's correct.

Sarah Nicastro: So are the wearables also used in both?

Roel Rentmeesters: No. I've sent a few to the field service organizations to test it. And actually, it worked really, really well. We did an intervention in Australia, from Australia for New Zealand. So we sent the glasses to New Zealand and the technician who was doing the commissioning on site was guided by technicians in Australia. And that technician on site, he was wearing the wearables. Also in Germany, we are testing it, see the feasibility. And I've sent them also to Brazil and US for testing. And so far, it seems to be going well. On top... So, that's field service. We had the factories, as I mentioned before, but also the R&D organization is now using the wearables to communicate between each other. When they talk about parts and specific pieces, they can visualize while they're holding it in their hand, etc. So it's becoming a bit more widespread inside the organization, outside of the field service.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And you think about the increase in efficiency and productivity that the hands-free environment really creates, and it is a compelling value proposition. Whether you're talking about in a factory or, like you said, R&D, or in the field, it really can speed things up and make things easier for those folks to be able to use both hands instead of holding that smartphone and using the application that way. So it makes a lot of sense. How did you set out to evaluate the options that are out there? And maybe share what you found as you were doing so, and what you landed on.

Roel Rentmeesters: Yeah. To be honest, I've been experimenting with HoloLens in the past, and that was before we were talking about IFS Remote Assist solutions, so it was more like, "What could HoloLens do in the future?" Taking into account that HoloLens is an amazing device, it was the HoloLens first, and it was very heavy on the nose, et cetera. But once I looked into IFS Remote Assist, I checked with IFS what companies are already certified to be using, from a wearable perspective. And there were two. I don't remember if the first brand and the second one was Vuzix.

Roel Rentmeesters: And we spoke with some experts who were from IFS Remote Assist, and they advised us for the things we needed to go for a specific brand, the Vuzix M400 Smart Glasses because of the screen quality, the way you could mount it, the fact that the solution is integrated in it, so there's an app that you can download on the smart glasses. And one of the major things that helped was the fact that this type of smart glasses, you can control them from your mobile phone. There's an app that you can download. So on the side of the glasses, there is a thing that is difficult to see, but you need to, with your hands, scroll over like a touch pad to manipulate it. Whilst with the app you have on your phone, you can do it on your phone, which is much more user friendly as people are used to doing it. So you control, actually, the menu in the smart glasses from your phone. And that was, for me, the most compelling argument to choose this.

Sarah Nicastro: You can use the phone to scroll the menu to make the selection you want, then put the phone down and do what you need to do hands-free?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yes. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. That makes sense. So, when you started testing the Vuzix Smart Glasses, how did you feel about the user experience? And what I'm most curious about is, I've talked with a number of companies now that have deployed remote assistance that commonly talk about how easy of an experience it is, both from the initiator and the recipient's perspective, within the application. And the deployment is simple because you can use whatever device you have. The user interface is clean. So knowing that you deployed first on the smartphones that you had, and then you introduced the Vuzix Smart Glasses, how would you compare the user experience between the two?

Roel Rentmeesters: Well, the fact that it's hands free is a really good one. The app that was designed to work with the glasses look and feel completely similar as the thing on your mobile phone, so you will recognize everything you need to do, how to make a call, how to answer a call, how to share things. You can recognize it very easily, because it's exactly the same look and feel. And the quality of the glasses is amazing.

Roel Rentmeesters: The little screen that you have in front of your eye, it takes getting used to because you need to focus here and then focus there, but it's so sharp and the quality of the camera, that others can see on the other sides is also so sharp that I would say it's maybe even better than the phone because of the quality of the screen and the camera you have on the device. Does it mean that I would be using it to do normal stuff? Probably not. If it's quicker and easier, I would do it with this because the battery drains quite fast on the wearables, et cetera. But if I really would need my hands, I would have no doubt to switch to the smart glasses.

Sarah Nicastro: That was the other question I was going to ask, is it really wouldn't be something that would be used instead of the smartphone. It would be something that would be used in addition to, as an option when that hands-free experience is mandated. Is that accurate?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yeah. If a technician needs a quick-and-dirty answer because he is facing something, but he knows he does need to manipulate it, it would just be, "Can you confirm that it's that part that I need to change? Or that is what I'm looking at is indeed this," that I would do with my phone. But if I need to manipulate at the same time, then I would definitely use the smart glasses. And the way we did it in the factories was actually, as you can use three people in the solution, one provide support, one receiving reports, and somebody else who can witness and intervene if needed, we use a third person view to put a big screen in the factory as well. So one guy was wearing the glasses and others could monitor what he was doing next to him on a big screen at the same time. So they saw what he was doing, and they saw the intervention that the provider of support was doing as well, guiding him. So that's the way we use the smart glasses in our factories.

Sarah Nicastro: And you can record those interactions if you want to, right?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: And you can still do that with the Vuzix the same way you could through the phone?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yes. There's no difference. No difference.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So, the user experience is very similar, and I think that's also an interesting point to mention, which is that it wouldn't be like teaching your employees how the solution works on the smartphone and getting them used to that, and then teaching them an entirely different interface or experience on the smart glasses. They're very similar, and so that would make, I assume, the training and introduction to that technology fairly straightforward?

Roel Rentmeesters: Yeah, you're right. The only thing that is different, which is logic, is in the first instance, you need to set up the glasses. You need to download the last firmware, et cetera. Then you need to make sure that you install the app, the IFS Remote Assistant app on the device. And that, I would suggest somebody else does. But once it's there... It's a one page instruction, so it's really, really clear. Once that is done, they're up and running like a mobile phone.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. The other question I wanted to ask is just based on the experience you had. So, I know that the main use of the Vuzix currently is on the manufacturing side, but being tested on the field side. If someone were looking at, or debating between, "Okay, we're going to deploy an augmented reality or merged reality solution." What's your opinion on, should they deploy first on smart phones and then incorporate smart glasses, should they skip that step and go right to the smart glasses, or a combination of both? How did you feel about the way in which you did it and how that would lead you to advise others?

Roel Rentmeesters: I would do it the same way as I did it. I would first go for the smartphone solutions. And why do I say this? Because you can use the solution then, both with customers that don't have a license and an application, which you can still already support them whilst they don't have the smart glasses. Your internal use is done more with the smart glasses. And like we said before, for the quick-and-dirty things, people will probably still want to use their phone. So you have a much quicker deployment. You have less investment because there's a cost attached to these devices as well.

Roel Rentmeesters: For instance, I'm not planning to supply every technician with such smart glasses. The focus that I would put is if we know we have a big commissioning that we need to do, that the technician that will do that has them. And we target the junior technicians. So the ones that just come in, we provide them with those glasses for a couple of months, so that in case they need support, they have them always with them and they can use them. The more senior ones will be using their own devices to provide assistance. They don't need the glasses to give assistance. It's really for the receiving end. So, much broader audience, less investment, quicker deployments.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. That makes sense. So, I'm curious. How has the employee feedback been on the introduction of smart glasses? And has there been any difference between the different applications, so manufacturing, R&D, in the field? And I ask this because we commonly see resistance to change and new things. And I would say smart glasses are a pretty new introduction to these types of applications. I mean, they've been around for a while, but as I said at the beginning, we're just now starting to see them get more widely deployed. And so, how have your employees responded?

Roel Rentmeesters: Luckily, we have a bunch of these millennial people inside our organization, the ones that are keen for new technology and look into that. And you will see most of the junior technicians that you will bring in are also younger and grown up with more technology than the old generation has. This being said, I can feel a trend change inside Munters, where we really look at new technologies to help us in our evolution for the future. So from top management, this is something we're really... R&D is looking into this, product management is looking into this, and field operations is also looking into this. So we try to make people warm on this new technology, so we're showing them the benefits of it. And I can really feel that some are really eager for us to come up with this new technology. So you have, of course, both cases, the more traditional people that say, "I don't need this."

Roel Rentmeesters: On the other hand, we're asking now, those more traditional, maybe different generation, to provide the support to the ones that are on site. And if the one on site says, "Maybe you can guide me using the app. I have the glasses with me," the technology gets more embraced and people see the benefits of it as well. I can see when we deployed this solution with the smartphones in the beginning, lots of people started testing it, so then it fell a bit silent, also because of the fact that we could start traveling again. Now I see it rising. I see the use of the solution rising back up because people start to see the benefits of it. And it's the same with the smart glasses. But the top sponsors is actually management. Management is using them to do virtual tours of the factories, to inspect the factories, et cetera. So management is starting to use them a lot, actually.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So, when you have someone providing the insight, so like you said, if you have a junior technician out in the field that has the glasses on, the experience for the person providing the insight doesn't change, right? So it doesn't matter what's on the receiving end. That instruction is the same.

Roel Rentmeesters: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: But seeing the use of those glasses and how it helps the person on the other end can help them warm up to the idea of it a bit. That makes sense. And I think, going back to my question I asked about, would you recommend starting with smartphones then introducing smart glasses, or introducing them together, it might be another check in the column of introduce smartphones first, because it gave your employees an opportunity to see the value of the technology and become familiar with the use of the technology before you introduced something else that was cutting edge. So it kind of phased that change a bit, to where they could welcome the remote assistance, and then you introduced this new thing, and perhaps they were a little bit more willing to consider that since they had found value in the tool already. That makes sense.

Roel Rentmeesters: Yeah. I can see a lot of possibilities using smart glasses, from parts recognition when you look at them, when you glance at them, et cetera. So I really look forward into the new technologies and possibilities that will come out using smart glasses, from a training perspective, where you explore the views and you have virtual devices, from a marketing perspective, from a sales perspective, et cetera. And I think as new technologies come out and things we can do with those glasses, people will start embracing them more and more and more. It will become part of our life and the way we work on a day to day basis. This is the beginning. We are just at the beginning of what these things can do.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Last question. And we touched on a couple of things here, in terms of you mentioned the weight of the glasses and making sure that they're comfortable, you mentioned the clarity of the view for the user, as well as the clarity of the camera for the user on the other end. What other criteria would you mention that are critical for people to have in mind as they're evaluating the wearable options that are out there?

Roel Rentmeesters: Probably the way to manipulate the glasses. The fact that you need to find an easy way to scroll, or to change apps, et cetera, specifically if these wearables will be used more using different applications, maybe to report on your call or your ticket that you're performing, et cetera. The way you be able to control and manipulate will become very important on top of the fact that they need to be very comfortable and not fall off, et cetera. Wearable on helmets, if needed, or on hats. You can see that is really coming. So if they're difficult to operate, people will not use them. That's something, for sure.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. Now, you mentioned the battery life can be a challenge. Did you find that to be pretty universal, in terms of the options you evaluated?

Roel Rentmeesters: I didn't really check that, I must admit. But there is solutions. The fact that it's HDMI, et cetera, you can use a normal power bank to continue to charge the devices. So it's not that it's a problem in the long end, but I think it's normal that the battery life... I think it's consumes a lot, and I think it's normal because of the camera and screen at the same time. Actually, we have the same with mobile phones. If you use a solution on mobile phones for quite some time, you see the battery drainage as well on the phone. So I think it's normal on the technology.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's just something to be aware of and plan for. So, that makes sense. All right. Well, thank you Roel, for coming back and talking us through this. I'm certainly excited to see how the use of Vuzix expands within the organization to the field force, and then also, as you said, as things evolve and more aspects of the technology become possible.

Roel Rentmeesters: Thank you. It was my pleasure.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. If you haven't yet had an opportunity to listen to the previous podcast we did on Munters' journey to Servitization, take a look at that on Future of Field Service, www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter, @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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August 12, 2020 | 20 Mins Read

Sub-Zero On the Criticality of Effective Training for Customer Experience

August 12, 2020 | 20 Mins Read

Sub-Zero On the Criticality of Effective Training for Customer Experience

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Tyler Verri, Customer Service Manager - Training and Installation Strategy at Sub-Zero Group, Inc., talks with Sarah about the crucial role training plays in ensuring a positive customer experience – particularly as Sub-Zero relies on third-party providers for service.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. On today's podcast, we're going to be discussing the criticality of effective training on the customer experience. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Tyler Verri, Customer Service Manager for Training and Installation Strategy at Sub-Zero Group. Tyler, welcome to the podcast.

Tyler Verri: Hi Sarah.

Sarah Nicastro: Thanks for being here. So before we dive into today's topic, tell our listeners a bit about yourself and your role at Sub-Zero.

Tyler Verri: Absolutely. So I'm Tyler Verri, I've been with Sub-Zero about 14 years. Sub-Zero Group is a manufacturer of high end residential cooking, refrigeration, and we recently got into dishwashing products. 12 years I actually spent in IT, managing a variety of teams, and the last two years I've actually been in customer service, as you mentioned, as the manager of the training and installation strategy.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So, you and I had caught up prior to this and I said, "Wow, the transition from IT to customer service is an interesting one." So how have you liked it?

Tyler Verri: It's definitely been a unique path to get here. Obviously, my role in the past in IT, very focused on internal operations and support of our organization, and now I've shifted to one where I'm supporting external partners and direct contact with our customers. It's definitely been a welcome changed, it's pushed me to expand my business knowledge, and learn how we go to market, how we support our products in the field. So extremely grateful for Sub-Zero and the opportunity to develop my leadership in different forms.

Sarah Nicastro: Cool. Yeah, it is an interesting transition, but in my former role, I hit the 11 year mark, not quite 12, and it was time for a change, so it's a good time to try something different and expand horizons. So what I want to talk about first is the structure of Sub-Zero's installation and service business, because, I think, for our listeners understanding how you do those things is going to be important in framing the conversation we have around training, and what effective training entails, and how training impacts the customer experience. So Sub-Zero, for both installation and service, you leverage partner networks for both functions. So, talk our listeners through what that structure looks like.

Tyler Verri: Yeah, correct. So network is a bit unique in terms of we leverage certified third parties to provide our installation and service of our products. So our service network is a bit more defined than our installation, being we have control, we pay the service companies if they're doing warranty work for us, and we've really narrowed that down to specific service companies in very large metro markets. And they can provide, and majority of them do, sole support of the Sub-Zero Group brands. Our ultimate goal by doing this and leveraging third parties, we really want to make sure that we're giving them the most touches on our products, whether it's from an installation or a service perspective. So we really try to drive the majority of our business, for our customers, through the certified companies that we have in our network.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, good. So you leverage third party for both installation and service functions. And in talking with the service community, one of the biggest concerns we hear when it comes to the pros and cons of relying on contingent workers or a third party workforce, is really that loss of control over the customer experience, right? So that tends to be one of the biggest hesitations in embracing that model. So at Sub-Zero, and in your role, you are relying heavily on training to preserve the customer experience. So what I want to talk about first is some of the aspects that you feel make for effective training, that therefore help companies retain some of that control.

Tyler Verri: Absolutely. I think the big thing, for us, on creating an effective training is making sure that we understand what are the needs of our partner organizations, and ensuring that we're building to meet the different learning styles. So not just creating something that is web-based when we know, some people, they can't sit in front of a computer and do something. These are technicians, they work with their hands, they want to get hands-on. So making sure that, yes, we do have some content that is web-base, engages videos, but we also want to make sure that we also are creating hands-on curriculum, forcing critical thinking, understanding what are the tools that they can leverage that we have built for them.

Tyler Verri: But then also understanding that as much as we want uniformity in our network, we want to make sure that they have autonomy to continue to fit the needs of their culture and identity as their organizations. The thing that I do find unique, we're a family-owned company, third generation, and a lot of the companies that we have partnered with, they're very similar in that manner, they're smaller scale, but they're usually family-owned, multigenerational companies, you have owner-operators, from that perspective. So I really see the ties of culture connecting that way, and it really helps us in the synergies.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that what you articulated, that balance between autonomy and uniformity is really what companies are striving to achieve. And I think that that balance is really relatable, not just for companies that are leveraging third party workers, but even companies that have a really large geographical footprint and have different divisions of their business, regions of their business that have traditionally operated fairly independently. And as organizations look to really standardized service delivery, making those, either departments, or in this case, partners, feel that we're not trying to control you and we don't want to take away all of that autonomy, but we do want to be consistent with our customer experience, and we do want to provide some level of uniformity that people can be assured to have when they have a Sub-Zero service, right? That is a really important balance. And I'm curious, what are some of the ways that you, from a communication perspective, try and strike that balance?

Tyler Verri: So communication, for us, is leveraging key partners in the field that have been vocal about what we're doing and how we're doing it, and making sure that we engage them on a reoccurring basis of, how are we performing and what are the things that you need? And we've created an advisory council that leverages both service, installation. We bring them together as a peer group because, yes, they're usually two very separate businesses in terms of how they operate. Service generally isn't doing installation, and once again, installation is not generally doing service, but they are... Ultimately the goal of providing that customer experience and aligning us from manufacturing all the way to service is key, and that's why we do bring these groups together and engage them.

Tyler Verri: How do we do it? We generally, on a yearly basis, have a partner summit. Obviously, with the current climate we live in, we've had to think differently in how do we continue to engage and get this feedback. But for us, it is tying very closely to our partners, and making sure they understand what we're doing, we understand what they're doing, and how do we all continue to march in the same direction.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. So, you touched on the importance of a multi-format approach when it comes to training. And so, rather than as an organization thinking about it from the context of what's the easiest and most efficient way for us to get this information out there, you really need to be thinking about the fact that, as you mentioned, not everyone can learn the same way. Not everyone consumes information in the same way, so that multi-format approach is important. And as you said, you're looking at opportunities to leverage digital and video, hands-on, and also when possible, an in person aspect. But we also talked about in that multi-format approach, you have three tracks of training that you're focusing on. So share with our listeners what those three tracks are and why they're important.

Tyler Verri: Absolutely. Yeah, as we were looking, knowing that our partners are onboarding new employees, especially from the service and installation companies, there's turnover, there's retirements, there's a lot of things that play into the changes and growth of these organizations, and we wanted to make sure that we meet those changes. So as we were looking at how do we deploy and develop training, we developed three tracks. So we have the e-learning, which is our first and I would say our basic track, it's self-paced, you go online, it's on demand, you can take it as you need it, and we generally structure them to be about 20 minute classes. So you go in, a new employee can come on, they really can learn about Sub-Zero, Wolf, Cove culture, and do a 20 minute training onboarding them to the brands. Before they get into the technical weeds of everything, it's just, "What am I supporting?" And starting at that level.

Tyler Verri: The next is regional based training. We understand that taking technicians off the road, whether they're doing installation or service, that's taking away profit from those organizations. They're not able to go out and make money, so we really wanted to provide a training format that limits their amount of time off the road. And so we've developed a regional training spaces to really fit those major markets, where are the majority of our partners so that they can travel there, receive some of that hands-on. Especially understanding, from a regional basis, if we sell specific products in that market, we can train specific to that. Not a, everybody gets everything, because that's not successful in terms of, if you don't see the product often enough, you've wasted that individual's time.

Tyler Verri: And then finally, the immersion one, which is factory training. Bringing them back to the Sub-Zero campus in Madison, Wisconsin, immersion into the Sub-Zero culture. So that's usually multiday training, it involves at least two days of travel to get here. Madison, not a major airport, so some of those issues we run into from a travel perspective, but it's a huge commitment of time for our partners to be able to take a week off the road to getting here. But that's where once they've made that investment in the organization that they're joining, or have been a part of it for a significant amount of time, that's usually where that fits, where you come back to the factory and get indoctrinated in what we're doing and how we're doing it.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, good. So what I want to talk about next is some of what you're covering in this training. So you had said, before we get to the technical stuff, which obviously is important so that they can be effective in the service they're providing, but before you get to that, you really want to do some training on the Sub-Zero culture, the Sub-Zero brand. And then there's the technical training, and you and I had also talked about a really heavy focus you have right now on soft skills training. So tell us about some of those areas and what type of insights you're striving to provide through the training, and then secondly, why that soft skills component is so critical.

Tyler Verri: Absolutely. Yeah, soft skills is a key component of the customer satisfaction. We've noticed, it's not just fixing the product in the customer's home, but it's also, now you have to fix the customer. They're frustrated, you have to step back and resell them why did they make the investment in the product that they did. And these individuals aren't salespeople, but they have to put on that salesperson hat of reselling why do they buy it, and the product is fixed now, but what do we need to do as we move forward. So soft skills, for us, we had been doing it and developing it regionally, and one of the things I wanted to shore up was consistency of how we deployed that. So I actually spent some time working with our sales and marketing team, and they had created a selling skills track for their dealer network a couple of years ago.

Tyler Verri: So we took the fundamentals of that training, and really transformed it into an essential skills training to fit the way that we engage with our partners. And we're actually going to be piloting soon with our partners, and it really aligns so that we have a seamless transition when a customer goes into the showroom, when they're interested in looking at getting our products, and then they work with a dealer, and next they work with the installer. And if necessary, they have to work with a service provider and receive service, we want to make sure that those experiences, being their third party individuals, are really aligned to the brand and what we're doing. So that's been a big push for me, how do we ensure that continuity all the way through the process and aligning with what have they been told upfront, and making sure it's consistent all the way through that chain.

Sarah Nicastro: So that continuity that you're striving for, whether it's from the showroom to the dealer to the install to the service, when you think about it in the context of the customer experience, what are some of the priorities in terms of that customer experience you're looking to provide all the way through? What are some of the characteristics that you focus on teaching so that the customers experience those characteristics from the showroom to the dealer to the install to the service?

Tyler Verri: For us, I think it's focusing on luxury. Our appliances are pretty expensive, and making sure that we're tying to the luxury, as well as the quality of our product. Now, everything that has a computer or technology in it, it will break down at some point. So that's where, for us, you've invested a significant amount of money, so how do we make sure that you're realizing the investment, you're understanding that the value of the product, but you're also understanding the use and care. What do you, as a customer, need to do to maintain it to ensure it's operating at the proper state, as well as all of the features and functions that are a part of the product? Because I think that's a lot of the things that are overlooked, that it's, "Well, it cooks or keeps things cold." Well, there's so much more to it, and if you don't have everybody through that process, continuing to tout the features and functions, that's where you start to break down of, "Well, it was really expensive, but it keeps things as cold as my other refrigerator that I spent half the cost on."

Sarah Nicastro: So when you think about the soft skills perspective in particular, and let's take service for example, what are some of the soft skills that you're focusing on so that when that service technician goes into a customer's home, they know to do X, Y, or Z? Or not do A, B or C, right?

Tyler Verri: For sure. Well, for the course that we've constructed, we really have them do prework before they even show up, to think about what are some of the experiences that they've had as a customer, to really put them in a frame of mind of, "As me, the customer, what would I expect?" And so we put them through that exercise. And then when they come on site, it's really understanding what their role is and making sure that they're following suit with asking specific questions, pointing them in the right direction and not, "Well, that's not my job, or I don't know who sold it to you or gave you those benefits."

Tyler Verri: So it's not placing the blame, it's understanding what's going on. And they have enough knowledge of the network to say, "Here's what I know, but I think you need more information. I can get you to a dealer or a showroom where they can provide you more tips and tricks around how you do certain things." So making sure that they really have the skills to break down the customer, to make them understand that there is a network of people out there willing to support any of the needs that they have around the products, versus, "Well, this is my only hope, is this individual, and they didn't give me what I need so now I'm done."

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's an interesting conversation, thinking about how important it is to prioritize soft skills in training when you are a luxury brand, right? So I was having a conversation recently with another luxury brand, and just talking about, from a customer experience perspective, if you're selling a premium product and you're sending folks on site that maybe have really strong technical knowledge but are not polished in how to present to the customer, it's not going to give the premium or white glove experience that you want those customers to have, knowing that they've made a significant investment with your product. So it really is important. I honestly think that the correlation between a focus on soft skills and how that impacts the customer experience is an important correlation, whether it is a premium product or not, but even more so, right, when you are selling something like that. So that makes sense. So you have been leveraging a learning management system to help you keep track of and manage all of this training, so tell us a bit about that and how it's been helping you?

Tyler Verri: Absolutely. So my amazing training team spent a year developing and building out this system. We actually just rolled it out in March, and we're already starting to realize some of the value of just the speed with which we can deliver training now, and roll it out to our partners. Whether it's through all the three mediums that I mentioned, e-learnings, regional trainings, factory trainings, the ability to get that out there and have that visibility to our partners is critical. For us, the really big part that we're able to gain from this is the reporting on who's done what and when, down to the individual technician level. And we can slice and dice the data to really understand within a territory, do we have an issue with a specific product, do we need to level up some of the training, have they attended the training, but there's still issues with first call completes, what can we do, what do we need to develop?

Tyler Verri: And allowing us to continuously improve what we've developed, and or develop new content to fill some of the gaps that we're starting to notice based on what the data is telling us. In the past, it was spreadsheet upon spreadsheet and manual work, and so to do this it would take a tremendous amount of time. Now it's a few buttons, you're clicking, you're building reports, and you can provide it out to those individuals within the field, and we really have a better view of what's going on. So it's still in its infancy in what we can do, but it's been incredible to see the quick wins that we've had with getting people in, and really pushing some of our partners to make sure to sign everybody up, to get people access. Because it was amazing to see the amount of people that actually did not have access into our system and the tools that we had available to them. So, the ability to make them more efficient through this process has been great to see as well.

Sarah Nicastro: Now, do you correlate any of that data that you're getting on the training completion? And looking at how that relates to first time fix and therefore, perhaps, effectiveness of the training or what have you, do you correlate that at all to customer feedback?

Tyler Verri: Yeah. And that's one of the goals as we are now rolling it out and have better visibility. So we're creating the baseline of tying that to the customer feedback, CSAT for service, installation, first call completes, on the product that we've trained on. And then also measuring our trainers and their effectiveness, because that's been the biggest challenge of, it's a tremendous investment to build out training, to have trainers, and we want to make sure that we're proving our value and showing the worth of the team. Otherwise, it's very easy to have that cut from the budget and back to the days that we had in the past. And so that's our goal, to be able to track and trend and really show that we're moving the needle.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. And I think it just gives you the insight you need to create effective training, rather than just creating something that you hope will resonate or hope will work, and throwing it out there and crossing your fingers, so that makes sense. And I think it'll be interesting to see what you find when you cross reference the insights from the learning management system with the customer satisfaction data, so that you can really start to pinpoint areas that you need to focus more on, or training that maybe you thought you created perfectly that you need to go back and look at why is this causing this reaction or what have you. So that makes a lot of sense. So the next question, Tyler, I wanted to ask is, what do you feel are the biggest missteps that companies make around training, and what advice would you provide on avoiding those?

Tyler Verri: So, few missteps? And I think I have a different idea kind of taking it from internal, obviously we're working with external partners, so some of the things that the partner organizations... For me, there's no secret. The technician of today is different than the technician was 20 or 30 years ago, especially for our industry. I mean, just the sheer number of products that we developed 20 years ago versus what we developed today, it's tremendous, and the complexity of the products is so vast. So keeping that in mind that I'm going to go back to, they don't invest enough in building training in different formats to meet the way that people learn.

Tyler Verri: Whether it's a young technician that's very used to technology that will embrace watching a YouTube type video to learn how to do it, versus you have an older technician that they want to be hands on, they don't need to hook up a computer to diagnose it, they can do it by listening and testing certain things. It's trying to find the way to navigate both of these worlds. So, for me, the biggest takeaway and misstep is making sure that you engage with your participants in training. So survey them, talk to their managers, what works, what doesn't, be flexible to their needs. And as I mentioned, the training program should encompass continuous improvement along that way to ensure that we're meeting the needs of everyone that's taking and participating in that training.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that, going back to what we just talked about with the learning management system, I don't know that I would say that it would be a misstep to not leverage something like that, but I do think that it is a significant opportunity to understand the impact your training is having. So I would think that would be an important area of focus for folks as well.

Tyler Verri: Second misstep, for me, is when times are good or you're busy, training is usually shifted to the back burner, and when it's done right it should be a part of your organization. So really making training a part of your culture, whether it's biweekly, weekly, monthly, I think it's evaluating what fits for your organization. Everybody's going to be a bit different, but showing that focus and commitment and investment to your employees and training is critical, because I think it's very cyclical of, "All right, we have time now, let's cram in a bunch of training," and it's the wrong mindset. It should be continuously learning, and in making that investment and enhancing knowledge, creating those efficiencies which ultimately should make you more money.

Sarah Nicastro: I would think there's also a psychological component to that of, if continual training as a part of the culture and ongoing learning is just something that is built in, it feels different than if all of a sudden we're going to focus on this, which means you must be doing something wrong. So we don't always do this, but now we have this focus on X because you're falling down in this area. That then gives a totally different feeling to someone than being able to bob and weave a bit with something you always consistently do, by just feeding the insights of what you feel like those folks need to focus on, rather than having those periods of not doing any training and then heavily focusing on something.

Tyler Verri: For sure. And one of the last points, I think, from a misstep is the mindset of, "Well, I provide training all the time." Only to have them leave to a competitor, or the job has high turnover so they make the bare minimum investments in training. I think it really is seek to understand why do employees leave, build a culture that can continue to keep them coming back every day. I look at it as create a pay scale or a recognition program that reinforces training, do so many classes, achieve a certain level, you get a wage increase or time off. What fits your culture and your organizations and your employees, figure out how you do that to move that training process and program forward.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense too. Good. All right. Good. Well, any other comments or closing thoughts?

Tyler Verri: No. I just want to say thank you, Sarah, for the opportunity to share with the community. To me, it's exciting. I'm very passionate about what can I share, the learnings that we've had here, because I learned so much from others. Whether it's the same industry or not, we're all in this together to create that customer experience that really leaves the customer saying, "Wow." And telling their friends, because that's ultimately what it's about, word of mouth, spreading that way. And I realize everybody's trying to monetize social media and all the different aspects, but it really is hearing it straight from the individual that had that experience and selling it that way, that's really been the cornerstone of our company and has driven where we're going from a customer service perspective.

Sarah Nicastro: Well, I appreciate you being here, Tyler, and sharing your perspective. I mean, that is what we're all about, so we love to hear from different folks and learn about what they're up to, how they're innovating, how they're tackling challenges. And training isn't a topic that we've discussed a whole lot, even though it's a very, very important one. So, thank you for coming on and for sharing today.

Tyler Verri: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more content on training, on engagement, on customer experience by visiting us at www.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 about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening. All right.

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August 5, 2020 | 29 Mins Read

Tim Baines of Aston Business School on Advanced Services Transformation

August 5, 2020 | 29 Mins Read

Tim Baines of Aston Business School on Advanced Services Transformation

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Tim Baines, Professor of Operations Strategy & Executive Director of the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School, joins Sarah for an engaging deep dive into the forces driving businesses on the journey to Servitization and outcomes-based service and the framework his group has created to help guide organizations through that journey.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, I'm excited to welcome to the podcast, Tim Baines of Aston Business School to discuss the Advanced Services Transformation. We all know that organizations are somewhere on the journey to Servitization and outcomes-based service, and we do a lot of coverage on those topics. Tim Baines is the Professor of Operations Strategy and the Executive Director of the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School. And they do a lot of work and research on these topics that I think our listeners today are going to find incredibly valuable. Tim, thank you so much for being with us today. I appreciate you joining the podcast.

Sarah Nicastro: So, before we dig into some of the insights that you have with your research, can you tell our listeners a bit about yourself and the work that you do with the Advanced Services Group at Aston?

Tim Baines: So, my work is all about the Servitization of manufacturing. It's all about helping companies who are coming from traditional product base to compete through services and particularly advanced services. And we use the term advanced services to really represent a cluster of high value, disruptive business models that manufacturers can adopt to help them compete inside the marketplace. My work in manufacturing goes back to 25 years. I started my career working as a technician apprenticeship inside manufacturing industry, and then moved slowly but surely through business and then into academia. So, all my work has been about manufacturing operations. Our research center was created specifically to really push forward the agenda of Servitization, both in the UK and internationally.

Tim Baines: I'd like to think of us very much as like the center of gravity for both the academic and the industrial community coming together to debate, understand Servitization and move forward with this innovation.

Sarah Nicastro: That's very cool. So, you mentioned you've been in the manufacturing space for about 25 years. I've been in this role or a similar role of covering this industry for about 13. I came into this evolution about midway through your experiences, but it's been very interesting for me interviewing service leaders and manufacturing business leaders day in and day out. How this has evolved, and what these opportunities are, and really how far we've come with a common understanding of why this trend is so important and how relevant it is to the future of these businesses. And then of course, as we'll talk through today, really getting into the complexity of such change. And coming up with the plan for a successful journey.

Sarah Nicastro: So, I'm really interested to hear your perspectives today. So, I've had a look at some of the research you've done on Servitization in the Advanced Services Group. And as I mentioned to you before we kick this off, I think it's excellent. I think it's clear that it comes from a deep understanding of the industry, and it's really quite easy to understand which I think makes it very helpful for companies in charting their own path. So one of the pieces of content that I had a look at is, what the Advanced Services Group has identified as four forces behind Servitization, two of those internal and two external. So I'm hoping to start, you can talk with us about those four forces and give us an overview of what they are.

Tim Baines: Sarah, if I can, I'll just take you a bit of a step back first of all, just to comment upon some of the introduction you gave to Servitization. And if I may, almost explain why it's such an important phenomena for manufacturing businesses. And the story goes like this, that, as a university professor, as a senior professor in a top university in the UK, one of our roles is to be almost like an authority and a custodian of this knowledge upon a phenomenon. And the phenomenon that's interested me all the way through my career, is this manufacturing operations, on what does good look like? And I think it's very interesting when you think about it from the perspective of an academic. Of course, we come across a lot of very senior business leaders that are engaged with business transformation, and they're in the trenches, like they're bringing about this change.

Tim Baines: As a professor, quite often you have the luxury of taking a step back and reflecting upon the trajectory industry as followed over hundreds of years. And it's the very popular term and quite the idea of a paradigm for manufacturing. And we have coming out of Germany Industry 4.0 as a paradigm. And it might be shocking to some people to understand that not all professors subscribe to Industry 4.0 as a Fourth Paradigm for manufacturing. This is a very technological view of the evolution of industry. And there is another view, which is almost like the social changes which are taking place inside industry. It's right behind what you're seeing with Servitization.

Tim Baines: And the story goes, something like this, that, if you go back to the very birthplace of what we recognize as an irregular manufacturing now. You go back, you know what the concept of a factory, what was the world's first factory that we recognize? It was actually, Boulton and Watt's manufacturing in Birmingham, UK manufacturing steam engines. And then you have Henry Ford coming along and creating something that we recognize as mass production. And that was the paradigm. And in the 1980s, and 1990s, and the 2000, we have this concept of lean. And everybody's now thinking, "Well, what is the next thing? What are we going to do if Industry 4.0 comes out?" And Industry 4.0 impart, is part of actually, in which it's an incomplete part, because everything we've seen so far, it's been a combination of a reaction to both market forces and what you're seeing in terms of technological change.

Tim Baines: And where you are today with Servitization, it's really about a shift in our understanding of what it looks like to be a manufacturing business. Because the bottom line is, that for many industries, the model of production and consumption, make, sell, dump, that's gone. The rich carbon based business models of the past in many industries, are on a very limited timeline. What's happening, is society is moving away from the consumption of products, moving towards the consumption of service businesses. Developed economies like UK, like the States, they are service based economies. And Servitization is all about manufacturing businesses responding to the shift in the societal appetite for services over society's appetite for products. And not just services which are about repairing a product, or providing spare parts for product, but services which provide outcomes.

Tim Baines: So when you think about the big picture that we're seeing, Servitization to me is the shift towards this new emerging paradigm about what it means to be a manufacturing business. And most industries will get into that paradigm sooner or later. And when you think about the forces which are causing it to happen, it's the same forces which have shaped the paradigms for manufacturing over the past 200 years. They are the pull from society coupled with the technological innovations. Innovation takes place as the interplay between market pull and technology push. And that's what we're seeing. Manufacturing businesses and a lot of service businesses are all being caught up in this, that they might not recognize it, that's what's actually happening.

Tim Baines: So when you think about service transformation side of business, two of the big macro pressures which are determining what's going to happen, are these two sets of forces on the outside. There are others, but they're the two which are first and foremost to keep in mind. That, change is inevitable, it's going to happen, the only thing you have control over is to some extent the rate of which is going to happen. Does that start to set that context for you?

Sarah Nicastro: It's one of the best explanations of Servitization that I've ever heard. I think it's perfect. It makes total sense to me, and I think it will make absolute sense to our listeners. And I think that to your point, or at least if I'm understanding, one of the points you made is, as a business is considering how this journey applies to them specifically, it's important to make sure that their next steps are not dictated only by the technological forces, but also by those market forces.

Tim Baines: Exactly. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So really understanding that social and societal aspect of, what's at a very high level driving this need for change. And I'm sure we'll talk more about this today, but I do think that that is an area where people veer off course because you have these advanced technologies and they're really exciting and they're great enablers. But if you start to go down a path of leveraging them and deploying them without a clear understanding of what those market forces are for your business, and ultimately what your customers want from you related to those outcomes and those experiences, then you're not looking at the big picture. So I think it's a great explanation and that makes total sense to me.

Tim Baines: And what you've just described, I see that in businesses around the world, and it's not a conversation where the technology is more important than customers and markets, it's a conversation as both are important, it's the meshing together. So, when we look at this change process, when you look at changes taking place inside a manufacturing business, and I'm referring to manufacturing businesses, but it's not exclusively manufacturing businesses by any means, but let's just focus on those for a moment. You've got a situation where change is going to happen either as a reaction where you are forced into, make a change because of the circumstances, or it's going to happen, because you are looking forward and you are trying to shape the future for your business.

Tim Baines: And when we look at Servitization, when we look at those businesses which have really been at the forefront of their adoption of the more advanced services, and I'm thinking about some of the cases, people like Rolls-Royce for example, it's probably the best example I can think of in terms of their development of... Well, people recognize power by the hour.

Tim Baines: When you look at somebody like Rolls-Royce, I barely manage to see it, but I understand that Rolls-Royce were pulled into this space, and they've been pulled. And a lot of businesses are looking at people like Rolls-Royce, and they're saying, "How did they do it?" Well, they got pulled into this space. But that doesn't explain how businesses should do it, because it's about how you shape the future can be informed by what people at Rolls-Royce are doing, but it's not about following their path.

Tim Baines: And it's about looking forward, understanding how technology and how markets can be combined, and how you can exploit those through these more advanced services. And the advanced services, we recognize them in various ways. Some people will talk about them as being outcome based contracts, or performance based contracts. So, I purposely used the term advanced services because I don't want people just to think about it as a contract. It's much bigger than that. It's a collection of different forms of business models, which are high value and disruptive. And really speak to the shift towards an outcome based society, that's what we're talking about. Responding to an outcome based society.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. I had a call recently with someone who was a service leader within an organization. And he was asking me some questions around, "Well, we've deployed IOT and no one wants to buy it. None of our customers want to buy it." And I said, "Well, how are you marketing it to them?" I mean, are you telling them that you've deployed IOT, so you want them to buy it? Because one, they probably don't understand what that means. And two, it doesn't matter to them. That's a tool your company has within its arsenal to provide an outcome to your customer, but that is not the outcome, right? So we could get into a whole discussion I'm sure about different examples and whatnot.

Tim Baines: We have a separate conversation that we ought to have, which is really about the form of those business models.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes.

Tim Baines: And about how you describe those business models, and how you make sure that the language you use to describe those business models, isn't simply a replay of what it is that you do with that inspired your organization to deliver the outcome. Or it isn't overly suggestive that says that, it's always going to be a panacea, because that's not true either. So, we'll park it for the moment, maybe we should come back and speak about the business model specifically. I know you're interested today in transformation.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That's a really good point, so I'm going to make a note of that and I'd love to have you back. And the other point that we should probably not dig into it in an effort to stay on track with what we've defined today is, you talked about these companies really are either going to be forced into this change, or they're going to see this opportunity and be proactive about making this change. Right? And one of the conversations we've had a lot of this year is, how COVID-19 has played a role in that first idea of some of these companies that were lagging. In either accepting that this change is a reality or they had accepted it, but they were lagging on taking action on actually embarking on this journey, have been propelled forward.

Sarah Nicastro: And I'm really interested to see over the next few years, how that plays out in a spur of progress through this journey. So I would love to talk with you about that too. What?

Tim Baines: Yeah, we should embark on that section.

Sarah Nicastro: We would be here for a few hours obviously.

Tim Baines: It's good.

Sarah Nicastro: So, I will write those two topics down and we'll have you back soon. Okay. So we talked about the need to consider both the market forces and the technological forces that are leading to this. Tell us about the other two forces that play a role here.

Tim Baines: I think the way to think about this is, when we work with a manufacturing business to try understand what's happening. First of all, you have to be quite clear, some people will talk about it as a shift from products to services. Now, we don't use our language. And the reason that we don't use it is that, we don't want to suggest to a company that it has to abandon products and production, there's a danger in that. People who are today in the production operations of a company, it can cause them anxiety. We don't need to worry about that. So we don't talk about shift, we don't talk about transition, we talk about transformation. And we'll talk about Servitization in simple terms, for a manufacturing company, building revenue from services rather than just products alone.

Tim Baines: And we're interested in a particular type of services, and these advanced services. So we're about a business which makes product looking to expand itself, not just to deliver services which support the product's condition, but to deliver services which ultimately deliver the outcome that a product enables. So we're about providing the shift from selling, gas boilers to how it is to selling kits to service. A shift from selling air conditioning units, to selling cooling as a service. From selling automobiles and cars, to selling mobility as a service. That's the shift that we're talking about. Now, when we look back, and we do quite a lot of work where we've looked at manufacturing businesses and included in our mix of manufacturing businesses, we've studied are companies that you will know, and people like Rolls-Royce, Caterpillar, Goodyear, Alstam with opening up MICS, we've done case studies in all these companies, and we've looked back at the journey they've been through and we tried to rationalize it.

Tim Baines: When you think about the contribution that the research community makes to this conversation is, it's all about providing the frameworks which help people to understand what's going on is, we providing for them the skeleton, which they can then dress them in a way which reflects their organization. We're providing the bare bones of, this is what the change looks like. So looking back, when we try and make sense of what we see, we see an organizational transformation, because that's what it is. It isn't just about selling a few services, it's about an organizational transformation because it's the organization which delivers the services, they don't just appear. So it's about an organizational transformation from production to also providing services, especially with these more advanced services in organizational transformation. The success, and the rate of that transformation is being determined by forces, which you can group into four categories.

Tim Baines: Two, we've already spoke about, the market pool, the customer's appetite for their services and the technology push. If you go to a group of customers and they really want these services, they'll pull you into this space. If you've got lots and lots of technology and it's everywhere, you're going to spot the opportunities. So, the interplay between the market pull and technology push, are very, very powerful. A set of forces all about where you are in a value network. So, if you as an organization are dealing directly with the customer, would be interested in acquiring these more advanced services from you. You're going to find it easier to gain traction and likely more successful than an organization that is much, much further down the value chain.

Tim Baines: So an organization which is perhaps developing an engine, which then goes on to a gearbox, which goes into a generator, which is sold through a distributor specified by an architect, ends up inside a building, which is rented by somebody, that becomes a more complicated situation. So, where you are in the value network affects you. Almost like culture, the conditions inside your organization. If you've got a management which is committed to this, you move faster. If you've got a management which is skeptical, you move slow. It's very interesting. Even during COVID-19, people react to change in different ways. And we have seen, one of the businesses we're working with in this space, are very... Up until recently, we're starting to incubate some of these things, there's more advanced services.

Tim Baines: COVID-19 hits, and this particular business as kind of abandoned its plans to move into services, move back to pushing boxes. And when you say, "Why?" Well, the managing director of this business, he's looking forward to his pension, he's only got another 18 months in the position. So he is making sure that his business fulfills those needs he has to make sure that his pension part is there. So, that's an indication of the internal culture inside the organization. Even people like you and I are going out there and absolutely advocates for this, and believe it, and he might even believe it in himself, or when he's thinking about his own pension part, it's a different story. So you've got these two sets of forces, which are more about the positioning of the organization, both externally and internally, which are affecting it. And what really, we think that all the shape, the rate in which an organization progresses can really be determined by those four sets of forces. Does that fit with what you've seen before?

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. I think so. And I think that, really those organizational forces are what either propel a company through or really get them stuck in the muck, you know?

Tim Baines: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: And so, yeah. It's very interesting. Okay. So, we talked about the four forces. Now those four forces are leading companies through phases of this journey Servitization. There's four phases that you've identified, so can you tell us what those four phases are?

Tim Baines: Yeah. Okay. So, it's interesting. You can approach the conversation about this transformation from different angles. Quite often, I would actually start to talk about first and foremost, those almost like stages of organizational maturity and then think about the forces. We've spoke about the forces first and now we'll talk about stages of organizational maturity. It doesn't matter, it's just really... For people listening to us today, I guess it's just a flag at this stage that, you can think about the transformation from two different perspectives. And this stages of organizational maturity is the second phase, the second way of thinking about it. So people will come and they will say, "Okay, I'm interested in Servitization. But I don't know what it is, I don't know what type of services I might offer. Well, I need to go buy in a more senior executive. Which customers should I pilot with? How am I going to get paid for it? What investment? What will I do with technology partners? I'm going to have to have a new organization, what will I do with existing products?" They're overwhelmed. Okay.

Tim Baines: Very often when we start a conversation with people about Servitization, they're absolutely overwhelmed. They'll say all those things too. They'll typically say something like, "Should we have a separate organization for services?" And we'll say, "You might, but you don't need to worry about it yet. You can push that forward." And that's what this transformation journey is all about. It's about saying, "Look, there's lots of these decisions that you're going to need to make. A lot of decisions leading to actions." But you need not worry about all those things upfront. When you look retrospectively at the businesses which have been successful and had success in this area and map it out, you will see they'll go through four phases.

Tim Baines: And when you start to think about the decisions and actions relative to those four phases, the whole thing becomes simpler. And the four phases that typically they will go through are, the first phase of exploration, where they're thinking about whether Servitization is relevant to them, they'll be asking questions such as, "Are we're going to make any money out of it? Do we need senior management support?" Et cetera. That's this exploration phase. If a company is successful, it's exploration, it will mean that they've built up a conviction inside the company there is value in Servitization for them. Now, engagement is where companies start to experiment with different business models based around services. The whole conversation based about, what is a business model? And what's a revenue? And what's a service delivery system? It's a separate conversation to have, which we haven't got time to go in here.

Tim Baines: But the engagement phase is about unpicking what that business model looks like, going to customers, understanding pains and gains, bringing it all together, testing it, piloting it, reviewing it. And it's all about the organization demonstrating to itself that there's value in this stuff. Once the organization has really got to that stage, we've got evidence. We believe it, we can see it with evidence that there is opportunity here. Then the organization moves into scaling, and scaling as you can imagine is all about rolling out new customer value propositions, new business models in different regions. Once it gets through scaling, it then will move into a phase of exploitation. And exploitation is where it's looking for efficiencies, so it's delivery. So if you take an organization like Rolls-Royce aerospace, quite a lot of what you see at Rolls-Royce will be an exploitation phase.

Tim Baines: What's the initiatives or where the efficiencies will be about ensuring effectiveness of their value services. Whereas if you take companies that we have worked with in the past, companies that you might not be so familiar with, but we've worked with people like, Initiator and stuff like that. They're much more of this exploration phase where they're trying to see whether there's an opportunity for them in this space. But in terms of these four phases there of exploration, engagement, expansion, and exploitation, the value of thinking about it like that is, you can look at it and you can say, "There's conversations which are typical to this phase, and that's where I am. So I only need to focus on these and I'll get these things right before they're moved to that phase, and then to move to that phase, and then to move to that phase."

Tim Baines: And your progression through these phases is not really prescriptive. I wouldn’t go to a company and say, "The first thing you must do is, A then B then C." Because of course companies situations change. A framework like this is helpful to give a structure to what's going on, but it doesn't prescribe. It doesn't say, "You must do this, and you must do that, and you must do the other." Because of course, the entry points differ, companies differ. So I just said a lot there, is there anything particular that you'd like me to dig into or clarify?

Sarah Nicastro: So I think it makes sense. And I think what you mentioned at the beginning, that sense of overwhelm that companies often come to you with, this framework helps minimize or reduce that overwhelm, right? If you can say, "Here's where you are, so let's just focus on this box first." Right? And these specific steps that commonly happen in this phase, and before you worry about this end of the journey. So I think that makes sense. And I think that one of the points that I always bring up to folks is, I think this journey applies to businesses of many sizes. Obviously there's different scales, but those societal and social themes that you talked about really are trickling down from the largest companies all the way through.

Sarah Nicastro: And so when you think about that, that means that at some point, a company like Rolls-Royce has developed a team specific to, this Servitization stuff. But in some of the midsize and smaller companies, oftentimes it's someone that's leading this charge at least initially in addition to doing their "day job." Right? And so that overwhelm can be crippling to making progress because it just seems insurmountable. So I think something like these phases that talks about, like you've said, it's not prescriptive, but it's based off of interacting with a lot of different companies and observing those commonalities. It gives people some areas of focus to ease some of that overwhelm. So I think that makes good sense. Go ahead.

Tim Baines: No, I was just going to add, it was interesting, because if you look at that roadmap, that framework, and it's published in academic journals and it's on our website, et cetera. That came from this research, which observed these case studies of businesses. And I use companies like Caterpillar, and Goodyear, Rolls-Royce because you'd be familiar with them. But we also study small businesses just like you've said. And we work a lot with small businesses. Small businesses because of the committee, incredibly agile. And it's very good. So, one of the businesses we work with is a company. It's a British company, it's looking to sell its product in China, and it, well, sorry, it's not looking to sell its products in China, it's trying to break into the Chinese market. And to do so, it's saying, "Right. We're not going to try and sell rice milling machine, we're going to sell rice milling it to service." A small company, relatively sneaky, but it fits exactly what we've seen.

Tim Baines: That's one of the tests to frameworks like this is that, they have to be relevant to businesses large and small, and they help you just get this clarity about what it is that you're trying to do. I mean, some of the, I'm sorry. It's interesting when you look back at some of the management literature. So the frameworks that people use in everyday business operations, frameworks like SWOT analysis, they're just valuable, straightforward, simple frameworks. And they've been around for many years and it's that type of framework, which I think is most helpful to businesses, not something which is too convoluted, it's too complex to understand.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. So I was curious to ask, Tim, right now, based on the interactions you have and what you've witnessed in the market, in those four phases, where do you see the majority of organizations today?

Tim Baines: Exploration and engagement. Absolutely. We have two businesses that work with the research center. And one is a consortium based around large businesses, and the second is a consortium based around small businesses. The large business consortium tends to have a few number of businesses, but we tend to have a more deeper intervention with those. And we do this, it's called the Advanced Services Partnership. We work with these businesses because we help them and they help us to understand the process of Servitization. And when you look at these businesses, these businesses, they're great companies to work with, because they're genuinely committed to this, and they're pushing ahead with it.

Tim Baines: And when you look at them, invariably, they're in the exploration engagement phase. And when you look at where they sit compared to their peers in the marketplace, invariably they're ahead of the game. We first started to work on Servitization, my first paper on Servitization was late 1990s. And when we started to do some of our very early research and publications in the late `90s, early 2000s, we were using this term Servitization, and the common question people would say to me is, "How'd you spell it?" And they were, "Do you spell it with a z or an s?" And everybody in the UK was trying to change it to an S. And I would stand up and say, "No, it's a z, because it's American phrase, it's an American word."

Tim Baines: I also then went into history and said, "Actually, the American language is a true representation of the old English then the quarantine." But that's a different story. So the use of z's was actually English language previous, anyway, long story. But use it with a z. And we had a whole conversation about Servitization and radius, well, this word, what does it mean?

Tim Baines: And then you say to people, it's where we're competing through services." And they say, "Oh, we do this already. We sell spare parts." And then you get into a canvass. Now, today, people don't come to me and say, "What's this thing called Servitization? How do you spell it?" We've moved beyond that. So we are in the expert, we get in, slow but surely through exploration. But they're the conversations they're having is, "What's the business model look like?" And then I'm saying, "Be careful in your mind, there's difference between business model and revenue model and service." Et cetera, et cetera.

Tim Baines: So we start to unpack that, and then we'll talk about pains and gains. So they're entering that, they've an interest in business models, but of course we're talking about a subset of business models. So they'll go and get, for example, the business model canvas, which is a great tool, but it's a very generic tool. It's like using SWOT's analysis, great tool, but it's too generic. So we're talking about the subset. And so there are tools out there which help specifically with that subset. And that's where companies are, they're poking at it. Today, of course, lots of businesses immediately are concerned about COVID and such like that. And they want to innovate the way out of it.

Tim Baines: And you're saying to them, "Yes, let's innovate. Let's innovate the business model and let's innovate the business model towards services." And that's the way to break out of it. Most businesses I would say, Sarah, their exploration, early stages of engagement.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think that makes sense. And that's very much in line with what I would see from talking with a lot of these companies as well. The one observation I had when I was looking through the framework is, while it's a much smaller sample of businesses that have reached the exploitation phase, the one thought I had that I was curious to get your thoughts on is, those companies that are leading this charge, that have worked their way through those four phases, and they have successfully reached the exploitation phase. So you mentioned some of them by name, it seems to me that this would not end, right? Like it's not, "We reached exploitation, we've crossed the finish line, let's put our feet up and have a cocktail." It would naturally revert back to exploration. Because in my mind, once companies have understood the criticality of this journey and they've experienced walking through it and going through those phases and understanding those forces and developing value propositions and successfully turning those into service models and whatnot, they would naturally continue to look for those next opportunities. Do you think that's an accurate observation?

Tim Baines: Yes, Sarah, you're exactly right. That's exactly what happens of course. If you take a step back and you see these four phases, and of course, those four phases are true of whether you're developing a service, an advanced service, or even just worrying about products. And this is the secret is that, the reason that they stack up is that one of the things that we did as a group of researchers, one of the things that's important to do is to go back to theory. Theory has to apply press amongst industrialists. Very often they'll say, "Don't give me theory type of words like in practice." And I think really what they're saying is, "Look, don't be too abstract. Make sure that what you're telling me is relevant to what I'm doing." But theory is helpful. Because theory tells us, how different variables relate to each other.

Tim Baines: Theory tells us in a very abstract way, how things change. On the pins, the model that we've talked about today is, the theory of business growth. And business growth goes through phases and often the people will scroll up the badges perhaps going through five phases of incubation. Explaining the basics by all those types of things. And then we rationalized it to whether it's four, seven, six, it doesn't matter. It's the fact that it's the business growth. And the way business growth happens is that, you start off, you go through a period of relatively smooth changes, you're starting to get to grips of what's is you really doing. And then you go through a period of very rapid, very disruptive change. Then it settles, and then you move on and there are rapids that they'd wrap around changing and then settles and move on.

Tim Baines: And this is Grey phase, the process is called punctuated equilibrium. Equilibrium punctuated by these... And you go through, then move on. And that's the basic theory, it's equivalent to Einstein's theory of relativity, it was a social science theory. That's his basic theory, which from independence has changed. And that's what you're actually seeing. You're seeing the theory explain it. So when you say to me, "Tim, is this model true of all? When we think about, a business it's moved, it's developed, it's exploiting these things." Yes. And then it'll move and we'll think about the next one. Yes. And it moves off what's called the services staircase. Separate conversation that fits with our business model conversation.

Tim Baines: It moves up that staircase. However, it does make an assumption there. And the assumption is that, the business doesn't forget, and businesses do forget. If you go to some businesses who are actually advanced in this space, and you say, "How did you get here?" They've forgotten. They've got some excellent examples of more advanced services, but they're in isolation. It was created because we had a particular customer, who pulls into that space, we formed a group of people, We pulled this all together, we made it a success. We've been running it for 10 years and all those people there have now retired. Businesses do forget. So I think it's important to keep that in mind, but you are right. Servitization is innovation. We gave this name Servitization to describe the innovation of an organization. It comes right the way back to where we started our conversation today.

Tim Baines: The root of what we're talking about, is coming up with a picture of what an organization in our world, the manufacturing organization looks like to compete in the world in the 21st century. We know what an organization looked like, that manufactured model T-Fords. We know what the organization looked like, which manufactured steam engines. What does the organization look like that manufacturers services? That's the question that you dealing with, with all this?

Sarah Nicastro: Well, Tim, I could ask you many, many more questions today, but I know we're almost out of time. And so, I would love to have you back soon. I think there's at least the two conversations we mentioned earlier to dig into, and I also think it would be interesting to have a conversation around, what are the common missteps? Where do companies veer off course? But let's have you back and dig into those if you would be so kind. And I also wanted you to tell our listeners, the Advanced Services Group is having a World Servitization Conference in September, which I'll be a part of, and I'm so excited for. So, can you tell folks a bit about that and where they can sign up and find some information?

Tim Baines: Yeah. Well, first of all, Sarah, thank you for the conversation today. I too have enjoyed it, thank you. Right. So, part of our activity at Aston is very much about cultivating international community around Servitization, academic community, and practitioner community. And for the past 10 years, we have run something called the Spring Servitization Conference, which is a prestigious academic conference, research conference in this space. And that's moved around Europe and it's done extremely well. This year, the academic community has a great platform for having a conversation on Servitization. But the industrial community doesn't. The industrial community doesn't have the same platform, which is, how can I put it? Is a neutral platform where people can come along and see what manufacturers that are leading the space are doing, learn from them, and not feel pressurized necessarily to buy something or to take on some consulting or whatever.

Tim Baines: So we wanted to create this platform for the industrialists to have an equivalent conversation to the academics. So we've created the World Servitization Convention, it's on the basis of what we've done before. This year, of course it's virtual, but it's been dealt with a lot of care. We've gone out and acquired a platform, which gives us an experience which is as close to the experience that you would have as if going to a physical event. So we've got a whole platform of keynote speakers and we've got 25 businesses exhibiting what it is that they're doing in this space. And there are leaders that are executives will be there, and they'll be talking about, their shift, their business models, there'll be time just to have a conversation with them. And it's going to be as close to having a physical exhibition as we can get using digital technologies.

Tim Baines: So it's in September, we'll post you the links there after this. And if people would like to come along to that, it's targeted manufacturing community, and IFS is sponsoring you this, and yeah. We're delighted they're supporting it. So if anybody listening to this podcast would like to come along, send your link, register for it, just come and listen to people that are actually doing that. The purpose is all about forming the industrial community to advance Servitization.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm looking forward to it, I really am. We'll make sure we post the link in the show notes, which will be on the podcast episode page. So, we'll make sure we do that. Tim, it was a pleasure having you today, I really appreciate your time and I look forward to having you back very soon. So, thank you again.

Tim Baines: Thank you, Sarah. Bye. Bye.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more content on Servitization and other topics by visiting us at www.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 about IFS service management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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July 29, 2020 | 19 Mins Read

Darren Roos on the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management

July 29, 2020 | 19 Mins Read

Darren Roos on the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management

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IFS CEO Darren Roos talks with Sarah about key themes from the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, what he believes is most critical for technology providers to offer service organizations, and how he as a leader has managed change at IFS.

Sarah: Hi, Darren. Thank you so much for allowing me to talk with you today about some exciting news we had this week. IFS has been named a leader for the fifth consecutive time in Gartner's 2020 Field Service Management Magic Quadrant.

Darren: Yes.

Sarah: Not only are we named a leader but this time we are clear ahead of the competition. As we've all said on social media the picture paints a thousand words. So I'm excited to talk with you today about the recognition.

Darren: Yes.

Sarah: So to start off, our position on the MQ this year is fantastic, so I want to talk a bit about that. What would you attribute our success to?

Darren: I think that there are some qualitative things and some quantitative things. I think that on the qualitative side clearly we have an amazing talent pool. We've been very focused in our determination to become the outright leader. And what that means is that we've gone and we've built this fantastic talent pool across our product organization, across the consulting organization, really throughout. And I think that that's made a huge difference, because it means that we have a much better understanding of the domain now. That investment, listening to our customers, investing in the talent, having that domain expertise means that we're able to really engage with customers and get to where the pain is with them much quicker, and then be able to address that pain. And you can't do that without the domain expertise. If you're a vendor that specializes in something else and now you're trying to pretend to be an expert, it doesn't really work. And when we look at the other vendors in that quadrant, by and large they're not specialists. Whereas we legitimately are specialists in the space now.

Darren: And then from a quantitative perspective, obviously there's been consolidation. And I think that the fewer players there are there the more obvious it becomes where everybody fits. And I think that it's played well to our strengths and the investments that we've made. So we're super happy with where it is and the next mission is how do we stretch that?

Sarah: Yes. I love that one of the first words you said was determination. I think that is a really good adjective to describe the culture at IFS, determined. And even you as a leader, right before I joined IFS I heard you speak at World Conference, I was there as a journalist, and that was one of the things that I noticed right away is the way that you are determined to make the company strong and to win. And it's been really fun to be a part of that.

Darren: I mean, it'd be interesting, you obviously joined us, I think that what we've tried to do is we've tried to really focus on this domain and married to that focus on service management is this real determination, I use the word again, to be focused on our customer. So I think it's not about the software that we provide, it's not about the revenue that we have, it's actually it's not about the MQ. What it is about is how do we really help our customers better serve their customers? And I'm curious from your perspective, you're obviously chatting to a lot of people in this space, I imagine COVID-19 and what's happened with the pandemic has made this more relevant.

Sarah: Yes.

Darren: And I think that's what we're seeing, but I'm curious what your input is.

Sarah: Absolutely. And I think that IFS has always had strong products. I think it's that commitment to be even more focused on customers and even more focused on what customers need from us in the domain expertise and outside of just the software that is why we see the strong showing that we have on the MQ this year. And I think that people are taking notice of everything we're doing in this space and really seeing us as not only a leader, but a leader that has great potential going forward. And I think that we're going to discuss COVID-19 in a bit so we can come back to that more specifically, but I absolutely agree that it's going to be even more important going forward.

Sarah: So let's get to that. But before we do, what I wanted to talk about next is what you led off with when I asked you the first question, which is we've been determined and that determination has paid off, but the work is not done right? So it's really just started because now we have a responsibility to defend this position and continue to strengthen. So what is your thoughts on how we maintain and even build upon the success that we've seen with the MQ this year?

Darren: I think listening to customers is critical, and you do a lot of these discussions. I see emerging technologies playing a really critical role. We've done a lot with IFS remote assistance, and there's no question that emerging technologies are in reality, machine learning, next generation IOT technologies are all things that are definitely moving the needle for customers. And I don't know about you but when I talk to them, what they're looking for is they're really looking for us to be able to make these accessible for them. How do I, within the technology that I currently have, get these new capabilities embedded in their technology rather than having to go and buy another bolt on or something else, that's really not what customers want. They're looking for simplification.

Darren: The technology world in general is becoming increasingly fragmented and what they're looking for is for us as technology vendors to make their lives simpler. How do we bring them these next generation or emerging technologies into their environment, into their workplace, so that they can leverage them to better serve their customers? And I think that if we double down on that, and we've already done a lot, but if we continue to focus on what is going to help our customers easily serve their customers better, than I think that helps us to extend the need. And that is the focus, ease of use, ease of deployment, time to value and leveraging emerging technologies to deliver value to their customers.

Sarah: Absolutely. Yeah. I think the simplicity that you mentioned is critical. I think back to when I started covering this industry everything was its own like you said bolt on, it's own piece of software, its own solution, and it's so complex and so hard for companies that we tend to forget that investing in technology and running these projects for a lot of these organizations is in addition to their day job of keeping their businesses running and being successful. So making it easier for them to do and putting more value into one solution instead of having them have to look so many different places is a huge value to them, so that makes sense.

Sarah: So we touched on this a bit but let's revisit it. So I want to talk about what leading in service is going to take. So we're obviously making immense progress in doing, that and having a great product is important but to your point it's not the only element that's important. So what are some of the other elements that have trajected IFS's position in the leadership and really helped us to stand out from our peers on the quadrant?

Darren: I've touched on it already but I think it really comes down to two things. It comes down to focus, not being de-focused, not trying to do lots of different things, not trying to be a CRM vendor and be an HR vendor and lots of different things, right? We are focused now on the service management space and what we believe it takes to put around service management in order to really move the ball forward. And I think that's critical, that focus without a doubt the most important thing.

Darren: And then the second thing for me is back to people. The best talent is going to help us progress the solution, it is going to help us to be able to engage with customers, to understand their problems at an industry level, because the problems happen in an industry, in a business rather than horizontally, broad horizontal service management is not a thing. Utilities and telcos and manufacturers all have distinctly unique challenges that they're facing, and us having the talent that have that domain expertise in a specific industry is going to help us to be able to both interpret the problems and build solutions that are going to help customers to see real value quickly. So I think it's about people and about focus.

Sarah: Okay, good. So let's talk about how service management excellence impacts in a couple areas. So I remember hearing you say at a conference service is the future of IFS, and I would say that that future is here now, right? We see that with what we're talking about today. So how does service excellence... First I want to talk about how does this position on the MQ and our commitment to service, how does it impact our service management customers?

Darren: So look, I think it impacts all customers. I think there isn't a business out there today who isn't in some way making the transition to be more outcomes based, more service based rather than just building a product. We talk about the servitization and we want customers to know that they're really in safe hands choosing IFS because in the industries where we focus and the technologies that we focus, we really can help them based on the depth of experience that we've had across a broad customer base.

Darren: And then we offer configurations that are really catered to the customer's business today. We offer them the power to cater to their business and the insights that we get from our tooling and from other customers, and help them to do a better job of serving their customers, whether that's leveraging components of the enterprise asset management or the resource planning capability that we have to compliment the service management, but without adding complexity to their environment. If they need capability out of the rest of our suite then it is natively integrated and can bring that capability to bear without adding complexity to them.

Darren: So I think that that's really, really important, that we're committed to supporting their business model, the workforce changes, the technology changes that they need today and into the future without adding complexity. And I think that's the challenge that we see. Everybody's very aware that digital transformation is something, a journey that they need to go on. But I think a lot of companies and CXOs that I speak to I'm daunted by the complexity, this idea that they need to go and buy lots of bits of technology from lots of different vendors and then try and stitch it together is incredibly complex. And it's made more complex by the fact that a lot of vendors purport to have an integrated solution when in fact what they have is a very heterogeneous set of products that aren't natively integrated, that don't have the same user interfaces that frankly confused their IT departments and confused their users.

Darren: Whereas what we bring is this homogenous suite of technologies, single data model, single technologies that really enable customers to have cross business processes that really help them run their business more effectively. And that's what we remain committed to, making it easier, quicker to deploy, and help them to really streamline the processes in their business.

Sarah: Yeah. So what you're touching on is some of the very common missteps or really significant challenges that companies face when they look at the world of digital transformation, right? So that overwhelm is one, the complexity is one, and I think that there's a lot of marketing tactics, there's a lot of technology terms that are used to really distract people from what's important, which is determining their business case and finding solutions that fit that and not worrying so much, to your point earlier, about the terms IOT or ARAI.

Darren: Stories shouldn't be the tech, the stories shouldn't be the tech at all.

Sarah: Yes, exactly.

Darren: The story is not what we do. The story is what is the problem that they're facing and then how do we leverage the depth of experience and the technology that we have in order to help them solve those problems? That's the story, that needs to be the narrative. And people often say to me how do we go about this? And I go don't worry about the digital transformation, worry about the business pain that you're facing. What is it that you're trying to do? Is it that you're trying to make your organization more efficient in terms of how you provide that service? Is it about improving the service levels? What is it that you're trying to do? And then let's figure out, given the experience that we've got in your industry, how we can help you do that.

Darren: Don't worry so much about the bits of technology behind the scenes, worry about time to value, worry about how easy it's going to be to maintain those systems afterwards, let us talk to you about those things. Don't worry about the bits of technology as much. The vendors that don't have an integrated, homogenous story are going to worry about the pieces. When vendors start talking about the pieces they're on the wrong track.

Sarah: Yeah. And I think that what's really compelling about IFS is we have the ability to meet those customers where they are, right? So digital transformation if you look at it, or servitization, any of these big evolutionary trends in service, if you look at them on a continuum there's companies that are really at the foundational level and they need to start building from the ground up. And then there's companies like Munters right? I mean, we did an article with them about their use of remote assistance. They had some strong foundational technology in place, but they were really ready to evolve and take it to the next level and solve a new problem. So I think it's really interesting and compelling that we have the ability to meet those customers where they are and help them on that journey no matter where they are on that continuum. I wanted to also ask how this MQ placement and our commitment to service has an impact on some of the other areas of our business. So our ERP customers, EAM, and the A&D business, how does this impact all of them?

Darren: Yeah. So I think, look, what is increasingly important is I've talked about the fact that we have this integrated suites, and this has been our direction for some time, it continues to be our direction. And I think that it's a bit difficult because the markets, the analysts, in fact many customers still think in terms of ERP, EAM, our aerospace and defense solutions and FSM. But it's really... I don't think it's helpful to be thinking in those terms because in reality you can't solve an internet business problem with one piece of technology. You have to be thinking from the problem backwards and saying okay, how do we solve this problem? For every customer we engage with it will take pieces of the ERP, pieces of the EAM, and that's the way we should be thinking about it is how do we solve the problem? It doesn't matter which bits of technology in this single core we need to use, because it doesn't matter. We can find a commercial proposition that makes sense, but what matters is how do we solve the problem efficiently?

Darren: We don't want to be thinking about these systems as silos of data or process silos that then needs to be bridged by technology if you're with another vendor, that's not the way it should be being done. If you need information out of your warehousing system or out of your invoicing system, it needs to be able to go get that information without the complexity of, okay, well now we need an API and an integration point into another system, that's not the way it should be working. So for us it's really a focus on what is the business problem, with the industry expertise that we have, and how do we bring these things together in order to solve the customer's problems. And that's the way it should be.

Sarah: Yeah. And what you said earlier is really true. This servitization journey is a journey that most businesses are or outcomes based service, depending on the nature of the business, are on. So companies in the A&D space, companies in all different industries, it doesn't matter what acronym they fall under, they're all somewhere on this path and we can help them with that.

Darren: Well I think, and I've said this before and it's a little, I don't want to say controversial because it shouldn't be, but really if you're the CXO in a business, and you're not thinking about how you innovate leveraging technology in your business, probably won't be there for long.

Sarah: Right.

Darren: There isn't a scenario where any C level person in an organization can not be thinking about how they leverage technology in their business today. I know as CEO of IFS we're constantly looking at ways that we can better serve our customers leveraging technology and had it not been for the technologies that we have we would never have been able to weather the storm of COVID-19 without there being a disruption to our customers. So I think that's really, really important. And all of our customers have got to be thinking about how do they make their businesses more resilient to the types of disruption we've seen now? How do they improve service levels to their customers because of the types of disruptions we've seen? And I think that's really important, the ways in which technology can help them do that.

Sarah: So you gave me a perfect segue back to the COVID-19 topic. And I certainly want to talk about that because the reality is it's top of mind right now and has been throughout most of this year. So to answer your earlier question about what I've seen in talking with different service leaders, there are a couple of big trends. I think that it's an unfortunate situation obviously, and it's heartbreaking, and I myself am very frustrated that anyone is dealing with it. But that being said, when I talk with the service leaders there are some positive things that are going to come out of this from a business perspective and even personally. And I think a couple of those trends, one is in areas where there have been some barriers to change, they're really being broken down. It's been a huge wake up call for companies that not only is changing important and critical right now, but they're more capable of doing it than they ever thought they were.

Sarah: And as such, I think we're going to see big acceleration in these digital transformation initiatives because companies that fall into the camp of already having strong technology are ready to take that next step. And companies that maybe were lagging on their adoption of these tools have realized that they need to get in gear.

Sarah: And the final thing is I think we'll see that path to servitization or that path to outcomes based service really speeding up as a result of what it is their customers are demanding right now. So I think that there are going to be some positives that come out of this, and I think it'll be really interesting over the next six, 12, 18 months to be speaking with these companies about how they've evolved and how they'll continue to evolve. So I wanted to ask you your thoughts on those changes, any other changes that you've taken note of and what you see for service organizations going forward?

Darren: Yes. Look, I think no question things have accelerated, there's definitely a recognition in all companies that something that maybe they were unsure of or vacillating about in terms of whether they should go ahead and do it or not, they've overcome that now. In fact I did an interview with Ganesh [inaudible 00:21:02] from TCS yesterday and Ganesh was saying there's this huge realization that some of the problems that people perceive with technology problems, it's now turned out that they're actually organizational inertia problems. And because there hasn't been the option to wait, they've overcome those organizational inertia problems because organizations have gone look, we've been thinking about this problem for six months, we've just made the decision, we're going to go ahead and do it now, and the technology is there to enable it.

Darren: So there's no question that this fast changing environment has led to a compression of decision making cycles and I'm confident that we'll see technology being leveraged more quickly. There won't be as many modifications done, people won't customize things as much as they used to, that'll bring down the cost. People will see value faster, more efficient use of technology, I think there are loads of positives that will come from it. In addition to the changes around the way that we deliver these projects with less time being spent, traveling, lower carbon footprint for projects, there are loads of benefits that will follow.

Sarah: Yeah. We talked about this openness to change even at the employee level, right? So if you think about a technology like remote assistance, historically I've talked with some organizations where there were pockets of employees that maybe had been there for 25 years and they were just a little bit resistant to a new tool. And even those folks, I mean, there hasn't been another option this year, right? It's if you want to continue to work, if you want to continue to deliver service, this is how we're going to do that. And that little bit of force has really, I think, opened the eyes of even the frontline workers of how powerful these tools are and how helpful they can be and how they're not meant to replace any of their knowledge or talent, so it's been really neat to see that. And like I said I'm excited to see how that continues to evolve over the next while because I think those positive changes are going to be lasting changes that is going to really create a new waive of innovation in this space.

Darren: Yeah, for sure. Look, I think everything you've said is right. We'll see this compression of timeframes, more value quicker, definitely going to make a huge difference.

Sarah: So the last thing I wanted to talk with you about Darren is I was reflecting on the timeframe that you joined IFS and how much has changed since then, in my opinion in very, very positive ways. But I was thinking about how that parallels the changes that are underway within a lot of the service organizations that I'm talking to. So when you think about these trends, these digital transformation, innovation, servitization, outcomes based service trends, I think a lot of times we as vendors have a tendency to oversimplify those things and we can make them seem like this is what's happening in all these businesses and this is where you need to go. But when you dig into the layers of what that really means for these businesses in terms of just redefining their business strategy and changing their processes and selling differently and marketing differently, I mean, there's so much to it, it's significant change.

Sarah: And I was just wondering, I think the journey you've been on leading this company through some significant changes, not really unlike the journey a lot of leaders within our service customers are on leading their businesses through significant change. One of the questions I almost always ask our podcast guests is what's the biggest lesson you as a leader have learned, whether it's recently or during COVID-19 or et cetera? So I wanted to ask you, what do you feel is the biggest lesson you as a leader have learned with your time at IFS so far?

Darren: I think having been in the industry between the ideas and coming to IFS which is a really good business when I joined, I'd like to think it's a great business today. And I think that's reflected in our financial results, it's reflected in our customer satisfaction, it's reflected in these MQs frankly, I think it is that everybody today, generalists, don't ever place. The days of being the big behemoth that does a little bit of everything just doesn't work, it doesn't certainly doesn't work in technology. I don't know whether it's particularly relevant anywhere but I think it is incredibly important that you are really, really, really good at the things that you do well, because customers, they have choice. We live in an incredibly globalized time and people can buy the service or product that they want anywhere from anyone. And that means that you are being held to a higher standard.

Darren: And I think that the biggest lesson that I've learned is in focusing the business at IFS, in really striving to be outstanding and being customer obsessed in driving value for our customers, that that value comes back to us. And I think that's probably the biggest lesson that I've learned. I felt like that was the case, I believe that that is what would happen that has been great to see over the last few years, that that strategy was validated. And really the way in which it's impacted the culture of the organization in getting behind that customer centricity and that focus to be really outstanding at that one thing that we do better than anyone else.

Sarah: Absolutely. It's been great to be a part of the journey and I really appreciate you letting me talk with you about the FSM MQ. So thank you so much for your time and look forward to having a very similar conversation next year.

Darren: Thank you Sarah.

Sarah: Take care.

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July 22, 2020 | 33 Mins Read

Mita Mallick of Unilever on Having Courageous Conversations on Race

July 22, 2020 | 33 Mins Read

Mita Mallick of Unilever on Having Courageous Conversations on Race

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Mita Mallick, Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Cross-Cultural Marketing at Unilever, has an important discussion with Sarah about how to tackle courageous conversations on race, how to be an ally in both professional and personal settings, and how to foster greater diversity and inclusion.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host Sarah Nicastro. I'm very excited for today's conversation because I think it's a very important conversation to have. I'm very excited to welcome to the podcast, Mita Mallick of Unilever, and we're going to be talking about having courageous conversations around race. I came across Mita recently on social media with some of the content that she's written on this topic and she graciously accepted my invitation to come on and talk with us all today about something that is top of mind for a lot of folks right now. So, Mita, thank you so much for being here and joining us on the podcast.

Mita Mallick: Thank you, Sarah, for having me. I'm delighted.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Okay, to start let's just learn a little bit about you. So anything you feel comfortable sharing with us about who Mita is, what your journey has been, and your current role as Head of Diversity and Cross Cultural Marketing and Unilever.

Mita Mallick: Well, I'll start by saying I'm in week 18, day two of the pandemic. I live in Jersey City in 1500 square feet with my partner who's also working full-time and a five-year old and a seven-year old. So I lead with that because that's my reality and I always say behind the best banana bread you've ever baked and drive by birthday parties and all the pictures on Instagram, we don't know what's going on in people's homes and lives right now. Everyone's on their own COVID-19 journey and my journey is different, but it's not harder or easier than yours and to really just have a sense of empathy for what people are going through. You don't know if somebody has grieved the loss of someone. And you can't even grieve during this time and you don't know and I think, Sarah, we've talked about this because you also have children. I had a friend not too long ago say to me, and there was a Washington Post article about this, about single women during the pandemic, saying to me "I remember the last time somebody touched me and it was when we went out to dinner months ago." And also being alone during this time and what that means for your mental health. So I just start off by saying that. That's really important. That's where I'm at right now. That's me-

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, that's everyone's journey right now and it does look different for everyone, but it's hard in different ways for everyone. And I know that we just recently met, but if you listen to a lot of our recent podcasts, it's been a recurring theme this idea of more empathy and more humanity because it's just a such crazy time for everyone and you see that through different industries and varying levels of management and leadership, how people are really prioritizing that human connection because it's super important to us all. Also, a good disclaimer because if either of us have any guest interrupters, everyone will know why.

Mita Mallick: Popping in. That's the soundtrack of our lives, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Exactly.

Mita Mallick: It's the soundtrack of our lives.

Sarah Nicastro: So I know you had said to me that with your current role at Unilever you feel like your personal purpose has started to be realized. So I want to hear a bit about what your role entails and what you mean when you say that it's been a good vehicle for you to realize that personal purpose.

Mita Mallick: Absolutely. So my role is a mouthful. It's Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Cross Cultural Marketing. I know many people also have equity in their title. I think equity is at the heart of this work, so I don't have an extra word because it would really another word in my title. But diversity inclusion, it is about diversity with thought doesn't happen without diversity representation, so we're trying to build a workforce that represents North America and the changing demographics. That's what it is. I think Unilever is really ahead of many companies and I know many companies are joining us, especially particularly with what's happening in this country over the last several weeks, is that it is equally as important to think about how your products and services show up in the marketplace. So no longer can you afford to separate those two things, right? You have to think about how you authentically serve with purpose all different communities, backgrounds, individuals, right? And so you can't separate, I think, those two things anymore. So that's my title.

Mita Mallick: Why it feeds my purpose? I think there's two big personal reasons. I would say that at Unilever we're helping everyone unlock their purpose and we know that when you think about your purpose and your capabilities that's when the real magic happens. It's tied to my family history. I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrant parents. My younger brother and I were born and raised here. My dad's mother was married when she was 10 years old and my mother's mother was married when she was 12 years old and they were both married to men in their 20s. They had very large families and they were simply remarkable women. And I share that really openly because it is the truth of what still happens in many parts of the world today, but it also is I am living proof of what progress can look like in less than just three generations when you think about what gender equity means. And so that's really important to me and I know purpose is a lofty term. It's like what's my purpose? My purpose singularly is to be present with Sarah right now.

Mita Mallick: It's to be a good mother, sister, wife, daughter. But it's also what is it that gets you up every day other than the paycheck or my four year old kicking me in the head, well, now she's five. But what is it? Or your children. What is it that gets you up? And I think I would answer the second piece of why it matters to me is it matters to me in terms of being an ally because I didn't have a lot of allies growing up and in particular, I grew up outside of Boston in a time where it was not cool to be Indian, wasn't cool to listen to Indian music, wasn't cool to bring Indian lunch, wasn't cool to wear Indian jewelry and I was physically and verbally bullied for much of my life and it started with the name calling, sticks and stones don't break my bones, names can never hurt me. No, names can hurt you and I think that's what we have to sort of reeducate our children on as well. And racial slurs that showed up on our driveway, the n-word, the s-word. I had no idea what any of this meant growing up when I was that age.

Mita Mallick: But it escalated into my freshman year Intro to Physical Science class where two of the white boys who had been bullying me decided to set my hair on fire and decided to throw, it's just very vivid when I tell this story, right? Any of those memories you think you're transported back, but lighting matches and throwing them into my braid, which was quite long at the time, which was to my knees. And my lab partner who hadn't spoken to me in the four weeks that we were doing lab together said, "Oh my God. Your hairs on fire." And so that was the first moment in my life that an ally actually stood up for me. The boys were suspended and it was my guidance counselor at the time who also happened to be the coach for Cross Country I think figured out I was not really coordinated, but I was really fast so I could run fast and so he pushed me into joining Cross Country. And so sports is a great equalizer and running is what I go to throughout my career now and my life in points of crisis and points where I need solace and comfort.

Mita Mallick: But I say all that to say one of the other reasons why this work is really important to me is I wish I had more allies standing up for me in my life because there are perpetrators, there are people who are doing terrible, mean, evil things, the spectrum. But where are all the other people that could stand up and intervene? And so that's what really drives me.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So I can imagine how some of those early experiences translated into what I found in an article you read about being painfully shy and some of the lessons you learned as you started your career on how to become a more vocal leader. So to kind of find your voice and get comfortable using your voice after all of those years of feeling probably the need to stay quiet to avoid more hurt. And so just looking at your title, even if I hadn't read some of the content you've written recently, it's clear that having a voice and being able to use that voice is imperative in your current role and in the current landscape. So tell us about the journey to finding that voice and how you're able to use it today.

Mita Mallick: No, thank you for that question, Sarah. Now that I've explained so much of my upbringing, you wouldn't be surprised now if I had said I was painfully shy and actually, I think that's different than being introverted. It's painfully shy. And people who meet me now as I'm on stage or speaking on podcasts, I would have showed up sick five years ago. I would have been like, "No, Sarah. I'm out." But only my younger brother and mother remember that and I would say it's a journey and I would say using your voice is a skill. It's a skill like being an athlete. I'm not an athlete, but it is with practice and I had someone years ago on my team who was comfortable presenting in 20, 30 groups of people but as soon as it got larger she froze. And she would laugh at me, but I would say it's practice. And what do I mean by that? You can ask my husband. From the time I started my career practicing in empty rooms getting ready for presentations, practicing in the shower, practicing in my empty bedroom, practicing on the drive to work, practicing if I was going to be presenting something, practicing actually if I was just going to be in a meeting because I was in a place where I couldn't even make comments or questions in meetings because I was so nervous about exactly to what you said.

Mita Mallick: I didn't want to be noticed because early on in my life, I think you've just hit the insight, when I was noticed then I was picked on. So I just wanted to disappear and you can't really do that in corporate America. So I found a lot of mentors and allies who helped me along the way, but you have got to practice using your voice whether that's in writing or a podcast or just speaking up in meetings.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So that's a really good point and I want to come back to that because later one we're going to talk a bit about some actions companies can take to really put an emphasis on fostering diversity and inclusion and equity in the sense of doing it, not talking about it. And I want to come back to that point of using your voice because I have a story to share around some things I think can happen in organizations that make people be quiet and then do a disservice to that sort of mission. But before we get there, we're talking about finding our voice and using our voice and we were chatting a bit before we started recording about some of the things that are happening in our country and in our world today and I was so happy to have you on because I think that it's such a critically important conversation for us all to be having because to your point, when you were that little girl that was being bullied, where was everyone?

Sarah Nicastro: Where was everyone that could be standing up for you? And we all have a responsibility to use that voice for the greater good right now and it isn't easy to do, but it's important to do and so I think it's a good conversation to have. So before we talk about kind of the meat of having hard conversations, what I want to talk about first is, and I found this in some of the content you've written, is that the very first step is an important step, which is to acknowledge that color does matter and racism does exist because we sometimes have a tendency to think that if we default to terms like we all bleed red and all of those things that we're helping, but in reality, to affect change we first need to acknowledge the fact that it is not the same and that it does matter and that the racism does exist because if we don't do that we can often unintentionally reinforce different stereotypes. So I got that question from some content you've written, so can you share your thoughts on that and why that's so important?

Mita Mallick: You have to stop being color blind. I had a leader years ago say to me "Well, I don't see color." And I was like, "So you don't see me as brown? What do you see me as?" And it is this idea that we live in a utopia, everyone is equal. But it's not. And I do think it's something that many of us were raised on that we have to unlearn now and there's so many things that we have to unlearn or relearn or learn for the first time. And so this idea that you would look at me and say, "I don't see color," my browness has defined me from the moment I've entered this world. It defines me when I walk into meetings. People see that before they even hear me speak or before I sit down or before I present.

Mita Mallick: And so I think it's also a privilege, I would say, it's a privilege to use that term if you think about it. Maybe there are. I don't know many people of color who would say they don't see color. I could be wrong, but it's just thinking about too is who is the person that's actually saying they don't see color? Because it's not something I would say because it's defined my existence since the day I was born. And it's defined, it's actually you're not acknowledging that persons existence or identity or what they might have been through in their lives. So I think it's so important. I don't think you can have a courageous conversation on race if you don't acknowledge that race exists.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I think it's a natural inclination of white people because that acknowledgement... There's a lot of fear around saying the wrong thing and there's a lot of fear around should I acknowledge? Am I doing something wrong by acknowledging? And so I think that's where some of that comes from. I've been reading the book White Fragility, I don't know if you've read that book-

Mita Mallick: Robin DiAngelo. We had her come to Unilever a few years ago-

Sarah Nicastro: Did you?

Mita Mallick: She's amazing. It was the most profound professional experience I've had going through her workshops. Phenomenal.

Sarah Nicastro: That's awesome. I would love to do that. But what she says in the beginning in the book I think it just made me wish that everyone would read it because I think that there's this perception of racism as this active, bad intent. And what she kind of explains to disarm people is that's not always true. That can be true, but there is a lot of racism that exists passively and subconsciously. So if you want to better yourself or if someone points on something you're saying or doing that you shouldn't be, it isn't that they're attacking your character or they're accusing you of this malicious intent. We have to get comfortable examining some of those thoughts and behaviors that are so built into our society if we really want to start breaking down some of those barriers. So I think that we can't do that from the stance of I don't see color. It's not only failing to acknowledge people's history and people's roots, but it's not going to help us get better going forward. We need to acknowledge that it is a thing, that it's okay to not know the right thing to say or do, but you shouldn't let that prevent you from positive forward motion.

Mita Mallick: Absolutely. I think that's a super important point, especially as you think about microaggressions. Microaggressions are a form of racism and that's we experience every day. It's the subtle remarks, the jokes, the comments and the moment you have to ask yourself who are you going to be in that moment as an ally when those things happen? Are you going to laugh uncomfortably? Are you going to sit in awkward silence? Or are you going to say something or do something? And so microaggressions, I'll give you examples, is if I come off stage from speaking and somebody comes up to me and says, "Wow, Mita. I just want to say, your English is so good." That's happened to me on many occasions. Or constant mispronunciation of my name or people thinking I speak Spanish and get very angry at me. I don't speak Spanish. Bengali is my first language and then English is my second language. I just think in those moments, how can you intervene when you are witnessing that? And that's what I think Robin's talking about is that it's just so pervasive in everything we do and what you think racism or racist looks like and sort of even that's stereotype and debunking that.

Mita Mallick: And I will tell you, spending time with Robin DiAngelo as a person of color validated my life experiences because it's also very uncomfortable to read that book or go through her work as someone who's not white and then you're like, "Wow. This is everything that I've been through. Suddenly I feel validated. Somebody else is telling me that this is hope." So it's pretty remarkable.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah and as a business, as an employer, I think it's amazing that Unilever had her come, but when you think about how those microaggressions take place in the workplace, it is important to consider how are you providing education and training that breaks some of those down and fix some of them because it makes it not a great environment for people of color and I think there's far more of that happening in the workplace than there is overt racism because it's easier to notice and address. Those microaggressions can go on and on and on because they can be more difficult to kind of rise to the top and be addressed by leadership or what have you. So educating the workforce and arming people with information on how statements that they might not realize are hurting someone hurt someone and why it's important to not use that type of language.

Sarah Nicastro: So okay, so we talked about the fact that acknowledgement is a critical first step. Acknowledgement of differences, of color, of the fact that racism exists, all of that. So next I want to talk a little bit about what it takes to be a good ally. I shared with you before we started that this is something that I'm really focusing on right now and you have, again, a lot of articles on this. So share your thoughts on why... We talked about why it's important for you to be a good ally, some of the experiences that you've had, but let's talk a little bit about how to do that. What does a good ally look like?

Mita Mallick: I would say the first part is there is a piece, there's a balance between education, learning, listening, and acting, and I think they have to be in parallel. There is a great Washington Post article I saw that I posted on which said when black people are in pain, white people start book clubs. And I was like "wow." I read that piece and there was such great commentary because people are also scared. Allies are like, "I don't know enough. I have to learn more." But I would say it's continuous, it's dual path. It's not like you're going to learn and get a certificate in school. It's not like there's a point where you're like, "Okay, you're an ally." No. It's a continuous journey and I think the thing we have to acknowledge is we are going to make mistakes and that's okay. And we're all so scared.

Mita Mallick: I think one of the first things after the whole stop being colorblind I would say is that oftentimes I think the job of an ally is to educate yourself and not to put the burden on black and brown people. In this case, let's say the black community because I come into this conversation as an inclusion leader, as a brown woman. I identify with the black community. I don't identify as black. So I am also entering this conversation as an ally for the black community. My job is to educate myself and if you can find the best banana bread recipe on Google and post it on Instagram after you bake it, you can Google these topics on how to be anti-racist. You don't need a primary source to tell you what it's like to be black in America. And I think as I go back to my roots as marketing and storytelling, storytelling is one of the oldest forms of human tradition. People want stories to relate to, but you have to ask yourself at what cost do you want to continuously ask your block colleague, your black friend, the people that you know in the black community to tell a story that consistently traumatizes them?

Mita Mallick: And this is intergenerational trauma. So I know the instinct is let me go ask my black friend or my black colleague about blackout Tuesday, about Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter. You don't understand as an ally potentially the trauma that's being faced on them because you're not the only person asking them. And at the same time, I would say, when it comes to listening and learning, if I choose, if a friend chooses to share a racist encounter they have had with me, it's a psychologically safe space, they have called me and they want to share this. My job is not to be an investigative journalist and to ask lots of questions. My job is to not minimize and say, "I know Mita. I don't think that's what she meant." And my job is not to problem solve. And so that is what I think is at the heart of everything is that we are being raised in a world that doesn't shut up and we are told to speak and speak and speak and talk and talk and talk and the job of an ally sometimes is unlearning all that to allow for psychologically safe space for me to share my truth or my friend to share my truth and to honor that truth. And to know that you will leave the conversation without any resolution.

Mita Mallick: And when my friends comes and tells me about a racist experience she's had at the store shopping, she's not looking for me to fix the store policy or brainstorm or problem solve, which as leaders is what we want to do, which makes all of this so uncomfortable. So I would also say don't go to every person of color in your life and ask them to educate you as a white ally, but I would also say if they do, honor it and just listen and say thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you're just willing to look there is so much content to consume. Really, really good content to consume and learn from. Everything from books to audiobooks to podcasts to TED talks. There is so much out there to listen and learn from without having to put the onus on someone who hasn't already shared. A lot of people have shared experiences that you can get a really good new perspective from. A couple other things that I picked up from some of your writings around this topic that I think are just important to mention is diversifying your circle. So I was-

Mita Mallick: Let's talk about that. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: I was listening to a podcast on this and I was thinking about, I'm not going to be able to get it right, it was a Renee Brown guest, but you can't do this as a token. It can't be that inauthentic of just "Oh my gosh, all my friends are white. I should try and find a black or brown friend so I can check a box that I'm doing this thing right." That is not what you mean by diversifying your circle, but by really looking at the people you engage with on a day-to-day basis and thinking about is this representative of who I want to be and do I have relationships beyond my own comfort zone? So in real life, I do, but one of the things that I've been working on is my diversifying my social media followings so that I can be more intentional about the content that I'm consuming and I can incorporate black authors and I found a really good Instagram account the other day because I'm a big mental health advocate and I think it's a black female therapist or something along those lines, but it's a great account. Information for anyone. So how else can we work on diversifying our circle?

Mita Mallick: Start by acknowledging that your circle's not diverse. Start by thinking about who is in your trusted circle? Who are the five people you call when you have great news to share or you're going through a life crisis, you need a shoulder to cry on and just think about that. And if they look like you and they act like you, you need to start building meaningful cross cultural relationships. And what I would say in this work, we do a lot of great work at Unilever and as many as organizations are doing, but if you are wanting to be a white ally and you show up at work and you want me to talk to you about Black Lives Matter and how you can be an ally but you don't know a single black person in your life, in your community, I don't know how to help you. Because so much of this work and the stereotypes and the things that we pull in our heads and unconscious bias from one encounter, one conversation, one article, one TV show we saw, all of that needs to be undone. And that's where the hard work starts.

Mita Mallick: So unconscious bias training is actually critical, and it can be very effective if you start to think about your own biases and working them through. But then if you go home and your community is everyone who looks like you and thinks like you and acts like you, how can you undo any of that? Where's the practice? So what I would say is think about all the different moments in your life and I know this is tough because we're talking about in a pandemic, but where do you go grocery shopping? Have you thought about shopping more local? Do you support black and brown owned businesses and is that something that you can make part of your routine? If you are thinking of volunteering at your local church or temple, why don't you think about going and volunteering somewhere else? So really just challenging all of those moments of things that you want to do. What do you do on a Saturday? What about going to a cultural event and looking up what's happening in your local paper rather than doing what you normally do?

Mita Mallick: And a lot of those things are uncomfortable and scary, but I think you have to put yourself in environments that are different than what you normally operate in to start meeting people to build those meaningful relationships. If you're a parent like we are, if you think about interestingly as my children are growing up the relationships they're making with friends, that's an opportunity. As your children make cross cultural relationships that are meaningful that you can actually build those relationships with their families. And so I just think that there's so many opportunities, we just have to be more intentional about how we liberalize day-to-day and where we can interrupt.

Sarah Nicastro: I have a really recent example of, I guess this crosses race and gender, but my older son just turned five in June and he wanted a superhero party. Well, of course, we didn't really have a party because COVID, but we still had a birthday week. I probably, honestly, went above and beyond because I was trying to still make it special for him and-

Mita Mallick: This is the opposite of my daughter turning five. We went the other way during COVID.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah? You went low key?

Mita Mallick: Well, I had her birthday, a store bought cake and that was it. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So we did a superhero thing, but I started as I'm reading some of the stuff and trying to be more intentional, I stopped and thought of all the superheroes we bought him, they'll all male and they're all white. So I just got on Amazon and looked up female superhero, black superhero and bought whatever came up first because it was just a moment for me to think intentionally about what am I exposing him to and what dialogue or unconscious experiences or biases am I planting for him? And is that how I want him to grow up? And so I just I'm glad I caught it because it was just something that came to me before he got his gifts and just last night he was like, "Mommy, I want to be Wonder Woman. Can you get me a Wonder Woman costume?" And I was like, "Yes!"

Mita Mallick: That's great!

Sarah Nicastro: It just made me so happy.

Mita Mallick: It's so important thinking about what they watch, what they play with, where are their role models coming from? It's critical.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay, so I think when we talk about being a good ally I think one of the most challenging parts, and I just shared a story with you before we started of me doing this very recently with a family member, is having the hard and courageous conversations. So when you see someone saying or doing something that you know is wrong, avoiding the path of least resistance and facing it head on. So let's talk about this from two perspectives, so you wrote an article recently for Create Cultivate on having courageous conversation and this is an article that was written around how to be an ally to and for people of color in your life. So I think we've covered this a bit, you brought up some really important points which are don't put the onus on them to educate you, work on educating yourself and if they come to you with a story, don't try and fix it just listen and let them share openly. Is there anything you would add to that in terms of being courageous in how you engage with your friends of color and people of color in your life to be a good ally to them?

Mita Mallick: I'll give you two responses. I think one is in those moments that matter, intervene. And I think that means not just at work, in our school yards, in our public spaces, places like the public library, the grocery store. You see something, say something. That's where it matters and starts to look at what's happening in our communities and so don't be a silent bystander when these things happen. That's what I thinks so important. I think going back to the conversation on having courageous conversations with family members that can be so tough and difficult. I was just having a conversation earlier with someone about this before we go together today is that you have to have patience and understanding in the relationship with the family member. I actually think sometimes these conversations are easier to have at work, and hear me out, because there's a level of professionalism. There's a level of professionalism, we all conduct ourselves at work. And suddenly on a virtual happy hour or dinner with a family member and someone says something and you just flip out.

Mita Mallick: And I think to myself if anyone I can move in the family, it's me who's going to do it. But there has to be a moment of creating a psychologically safe space where they can share what they're feeling and for me to educate them. And not to shut the conversation down by saying you're a racist, you're a sexist, you're a homophobe. No one wants to be called that and then suddenly it's all dissolved and you won't be able to move them. And I'm not saying that's going to work for everybody because some people have their beliefs and they believe what they believe and it's not going to be a healthy situation to continue and it's not going to be that you're going to be able to move them, but a lot of times it's people said something or did something and you're like, "Did you realize what that means?" And the person says, "Well, no. I actually didn't." Do you know where that word comes from? The roots of it? Do you understand why that's derogatory?

Mita Mallick: I'm not going to say that's always the case, that's not. But I like to live my life and I have to do this glass half full. This is why I do this work is that 99% of people live their life with good intentions and they don't realize their impact. There is 1% of people who don't, of course. But I just think thinking about how you can take a deep breath, be patient, and think about how you can have this conversation with the family member and not be triggered by some of the things they're saying, especially if it's a white ally trying to talk to another family member who's also white who you want to become an ally and do these things with you. That would be my advice.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay.

Mita Mallick: Not easy, not easy.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Mita Mallick: I know you know.

Sarah Nicastro: So I get that you're saying it's a bit easier in a work situation because there is a level of professionalism and people are just going to carry themselves and handle themselves differently, but I do want to ask with your role at Unilever and in your experience with this, if someone sees or hears something in the workplace that they know is wrong what is the best way for them to address that? How do you do that without being scared that you're maybe overstepping or maybe that gets into the company making people feel empowered to speak up in those situations, but what is the dynamic on how you suggest handling that stuff in the workplace?

Mita Mallick: Yeah. And listen, courageous conversations are not easy at all, whether it's professional or family. I just think sometimes because we're so close to our family emotions tend to rise a lot faster than they would at work.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Mita Mallick: Because we know people and we're so familiar with them it's like going to extreme emotions and when we're at work it might be a bit different. Not in the way in which we might approach a conversation. It's really about empowering the bystander and I would say we all work so hard to create these amazing cultures, we all contribute to them, and we want to be agents of change to help protect them. And so if you see something, say something. And I would say often in my career, and this happens, maybe I will have seen something and I will rewind it in my head and I never said anything in the moment. It's not too late to go back and approach that person. And I think it depends on the situation and the level of comfortability. If it's a large meeting in which some things have been witnessed, you might not feel comfortable saying in that moment, you might need a few days to think about it and go back and approach the individual and something that you observed. You might pull someone aside privately so many times often in my career is mispronounced and I would say if somebody is constantly mispronouncing it, the same person over and over again, huh? What is it there's so difficult to learn about my name?

Mita Mallick: So, Sarah, in that case, might pull that person aside and say "Listen, I need you know..." And that's allyship and that's allies moving to being advocates because you're actually advocating like "You don't pronounce it my-ta, you pronounce it me-ta. And I just want to bring that up because I noticed in the last few meetings that you've mispronounced it and maybe no one has ever told you how to pronounce it, but this is the impact it's having on her. And so I think it's about you have to be comfortable depending on the setting and I also think it's never too late. And you can always go to someone else to talk about it and try to strategize on how you can go and approach somebody. I think there's so many ways to do it. There's not one way.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Mita Mallick: Not one way.

Sarah Nicastro: That's a good point. That's a good point and to one of the points you made earlier, you're bound to screw it up. It's an area where this is all really heavy, complicated, sticky stuff and so if we want to do better and we want to be catalysts of change and forward motion it's not going to be a smooth trajectory. We're going to screw up as people and we have to not let that fear prevent us from doing our best. So what practices can businesses put into place to foster more diversity, inclusion, and equity in terms of real action? So I think any business would say that this is important to them, but if you had to give a few tips on real, tangible action to take to make progress on this within their businesses, what would you suggest?

Mita Mallick: Lots of tips and advice. I will try to keep it brief. I would say that hire a head of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a chief diversity officer. You need somebody to do this work and lead and strategize and that person needs to report into the CEO and not four levels down or five levels down because that's not where the work gets done. You need to think about best practices like starting a diversity and inclusion board. Diversity Best Practices is an amazing organization, they're a diversity think tank and so much of what I've learned is from them, but there's so much out there in terms of best practices on having an inclusion board, setting targets, you know what gets measure gets done, thinking about the recruiting pipeline and where you're getting candidates from, thinking also about... I often get called by smaller companies for advice and that's a critical moment when you're a smaller startup and you start to think, "Well, do we all look like and act like each other?" And "What happens when we start to refer our friends to come work here?" You just sort of perpetuate the issue of not being diverse because you are doing something very well intentioned and tapping into your own networks.

Mita Mallick: But your own networks might actually look like you and act like you so there's so many things that you can be doing to really think about that and I think it really starts from the top, in your leadership and what's their commitment to this? To having someone run it, to having a team, to having funding. This work certainly isn't free, it's not for the faint hearted, and it's a lot of work. And so you have to invest to show results in return. Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think it goes back to one of the things we talked about, which is it needs to be an authentic desire to have a culture of diversity, inclusion, and equity and not just, again, be trying to take measures to make sure you're covering basis or checking a box because part of this is following best practices and creating metrics that will help you achieve the goals that you've set and things like that. But I think you can achieve diversity and not derive the full value from that diversity if you don't actually realize the benefit of having it. And that goes back to if you have a diverse set of people in your workforce that are working on finding and using their own voices but you fail to listen, then having that diversity is not helping you all that much to begin with. And that was something that I thought of when we were talking about this earlier. In my former role with my former employer, it was the company is almost all men and there was a number of times that I was shut down as a woman speaking up because they just did not want to hear what I had to say and they made that known.

Sarah Nicastro: And it was a frustrating situation and ultimately, it wasn't a good fit for me, but it's just there's so much value in diverse thinking and diverse experiences and diverse opinions that I just wanted to bring up the point that it isn't just about being able to say, "Yes, we have diversity within our workforce." But it's harnessing the power of that diversity to make your business stronger. And I think that's an important part as well.

Mita Mallick: No, absolutely. You will be at a disadvantage from a business perspective if you don't have diversity representation because it goes back to what we were talking about. How do your products and services show up in the marketplace? On are you capitalizing on the changing demographics of this country to serve those populations, all populations? And so that's why to your point, Sarah, why it's so critically important.

Sarah Nicastro: So I was really curious to ask this question. I know that you're very passionate about the work you do and it's so super important, but as someone that is heading up cross cultural marketing I wanted to ask what brands do you see that you think are really doing this work well? And why? So that our listeners can kind of learn a bit from those examples.

Mita Mallick: Well, I would be remiss not to talk about Ben & Jerry's, Dove, Dove Men+ Care. I won't make this a commercial for Unilever because there's a lot of great products. We have beauty, personal care, home care and food and refreshments, so hopefully a product that you own and use in your household. Thinking about non-Unilever brands, I would say Instagram, as we talked about, Sarah. There's so many brands on Instagram. It's just phenomenal to follow. One of the brands that I've been following for a few years is Billy's Footwear. This gentleman was a frontline emergency worker, I believe he was a fireman, Billy. He fell 15 flights and became paralyzed from the waist down and he realized that he didn't have a shoe that he could put on himself and he started Billy's Footwear. Universal design with a zipper. It's also very easy for children to put on.

Mita Mallick: So you think about what an amazing idea and thought from a tragedy and this is products that are being sold around the country, his footwear. But there are so many examples of inclusive brands. Another one is called Nunude. N-U-N-U-D-E. And they are about, they actually petitioned the Oxford Dictionary to change the definition of nude from lightest pink beige to all skin tones because they sell products that are apparel that matches your skin tone.

Sarah Nicastro: That's awesome.

Mita Mallick: So lounging, underwear, garments, etc. But there's just so much out there I think. You look at what Rihanna did with Fenty a few years, it's a few years old now, but the amount of shades of foundation that is just groundbreaking and even that idea that makeup for all and really for all skin tones. And so I think there's just so much out there. To your point, if you really want to look at fine inclusive brands, fine brands that are living their purpose, there's just so many on Instagram.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Mita Mallick: Pretty amazing.

Sarah Nicastro: Another one that I have liked for quite a few years is Aerie.

Mita Mallick: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: Because I think they do a good job of, especially as women, just representing a broad spectrum of across the board. And I think I wanted to ask who you thinks doing well because I think it's good to take a look at what are those companies doing and how could that potentially apply to some of our listeners? And it's not too hard to find the ones that aren't doing a good job either.

Mita Mallick: Yeah. I would add to the list Tommy Hilfiger. There adaptive clothing line, again, thinking about the experience. Similar to Billy's Footwear, but if you have a prosthetic leg, if you only have use of one arm, single use zippers, magnetic buttons. Just they have done, I think, a really phenomenal job if you follow Tommy Hilfiger adaptive clothing on Instagram as well.

Sarah Nicastro: Cool. Good. Okay, so we're pretty much out of time, which is so sad and I knew this would be a longer podcast because we had a lot to talk about.

Mita Mallick: I feel like we could talk for hours.

Sarah Nicastro: We could, we could. And I would love to have you back-

Mita Mallick: Oh, thank you, Sarah.

Sarah Nicastro: At some point. I think we could do probably a podcast on its own just in terms of best practices around diversity and inclusion. So perhaps we can do that at some point in the future, but, Mita, I really appreciate you being here. I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and really grateful for your insights.

Mita Mallick: Thank you so much, Sarah, for having me. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. You can find more content by visiting us at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter, @thefutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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July 15, 2020 | 16 Mins Read

Ricoh’s Centralized Services Strategy

July 15, 2020 | 16 Mins Read

Ricoh’s Centralized Services Strategy

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Sarah talks with Dr. Marlene Kolodziej, Vice President of Centralized Services at RICOH USA, Inc. about the company’s creation of a centralized services division, the journey from product to services provider, and her experiences leading virtually.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, I'm excited to welcome back to the Future of Field Service podcast, Dr. Marlene Kolodziej, who is now Vice President for Centralized Services at Ricoh USA. Marlene, welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Thank you, Sarah. It's a pleasure to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Marlene and I were just chatting, we had the good fortune to do our very first podcast together, live at Field Service Amelia Island last year, which I don't know about you Marlene, but in this crazy time of no travel, I look back on very fondly, and certainly look forward to the next time we can be in person at an industry event.

Sarah Nicastro: So at that point, Marlene was in a different role and we had a podcast panel at that event that was on Women in Field Service. But today we're talking about a different topic, which is how the organization that Marlene is with now, Ricoh, has developed a Centralized Services strategy. So Marlene, again, welcome back. And let's talk a bit about this big change for you. So the Centralized Services Division that you're heading up now at Ricoh is newly created. So to start, tell our listeners a bit about why the Division was created and what your charge is.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Thank you for the opportunity, Sarah. I really appreciate it. The organization Centralized Services was created to bring together all of the customer facing service and support teams, including Ricoh hardware and software, product support, production and office print, as well as application support and our IT support centers, and as well as our Ricoh Customer Branded Support Center. So we have a few initiatives for Centralized Services organizations, but its essence is to deliver the customer joy. And I know that sounds a little bit hokey and we hear everybody wants to bring joy to the customer or have the customer have a joyful experience. But when a customer has a great relationship with a company or a person or a product, we know that, that in turn deepens that relationship between the customer and the company, and it increases for us the value of our Ricoh brand and enables us to continue offering Ricoh products and services that meet or exceed the customer's expectations.

Sarah Nicastro: Wonderful. So it makes sense to me, I mean, it's really difficult to, when you talk about creating a positive customer experience, one of the hardest factors to that I think is seamlessness, and having that experience be not something that's disjointed or if you have each division of the company focusing on customer satisfaction or success in their own ways and nothing tying it all together, you have an opportunity to miss the mark. So that focus and centralized approach make sense to me. It is a big change for you. So I know you told me it's your first non-IT role in more than 30 years. So what made you interested in making such a big change and how are you liking the non-IT aspect so far?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: I'm sure, as you say, thank you for that question, as you say, that it's my first non-IT role in 30 years and I have to laugh, because now everybody knows I started in IT when I was two.

Sarah Nicastro: Exactly.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: But I wouldn't necessarily say it's a planned change and I've asked you if you'd believe me if I pose that question to you, I mean, I thought that my next step in my career would be a CTO or CIO position. I mean, I finished my doctorate just over a year ago and my research was partially based in the technology space, in particular in the cloud space. And it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't continue in IT, but at the time I did take a step back and I really thought about what I was looking for.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: And I realized that there are three key areas that needed to be satisfied. And the first was able to use the knowledge from my research and apply it to my next role. I mean, that's obvious, you spend years creating work and then you don't want to abandon that. You want to continue with that knowledge and deepen that and broaden it. And then the second was to be part of a company that was not risk averse and embrace change and new ideas. And I'm not saying a company that's going crazy in the risk space, but something that was open to a bit of exploration and a bit of challenging, especially around new ideas. And then the third was a good cultural fit and style that provided me with an opportunity to continue growing organizations, as well as ensure the growth and success of people.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: And for me, selfishly, I want to learn and I want to grow as well. And I've always been about helping people be successful. And the job I do just happens to be a conduit to enable me to get people to help them to grow, and I explored opportunities with those goals in mind and I realized they needed to be open to consider roles outside of IT. And this position at Ricoh checked all those boxes. And I also had to consider changing where I thought I'd be next. And to say I've made the right decision by coming here would be an understatement, but it really was one of those times where I just didn't expect to not continue with my career that I'd been building for 30 years to get to that CTO or CIO position. So it was a big change.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, but I mean, if you are interested, and it sounds like you are, in that continual growth and just your own journey of evolution, sometimes doing something different is the best way to grow and expand. So that's awesome. So when we talked last, we talked about, like many product manufacturers, Ricoh is in the midst of a fundamental evolution away from being just a product provider to being more of a services provider. So tell us what you envision related to that, and where you feel the company is at currently on that journey.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: When we think about where the traditional office space has evolved and how much more mobile our workforce has become, and I'm talking pre-COVID here, individuals expect a more unique experience that's related to how they work and not necessarily to how everybody else or how the masses work. I mean, if we put our mobile devices side-by-side, the devices themselves will probably be different and how they're configured and what apps we're using. They're not going to be the same necessarily, and our overall experience with those devices are unique to each of us. And we think about how people use our products and services at Ricoh, and there's a uniqueness to that experience as well, which really drives us to provide a service that's special to the individual and not necessarily tethered to a specific product, but more about how that product is used by that person.

Sarah Nicastro: Now, with the introduction of the Centralized Services Division, how do you see Centralized Services playing a role in that journey to the company becoming more of a services and solution company versus a product company?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: That's a great question. And when you think about transformation, it's a challenge for any one of us never mind an organization. And that being said, many successful companies are continuously transforming and Ricoh is no different. And for Centralized Services, we've created a multi-year roadmap that first takes our unique service offerings and blend them together to create a more holistic view of the customer and the customer experience. And I think you touched on that earlier as we started the conversation around all these disparate type of pieces and trying to bring them together and harmonize them to create that joyful customer experience as they work with us as a company. But as part of that journey, we're also implementing new tools and technology to drive that more joyful experience. We have a new integrated voice response to drive dispatch avoidance and allowing us to resolve more issues at first call, to rolling out new quality management initiatives, automating customer sentiment information real time, leading again to that more joyful experience in real time, as our customers are working with us.

Sarah Nicastro: Good. So Ricoh has made quite a bit of progress in terms of, I guess, recognizing the potential of service and more strategic service. What do you think are some of the things that will need to happen next for Ricoh to continue to realize the potential of that vision?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Well, I think we need to be a services organization. It's not necessarily about products and services. I think it's, not to pull the COVID card and the impact of COVID to all of us, but I think as people are changing the way they work, they're changing the way they learn, they're changing the way they do business. I think that they're untethering themselves from offices, they're untethering themselves from physical spaces. And we have to just be much more flexible to helping people be successful in whatever they're trying to accomplish. It's understanding their goals and objectives and being that services oriented company that says, "Oh, I understand you're not just about printing you're about X or Y or Z", and helping you get to that place and being that service provider of choice.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So you mentioned COVID, so here you are, you make this huge career change and you just get situated and then all hell breaks loose. How has your department, the Centralized Services Department been affected by COVID and what are some of the ways that you're working to adapt?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: That's a great question, Sarah, and I appreciate that. And I say that I'm really reluctant to use the word pandemic and silver lining in the same sentence, but it's really created a cultural shift for our organization. And I'm proud to say our teams were actively practicing our business continuity plans early this year in preparation for this event, especially hearing the early reports, and coming from an IT background, disaster recovery and business continuity planning are second nature. So it was natural for me to ask the teams to practice and improve our plans prior to us needing to use it. And of course, like everyone else, we never expected to have to enact those plans. We've moved almost our entire customer facing support centers remote, and we created new on and off boarding, consolidated and improved training and are now clearly focused on helping our agents deliver the best service possible.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: We've also estimated how much we've reduced our carbon footprint, for example. One small piece of my organization is estimate to save almost 900,000 miles of driving a year and reduce carbon emissions by almost 330 metric tons. So I think it's really important that we recognize it's not just about shifting people. I mean, when we enacted our business continuity plan, we've literally made that happen within two hours. And it was during, it was 10 o'clock at night, we pulled the trigger and we had people working remote within two hours by midnight. And that was mid-March, and we continued ever since. So the team, kudos to the team, I have great leadership and great team members and they were ready to do this. And I think for us, it was a shift to working remote. Not that, that doesn't come with its own challenges and its own changes from our cultural perspective, but we've been working remote and providing services ever since.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And augmented reality has played a role in how you've been able to... I know you said that was a technology that you had been utilizing, but you've seen a really significant spike in the use of that tool specifically to help you adapt and be able to continue providing service. So I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit to that and talk about how you see the role of that technology evolving as recovery ramps up.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Thank you for that. I think that was one of our challenges. When we talk about cultural challenges, we were encouraging our folks to use augmented reality and not travel as much. Our top guns to not have to go to customers and help fix issues when we had field services and other folks on the ground that could potentially help through the use of augmented reality, when we could have a, what we call a top gun and someone on the field side and working together, but it was just a struggle. And so that was a big cultural shift. COVID literally forced us to use that tool to be able to provide services and support to our customers. And we struggled to get traction in this area and the teams have really since embraced the technology. While some States have returned to work, we still continue to use augmented reality to resolve those calls instead of dispatching our resources.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: And we think we'll find a happy medium in the future as folks return to work, that we'll have a much higher use of augmented reality. But we won't eliminate travel as we move forward, but the technology is valuable and here to stay. And as a matter of fact, we had in February I think only 126 augmented reality calls, but in April we had over 5,000. So we really embrace the use, but I think for us, we're going to arrive at more of a happy medium as we see more of a return to work.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that make sense. It's really interesting to see how this situation has really created more open-mindedness to change. I mean, people, like you said, have been forced to adapt. So the folks that, before you're saying, "Hey, could you try this tool out? I think it will really help you." And it's easier to, "I want to keep doing my thing", or what have you, but that's another, I guess, lasting change that I think will take place, is just people being a little bit more open to different ways of operating. So as COVID recovery ramps, hopefully, and we find the next normal, what initiatives are on the horizon for the Centralized Services Division?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: I think for us, it's an opportunity to remain untethered from a physical location. I mean, we want to continue to develop and grow our resources to bring the customer that joy that we talked about, but we also want to explore bringing on employees independent of location with the ability to provide the best service possible. And this includes the development of new services for our customers. And the vision is only possible through the implementation of new solutions and technology aiding the growth of our diverse workforce while keeping us all connected. So I still get to wear my IT hat from time to time.

Sarah Nicastro: That's good. Yeah, it's a nice combination of different roles. And I think that's another interesting discussion is, to what degree will we return to a physical world of work, versus the remote circumstances that we're in being a bit more permanent. And I think that, from the conversations I'm having with folks, there's like you said, related to augmented reality, there's going to be some sort of a hybrid approach. But I think it's certainly something that the people are exploring in terms of the significant benefits of having some of the team be remote permanently. How about, with this being a really big change for you and just in terms of a change in career, and then putting the COVID situation on top of that, what would you say is the biggest lesson or insight you've learned as a leader over the last couple of months?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Well, that is a good question. I mean, I initially thought that it was more about sort of reinforcing what we already know. Things like, we'll need to make decisions in a fluid situation without all the information, and that your people are talented and to continue trust that they will make the right decisions and so on. We all know those things to be true. But I think the one thing I can say is, I learned how much people really do need to hear things will be okay, and that we've got this and that we're all in this together.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: And this new way of work, wherever we land will require us to rethink how we stay connected and how working together is really a personal endeavor, and one that we should treat with respect and dare I say, love. It's okay to be human more than we think we need to, it's probably the biggest thing that I learned, that is not, it is about getting the job done. And you hear me use words in this whole conversation, like joy and love and Sarah, you know me, I'm not the huggy, touchy, feely, it's let's get things done, let's do what we need to do, let's buckle it up. But this has also been a humbling experience, and it's really provided me as a leader with the wherewithal in a sense to step back and say, it is sometimes about the intangible and the feelings and being more human than we think we need to.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, it's a good point. Marlene and I were talking one evening last week, and the way I put it is, it's the weight of this all is very heavy. And that, in a lot of different ways, I mean, depending on what your situation is. There's really hard business decisions happening. There's people out of jobs, there's people that have family members or they themselves are battling illness. There's parents who are desperately trying to sort out how to continue working and take care of their children. You know what I mean? There's, there's a really big weight to all of this. And I think that to your point, being conscious of that and remembering how much authentic human connection helps us all feel like we can face that, is really important.

Sarah Nicastro: I know the other thing you brought up last week is to remember it's not permanent. So it's hard when you're in it and we're all in it. I mean, we're in the thick of it. I think, I know at least for myself, mid-March, I mean, it was, "Hey, we're going to lock down for a couple of weeks and then everything will kind of sort itself out." And here we are, and it's starting to feel like it'll never end, but it will. And the best way to get through it is to band together. And you're right, I mean, especially in a virtual world, we all have to stay in touch with one another and stay connected and help each other out. So it's a good point. And I think it's one that's been shared by quite a few leaders, is that the business aspect of everything is almost coming secondary to the need to think about the human side and put people first. So I think it's a really good lesson. So, good. Any other thoughts or comments you want to share before we close for today?

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: You know, I think just one thing, and it kind of gets back to the beginning of the conversation a little bit to wrap this up that part of being human is, is also to think about yourself and take a step back and really understand your own needs. You had asked me about certainly my next step in my career, and I shared a little bit about where I thought I'd be and where I'd end up, but it took some self-reflection as well.

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: So I think just remembering to be more human during this event, but also be more human and kind to yourself and to take the time and to take a step back and realize that it's okay to get in touch with your needs as well, and not to try and be everything to everyone during something so dramatic as what we're going through today. It's unprecedented. And I think that we all need to take care of ourselves and our needs, whether it be a career or family or time or whatever that is. Even from a health perspective that I think folks need to really take a step back and take that personal inventory and make sure they're doing well for themselves, as well as others in their life and in their work.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I'm very guilty of that. My strategy is move a million miles an hour and don't take any time to reconcile the reality of what's actually happening, which is-

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Yeah. I think that's the human condition.

Sarah Nicastro: ... not healthy, yeah. But very good point. And Marlene, thank you so much for joining again today. I'm excited to see where this new path at Ricoh will take you and I'm sure we will welcome you back at some point in the future to see what's going on. So thanks [crosstalk 00:00:22:47].

Dr. Marlene Kolodziej: Thank you for having me, it was such a pleasure.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. You can check out more of our content by visiting us at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter at The Future of FS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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July 8, 2020 | 23 Mins Read

5 Ways COVID Has Brought Clarity to Our Business

July 8, 2020 | 23 Mins Read

5 Ways COVID Has Brought Clarity to Our Business

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Rodger Smelcer, Vice President/Owner of United Service Technologies discusses with Sarah five ways that COVID-19 has brought clarity to his business and what changes he’s made as a result.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. I'm happy to welcome to the podcast today Rodger Smelcer, vice president and owner of United Service Technologies. Today we're going to be talking with Rodger about five ways that the COVID-19 challenges have brought clarity to his business. Rodger, thank you so much for joining today. Welcome to the podcast.

So before we dive into the questions, can you just tell our listeners a bit about yourself and your background in the space and what United Service Technologies does?

Rodger Smelcer: Well, of course my name's Rodger Smelcer and United Service Technology is a company me and my business partner, Bob Heidkamp, started in 1995, and the idea behind the business was to really provide a wide gamut of services for the grocery industry specifically. We both had a background in grocery, so that's how we got started. And currently, we service about 2,000 grocery locations in the West Coast.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, excellent. And you and I have spent some time together over the past handful of weeks in some different interactions. And in our chats, we've talked about this idea of some of the ways that our current challenging landscape has kind of brought clarity to yourself as a business leader and a lot of other folks as business leaders. So specific to you, we've outlined five different ways it's impacted you, and I want to talk through each of those on today's episode. So the first is that it's brought clarity for you to the need to create a culture of kindness. And I know that you've told me this is something that has really always been important to you, but has just become even more emphasized as the last few months have unfolded. So tell us a bit about why it's always been important to you, how the current circumstances have brought even greater clarity to that need, and maybe any advice you can share on how you've done this in your business and how others might do the same.

Rodger Smelcer: Sure. Well, I think we have done it for pretty much the entirety of our business. We've focused in. We always like to say we're developing a culture of kindness because you never really get there all the way. So what we do is we really try to look for the evidence of a culture of kindness, and that's part of developing it, right? First, you have to define what that looks like. And one of the ways we've been able to define that is just two words, respect and cooperation. So when we see those two things happening within a department or inside of a group, that's our evidence that the culture of kindness is actually working there. And so we look at it that way. We're looking for those two things all the time.

Rodger Smelcer: I would say during COVID, one of the big changes for us has been utilizing different pieces of software that we already had. We already had an HR software platform that had a community kind of a building section of it, and what that allowed us to do is create what we call positive impressions. And so peer to peer, they're giving each other positive impressions in a multitude of categories, and that allows us to reward the desired behavior, right? And that's a principle we always operate our business on is only reward desired behavior. And so we're constantly reinforcing that through these positive impressions. And then of course, just through communication, casting the vision and making sure that people understand it.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So I have a question about that. So you said that respect and what was the other? Cooperation. I was going to say collaboration. So respect and cooperation are two ways that you know the culture of kindness is working. So if there's an instance where one of the two of those things is lacking, then how do you determine the root cause of that lack? Meaning like how do you determine if it's more of a personal employee issue versus a breakdown in that culture of kindness? Does that make sense?

Rodger Smelcer: Yes, and that's a great question. And so that goes back to why do you... What are the criteria you hire people based on? And so we like to hire on what we call the three Cs, character, capability and chemistry. So we want them to have the character, to be a person of their word, to get to work on time, to do all those things. We want them to be capable of doing the job, but if they don't know how to do something, they need to be a quick learner. In fact, we'll tell a perspective employee that our business doesn't afford us to learn slowly. There are a lot of businesses that do. Ours doesn't. And so we give them a heads up, we're looking for fast learners.

Rodger Smelcer: And then three, chemistry. Are they a team player? Do they work well with others? And what we find is when we're dealing with someone, whether they're not displaying the culture of kindness properly or virtually, any problem basically boils down to those three areas. It's kind of like a tripod, right? And if it's missing one of those legs, it just falls down and it's not very useful.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense.

Rodger Smelcer: So when we call people in to talk to them and try to correct behavior, we're usually dealing with one of those three things. And so, because we're not dealing with the specific issue as much as we are these three things. So if they're not showing up on time for example, we're talking to them about their character. What does good character look like? How do we improve this? And we get to the specifics, but we try to deal with the root cause.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. Yeah, this kindness topic is interesting because I think to a lot of people, it could sound a little bit fluffy or woo-woo or what have you, but I do think it's really important, and I've actually been having a lot of conversations recently with folks about how before these current challenges started, kindness was appreciated to an extent, but also sometimes seen as weakness or potential for weakness or potential for being too soft or that sort of thing, and how the perception of kindness in leadership has changed to be perceived as such an important strength. It's really interesting how facing these last few months collectively as a business, as a community, as a world, really has brought a lot of light to how truly important that kindness is. So I know that it's something that for you has been important for your business for a very long time, but I think even other organizations that didn't prioritize it so heavily before are really starting to look at how much of an important role it plays and how they can do a better job.

Rodger Smelcer: Well, a couple of things. So you do find yourself saying, "Don't mistake my kindness for weakness," quite a bit. And number two, in order to really attract and keep millennials and Gen Z these days are also known as zoomers, right? They're demanding that culture of kindness. Really, even in all the turmoil you're seeing now in the media, it all comes down to everyone just wants to see a culture of kindness, right? That's what... Those protests are over that. All these things, so everybody wants to get to a culture of kindness. I think figuring out how to do that is the part that companies sometimes struggle with. I feel like we've been able to accomplish that to a large extent in our company. And of course, like I said before, you're always working on it. It never ends. You're finding new ways to make it more kind. We're finding that game of finding things helps in that as well, and we do that in a lot of different areas and then training and other things.

Sarah Nicastro: I don't want to get us too off track, but that is my specialty. And one thing you said, it just made me really curious. So what are some of the ways that those younger employees of yours, you said they're demanding a culture of kindness. How do you see that presenting itself? What is the evidence of what they're looking for that makes you need to level up in this way?

Rodger Smelcer: It's the questions that they're asking during the interviews, right? One of the questions millennials will ask is what is the culture like? Well, I never hear that from my boomers or my Gen X people coming in. And I hire across the whole gamut, but that's a particular question from them. And so that prompts the question from our interviewer, well, what kind of culture are you looking for? Kindness comes up a lot. And I think that's where we've been able to make some inroads because we're listening to understand instead of listening to respond during those interview times. And I think that's mistake a lot of companies make is they're listening to the person, but they're listening to respond with the next question or with the kind of the criteria that they're really looking for in that moment.

Sarah Nicastro: Right, or even listening to respond with, "Yes, here's how we can give you that," versus thinking... Yeah, versus thinking, "Oh, maybe we should think about this. If this is coming up in these conversations, do we actually do this? Is this something we should consider?" That's a really good point because it's not the topic we're talking about today, but this whole idea of how companies need to evolve to be more effective in their recruiting and hiring practices as the older workforce retires is a huge pain point for a lot of folks. So I really love that idea of listening to understand instead of listening to respond, because if you can glean insights from that where you can go back and change your, whatever it is, job descriptions, benefits, whatever, to make it more appealing and improve your success rates, that's a really big deal.

Sarah Nicastro: Good. So the second area of clarity that we had discussed is the idea of how important a sense of community is. So I've heard you say a couple of times all ships rise with the tide, right? So tell us what you mean by that and how you feel about this importance of community.

Rodger Smelcer: Wow, I have a lot to say on that subject for sure. Well, I do believe all ships rise with the tide. As we share best practices as an industry, it lifts the whole industry, right? And I think one of the things that's come out of this time during COVID and the pandemic is all these virtual happy hours, right? And so many people and companies have participated in these. And for our industry in particular, I think they've been very, very positive. We're getting together casually, but we're also giving updates on what's happening in our specific region and maybe some of the solutions that we've brought into play or policies that we've put together to help us with COVID. And I'm proud of our industry for sharing a lot of that information, but also disappointed that our associations are not more actively surveying the whole group and then taking that information and putting it back out to the entire group.

Rodger Smelcer: I think those are the things... In a lot of ways, I think our associations and our groups that we all belong to, and there's multitude of them, their response to this pandemic has been anemic at best. And we've been left on our own to figure it out, and one of the ways we've done that is through these virtual happy hours, right? So we get together, share a lot of the best practices, bring each other up to speed on what's happening in our different regions of the country. And I think it's been beneficial and I think all ships are rising with the tide during the pandemic.

Rodger Smelcer: And there are a lot more young people coming into the industry now, and we're participating in that. I'm sure you are too. I'm seeing a lot of millennials and Gen Zs coming into the industry and they're networked already. They're communicating this way already. I think as companies, we've been a little bit slower or behind the curve matching that kind of communication, that kind of network, that they are already just kind of born with at this point because of the technology advances that they've experienced and they're coming up.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a good point. I think in my role of really trying hard to provide valuable insight to people and to make connections and to share best practices, I think the appetite for that has definitely increased. Since this started, I think that people really want to band together and feel as though... I mean, it's a hard time. You don't want to feel like you're in it alone. You don't want to feel like you're on an island. And we can't get together in person, but it's really nice to be able to just talk with someone about a shared challenge or even just how you're feeling or how they're tackling x, y, or z. There's a lot of value in that.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think that it's a really good point. And hopefully, I hope that that sense of community sticks. I hope it sticks after things get back to some semblance of normal. And I think that the way that we've kind of bonded as humans, I hope that that is something that remains. I think so. For me, it will. And I think if anything, it's just made me reflect on how lucky I am, how much I love what I do, how much I love the community that I serve. And because it's easy when things are going great to take a lot of things for granted. In some ways, it's human nature, right? So it really gives you a chance to think about what's important and this is one of those things. So the third area is clarity around your leadership and the role you play as a leader and what that has looked like. So what are your comments in that area?

Rodger Smelcer: Yeah, I'm typically hard on myself when I'm introspective like that. I feel one of the areas I've improved in that was a weakness prior to the pandemic is just I felt like I was going too slow. And the evidence of that is we were touched early by the pandemic because one of our employees had a father that tested positive and was in the first 10 cases in the US. And so when we found out about it early, we were able to jump all over it and start creating policy and do a lot of different things. But what I saw was we were able to go at triple speed to get things done than we normally do.

Rodger Smelcer: And so could we sustain a higher speed on a lot of these projects if we were really focused? And I think that's improved a lot. We've been moving all of our projects along much quicker post-COVID, and we're not done with it obviously yet, but post the initial reaction to it. And I think that's one area that as a leader and not just me, all of our leaders have grown in this particular area. Being quicker, having a higher sense of urgency as we attack these issues and problems. There are many changes and effects of this pandemic on every department in our companies.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that is a good change and it's a very important one. And I think that we did a podcast a week or two ago, and one of the things that came up was that increase in pace of change. And it was with DSL. And I think one of the things he said is just how proud he was of the ability to step up and do things faster and all of that stuff. And I think that's... You don't know what you're capable of until you're forced to really push it to the limits, and a lot of people are in that spot right now.

Rodger Smelcer: I'd say the other big area is just communication, right? It's been my normal practice over the years to reach out personally to all our employees. I usually call two or three every other day and just try to connect with them. But during this pandemic, the dynamic has changed, right? Now we're not just... It's not, "Hey, how's it going? Is there anything I can help you with? Or what do you need?" Now t's health concerns. I have one employee that has 10 of his family members have tested positive for COVID.

Sarah Nicastro: It's alarming.

Rodger Smelcer: And that's a whole different conversation now, right? Because he's worried about his family and what's ultimately going to happen. And there's a closeness that generates from that though too. It's not a negative thing, it's definitely a positive thing. And you start to get to understand their circumstances a little bit better and get closer as a company.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, those interactions have... Maybe before they were somewhat on a surface level and now they've really dug deep into real life stuff. I think it's a good point though that when you were saying communication, I was thinking about the fact that if you as a leader are highly committed to creating this culture of kindness, that element of communication, and more importantly, personal communication. And I would even further qualify it as sincere personal communication. I don't think you could have a culture of kindness without that.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that it's one of those things that... And that's why I was asking you some follow up questions on the kindness thing because I think it's something that is easy for anyone to say like, "We have a great company culture. We have a culture of kindness and everyone loves it here," or whatever, but when you really peel that back and start to look at what are those practices that make that claim a reality, doing something like being regimented with yourself of every other day, I'm going to contact two or three employees personally and show them that I genuinely care and really check in with them, that's a practice that I think goes a long way in making good on that desire to have a culture like that.

Sarah Nicastro: So I just think that's a really important point to touch on because it's not just about coming up with some really great sounding company mission and putting it on the walls of the building, it's about those daily practices and weekly practices that foster that type of environment. So, good. Good job. You're doing a good job. That's cool. All right, so the fourth area we talked about was clarity in business strategy. So talk to us about some of the things that have come to light about where the business is heading and what needs to happen with the strategy to be successful.

Rodger Smelcer: Well, I think everybody got into gear real quick as the pandemic turned on and we realized that this is bigger than we thought, right? Because in the news early, it didn't seem like a huge thing and it may not come over here and all of that. But once it did, you start really taking a look at what's important, what's not and start really looking at your processes that are in place now. Of course, that you're putting together your policies that are ever changing during this pandemic. Things get mandated and then pulled back and vice versa.

Rodger Smelcer: And so I think for us, the strategies that we used during this pandemic weather are twofold. So we looked at them department by department. What did we expect the new normal to look like? And so we started strategizing on what changes need to be made department by department. And we actually first started with sales and marketing, and what did we need to do to help our customer at this moment? What could we do to help them? And fortunately for us, because we're in the grocery industry, only one of our customers actually shut down, bakery, deli and meat department.

Rodger Smelcer: And so we came up with the idea that we were going to offer a hibernation process to them. And we would do it during our normal plant maintenance cycle for them and help them put the machines in a way where when they came back and turned them on, they would work. We have a lot of experience in this because being in the grocery industry, we've experienced grocery strikes. And during those strikes, we saw the grocery chains come back to equipment that wouldn't turn on. And so they blew up their whole maintenance budget coming back because everything was broken, frozen, not working.

Rodger Smelcer: And so that was one strategy we used from a sales and marketing side. And then of course, our plan two, I think in those moments, you're deciding things that we do every day, are we going to continue to do? And what things are we going to eliminate so we can focus energy on more safety and acquiring more PPE or whatever it is. And I think for us, we decided because our industry wasn't largely shutting down, we decided to keep most things going. And of course, the strategy was to move a lot of people home that weren't home already. We've always had work at home people in our company. For last 15 years, we've had many of them and even prior to that. So we have a good ability to manage our people at home and coach them along in areas that are new to them because they're at home.

Rodger Smelcer: And I think that's a little bit how our strategies have changed. We've just really come up with a new normal for each department and I'm focusing in on that. Another way we do that is, I'm an outline taker, right? And so I was talking to you earlier about switching to kind of a mind map format and making things visual for our team. Not only for them, but so they're able to convey it all the way down to our frontline technicians in the field. And that's been a powerful change for us that has really helped us to be more focused on the things we need to be doing to help our customer along.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, you shared that with me. Is it Coggle? coggle.it, I believe, is a mind map software that Rodger uses. And him and I were talking on a call a week or so ago and he brought it up and we actually... He pulled it up and we did one together and it's really cool. It's a great way. I think especially with so many meetings happening virtually, it's a really good way to take all of the thoughts that are bouncing around and put them up visually so that people can follow along on, you might be in an hour long meeting that takes 73 different turns and if you're not taking good notes, you get out of that meeting and you're like, "Wait, what were all the takeaways?" Or what have you.

Sarah Nicastro: And just in terms of brainstorming and innovating and organizing, it's a really, really neat tool. So it's definitely worth checking out. And I'd be curious how many people are doing that sort of thing. I know for me, I think it'll be a great way to outline content and brainstorm different ideas going forward. So I appreciate you sharing that with me. Okay, so the fifth and final area of clarity is around the optimization of processes and technology use. So let's talk a little bit about that.

Rodger Smelcer: Wow, that's a big subject for us. We have implemented a lot of technology, partially for the areas it can help us help our customer, and partially because that attracts and retains millennials and Gen Z or zoomers. So we utilize it in many ways. So a few of them are we utilize an AI technology that allows us to triage the calls before we go and understand the parts needed, dynamically build inventories and things like that. We also use a mixed reality technology that allows us to support technicians in the field. And of course, COVID kind of changed that, so now we're starting to support the customer in the field as well so that we're not in close contact. That's the ultimate distance, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Rodger Smelcer: And then the one I'm most excited about right now is we're using a no-code application development platform that allows us to be more flexible for our customer. One of our customers said to me once years ago that the two most important qualities in a service company for them were flexibility and reliability. And we've kind of taken that and run with it. We want to be able to customize the application used by the technician in the field so that they're basically walked through processes specific to that customer. And it's really helping us do that and provide things like Uber style ETAs, and that's a project we're working on now, and other things like that. So that platform is exciting because we're able to do it internally and develop our own application.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, so do you think COVID has ramped up your use of technology, or do you think it's just allowed you to find different ways to utilize the systems that you had in place?

Rodger Smelcer: Well, I think we're unique in that we've implemented many technologies in our industry at least, from the other companies that I'm talking to, but it has really just expanded the use of the technologies we were already developing. We haven't really added any new technology as a result of the pandemic. However, we've made all of the technologies we've used more powerful as a result of the pandemic. And so they reach farther into now areas where we're helping the customer. They also give us the ability to really focus in what we do on the current need of the customer, which is different now that COVID is here. And I think we have to have processes in place that are built into our workflow in the field real time. And as those changes are made, we need to be able to make them quickly and respond.

Rodger Smelcer: And I think that's what the technologies have really given us the ability to do. I think our technicians, our management are all involved and working on those. We talked in... The last time you and I talked together, we talked about one of the ways that makes it easier to retain technicians is helping them develop their resumes, right? And we talked about the mindset of people like me, Gen Xer and baby boomers, that job security mindset versus that employability mindset that these new generations have. And we feel like if we can add all of these technologies to their resume, it adds value to them personally.

Rodger Smelcer: And they appreciate that. And you think that it would be counterintuitive, right? You're building up their resume and they'll just take it and go work somewhere else, but what we're constantly reminding them is who is helping you build your resume? And who's going to help you build it in the future? Are you going to continue to build it here, and you've seen the proof of that, or are you going to go somewhere else and hope that they're going to help build your resume the same way we have?

Rodger Smelcer: And I think that's a real key to retention for us.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I think, Rodger, what I'm taking away from this podcast episode is that we should have you back at some point in the future and do an episode specifically talking about best practices around recruiting, hiring, and retention, because I think that you have some really good input on those areas. And like I said, it's a topic we've covered in the past, not in a while because there's been all of these urgent top of mind things, but I think that would be a really good idea. And it's a very good point. So it's good. Any other, I guess, comments or thoughts or lessons learned that you would want to share in closing?

Rodger Smelcer: Well, I think all the things we've talked about, many of them have lessons learned. And when we talk about that new normal that's coming and really is already here, the lessons that we've really learned as a team, as a management team in our business, is that we needed to focus in on the structure of our department and our people and what they're focused on. I think having a little bit more time, and really the pandemic allowed that, allowed us to have more time to really take a look at the business, right? And really decide... I think a lot of people decided they wanted to try to restructure a little bit to meet the need, but that caused them to take a look at the structure that they may have not normally done outside of a pandemic like we did, and really make great changes.

Rodger Smelcer: In fact, I'll tell you during the pandemic, we've had the best three months in our company's history. And I almost feel guilty saying that sometimes because a lot of times I'm talking to a lot of companies that are in the sit down restaurant industry or they're in another industry that was severely impacted like hospitality. And those guys are just coming back. And recently, we opened restaurants or we're planning to, and we ordered all the food and now we can't open them. And so there's a lot of struggle going on with all these things.

Rodger Smelcer: And trying to keep health at the top of the priority list has not been very difficult for us because we're in an industry where you have food safety and all of those things. We do a lot more training with our customer now than we did pre-pandemic. So I think that's an area where I think a lot of companies could improve and we certainly have during this time. So I'll just leave you with that. Really customer training is a big piece of what we do as far as safety, equipment safety, food safety, and just our technician safety on the job.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, and we've talked a bit about how going forward, I think safety is going to be a bigger differentiator for service organizations than it maybe was in the past. In certain industries, it's always been important, but it's so critically top of mind for people right now. How are you going to keep us safe? How are you keeping your employees safe? Everything is going to be centered around the details of what those processes look like. And I think that that's something that's going to be a real important differentiator for quite a long time.

Rodger Smelcer: Well, many of our customers are asking for natural disaster planning, right? In fact, it's included right in the RFPs from our customers. So, you have to be prepared. Every company should have a safety committee that meets on a regular basis and talks about safety issues and creates policy and modifies policy and all of those things. And certainly, we have ramped all of that up post-COVID and really made it even more of a top priority than it already was.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, good. And I liked the point you made about how this situation has given you a little opportunity to press pause and reflect as a business, right? I think that you get in the day to day busyness and craziness and a lot can just go by and time can go by. And you're right. This has forced people to reflect and where it's necessary, make some changes. And I think there's some good aspects of the impact this will have for businesses for quite a while, just in terms of their openness to change and the, like you said earlier, the ability to be more agile and to move faster when you need to and that sort of stuff. So really good thoughts, Rodger, and I really appreciate you being here and sharing with us today. We'd love to have you back sometime in the future to talk a little bit more about hiring and retention.

Rodger Smelcer: Yeah, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it and I look forward to another one with you someday soon.

Sarah Nicastro: Awesome. That sounds good. You can find more insight on how companies are handling COVID complexity by visiting us at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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July 1, 2020 | 25 Mins Read

A Real-World Look at What Slows Servitization Progress

July 1, 2020 | 25 Mins Read

A Real-World Look at What Slows Servitization Progress

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Greg Parker, who has 20+ years of experience with brands like Hussmann, Trane, and Thermo King, shares some real-world insight into some of the common challenges that slow Servitization progress within organizations.

Sarah: Welcome to The Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be taking a real world look at what slows servitization progress. Servitization has been a buzzword in the industry for the last few years, and we're actually going to talk about why it's a buzzword, and kind of what it really means. Since COVID has hit, we've had a lot of discussions around kind of speeding the journey to servitization. As customer demands are evolving, there's even an increased need just in the last few months to really move to outcomes-based service models and to servitize manufacturing businesses, and really evolve with those customer needs, but it is a journey that seems to be fraught with challenges and takes quite a bit of time.

Sarah: And so, I invited our guest on today. He has a ton of industry expertise and experience and some really good perspectives on what some of the things are, the real world look, at how servitization progress gets slowed down. So, I'm excited to welcome back to the Future of Field Service podcast today, Greg Parker. Greg, thank you so much for being here.

Greg: Thank you, Sarah. It's great to be here.

Sarah: Awesome. So, Greg, like I said, you have a lot of experience in service, so why don't you tell our listeners a bit about your history in the industry and what you've accomplished in this space.

Greg: Sure. It really all started about almost 25 years ago, but it was in manufacturing at the time, and engineering, and that's really where I got started off for the first five or six years. I made the leap into the 3D world of service and sales in about 2004. So, for the past 15 to 16 years, I've been working in a services-type capacity, in really all aspects of it. In the beginning, it was improving service operations, improving overall operations in general management, and then it kind of carried into sales engineering, then over directly into service operations; and then for three years or so, customer care, which is customer service, another aspect of service, as well as technical training; and then the last three to five years has been with portfolio management over our service offerings.

Greg: And so, really, it's been a pretty broad aspect of the services world, but also been playing into the manufacturing and engineering space, as well.

Sarah: So you've witnessed a lot of this evolution firsthand, and I know you have some different experiences with the different companies that you've been with, in kind of leading the charge on the path to outcomes-based service to servitization, and so that's what gives you the perspective and experience that I think will lend to a great discussion today.

Sarah: Now you most recently were with Thermo King, and I know you also have been at Trane and Ingersoll Rand. Am I missing any?

Greg: I was with Hussmann for the first 13 years of my career.

Greg: Yep, and then the next 10 years after Hussmann was with Trane Commercial, and then the last 18 months was with Thermo King.

Sarah: Okay, cool. All right, excellent. So let's start by talking about why it is that companies need to embrace this evolution towards servitization or towards outcomes-based service, because I think that one of the very first steps in kind of preventing that progress from being too slow is the simple recognition that it is the future of service and it is a necessary evolution. So, what are some of the reasons why companies need to embrace this change?

Greg: Sure. Of course, I think that that depends on where you stand and who your customers are in your market, but generally speaking, we know that customers always have similar unmet needs. If you are simply manufacturing a product, and when that product leaves the factory, you're done, then the customer has a lot more needs than just obtaining that product from you. They're going to find a way to solve their problems, and the question will be, are you going to be a solutions provider for your customers, or will someone else be?

Greg: I think, in particular, if you are an OEM, you have a tremendous advantage to get into the services world, because you can really pull all the pieces of the puzzle together for your customers. Even if you're not, it's a great opportunity to provide those solutions, hit those unmet needs for your customer base, and it's really an opportunity to explore what do your customers really want, what do they need, and then prioritize how you can provide that solution to them. That's really the first aspect.

Greg: I'm going to say that there's another one. There's a second one, which is really centered around the financial piece. Consider downturns in the market. How about the times that we are, as a country, going through right now? In a downturn in the market, with many factories having to slow or even shut down, that dramatically impacts the revenue for your business, for your company, and services can be a more steady stream. Are there ups and downs? Sure, but either you will have the opportunity to offset those ups and downs, or it at least will be a level of stability to your business that you do not have today, and so, financially, it's also a great move for a business.

Sarah: Yeah, very good, and I think that there's kind of two different angles from which to look at what you just said. There's the areas in which it presents a significant opportunity for the business, and a path to growth and a path to different revenue streams, and then there's the other side of it, which is where it is a threat to your business to not go down this path, right?

Greg: Right.

Sarah: So I think both sides of those coin are really important, so that's good.

Sarah: I think the other challenge I think of right away is just with the terms themselves, servitization or outcomes-based service. I think, generally speaking, it's a term that signifies a universal and foundational shift in service, as service becoming a strategic differentiator and a path to revenue for organizations, but as you mentioned, that looks very different from business to business. So, I think one of the areas where companies get off on the wrong foot... once they've accepted that this is the path forward, I think there can be some real issues around clarity in terms of what the definition of servitization is, specifically for them.

Sarah: So, what thoughts or advice do you have on, within an organization, as you recognize the need to go down this path, clearly defining what that opportunity looks like for an individual business?

Greg: Sure. I think the first thing that I, in particular, think about is, don't get so hung up on the word servitization, and you just really alluded to that, Sarah. It's one word with a whole lot of syllables, right? If you haven't heard it before, you probably would think that it's some rocket science, but really, it isn't. It is simply getting on that journey to provide service to your customers, and then, what does that journey look like? Well, that really depends.

Greg: So, when you brought up, it may look different from business to business, my thoughts there is, concentrate on the market that you are in. Understand your customers, your customers' needs, and then identify what would be the best opportunity for you to begin that journey? Baby steps are totally okay, and a baby step could be simply, let's offer extended warranties, or let's offer repair services, but you also want to ensure that you just don't remain at those baby steps.

Greg: I would encourage more like a long-range plan. So, what would year one look like? What would the first three months look like, for that matter? But then, what does three years out look like? We could say maybe five years, but the world certainly changes a whole lot in five years, so most of the time, I would encourage just get to three years, and then go from there and you're probably going to be in good shape.

Greg: But I want to bring all this back to the fact that I could say, hey, do this or do that for any given company or any given advice, but it really depends on what market you're playing in and your customer needs. My best advice would be understand your existing customers' needs, but also understand your market, and there's many ways of doing that. I mean, talk to your customers. You could bring someone else in to help you facilitate that through a third party, if need be, or you can simply go old school and write it down on a sheet of paper, and then start to analyze it for yourself, and then bring others in, vet those results; then, begin doing like a Pareto that would say, "Hey, what are the biggest opportunities?"

Greg: Lastly, let's make sure that you don't forget that you're going to have some probably internal barriers, as well as the market may say, "Oh, there's a best opportunity for me, and this is the biggest opportunity that my customers need," and maybe that looks like, "Hey, I've got to provide an outcome-based service or a telematics or that sort of thing," but internally, you're not ready for that. Do you have the talent, the skills, the investment?

Greg: So, don't get intimidated by that, either. Just draw a box around that, put it over to the side, and say, "Okay, at some point, we may or may not be ready for something like that, but we can still start our journey." So, identify what has to happen internally for your company, and how you can create that best match to meet your customers' unmet needs.

Sarah: Yeah. You and I were on a happy hour last week, and that's actually kind of what initiated the idea of jumping on and having this conversation for a podcast, but Robin Butler was on with us, and I liked... what he said is, a lot of times, companies get caught up in the plan and lose sight of the outcomes, right?

Greg: Yes.

Sarah: So it's getting clear on, what does this journey look like for us, and what are some of the key outcomes that we want to accomplish, but then being very flexible in the plan for getting there, because that plan is going to evolve. To your point, it could be you need new talent or different talent; you need new technology, different technology; you need different processes; you need different sales and marketing expertise. I mean, there's a lot of layers that come into this, and I think those layers can seem very daunting, but you need to set those objectives and then just be flexible in how you begin achieving them.

Sarah: I think that there's... to me, I've been writing about this space and interviewing service leaders for about 14 years, right? And so, I think that we've reached a general point of consensus among the people I speak with within the industry that this evolution is necessary. Whether you're a strictly service business that is migrating from break/fix work to more of an outcomes-based model, or whether you're a manufacturer that is looking for your path to being more of a solution provider, I think it's a journey that everyone has pretty much signed up for at this point.

Sarah: But where I see a lot of kind of disconnect is... I guess I would think of a few points. I mean, there's the way that the technology providers in this space tend to talk about this journey, which is that it is the future, so let's do it, right? Let's get out there and make it happen.

Greg: Right.

Sarah: It's more slow moving than I think anyone would expect, whether that's the people providing the technology or the companies themselves. I think anyone would acknowledge that it's not an easy transformation because it is very multi-layered, as we mentioned. You talk about, you need to understand what it is your customers are going to be willing to pay for, and then you need to start re-engineering your business in a way that will allow you to provide that from a product perspective, from a process perspective, from a technology perspective, from a sales and marketing perspective, from a service perspective.

Sarah: When you really start digging into what a change like this means, it becomes pretty easy to understand why it isn't something that happens rapidly within the businesses. I think right now we're in this weird sort of limbo between a general consensus of understanding this is the path forward, but a lot of lag in taking that recognition and turning it into actual, tangible progress, right?

Sarah: So, what are your thoughts on that?

Greg: Yeah, that's a really great question, Sarah, and earlier in your comments, it made me think of... I think, at least my philosophy is, I'm a big believer in doing experiments. I totally agree that don't lose sight of the plan, but also don't just go with the plan. The experiments are going to be critical so that you know how to adjust, and it's okay to do experiments, and it's okay to fail at those experiments, as long as everybody is under the context that we're going to try something out, and that's the spirit of innovation. So, that's the first thing that I would say is, don't be afraid to go find those quick wins and to do those experiments.

Greg: But in terms of the lag and what may cause... hey, everybody gets excited, and then all of the sudden, things get stale, for whatever reason... I think there's a lot of factors into that, and as I have, I guess, experienced that in both a mature service industry and a relatively immature service industry from both angles, I would say that, be careful to not do copy/paste. This is really a message to a leader, or those that are trying to spearhead or sponsor the effort.

Greg: If you think that you can go benchmark a company, and then just do everything that that company did, and say, "Well, this should apply to me. It worked for them," that's probably going to be a dangerous strategy. I do think that it's really important to do benchmarking. I always do benchmarking, but you'll have to take that into context. I've seen, I've at least witnessed, before where a company will take and say, "Oh, well, this company did it; they're sort of in the same space we are. They did it his way. Let's just do it that way." What happens is you begin to lose sight of your customers, your specific market niche, and your needs, and what your own abilities are that I alluded to earlier, and when you do that, people get frustrated.

Greg: You may not be organizationally set up to do that. You might not have the talents, nor the technology to set up to do all of those things that the benchmark company that you just looked at did; and so, that typically brings forth pause, and then when pause comes forth, then people begin to say, "Well, gee, I don't know if this is actually going to work or not," and then the economy gets bad and you say, "Well, gee, I can't place my bets into servitization anymore. We're going to have to double down on our core business and make sure that we hone in on that."

Greg: And so, that's at least been some of the things that I've seen across the industry, and the second piece of that really boils down into leadership, too. You have to think about, do I have the right leadership? Is there a steady hand in all this? These things play together, and you don't have to have all the best industry experts to do it, so I'm not really saying that. I'm simply saying that let's make sure that your leaders understand enough about that path and that journey of servitization that they can support that, that they can be the ones that can be that foundation, because if the foundation cracks, then the house falls, so you have to be careful about that, too.

Sarah: Yeah. Okay, I want to go back to a couple of those points.

Sarah: First of all, I think the point you brought up about not being able to mimic anyone else's success is a really important point, because in this industry, if you look at what I do, what Future of Field Service is intended to do, it is to share best practices. It is to share lessons learned and road maps and paths to success and all of that, and I think that is important, but to your point, on this journey, in particular, it is very tied to the two points you brought up: what exactly are the services and outcomes that your customers are willing to pay a premium for, and what are your unique characteristics and unique value proposition that you can bring to the market, and where do those intersect, right?

Greg: Absolutely.

Sarah: To your point, that is not going to look the same for any one business, for any one industry. So, it is very much a unique path and a unique journey; so you can look to others for inspiration and for certain best practices and ideas, but that will never be a replacement for any one company doing the work of finding that intersection themselves. So, I think that is a very good and a very important point.

Sarah: The other thing you brought up in terms of leadership that I think is another really good piece of advice is, I think to really make progress on this journey, I think you need both visionaries... so, I think you need people that understand why this path is so important and can create a vision for how to bring a business to this endpoint... but I think you also need some strong operational expertise, because I think another area where this gets really slowed down is... if you think about doing the work of determining that intersection between customer demand and company expertise... so, you do that, and you have this vision for where the company can go and how it can evolve into servitization, but there's a lot of muck that you can get bogged down in, in wherever you are; whether it's A to Z or F to Z, or however long you need to go to reach that vision, there's a lot of real process and operations-related work that needs to be done, and in my experience, I don't think that those visionaries are often really good at the execution work, right?

Greg: Right.

Sarah: And so, you need to marry those two pieces of talent, I think, to ultimately achieve success. You need visionaries that can really think outside of the box and be innovative and do some of that work to determine where you are headed, but then you need people that can turn that into process and strategy and a plan for how you can get there, so I think that's another really important point.

Sarah: The third thing you mentioned that I wanted to go back to, and see if maybe you could talk through an example of, is the idea of experimentation. You simultaneously need to be working kind of your three year plan... what's the vision and where do we want to go... but you need to be getting those small wins along the way to kind of build that momentum. So, I don't know if you can think of an example to share of, what would an experiment on this path... what's an example of what that could look like?

Greg: Sure. I should probably give a couple. So, one would be more operationally, because a lot of times, when we think about service, we think about the experiments that we need to do on the day-to-day or to repair a break/fix, and then the other would be more around our offerings. But one example would be, in one of my past roles, we had a number of locations that were really afraid of the idea of doing triage with express service, so in some ways, that is a service offering. It wasn't positioned as a service agreement, so to speak, but just a way of doing business.

Greg: The thing about that is, when you think about that, it really changes the flow of the operation, and so changing the flow of the operation gets kind of scary when you've been doing something for, who knows, five, 10, 25 years the same way. One of the success points that we've seen in the past is, why not just experiment with introducing that? It doesn't have to be full-blown out of the gate. Perhaps you can try it from the hours of 10:00 to 2:00, and therefore, it might be a lighter part of the day, and begin getting your service coordinators, your folks that are handling that flow, accustomed to it. Then, where you see the wins, make sure that you highlight those wins. Track your progress. Have some form of measurement that would say, did I do better today versus yesterday? And so, that's one type of experiment. I mean, there's many that could be out there.

Greg: In terms of service offerings, I would say that, consider a company... and this is probably more on the immature side... that has a service agreement business, and maybe that service agreement is a preventative maintenance; so, you are doing preventative maintenance once a quarter, and you have this great idea that on my journey, on my road map, I want to provide more full comprehensive services and comprehensive service solutions. Maybe it's a monthly type of service or bill that you're doing for customers.

Greg: Again, you don't necessarily have to jump completely off into the pool and do that right away. There are ways to where you can evolve that preventative maintenance service agreement into more of a comprehensive-type service agreement just by adding a few features and functions, maybe changing the way that the billing is; instead of doing it once a quarter, maybe that's the first to once a month. But perhaps you may want to be looking at, "Well, for preventative maintenance, I want to do more remote services."

Greg: Again, this is for those companies that may be a bit more mature, and one experiment there is, why do I have to do a quarterly inspection? Why not just do the inspection when it needs it, or when the sensors say that it needs it? Why replace a filter that really hasn't become dirty in three months? So, those are some experiments that you can do with your customers, and make it your own.

Greg: So, that would be a bit of advice. Of course, I'd give some examples of the industries that I've worked in, but brainstorm to where you can do your own experiences.

Sarah: Yeah. Very good. I think it could be helpful, maybe, to just talk through... again, a very generic example, but of servitization on a maturity curve, because I think it can be unclear for some, so just a couple points, depending on the business.

Sarah: So, you begin as a product manufacturer; then, you may shift to the addition of warranties and after-market service; then, you may add preventative maintenance; then, you may migrate to more of an SLA and outcomes-based model, and then I think, the kind of final progression that we see in terms of servitization is to offer product as a service, or to your point, be seen as more of a solution provider than a product manufacturer.

Sarah: So, that's kind of just one example of what this would look like kind of on the evolution from start to "finish." Are there certain areas within that maturity curve that you think companies typically get more bogged down in than others?

Greg: Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's two areas, Sarah. One is, it's quite a bit of a change when you are going from the break/fix to a type of service agreement, whether that's a preventative maintenance type of agreement or a more full-service agreement. That change is a change in philosophy. It is a scary thing for some people to say, "Well, gee, maybe I won't make as much money," or, "Perhaps I have to change the way that I'm billing in the back office for something like that," or, "How do I market myself for that sort of thing?"

Greg: So, there's a bit of sometimes fear involved in making that leap, and that's usually where we see the biggest hump to get through, and so, in my experience, again, it's been bringing them back to, "Let's try some things out. Let's try to do it. Don't be scared to try. If you have fears, let's write them down and let's see how we can draw a box around those fears and minimize your risk, but let's move the ball forward." So, that's one area; so, I think it's moving from that break/fix to more of a service agreement type, or step, I would say, in a maturity curve.

Greg: The second piece is when you are trying to move up the ladder to outcome-based service, or even product as a service, and I think that these two can play together in terms of why there would be a pause or maybe a struggle there. The struggle is going to be because a lot of times, customers are not used to buying your services in that way. So if you're going to outcome-based service, you have to convince a customer to purchase it from you, and sometimes doing that would require a higher level of stakeholder in your customer's organization. So, a CEO or a Director of Operations may totally get it and may say, "You know what? That makes a ton of sense for me. I'm going to increase my up time of my equipment if I do this. My risk is minimized."

Greg: But if you're having that same conversation, if historically, you've been selling to maybe a middle management-type layer... great folks, but they don't have the same priorities or have the same purchasing criteria that perhaps someone higher in the organization may be. So, you really have to target that strategic account and say, "How am I going to propose an outcome-based service appropriately, such that I am ensuring that my customers are getting the win that they deserve, and that I know that I can provide?" Because if you don't, you're going to have folks in the middle saying, "Hmm, not for me. I don't even know how to buy that from you."

Greg: So, that's one thing that I've experienced, has been a struggling point for businesses.

Sarah: Yeah, that's a really good point, and it makes me think, if you look back through the maturity curve, and sort of pinpoint different aspects of that evolution, you can begin to see where different layers of the business come into play. I rambled off earlier some of the different aspects of the business that this shift impacts, from R&D and product to operations, to IT, to sales and marketing. So, to your point, it's also something that's another, I guess, barrier or common challenge that comes up that we didn't touch on earlier, which is... if you're a service function within a business that's trying to servitize without the buy-in of the broader business, it's never going to work, you know what I mean?

Greg: Right.

Sarah: It's not something you can do in a silo. It needs to be a cohesive, strategic decision, and that's because, to your point, it impacts so many different areas of the business, and you really have to have that alignment in order to progress through that maturity curve.

Sarah: I alluded to this in the beginning, but one of the things that I've been seeing in the conversations I've had since COVID came into play is, how this crisis can really speed companies' paths to servitization, and I think that's a result of how customer demands have changed in the last couple of months. I've talked with a number of different businesses that have said, quite frankly, right now, their customers will not make cap-ex expenditures; they want to maximize the lifetime of their existing equipment, because they don't want to make new investments right now. They are putting a lot of big projects on hold, big investments on hold, and so, there's actually been quite an opportunity for businesses to come in on the service side and be creative about how to servitize and how to offer new ways for companies to accomplish those goals.

Sarah: We've seen, really, some significant growth there, and I think that will continue. I think it's kind of a way to spur these companies forth in that journey a bit, to maybe the next step or two, to really meet demands that have changed quite significantly over the last couple of months, and I was just curious to get your thoughts on that.

Greg: Yeah, so I have a couple thoughts on that. In my experience with service, it's a small fraction of the investment that you would have to put forth to get either equal or greater results from, say, investing in designing a new piece of equipment. So, there are many things that you can do for $10,000, $20,000 that can get you a hundred to a half million. That's been my experience time and time again, and so, I think with the environment that's changed, you're exactly right. Leaders should explore that, because again, you could take just a small investment and produce great results.

Greg: Sometimes those investments are in the form of IT or software. Sometimes they're in the form of just getting the support that's needed to push the ball across the goal line, but they're usually not dramatic. They're not dramatic expenses.

Greg: I think the one thing that I have seen over the past three or four months since we've been going through this crisis is, people are now willing to try things, because they have to. Consider we're doing this today. We did the last one in person. We would always rather do it in person, but we have found ourselves some ways to make this work... through videos, through Skype... and yes, other people have done it before, but the majority of people in life have not, and it's forced the equation a bit.

Greg: How does this apply to field service? Well, think about technical support. Think about all the things that some people like me, like you, have been talking about for almost 10 years, with augmented reality, with artificial intelligence, with being able to provide support for technicians. How about remote services, intelligent services? All of those things require the types of technology that today, we are... I would say, in a more mass scale, people are beginning to use.

Greg: And so, that sometimes forces people to get a bit more comfortable with things. I would never have preferred it to have occurred this way, but certainly, as a result of the economy being down with the COVID situation, it has required some people to work differently, and I know people that have came to the office every day for many, many years, and the day that the office shut down and they had to work from home, they were really just lost. It required a lot of setup, it required a re-thinking of how am I going to work, and I read an article that you put out not too long ago about that very situation.

Greg: These are some things that we can apply into the soup of, how do we do service and make that more of a reality? So, I do think that it has accelerated the process a bit, and we probably won't even know it for a few more months to come, but as we look back, maybe a year from now, and we would say, "You know what? Because I did that Skype meeting or Teams meeting or Zoom meeting, or now that I had the opportunity to experiment with remote services, my texts are a bit safer. I can provide real-time support to them." Those are the type of things that I think may become an outcome of this unfortunate situation that we're in.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, I think service organizations are in a unique situation right now where both customers are more willing to do things differently as a result of what's happened, and so are employees, right?

Greg: Yes.

Sarah: And so, it is a time that I think there's a window of opportunity to make some significant progress with change more quickly or more easily than you could have six or 12 months ago. So, it will be interesting to look back and see.

Sarah: Last question for today: just any other thoughts or comments or advice you have on key aspects of what it takes to achieve servitization success?

Greg: Yeah, so as I reflect upon that, number one is look at your customers' unmet needs. Make sure that you understand what it is in your market that people are thirsty for. What is it that... the problems that they need to be solved? Do you have the ability to solve them, and if you don't, what type of things would you have to do? Map those out. You don't have to shoot for the moon in the beginning, so map it out. What would be some easy wins, a targeted approach, and consider it like climbing a set of stairs; so I've got to take step one and then step two... whatever that may be for you, but it needs to start in your market with your customers and make it your own.

Greg: I do encourage benchmarking, because you can learn a lot from that... best practices... but again, come back to making it your own. That would be certainly one thing, and I think that also keep in mind that sometimes this shift can be significant, so I think that that really depends upon your approach, but it is a significant change, but you don't have to make it to where it's unfathomable. You can make it where it's obviously something that you can do right away.

Greg: I would also not get discouraged with all of the hype around, you have to have certain IT solutions, you have to have all the latest and greatest stuff that's out there. Those are certainly important enablers, but you have to apply them for where you are on your journey. So if you're just getting started, if you're just a product manufacturer, and you want to take that first leap, you don't have to go spend millions of dollars in IT. Work your process out, make sure that you can do some things and try some things, and then understand where those things come along the journey. It's where to play and how to win, and how do I get there? Those are the top things that I would say upfront.

Greg: I would put a bow on that, and I would say whatever you do, track your progress. It's important for you and for your people and your customers to see the wins, and if you're not tracking the way that you should, make those adjustments. That's really important. Identify your own KPIs. Make it visual. Put it on a board. Put it on a computer screen for people to see. Know where you're winning, and know what adjustments you need to make to ensure that you are on a winning path.

Sarah: Yeah. That's really good advice. I appreciate that, Greg. I always enjoy speaking with you, and I really appreciate you joining us today and spending some more time with us, so thank you again.

Greg: Thank you. It's been great.

Sarah: You can check out more of our content on servitization, outcomes-based service, how companies are managing COVID-19, and much more by visiting us at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter, @thefutureoffs.

Sarah: The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management Solutions by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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DSL: How COVID-19 Has Accelerated Our Pace of Change

June 24, 2020 | 29 Mins Read

DSL: How COVID-19 Has Accelerated Our Pace of Change

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Reeve Bunn, President of DSL, talks with Sarah about how COVID-19 has accelerated the company’s pace of change, how he promotes an innovative culture within the 104-year old company, and how he stays focused both personally and as a leader on what’s most important.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be talking about how COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of change at DSL. This is a common theme we're hearing in how this crisis has really picked up the pace within companies of evolution, of embracing change and of taking new steps and next steps of innovation. I'm happy to welcome to the podcast today, Reeve Bunn, who is the President of DSL. Reeve, welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast.

Reeve Bunn: Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate being here, and looking forward to it.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. If you don't mind can you start just by telling our listeners a bit about DSL's business and then we'll get into the conversation?

Reeve Bunn: Yeah. Well, you hit on my favorite subject right off the bat. Yes, of course, happy to talk about DSL's business. DSL stands for Dairy Supplies Limited. We're in Western Canada, the four Western most provinces of Canada, and we're in the commercial food service industry. We sell service, install, warranty a restaurant and convenience store equipment, and have been doing so for 104 years now. I've been around a long time, seen a lot of things change, and certainly, as per your lead in, a company that's pretty well established like ours, this has been a good wake up call for us and a good jolt, and excited to talk about it.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I think that sentiment is shared by organizations really across industries. Even those that don't have the same deep, rich history that DSL does. It seems to be a pretty universal truth in the folks that I'm talking to right now, is that, if there are positives of this situation, one of them is that it's really breaking down some barriers to change in organizations that needed that, and even in those that didn't. Even in the most innovative business, I think there's always some pockets of resistance to change, or some areas that you just get a little bit stuck in how to prioritize innovation or those sorts of things. I think this is accelerating change in a lot of areas. Certainly excited to talk about some of those.

Sarah Nicastro: One of the things I wanted to touch on is, as you've been leading DSL through the COVID-19 crisis, you have three key areas of focus and in a very particular order for specific reasons. Tell our listeners what those key areas of focus are, and why the order is so important.

Reeve Bunn: Yeah, absolutely. As this all started, our leadership team very quickly hit on, how are we going to work through this crisis and be consistent about our approach, consistent in our decision making, and really hit on what factors are coming into our decisions? It's easy to just hit the panic button and feel like you are making knee-jerk reactionary decisions given what headline you read on the news that morning. We said, well, we've got to ground ourselves with some common pillars here that we can continue to go back to throughout this crisis, however long it may be. First and foremost, we said, nothing is more important than the safety of our team who are out there in the face of this, in our customer's businesses, and out there providing service to those customers on their premise and onsite.

Reeve Bunn: That was our number one focus was, okay, decisions are going to be grounded, first and foremost, in employee safety. That led us to, very quickly, create a preparedness guide for all of our employees that we were revising throughout the course of the past three months, three and a half months to ensure that they were working in as safe of a way as we possibly could have them working. Secondly, we wanted to be very mindful of both the health and the safety of our customers. Being mindful of that, it ties into a lot of the core values that we have, but being mindful of that, we jumped right into getting really creative about what kind of solutions can we put in front of our customers, anticipating what their challenges will be, anticipating what their needs will be and help them through this.

Reeve Bunn: As a customer here at DSL, we had a bit of the opposite experience with one of our longtime vendors, and we've been a customer of theirs for a decade or more. We very quickly, day 31 of the bill being due, we very quickly got the, You are on hold, notice. That was one of those wake up calls to me and to the rest of us that we're not going to be that company. At the other end of this, we're going to be the company that our customers come back to us and go, "Wow, you went above and beyond. You did more than some of your peers that are our other vendors." That was the position we wanted to be in at the end of all of this. That allowed us to quickly pivot and to say, how can we help these customers through this? What can we offer them that's different?

Reeve Bunn: So, we came up with a whole bunch of really creative, I think, really good customer programs that tried to make life easier for them. Then lastly, our third key decision pillar was around business continuity and business health. That meant we got to look inwards and we got to go, what do we need to do to sustain the business for the benefit of the many? You're making tough decisions around projects, putting them on hold, you're making tough decisions around costs, you're making difficult decisions in some cases around staffing. So, what do we need to do to ensure that we continue to move forward and that the business continues to be sustainable and as successful as it can in these circumstances?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Very good. One of the things that stood out to me as you were talking is, when you think about the order of those things, obviously safety and health has to be paramount. This is a global pandemic, and that needs to be prioritized and handled with the utmost care. But what I really like is, as you were describing those pillars, how you prioritize the consideration of your customer's businesses over the consideration of your own business. Obviously, both areas of decisions are important, but before you got to, okay, and how do we focus on our own business continuity? Before you were at that point, you were discussing, how do we become creative in how we serve our customers to make sure that their businesses are protected as well? I give you kudos because I think it's a very well thought out list of objectives in terms of the order of importance.

Sarah Nicastro: The other thing I think is important, and it reminds me actually of a conversation I was having earlier today, where we were talking about, let's just say transformation in general, right? It doesn't matter if it's transforming because COVID-19 struck, or it doesn't matter if it's transforming because we're introducing a new technology or a new service offering. Just any transformation. The point that was brought up is that all too often, companies will focus on the plan instead of the objective, and get caught up in a lot of the detail and the how, versus are we just meeting the objective? I think the fact that you recognized, okay, for us to navigate this huge wealth of change, we really need to be clear on what do we need to stay focused on, what are our objectives? Those are critical to us. The, how we do that, can be flexible.

Sarah Nicastro: That's very good, I think, and hopefully, has kept you guys pretty well in line through this. I know that different pockets of the world are being affected differently by COVID. But I know that, generally speaking, restaurant industry has been one of the more impacted spaces. Those customers really do need that support. I think that your mission to be remembered as a company that was there for them, to help them after all of this, is a long-term smart move. Go ahead.

Reeve Bunn: Sarah, you made me think of one other comment. You're right about how the how in the execution can evolve and change because of the situation being rapidly evolving. I even go back to the number one pillar we had talking about the safety of the employees.to walk through that, we very, very immediately, of course, you're thinking about the physical well-being and the physical safety of our people that are out there in front of customers, or handling deliveries that have frontline type roles. Then, as it evolves, and as you learn more, you become very conscious of the, either mental or financial wellbeing of those that aren't necessarily even on the front lines, that are performing other roles are in a position that they can do so safely and remotely from their homes, but you go, okay, well, there are other needs to meet here that also fall under this umbrella of employee safety and wellness during this time.

Reeve Bunn: How do we ensure some of those people? That evolves into, well, what can we do on the mental health side? How can we communicate enough so that our team knows what's going on with the business, what's going on with our customers. So, we're doing this via video., and I feel like I've never been on video so much in my life because that evolved into twice weekly. I would do an all staff video that I'd record and send out. Could include QA, could include updates about any of those three pillars and what's going on. I have a feeling like our whole team is probably sick and tired of seeing my face, but it was one of those things of, you learn that part of that how for safety is over communication in 100 different ways. You're right, in that the tactics have evolved and have changed along the way, but the pillars remain the same.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Those tactics are going to continue to evolve as recovery ramps. There's really no firm variables right now. Everything is very fluid. That how, that plan has to continue to morph, but having those pillars to hold true to, and to keep you focused on what you've determined is most important for the business is a really good guiding post for seeing the company through. You touched on this a bit as you were describing some of the ways that DSL has become creative in helping customers through this time. But even prior to COVID-19, DSL had introduced what you refer to with customers as all in one, or what I would refer to as a contract based approach to service.

Sarah Nicastro: You've been on this path and you've recognized the need and opportunity to do that. You've seen some increased interest in that program and in those offerings as the situation has unfolded. I'm hoping you can share two things. The first would be, just discussing about overall for DSL. Why is it important to embrace this outcomes based service approach? Then secondly, how has that interest of all during COVID, and how have you been able to ramp up or rely on some of those programs to help your customers right now?

Reeve Bunn: Sure. Well, I think on the first part of the question, in terms of why this philosophy, in our opinion, works and why our customers seem to like it, is that, at the end of the day, it aligns the service providers values and outcomes with the customers. All of the other pieces side, which there are many other great pieces of a program like this. Just that piece alone, it brings you onto the same side of the table, and you're all striving for the same thing. I don't say this under the guise that I think that service providers are perceived generally being on the other side of the table, but you do have competing interests when your model is a more traditional one. If I get compensated to come out and spend my time servicing you, in a backwards way, I have an incentive to come out and service you more.

Reeve Bunn: Obviously, that's not what the customer wants. They want you to service them less. When you join them on the other side of that table, and you say, "Listen, I'm absorbing the risk here just as much as you are, and in the same way that you don't want me in your business or in your restaurant, because I'm in your way and that means that you have a problem, we don't want to be there either, because now I'm not getting paid any more for that." You can open up all kinds of different conversations, in our experience, than you would otherwise be able to do. It leads to things like, how can we help you, customer, become a better operator? How can we spend more time training your employees on non-repair related functions of the things in your business that we support?

Reeve Bunn: All of a sudden, the dynamic shifts, and the feedback going both ways dramatically improves. That's been our main eye opening aha, and there are many others. I think that the ability to just add in more pieces that are valuable to everybody is way different. You can bolt on pieces of a solution that, if you were doing time, you'd be thinking they're sitting there thinking, okay, well where's the revenue model in this, whether that's a new technology or whether that's an app, or whatever it could be. Well, now you've got the platform to incorporate it into the same system, the same revenue tool, and kind of have it all work out.

Reeve Bunn: I think it requires a lot of internal maneuvering and you've got to have good data to build a good program, but once you do so, it's shown to be pretty beneficial to us. Then to the second part of the question talking about in the current environment, what happens and what has happened to us, well, again, it has given us this added layer of flexibility. We were able to speak to our customers that are part of our subscription model program or our outcome based program and say, okay, well, let's talk about what the landscape looks like for you, what kind of state is the business in right now, and then how can we just tweak the program for a while to meet whatever needs you have? We're not locked into some rigorous rigid contract.

Reeve Bunn: We've got flexibility. Ultimately, the program's designed to meet your needs, and your needs are different right now than they were three months ago, or than they'll probably be in a year and a half. We could pivot really fluidly and really quickly. The programs just morphed. Whether that was the intervals of a maintenance package, whether that was the amount of equipment that was running in the store, whether that was the specifics around the payment term of the subscription, we're able to just maneuver these buttons in creative ways that lets everybody succeed.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a really good point. I've been talking with some other manufacturers that are navigating this crisis. Right now, companies don't ... they don't want to invest in new equipment. They're in cost savings mode, and they want to figure out, no, we'd rather invest in service because we'd rather keep what we have going as long as we can until we see what's coming next. Where for some of those organizations their manufacturing revenue has dropped, but their service revenue is increasing. We did a podcast a few weeks ago with Park Place Technologies, which is a company that provides IT services. They quickly recognize like these big capex expenditures and these big long-term contracts and these huge decisions, these are going to be put on hold, so let's just app quick and be nimble and start figuring out what do our customers want and need right now.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that's important. To your point earlier on, when you referenced the supplier you were using that treated you in that way, it's something you'll remember for a very long time. Yes, this is a hard challenging time, but it is ultimately, temporary. If you can just adjust for now to serve your customers in a bit of a different way, it gives you an opportunity to build and nurture that relationship so that as things normalize, you're in a good position to evolve that and grow that over time. You've seen increased interest in that program, both in evolving it, but I would assume possibly also companies that weren't leveraging it before becoming more open to doing so. Is that correct?

Reeve Bunn: That is correct. Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think, it's funny how it parallels what we were talking about at the beginning in the sense of, those customers don't care so much about the plan. They don't care so much about the how, they care about the what. When you start talking about an outcomes-based model, they just want whatever that outcome is. If it's X percent uptime, or whatever those pillars are for them, they just want you to deliver on what matters for their business. I think that, for the companies that can start to brainstorm how to make that happen, like you said, it's a lot of onus on you to change your business internally to meet those demands. But I think it's very much the future of service.

Sarah Nicastro: I think it tends to get very oversimplified in discussions because it's like, okay, outcomes-based service is the way the industry is heading, so get on board. It's like, yes. Okay. I think we're all pretty much agreeing on that, but there are layers, and layers, and layers, and layers of change that a business like yours has to make to ultimately evolve to such a model. I guess that leads us to the next question and back to the title or the theme this episode, which is, you've been on this journey, right? This isn't a new journey. You didn't just decide to start doing this or going down this path, but it has accelerated it for you.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that that is a shared theme. One of the things you said to me when we spoke last, that I really like is, you said it's inspiring how fast we can change. I like that quote for a few different reasons, but tell us what you mean by that. Tell us how you've been able to be agile and nimble and what lessons you've learned as this has unfolded.

Reeve Bunn: Yeah. Well, and your world is pretty comfortable. I would say we've never been a complacent company by any stretch, but you start to think that there's a lot of different things that you can do at any given time. Then you get into early March, and all of a sudden, all of the non-necessities go away, your focus becomes ... it's laser focused. The speed at which you start to do things, it's quite amazing to step back from it and look at it, and say, in the normal course of business, what we just did in a week, we probably would have, for a lot of the right reasons, done that over the course of a couple of months, let's say. All of a sudden, in a way, it reminds you of what you're truly capable of, but I think, ultimately, people that are in roles of leadership, you got to take that away as that's the job here going forward is, what are we putting aside and not doing is just as important as what we are doing.

Reeve Bunn: Because when we do direct our energies and our efforts behind something, if we truly do it, boy, oh, boy, we can do it really well and we can do it really quickly. Now, what slows us down is these things that we take on, on the periphery, that stuff around the edge that sometimes internally we call it shiny things. The things that are not necessarily the most important things for the business. They seem neat, they seem like they might be a small win, and before you know it, you're consumed by 15 of those things and you aren't getting anything truly done, even the stuff that's really, really, really important. So, the Stephen Covey motto, first things first. If you focus in, it's amazing what you can do.

Reeve Bunn: I'm sure there are so many organizations that have been reminded of that over the course of the past few months, but that is very inspiring. That is an amazing thing to take away from all of this, is the power of the organization to truly move when it sets its mind to it. You can move a mountain pretty fast, way faster than we all probably thought we could have back in January.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I agree. That's why I like that quote so much. This situation has forced companies to change. I think that's very uncomfortable, but like you said, it really gives you confidence in what you're able to accomplish. I think that that's a lesson that's going to stick with people for a long time. I think that really, truly, from a service perspective, I think that, as recovery from this begins, we're going to see huge spikes in innovation and evolution and digital transformation, and all of those things, because some of this ... resistance is one thing, de-prioritization, distraction, all of those things that have kind of held that progress back, I think a lot of that is being pushed to the side, and companies are seeing that they can and why they should. I think it'll be quite interesting to see where things go.

Sarah Nicastro: But as we talk about being nimble, and agile, and knowing that you can change faster than you thought you could, it isn't just about speed. I want to talk a little bit about what else that entails. It's not just about moving fast, it's about being creative, it's about being customer focused, it's about being internally aligned. What are some of the key aspects or ingredients, if you will, that DSL has been able to put together to be able to move quickly in adapting to these circumstances, but in a very strategic way?

Reeve Bunn: Yeah. Well, and I think this comes down to really what underpins the business before you're in crisis mode. I think you don't wake up in a crisis and figure out how to become innovative or figure out how to understand customers' needs. It's got to be there beforehand. My answer to that question, Sarah, would be falling back on, ultimately, what's the purpose and what are the values in the company? We've got a very set purpose, and we've got core values that have been established for a long time. We weren't going into a crisis trying to figure those things out and trying to go, okay, well, now what are we going to do about this? We could go into the crisis pretty self-assured of what our steps would be because our core values have always been that we're customer-obsessed, we're innovative, we find solutions, we're good teammates, and we have fun.

Reeve Bunn: Those are the five things that have been up on the walls here for a long time. Even to add a layer to it, when I say a long time, I would say those are the things, even if they weren't spelled out, that have been underlying values in this business for decades or even generations, well, Well, well before my time here, or most of our current staff's time here. We were innovative in the 1930s or in the 1920s, in that time in context. I think it's ultimately about, you're going to react to the situation based on the type of company that you are. In our case, the ability to react in a customer-centric way is driven by the fact that we see ourselves as a customer-centric business.

Reeve Bunn: Whether we're in crisis or not, that's just part of what we think about all the time. Naturally, when you jump into, and you fall into crisis mode, that gets enhanced. You turn the dial up a few notches, but we're fortunate in that we weren't coming to this blind, or we weren't coming to this going, okay, well, now, how do we figure out what our customers want? We were intentionally thinking about that all the time, or if you turn it to the innovation and technology side, we're not coming into this crisis thinking about, okay, now what technology do we implement to help us through all of this? Or what innovation do we come up with that makes us better? Well, those are things that are part of our roadmap, all of it.

Reeve Bunn: Again, yeah, maybe you move on and faster. Maybe you set some of the lower priority pieces there to the side, but you're still working on many of the same things that you were doing before. It's probably the old adage of the preparedness piece. If the foundations were laid before you were in this situation, I think the odds are that you probably have a higher chance of success as you go through it.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a good point. But what's interesting to me about DSL's story, and I want to be clear that I would say this prior to COVID-19 as well. This is not specific to how you've navigated these particular challenges, but the way the business carries itself, even prior to this. A lot of 104 year old companies really struggle with a culture of innovation, genuinely struggle. Their history can oftentimes be their biggest, to recognizing some of the opportunities we've discussed today and progressing the business forward. I think that it's a pretty common challenge that I see. One of the things that's really interesting to me is that DSL prides itself so much on innovation as a key trait and as something that the company lives by.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm just curious, how and why you think that is, and perhaps, how that's been embedded into and fostered in the company culture, because it's something that is very easy to say, but really difficult to do.

Reeve Bunn: Yeah. Well, I think it's a bit of the tagline of the times. I think any anybody that you meet and that you talk to about the business that they work in or the business that they run, you'd be hard pressed to look somebody in the eyes and have them tell you they don't think they're innovative or aspire to be innovative. In our case, I go back to what I was saying a few minutes ago. It's fortunate, on the one hand, but this business was innovative in 1920, it was innovative in 1950, it was innovative as it came out of the second World War. We totally shifted the industry we serve altogether in the 1960s. We have this ingrained in us, in this business, which is a very lucky thing. But I think in terms of how do you try to foster that and how do you maintain it and make sure that it's genuine, I think one big part of it is that we're sort of trained to be very afraid of failure.

Reeve Bunn: I think that the two go hand in hand. If you want to really position yourself as a company that's innovative, you are just not going to get it right all the time. You're going to get it wrong, you're going to make mistakes, and you can't have one without the other. You've got to be okay with not everything working. That's hard for some types of businesses and some leaders. It's expensive to make mistakes, it takes up resources and time, it loses focus, it's hard on the ego. You got to be willing to make mistakes. We make mistakes all the time. We tried a lot of stuff, not all of it sticks, not all of it works, but you've got to maintain that zest and that desire to keep trying.

Reeve Bunn: Then the second thing I think that helps in that is what we're forever trying to do, is when a big idea hits our field of vision, and you start to think about, how do you get there? That's always an intimidating and nerve wracking long rope, kind of like this. If you sit there and say you're going to run a marathon tomorrow, it's really hard to run a marathon tomorrow. If you sit there and start training for it and you figure out how you're going to run a mile tomorrow, you can probably run a mile, and then you can run another mile. It's about taking that objective that you have, that innovative goal that you have and starting to work it backwards, and say to yourself, well, what is it is the easiest first step that we can take?

Reeve Bunn: How can we test it? How can we do our, in lean startup terms, how can we do our minimum viable product here? That becomes far less intimidating and far less scary. You can start the path to validation before you sunk in a million dollars into a new software or whatever big leap you have to make. Go, well, how do I test it for $5,000 before we go and spend a whole bunch of money on it? Then the last, I guess, exercise that I think is a valuable one when you're facing these decisions about jumping into something or trying to continue to innovate is just really being clear and getting on the table, what it is that you're afraid of and what it is that could go wrong. I think a really good snapshot of this, someone who probably a lot of people have heard of, Tim Ferriss, has a Ted talk about an exercise he calls fear setting.

Reeve Bunn: To butcher it and paraphrase it a bit, essentially you put that big decision or that big scary thing that you want to move towards on the wall, and then you quickly list out, what is everything that could go wrong with it? What are all the thousand ways that it could not work? Then if that were to happen, have there ever been people anywhere in the history of time that have mitigated that type of a challenge or that type of a failure. As you build out your worst case, it's pretty clearly in your head, and all of a sudden, as you worked through that, you go, okay, well, even the worst case, isn't really so bad. You can overcome it, you'll learn from it. The odds of the worst case happening are relatively small.

Reeve Bunn: It's just that little bit of encouragement and self-validation about how you can try things and move forward without all of the barriers and the obstacles and the weight that generally come with things that are deemed as innovative. Those are the types of discussions, and those are the types of things we try to do here at DSL. You're right. It's easy as you get established. You can sit and rest on your laurels, but we're forever chasing that next thing. You'll pay a price for that. There's a cost to trying to be on the leading edge of things, but if you really believe in it, then you're willing to pay the price.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I was smiling to myself. I was just thinking back to in my very early years of being like in an editor in chief role, when I first started doing a lot of public speaking, I was terrified. I remember one time sitting in a conference room talking to my mentor, and he said, "What's the worst that's going to happen? Really tell me. You get up on stage, and what is the absolute worst thing you could say or do, and then what's going to happen as a result of that?" I just sat there, and he's like, "Even if you completely bomb, it's going to be over in 20 minutes and you're going to move on with your life." You know what I mean?

Sarah Nicastro: I was just thinking back on that experience. Also thinking about that, from a leadership perspective, how important and powerful it is for you to be normalizing that fear and modeling the behavior that like, hey, it's okay to have ideas that don't work, it's okay to try things that fail. I do it, you can do it, the whole company should do it. Because innovation doesn't happen if Reeve Bunn is the only person being creative. It really does have to be something that everyone within the company feels empowered to do. The other thing I was thinking about as you were talking is that, like you said at the beginning, it's very much a buzzword, a tagline like many other things.

Sarah Nicastro: The difficult part for me, as a journalist, with these buzzwords and taglines is they are overused, but they're also important. There's a true definition of them and there's meat behind it, but then they get overused to the point where they're kind of these watered down terms. The other thing I was thinking about, as you were saying that, is, I think companies also tend to focus on innovation in one area. Oftentimes, that's technological innovation. What's the new tool we could use to transform everything or what-have-you? I think when you look at a true culture of innovation, it's happening in every area of the business. Particularly related to today's conversation, when you talk about a journey towards outcome-based service, like we said, you're fundamentally changing the whole business.

Sarah Nicastro: You need someone that's going to come to you and say, "Hey, Reeve, have you ever thought about ... what if we just did X, Y, Z for customers?" You know what I mean? It could be something completely different than what you do today, but you need to hear those ideas, or you're never going to disrupt, you're just going to incrementally improve. It's just some interesting things, I think, for listeners to think about related to common traps, I guess, of throwing the word innovation around. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Reeve Bunn: Well, you saying that I give full license and credit to our IT manager, Edward Lipin, who you know a little bit, Sarah, but he's forever reminding us of that very point. A good technology will not solve a bad process and will not solve a lack of innovation that it’s trying to fix. You could buy the world's best technology, and if you don't have the pieces behind the scenes working, you're just going to drag your awesome technology into your poor process and the technology. Yeah, I think that it's easy to put technology up as this silver bullet that solves all ailments. Really, I think it's more of an accelerant. If you have the wheels spinning and you're doing the right things and you're running a good business, technology can help pull, volts you to the next level.

Reeve Bunn: If you're in a position where you've got some of those underlying challenges, it's not going to be a saving grace that's going to change your habits, change your processes, change the beliefs and the feelings of your team. All that stuff is still going to be there when the new technology, the switch turns on and you're using it.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Yep. Okay. Last question for today. I've really enjoyed asking people this question over the last couple of months, which is, what have you personally learned, or what are you personally taking away from this crisis? What's the biggest lesson as a leader that you've learned on a personal level in leading DSL through these times?

Reeve Bunn: Yeah, and I don't think this is going to be anything that's going to surprise anybody, but I've been reminded of just how important, clear, consistent communication is. Just seeing its ability to either put our team at ease, or if it's lacking to amplify the stresses that our team is already feeling, I think what we touched on early in the conversation, I think a huge takeaway is the responsibility of a leader to drive the focus of a business. Again, what people are able to do when the rest is cleared away and they're very clear about what's important to work on. Then I guess on a different level, maybe a more personal level, just the awareness to not get so caught up in it all.

Reeve Bunn: I think that the ability to just step back and avoid the bombardment for a while, to look at the bigger picture of things. I think I've seen on your LinkedIn profile, I think I've seen you post a few stoic quotes in recent months. Not to get into a philosophy discussion, but that type of thinking and those types of beliefs have been something that I've thought a lot about in these last few months. All this has happened before and more. We aren't the first people in humanity to deal with this, and we'll come out the other end. It's important for us as leaders to be a voice of calm, to be a voice of reason, and ultimately, to care for our people at times like this. I would say those are a few things that definitely have jumped out at me and have really stuck with me over the last few months.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's a very chaotic time, and to your point, you do have to figure out, how can you step back a bit and keep perspective? That's the thing I've tried really hard to do, not to put my husband on blast, but he doesn't listen to my podcast anyway. The other night he said, "I just want to go on vacation." I said, "Okay." I do too, but our family is healthy, our family is safe. We've both been able to stay gainfully employed throughout this situation thus far, and we have a roof over our heads. So, we have a lot to be grateful for. We'll get a vacation again at some point. Of course, he doesn't appreciate that at all.

Sarah Nicastro: I'm not saying that I always have that perspective. I'm saying, when I catch myself in those pity me, boo hoo moments, I bring it back to remembering how much that we do have to be thankful for and what's really important. I think that's critical to do. As a leader of a company, in your situation, going back to where we started with those key focus areas and being able to remember, how do we take care of our people? That is most important for all of us.

Reeve Bunn: Yeah. You saying that, maybe this is a better way to say it, but where can you direct your energy that is within your realm of control? There is just so much going on out in the world right now, and it can absorb all of your energy. You could read a new news story about any of the things going on in society every five minutes and be the chicken with its heads cut off, it's running from one direction to the next. Just remaining focused on what is it that I can impact, what is it that I can control, and the stuff that I can't, I just got to set that to the side for a while.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Don't expend your energy on it. Because it's a finite resource, especially right now. Everyone is up against things that we're just not used to dealing with. People are trying to educate their kids at home while they're working, and health concerns, and all of this stuff. You can't waste that precious energy on anything other than what is most important, whether that's in our personal lives or whether that's as a leader of a business. You have to pick that path and pick those critical elements and learn how to let the rest of it go. Well, thank you very much for being here and for sharing today. I really, really appreciate it.

Reeve Bunn: Yeah, it was my pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. You can find more content on many of the themes that we've discussed today by visiting us online at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS service management solutions by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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June 17, 2020 | 22 Mins Read

National Grid Prepares for COVID-19 Recovery

June 17, 2020 | 22 Mins Read

National Grid Prepares for COVID-19 Recovery

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Reihaneh Irani-Famili, VP of Business Readiness, National Grid talks with Sarah about lessons learned in virtual leadership, how National Grid is preparing for COVID-19 recovery, and what she thinks our Next Normal will entail.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be talking with Reihaneh Irani-Famili, VP of business readiness at National Grid about how the company is preparing for COVID-19 recovery. Reihaneh, welcome so much to the Future of Field Service Podcast. We're happy to have you.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Thank you, Sarah. It's good to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Good. So if you could start by just giving the audience an overview of National Grid's business and what your role is with the organization.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: So National Grid is the second largest utility in the US. And we operate in three jurisdictions. We operate in New York, both Upstate and Downstate New York. We operate in Rhode Island, and we operate also in Massachusetts. We serve about 20 million people, so 6 million bills basically that we manage on a monthly basis. And we have 17,000 people that, whether it's in the field or in the office, that support that operation. And we provide gas and electricity to those customers. So 60% of our customers roughly are gas customers and the rest are electricity customers. So yes, with that, the current situation has specially hit us hard with us being a main provider of utility in New York State.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. So your title is vice president of business readiness. Give our listeners just a bit of context in what your role and responsibilities entail.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: That's a really good question. And interestingly enough, I had this title pre-COVID.

Sarah Nicastro: I was going to say, it sounds like the kind of title that you would be in the hot seat right now. Do you know what I mean? Like it would be, maybe you're losing some sleep.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Like many other companies, we have been going through a tremendous amount of change. So if you think about National Grid and its purpose of bringing energy to life for our customers and that the expectation of our customers, whether it's on the choices they want for their energy consumption, whether it's the technology and how we service them has been changing very rapidly. So as National Grid, we have this transformation office, which its focus is on driving this change from all aspects, whether it's technology and technology implementation, the roles, behaviors, capabilities that we need across the organization.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And my role within that is enterprise change, which is how do we enable a different future for the organization and how do we plan around that, as well as capabilities that major programs would need to succeed like value realization and how do we do that, and change management and how do we do that? And so that's been my role with the organization in the last two and a half months, like every other person, every other organization that expanded to how do we support the current situation? And so whether it was, how do we engage people virtually or how do we plan for the future of work in the workplace? So those are the things that I have started to get involved in and work on.

Sarah Nicastro: Just kind of taking us off script a bit for a couple of minutes, because hearing what your role encompasses just made me think of a couple of things. I mean, first of all, how important of a role it is knowing that as I talk with service based businesses, change management is where a lot of things go wrong. I mean, it really is a critical aspect of operational change, technological change, service delivery change, customer experience initiatives, it's really the cornerstone of a lot of ways that companies are innovating and transforming their businesses. And it's, I would say probably the biggest area that people fall down. And so no pressure, but I'm sure it's a really fun role, but also I'm sure there's some weight to it because there's a lot riding on being able to execute that change management well.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Yeah. And I think, and I always say change is role of every leader. And it's a capability that every good leader in the organization would need to have. Now, what you do centrally is to support that and to enable that and to guide that. But ultimately, the only way a change initiative will be successful is if all leaders driving it are change capable leaders and change ready leaders, and they have the resilience that it takes to drive change in an organization. I think the current situation, it has been a great school for a lot of our leaders to practice that. Especially in operational roles, sometimes we become complacent in believing that we can do the same thing and not really drive and inspire and step up as a leader within the organization.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And so a situation like this, it's actually, it's helping leaders across the utility industry, service industry, all industries to build that change readiness muscle. And I think we are all going to emerge better as a result of it.

Sarah Nicastro: It's funny. That was actually the second point I was going to bring up and you said it for me, which is, I was going to ask your thoughts on exactly that point. What we're seeing is this situation really breaking down a lot of barriers to change within companies. Whether it's, well, this is how we've always done it, so we'll just keep doing it this way, or, I'm smarter than that technology, or, there're so many different things. Or just, I'm too busy. I'm too busy doing what I need to do to be thinking about how to be innovative or to do things differently. So I was going to ask you if you've seen the same and you just said that you had, and I think you're right. I think that's a universal recognition right now.

Sarah Nicastro: And I absolutely think that it will make service organizations stronger coming out of this because to be honest, I mean, there's been an underlying evolution happening in service for quite some time in terms of customer demands changing and business models needing to change and the adoption of technology needing to ramp up and all of that. And I think that this situation has forced the hand of some of the organizations that were a bit more resistant to that. And so I think it'll be really exciting to see what comes out of it. There's obviously some positives to this overall negative. And I think that that openness is a really good lesson that people will get out of this. Go ahead.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: I was going to add to that. One of the things that I've been really passionate about is this notion of industrial revolution, the 4.0, and the fact that the technologies that were created over the past decade, really our organizations haven't caught up. We've seen a lot of advancement in technology, we haven't seen the same amount of productivity optic in the organizations that is the full potential of those technologies. And I think the current situation has really fast track that adoption. And I truly believe that coming out of it, we are going to start seeing a massive productivity shift that we've been lagging. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this was something that I was, my geeky side, I've been looking at and researching about a year and a half ago.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And it's been fascinating to see the gap in productivity growth to technology growth. And I think this current situation is going to start the path of closing that gap, which is fascinating.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Because I think a lot of times that gap is because of not successfully managing that change, whether that's because it was under prioritized, under budgeted, or just not done well or ignored. Every story is a little bit different, but that's why I said, it's one of those areas that really are a major failure point in a lot of organizations. And I would bet that that gap is a lot of poor change management.

So people being more open to change gives folks that are willing to put good change management initiatives in place, the opportunity to execute on them well and really see the results of that. So you have to keep me posted.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So going back to our script a bit, so as COVID-19 hit, you went from being in the office and leading a team in person to being remote like many of the rest of us and really having to do a quick study on virtual leadership. So you recently outlined four points that you've found or learned as you've adjusted to virtual leadership. And I was hoping you could talk through those. So the first is continuing to be proactive. So tell everyone what you mean by that.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: So what I found as we went into the lockdowns in March, what I found was those first few weeks became about survival. And we were so busy with the here and now and getting things done and finishing things up that we stopped thinking about the future. Whether you were on calls, you were doing work, I was seeing it in myself, I was seeing it in other leaders, and I was seeing it in my team that we have, our focus have really shifted to firefighting and we lost that longer term thinking. And I really had to stop myself and think about it and talk to my team about it, of how do we create space to think strategically, think beyond here and now and start looking ahead. The role of us as senior leaders in the organization is to look ahead for the organization.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And if we are all trying to fight the today's fire, then we're going to be missing a big opportunity. So I think that has been one of my early observations and things that we had to step in and work on.

Sarah Nicastro: That's a really, it's a really good point. I know, just even speaking for myself personally, I maybe have stopped looking forward as much because there's so much unknown and that can be really uncomfortable. And I think it's the same for business leaders. It's tough to think about the future when you really don't know what the future is going to be. But it's very, very important to do so anyway and to plan for some different scenarios and to keep on the pulse of not only what's happening, but what's coming and all of that. So it's a very good point.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Sarah, and that's a very good point you're making because the future even today, the future is very unpredictable. We can plan for the next day, not even the next two weeks. But what is important is knowing the possible scenarios and being able to think through how would our strategies or our plans change in each of those given scenarios? And more importantly, what is going to remain the same? And so the things that are going to remain the same, how are we going to attack them? And things that are going to be a little bit more uncertain, how do we put boundaries around it and then react?

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And getting people to think through those, I think the important part is that the clarity of those so that everybody's thinking about those scenarios the same way, and everyone is doing that mental test for their individual plans. Because everyone at every level in the organization would need to do that for the work that they're responsible for.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So lesson two is actively manage interdependencies. So let's talk about that.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Yes. So interdependency between programs and projects are always a challenging area when you have multiple large programs and projects. And a lot of it is managed through informal communication. There are ways of formalizing it and putting structure around it, but at the end of the day, it's those hallway chats and conversations and somebody is in two meetings and hearing something here and something there, and you start managing those interdependencies. What happened when we all went virtual, those informal lines of communication really got weakened originally. And so as a leader, I saw that gap and I felt that it was my responsibility to need to step in and be more of the navigator and the alert for those interdependencies and then managing through them.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Ultimately, that is not something that is sustainable in the long run. I think ultimately what needs to happen is that we need to rebuild those lines of communication somehow in this virtual world, whether it's having the right meetings, right people, more effective meetings, whatever that is going to be. But I think in the short run, it is an important part of a leader's role to step in and close that gap.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. Number three is prioritize visibility into outcomes and values.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Yes. When people are virtual, they need the clarity of the deliverable that they're driving, you're not managing people daily, they don't see you to check things. And so the more clarity you can create for the outcome that they are working towards, and honestly, right now we're not, I don't think any business is an 8:00 to 5:00 business. So you're managing work from home and you're managing work from home all at the same time. And so expecting people to have set times that they would do things and then assessing them based on how many hours they sat in the chair and did something, becomes irrelevant. And I'm glad that it is becoming irrelevant because it's a better way of working.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: So with that, you need to replace that 8:00 to 5:00 mentality by a deliverable based mentality and a value based mentality. And it's both for the leaders in the companies as well as for those employees. Because as an employee, if before my success was I spent eight hours in the office, now that needs to be replaced by this is the value that I have created in the hours that I was working or being productive. And so it became really obvious for me very early on that the more clarity you can give on the outcomes and the value that you're trying to drive and less about how they would get to that, it helps people be more productive, more engaged, and it would really make sure that your productivity doesn't get impacted by this sudden move to a virtual environment.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: We had no prep time, no one had any prep time. It was here it is and go. So the mechanisms that you usually create, whether it's lines of communication or training or communication in a normal circumstance for a planned move to a virtual work, none of that was in place. And so I think that became a real need very quickly. And I think if you're a leader out there that haven't done it yet, make sure you do and you look at all of your groups and make sure that their outcomes are very clear and the value of those outcomes are identified and clearly posted.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. And I agree with you, I think ultimately it's a far better method of work. I think in the world we live in, it's unrealistic to have those expectations and just more valuable for people to be clear on what are the goals you need to achieve? What is the value you bring to the operation and how can you execute on that in a way that gives you the balance you need or what have you? Especially in this time, I've been a remote employee all along. So I'm well versed in remote work productivity. But my kids usually aren't home, so that was a huge adjustment for me to sort out, I'm fortunate to have help, but more interruptions during the day and all of that.

Sarah Nicastro: And so it is far easier to balance everything if you know the outcomes and value that you are responsible for versus working off of a time structure. And the last lesson is remembering the importance of informal communication.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And I think we kind of covered that in the other topics that we discussed, but the connections, the human connections are not built by emails and town hall meetings, they're built by those personal conversations. You and I, we just talked about our kids running out in the yard, and that doesn't come in a formal setting. And without those, it's really difficult to build the human connections. And so I think what I started to notice early on was that people were relying on the formal Webex, Teams meetings, Skype meetings to connect. And it's like, we all forgot that at one point, not that long ago, we used to call each other on our phones and we even memorized some of the numbers. I think week three, I was like, why aren't we just picking up the phone and calling each other?

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Why aren't we just doing these informal chats? Why does everything have to be these back to back meetings and Webexs and Team meetings? And so I started [inaudible 00:22:34], I started doing that myself of just picking up whether it was a peer, it was my boss, or it was my team, just calling them up and having those conversations. And I saw them starting to do that, and I saw a huge difference in the mood and the dynamic and the flow of information and the speed that the work was being done.

Sarah Nicastro: That's a good tip. I've heard some different folks say in other conversations that when this first started, there was this sense of kind of almost more connection, because to your point, you're inviting people into your home. So you're having these video calls and they're seeing your kids, or your cat, or your dog, or whatever, and it kind of gave a different sense of connection to people that you normally just saw in the office. But I've talked with some folks recently who feel like their teams are really starting to get a bit burned out on all of the communication being virtual, which is understandable. I mean, I feel the same way, but… so I think the other aspect of the informal communication is the true informal side in terms of just remembering people are people.

Sarah Nicastro: And you might need to just check in and see how someone's doing, or, someone brought up a point that when you have face to face meetings, you can sometimes pick up on cues that you may not in a virtual setting of someone being frustrated or someone struggling a little bit or this or that. And so just doing your best to stay in tune with those sorts of things and figure out how to tackle them in this sort of situation.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: That's a really important point because those social cues, our brains are pre-wired to respond to them and now they're gone, or harder to pick up on when you're virtual. But the other thing we did the first few weeks, we did invite each other into our rooms and bedrooms. And I remember having to go from room to room in my office and thinking, oh my God, I never thought that the whole executive team is going to see my guestroom [crosstalk 00:25:06]. And they did, but it wore off. And what was left was this feeling of like, you have to be always on, and then you have back to back on camera meetings. And it's really tiring and it's frustrating. And so I think what we're doing, which has been really helping is shortening our meetings to 45 minutes. Sometimes they go longer, but such is life.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: I think as long as the 80/20 rule, I can keep 80% of them within that 45 minutes, I'm happy. And then alternating between sitting in front of computer meetings and on the phone walking around meetings. And that has been really important into breaking the flow and really helping people be more productive.

Sarah Nicastro: I need to do a better job of that because I've been sensing I'm getting a bit burnout because it's video conference, after video conference, after video conference. And another thing that's come up in some of my conversations is people aren't really taking time off right now because there's nothing to do. So people just keep working and keep working and keep working. And that's an interesting concept as well, so I think I'm about due for a little break. I don't know what I'll do with myself, but something.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: No, I'm taking a few days off this week actually. And I don't remember the exact numbers right now, but I think like 46% less people are taking vacation now that they have been before. What is interesting for me is the need to refresh, the need to rejuvenate, the need to de-stress hasn't gone away. If anything, it has increased.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Now why we correlate taking time off with being away, and if I can't get a flight ticket, therefore I can't take vacation, I don't know. I'm taking time off. I'm really encouraging my team to take time off and not just one day, but at least the two, three days. And I think it would be really important again, back to that proactive mindset to innovate, to look ahead, and to be able to think strategically, it is critical to have a clear mind and a clear view and not be in that survival mode all the time. So Sarah, take your break.

Sarah Nicastro: Yep, I'm taking notes, I'm going to do it. Okay. So a couple more things I wanted to talk about. The next is the discussion around return to work. So this is, to your earlier point, the first few weeks of this, everyone was in crisis management mode. I mean, a lot of people were caught off guard and even if they weren't caught off guard in terms of business continuity, they were certainly caught off guard in who would have thought of global pandemic. So that occurred, and then people started to process that and look forward, as you said. And now it seems we're getting to the point in different regions, in different countries where we're in the recovery phase or the early stages of recovery and people are now really talking a lot and thinking a lot about, okay, how do we get people back to work?

Sarah Nicastro: How do we reach the next normal? That sort of thing. So just curious where National Grid is at with that, what your considerations are, how your team is feeling about it, anything you're willing to share around that.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: I think a few weeks ago, maybe about a month ago, we started looking at post the quarantine period, the phase one reopening and the phase two reopening. And so at that time, I actually did an informal survey with our teams of how much more or less productive they feel that they are and how many of them would want to go back to work the way that we did before a vaccine is found, and then after the vaccine is found. I always, going in, I knew that we will never be back to, everybody get in their car, drive into the office in the 9:00 to 5:00 format, but the results and the response I saw from that was far more surprising. So in our case, about 85% of our people thought that they were more productive than they have been before.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And so now my challenge and the follow up on that is, how do you define productivity? Because if your days are getting longer and if your hours are getting longer and you're doing more work, that's not necessarily productivity. But anyhow, 85%, big number. We need to do more work there, we're looking into that. A big portion of that is because of the driving. And then you have other factors in there. Then you look at how many people want to go back to the office before a vaccine's found. And it's less than 20% of people before a vaccine that feel comfortable going back into the office, even with the social distancing norms in place. And you look after a vaccine and it's only 30% of people that think that we would go back to the same or we should go back to the same form and format that we were before.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: So you put all of this together and no matter how you look at it, whether you look at it from the lens of an employee and what they demand of their companies, or you look at it from the perspective of a company and the productivity of the workers and the cost of facilities and the overhead of having people in the office, they both end in the same place that the new normal is not going to look like what we started with. And I don't think we are alone, I think globally, everyone's coming to that realization. And so what we've been now doing is starting to plan around, how do you institutionalize some of this into the way we work and how do you enable employees to be able to continue to work from home? And what is that really going to look like?

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: There are some things you cannot replace. You need togetherness for certain type of collaborations and strategic thinking. So how do you allow for that? And so those are all questions that we're starting to ask and we're starting to implement and challenge basically. The other thing we're thinking about is, how do you drive change in a virtual environment? If you think about the theories around change and it's important to hit the hearts and not the minds, how do you do that virtually? So those are all questions that we're grappling with right now.

Sarah Nicastro: That is a really good question. And I think that, I've talked with companies that are working on getting people back into the office. I've talked with companies that don't think that that will really happen again and everywhere in between. But it's certainly interesting to sort through those factors and see, I do think people are prioritizing the needs of their employees the same way you are, asking them what they're comfortable with and allowing them to feel empowered in helping make those decisions and all of that. And I certainly think that's the right approach, but there's a lot of layers of complexity to your point in what that is going to look like and how to make it all work.

Sarah Nicastro: And none of us have those answers. So it's just a matter of sorting through all of it. Do you have any other views or thoughts on what this recovery might look like for National Grid and what the next normal might be, just in terms of whether it's your team or around change or just the business overall?

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: I think if you think about a utility, and if you think about the real core of our business of getting heat and electricity to people's homes, that doesn't change with COVID. I think our customers have been impacted by COVID and we have stepped in and helped them with temporarily stopping our disconnects and collections activities. And so there is a lot that we have done to help the customers and adjust, and I think that would continue. I don't think that this is going to be, for our customers, it's not going to be that quick of a recovery. It is going to take time. And so our job and our role is here to serve those customers and understanding their needs. And that is definitely going to continue.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: For our own business, I think we are going to continue to focus on reliable, clean energy for our customers and working with our regulators to make sure that the speed at which we're working on these things is in lock step with the expectations. And so overall, I'm really optimistic that we are all going to come out of this as a better society, as a better corporate infrastructure. We're going to learn a lot through it, all of us together. And I think I'm seeing a lot of all sorts of corporations really giving a different lens and focus to how they serve their customers. And I'm really encouraged by that. And I can't wait to see the outcome of it in a few years.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I agree. And I think what you said about for your customers, this recovery isn't going to happen overnight. I think that's true for everyone in terms of customers in all industries and companies in all industries. I actually wrote an article this week about there is no new normal. And meaning, I heard someone say that it's not the new normal, it's the next normal. And so it's not, I think the new normal gives us this connotation that we are, okay, we're going to flip from crisis to recovery, and then this is what it's going to look like. And the reality is it's going to be a series of next normals until that change, pace of change slows a bit and then they space out more.

Sarah Nicastro: But I think to start, it's, what's the next normal? What's the next normal? What's the next normal? And just kind of keeping pace to one of your first points, continuing to be proactive about looking at what are the phases of this? What are those next normals and how do we prepare for the next one or two and keep track of what we need to do next? So it will certainly be interesting. I've said all along, I've loved talking with companies through this challenging time. One, I think it gives people a platform for connection, which I think is very important right now. But for me, I mean, it's just been very, very interesting to see how people are grappling with this. And I think doing exceptionally well with a really difficult situation.

Sarah Nicastro: But I'm very interested to follow this along and see how it evolves, because I think some of the lessons we're learning now and how those play out over the next couple of years is going to be really interesting to see.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: And I completely agree with you, Sarah, is there going to be such thing as normal? Will the normal become abnormal?

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: It's a continuous state of change. And I think we would build the muscles of learning how to lead through that and how to manage that. And I think it's going to be an exciting few years ahead of us. Again, we just have to make sure that we understand the perspective of everyone in our society and our customers and the challenges that they're going through and then come up with solutions that work for everyone.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Reihaneh, I really appreciate you being with us today and sharing your perspective and your insights. And I would love for you to come back in six months or 12 months and talk about what more you've learned and what your next normal has looked like.

Reihaneh Irani-Famili: Yeah, let's do that.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. Sounds good. All right. You can find more information on how companies are managing COVID-19 and transforming their businesses by visiting us at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter @TheFutureofFS. The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more about IFS Service Management by visiting www.ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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