Video Podcast #01: Turbulent Times Require Serious Solutions – Especially in Field Services!

Hi All!

[This is our first Blog-posted video Podcast! There will be more coming on a regular basis from this point on!]

Turbulent Times Require Serious Solutions – Especially in Field Services! Analyst Bill Pollock of SFG℠ and www.PollockOnService.com talks about what FSOs should be thinking about – and doing – in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic – and beyond!

To access the video, please click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4jE3Js5y3I&t=23s

BTW – Thanks again to all of you who contributed to our first 56,000 Blogsite visits! It is greatly appreciated! Looking forward to the next 56,000+!

 

 

Maintaining Satisfactory Customer Service in an Outsourced Environment

[This article was originally published in Field Service News on January 22, 2019]

As customers become more sophisticated, the market more complicated, the economy more volatile, and the services community more demanding, it is also becoming more difficult to manage all customer service-related activities in-house. As a result, many businesses have turned to outsourcing in order to ensure that they have the required staffing and resources to get the total job done.

While some businesses may outsource only in non-core competency areas such as accounting and payroll, secretarial and clerical, or even telesales, others may outsource entire blocks of their core business activities to firms specialising in distinct areas such as field service, technical support, customer service, sales management, manufacturing and production, human resources, quality control, etc.

However, whether the organisation’s customer service functions are staffed by full-time company employees, part-time support personnel, outsourced agencies or personnel, or any combination thereof, one thing remains certain; the company’s customers and prospects must receive consistently high levels of customer service and support, regardless of whose personnel they happen to be dealing with at any given moment.

Most managers agree that the key ingredient for success in running a services business, whether it is run exclusively by an organisation’s own full-time employees, or supplemented in part by outside personnel, outsource agencies or other third parties, is to have all of the workers that represent the business in the marketplace put on a cohesive and consistent front when they deal with customers and prospects. It is important to remember that customers will not care what type of employee representing your company was rude to them on the telephone, or did not provide them with the desired level of customer service – all they will remember is that your business failed to get the job done.

There are many good reasons for why a services organisation might consider outsourcing; but before entering into any specific outsourcing agreement, you should first prepare yourself, and your employees, for the most effective way to manage this complementary workforce. We suggest six basic recommended guidelines:

1. Train your outsourced personnel as if they were your own employees. Make sure they understand the products and services you sell, the markets you sell to, and the way you normally conduct business. If your business involves dealing with highly demanding customers such as hospitals, banks or aerospace, etc., make sure they share the same “sense of urgency” that your own employees have when they deal with these types of customers.
2. Take any outsourced customer contact workers on a short “field trip” to show them how your customer support center works and, if direct customer contacts will eventually be made in the field, take them along on a few customer calls first to show them the way you normally treat your customers.
3. Provide the manager of the outsourced operation with a fail-safe “back door” to a full-time manager at your company, even at the C-level, if necessary. Let the manager know that he/she is not in it alone when help is needed.
4. Get daily reports in a standard reporting format (e.g., problem or exception reports) every morning to ensure that everything is in order, and that no special problems are developing.
5. Give your outsourced employees samples of your company’s products or other items, product pictures or services marketing brochures. You may also want to give them some small gifts with your company’s logo or name on them, such as T-shirts, mugs, pens, desk calendars, a picture frame, etc. This might be especially helpful in dealing with an outsourced night crew or other off-shift workers who would otherwise have no real contact with your full-time company personnel. Some businesses arrange for an Open House lunch or reception for their outsourced personnel for the purpose of having them meet the full-time staff.
6. Problems should be confronted immediately, head on, with the outsource manager. When your own managers are faced with a problem, they typically know exactly what to do – they have been there before. However, the same problems may be new to your outsource managers, and they may need some immediate help from your own management.

Outsourcing is basically a “partnership” designed to deliver quality equal to or greater than that which you yourself would provide. We have found that too often these agreements are handled more as a “’vendor” relationship, rather than as a partnership, even to the point where the in-house person responsible is often referred to as the “Vendor Manager.” Sometimes, simple things like this set the wrong tone right from the start – and things can easily go downhill from there. It is crucially important to create an atmosphere whereby your partners feel they are part of your company’s service delivery infrastructure, and not just an add-on.

Treating outsource vendors and their employees in the manner described through these six suggestions is the first step to creating a win/win alliance. However, it is typically the attitude of the key people that often makes the difference between success and failure in any relationship. By following these six suggestions, a services organisation can maximise its chances for cultivating an environment that would allow for the attainment of desired levels of customer service and satisfaction.

Running a Global Services Organization

Globalization is becoming the norm in the services industry. A market once content with relying on a local, regional – or even national – services organization is increasingly becoming even more reliant on a global support infrastructure. Continuing advances in technology and the proliferation of cloud-based Services Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions have empowered even the smallest of services organizations with new and expanding possibilities to improve their global service and support operations.

For example, as a result of this trend, we have seen a growing customer demand for global service agreements that result in uniformity in the delivery of service to customers all around the world. In many cases, the unique local or regional service and support needs are rapidly disappearing for many customers who no longer wish to deal with local organizations anymore but, instead, are looking for consistency in global service and support performance, as well as (relative) uniformity in pricing across regional territories based on single contract negotiation.

Customer requirements for service and support will never be the same from one country to another, any more than they will be the same from one customer to another. However, one thing remains very clear – the requirements for service are becoming increasingly standardized on a global basis. A growing number of businesses are going global each year in terms of sales, marketing and services capabilities, supported not only by the proliferation of new Internet-based tools and multinational strategic partnering, but also by the increasing demand for global services and support as evidenced by the market as a whole. However, there are many key functions that will need to be consolidated into a global organization.

Another factor supporting the movement toward globalization is the ability to improve internal efficiency. In a typical decentralized organization, many functions are duplicated and performed independent from each other, which leads to increased communication efforts and differing ways of operating. We have seen organizations where product support documentation was developed by at least three different regional organizations, in some cases, providing conflicting information. For these organizations, operating on a more uniform basis would serve to both improve efficiency dramatically and, at the same time, provide a higher level of consistency in the way in which certain activities are performed. Through improved information and communication technology, new opportunities are also being created that allow services organizations to perform certain business functions more efficiently at a global level, while maintaining local control over their individual market segments.

A third factor supporting the case for globalization is the ability to reduce costs while maintaining or improving service level. The greatest area of opportunity involves the logistics operations where local policies have historically resulted in high investments in inventory, especially for slow moving items. Based on what we have seen in the industry, it makes sense to elevate certain of these functions to a global level in an effort to:

• Meet customer requirements
• Increase efficiency
• Improve consistency

The details of each of these functions obviously will vary by company, but the basic functions do exist in virtually all of the companies in the services sector.

There are many functions that may be offered on a global basis

The best way to determine which functions can be offered on a global basis is to evaluate them from both an efficiency and consistency point of view. However, this does not mean that all tasks must be performed at a global level. Dependent on the individual situation, certain tasks may still be outsourced, or executed at the regional level. A good example is training, where the overall structure of the training programs and material should be consistent all around the world, although the courses can be fine-tuned and provided at regional or local training centers to reduce travel cost. Still, there will likely be increasing pressure on services providers to ramp up to their customers’ increasing global needs by offering a full range of global service and support solutions.

Among the principal functions that may be offered on a global basis are:

Business Development

The Service and Support function is critical for all businesses and has to be an integral part of the overall business strategy. For this reason, it is important to be actively involved in the planning activities that result in the development of a Service and Support Business Development Plan that addresses:

• Service and Support product portfolio
• Global marketing plans
• Global Customer Care and Sales

This business function is most critical at the global level because it ties everything together and establishes a framework for setting the goals and objectives for the other parts of the organization.

Product Management

The Product Management function is also critical at the global level. Historically this function has been highly technology-oriented, and tied very closely both to the business’ development and manufacturing environment as well as its regional and local operations. With the implementation of global systems, this function can now be most efficiently managed at the global level. The function includes tasks such as:

• Lifecycle management
• Product documentation
• Product analysis
• Sustaining engineering

As stated earlier, the information and communications systems presently available allow for a faster and more reliable information flow to be managed at a central point, thereby requiring the need for only minimal additional investments in research and communications tools to support a global operation.

Logistics

The Logistics function probably represents the greatest opportunity from a cost reduction point of view. Historically each segment of the organization was responsible for its own planning and execution, which generally led to the implementation of multiple independent logistics systems requiring additional safety stock and a huge risk for obsolescence. Based on our consulting experiences, and supported by information culled from our ongoing surveys, creating a Global Logistics System, supported by the right automation systems, commonly reduces the inventory requirement by 20% – 30% without jeopardizing customer service levels.

At the same time, the risk for obsolescence is reduced which also creates additional cash for a company on the basis of lower reserves kept in the books. Dependent on the situation, most of the specific operational aspects of the logistics function may be outsourced to logistics service providers, which ultimately changes the focus of this function from one of execution to basically one of managing the function. At a global level, the Logistics function should include, at the very least:

• Forecasting and inventory planning
• Procurement
• Repair management
• Inventory control
• Vendor management

The benefits of a global operation are obvious through the elimination of safety stock at all levels, automatic replenishment based on planning and forecasting, alliances with global parts and services vendors, etc.

Training

Training also needs to be consistent on a global basis. However, the development of good training programs and tools requires specific knowledge in addition to product knowledge. For this reason, it is most efficient to develop training programs at a global level, which will allow for specialization where required, and will improve the overall quality of the individual courses and material. This would encompass:

• Customer training, and train-the-trainer
• Technical and Partner training
• Licensing (if services are outsourced to other companies)

Newer developments in training techniques via distance learning and the Internet are just an extra motivation to centralize this function at a global level.

Field Service

The Field Service function should also be managed on a regional or local level. The principal reasons are that labor restrictions and language barriers are still important geo-centric issues. The challenge is to determine what the appropriate service level should be from a management and support perspective (i.e., second/third line support).

In most situations a hybrid model may be developed where first-line support is provided at the local level, while second- and third-line support are concentrated at the regional or global level. Dependent on the specific type of business, the availability of new technology and expanding Internet capabilities may offer opportunities to increase operational efficiency in an environment where the location of the actual support person becomes less important.

Customer Support

The Customer Support function is a front-line function that is very dependent on the regional and local situation. Similar to the field service function, the level of centralization will be dependent on the local situation and culture. It remains important, however, to link all of these functions together via centralized automation systems and rolling out the appropriate communication systems to allow for local optimization.

Regional and local functions must also be carefully integrated


Because of key factors such as cultural differences, language barriers and the importance of a local presence, certain functions may still be best performed on a regional or local level. Although the trend is typically geared more toward the centralization of certain functions at a regional level (e.g., Pan-European, ASEAN) some cultures still require a local presence to do business. The challenge is to determine which front-line functions are absolutely necessary at the local level, and which can be combined at a higher geographic level.

Although some customers will do business on a global basis, the majority of sales will still occur at the local level, dependent on the culture of the region or country. Some markets might even have local requirements that point to a local sales function. However, all local sales functions supporting the business’ service and support products should be in line with the company’s global programs.

How does your organization get there?

Looking at each of these business functions and determining which can more effectively and efficiently performed at a global level is easy – you simply take a step back and apply some common sense, and the conclusion is almost the same for every business. However, in most cases, managers have to deal with an existing organization that has historically grown to where it is now operating on a non-global basis, and the change to a global environment is likely to greatly impact both the organizational structure, and all of the people in the organization.

In addition to these more tangible effects, there will also usually be many underlying issues that have to do with other, harder-to-define issues, such as philosophical and geo-political factors, changing roles and responsibilities, new reporting structures, etc. To address these issues, a careful approach will be necessary, and it might take some time.

The transition from a regionalized to a globally-managed operation is not easy. There will be a great deal of roadblocks that require attention, and the sensitivity of certain solutions will require a well-crafted and thought-out approach. For this reason it is generally helpful to seek assistance and support from an external party to manage the overall effort and ensure the development of the most appropriate global business model.

Acquisition Works: The Acquisition of ThingWorx Establishes a Pattern of Connectivity in PTC’s Global Growth Strategy

On December 30, 2013, when PTC announced that it had acquired ThingWorx, the Exton, Pennsylvania-based creators of an award-winning platform for building and running applications for the Internet of Things (IoT), it should not have been a surprise. However, for those of us who have been covering the global services community for the past several years, what was most surprising was the timing of the acquisition – that is, it was at least a year or so sooner than what we might otherwise have expected!

No two ways about it, though – the acquisition of ThingWorx makes absolute sense for PTC. And, as it turns out, the timing could not have been more appropriate. As stated by PTC president and CEO Jim Heppelmann in the Company’s official press release announcement, “All aspects of our strategy to date have centered on helping manufacturing companies transform how they create and service smart, connected products.” Thus, the three primary keywords from Heppelmann’s introductory quote are: “manufacturing”, “service” and “connected”. And we could not agree more!

Heppelmann went on to elaborate, “With this acquisition, PTC now possesses an innovation platform that will allow us to accelerate how we help our customers capitalize on the market opportunity that the IoT presents.” We agree that this latest move now firmly positions PTC as a major player in the emerging Internet of Things era and, by doing so, allows the Company to continue to expand the overall breadth and depth of its historical Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution portfolios.

PTC’s plan is to use the ThingWorx platform “to speed the creation of high-value IoT applications that support manufacturers’ service strategies, such as predictive maintenance and system monitoring”. This, in turn, would serve as a complement to its existing SLM and extended PLM solution portfolios. As such, the Company would now be able to offer its customers a means to establish “a secure, reliable connection to their products as well as a platform to rapidly develop applications for maintaining and operating them – and ultimately for finding ways to create new value.

In an ideal business world, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) would all work in concert with one another, connected in real time, and providing enterprise-wide benefits in a truly synergistic manner. Please forgive my Math background, but the equation that would best represent this ideal scenario would look something like this:

     Lifecycle Management (Product + Service + Application) x Connectivity = Business Lifecycle Management 

– or more simply stated –

LM (P+S+A) x C = BLM

More simply stated, what this basically means is that, long before the acquisition,PTC had already taken a number of proactive steps toward putting most of the individual Lifecycle Management components of the equation in place; however,since the acquisition of ThingWorx, it is now able to integrate the one last remaining piece of the puzzle to deliver a total Business Lifecycle Management (BLM) solution to its customers. This is where IoT meets Lifecycle Management!

The Internet of Things – especially as developed and applied in the way that the ThingWorx solution has evolved – represents the “cement” that can now bond the Company’s highly regarded PLM, SLM and ALM offerings together, especially for those more progressive enterprises that have already recognized the synergies and economies of scales associated with the cross-pollination of these three historically separate disciplines. The IoT also serves as a catalyst for PTC to improve each of its individual major product lines (plus any of its other related enterprise solution offerings), in and of themselves, just by the nature of its newly-acquired ability to leverage state-of-the-art connectivity into all aspects of its global enterprise solutions.

This latest acquisition also puts all of us covering the global services community on notice as to how aggressive PTC is likely to continue to be moving forward with respect to both growing its core (i.e., traditional) businesses, as well as expanding its overarching technology base and global market presence. The Company is widely recognized as being among the market leaders in each of its core businesses; however, its investment in IoT should also serve to expedite and facilitate its ability to deliver.

Throughout his presentation as part of the Company’s January 15, 2014 industry analyst Webcast, Heppelmann used highly descriptive terms and phrases to underscore the rationale behind the benefits of the acquisition including “globalization”, “collaboration”, “take the world to digital products”, “design anywhere; build anywhere”, “personality of products” and “diversity with scale”. These are all areas that PTC had been trying to build upon over the past several years that can now be fully supported and facilitated as a result of the acquisition of ThingWorx.

In his address, Heppelmann further supported the rationale for acquiring ThingWorx by identifying the major forces that PTC believes are driving transformation in the manufacturing sector today; i.e., the forces that have led PTC to make an accelerated move into the IoT era:

• External forces are reshaping the manufacturing landscape
• Products are evolving to be smart, connected and global
• Value is fundamentally shifting from product to service
• When combined, these forces will transform the industry

Taken together, these forces describe a global manufacturing sector that will begin to look very much different in the next couple or few years than it looks today – that is, a sector predicated on an emerging foundation of the three descriptors Heppelmann had cited earlier in his presentation: i.e., “manufacturing”, “service” and “connected”.

There have been many of us who follow the global services community that have been watching – and, quite frankly, wondering – how PTC would ultimately incorporate its October 2012 acquisition of Servigistics into its overall operations and solution offerings. In fact, over the past 16 months or so, many of us have felt that our (and the market’s) questions have been left largely unanswered. The Company’s July 2013 acquisition of Enigma, a niche developer of software that aggregates and delivers technical content in aftermarket service environments, also contributed to this growing list of unanswered questions. However, the acquisition of ThingWorx has changed everything – apparently, there always was a “method behind the madness” at PTC that was not really mad at all!

It would be incorrect to interpret PTC’s most recent spate of acquisitions as being little more than a series of one-off purchases made by an already established, major PLM industry player that simply wants to add to its global empire. Conversely, these acquisitions have apparently been both long – and well – thought out as part of an overarching strategy that would not only propel PTC to be the single largest provider of global PLM and SLM products and services, but, rather, totally reposition the Company as an Internet of Things leader that has leveraged the latest in state-of-the-art technology into a comprehensive – and completely re-tooled – portfolio of enterprise solutions.

For those of us who have spent most of our careers serving in either the PLM or SLM (or ALM) marketplace, the time for choosing sides (i.e., “we’re either in product management or services management”) is over! Our research has consistently shown that the gap between manufacturing and service management is diminishing, and that the ability to deliver what our customers want, when they want it, and in a consistent and more collaborative fashion will be an even more critical driver for success in the Internet of Things era (i.e., today, and in the foreseeable future).

While many of today’s manufacturing and services managers may still find it too difficult to operate outside of their respective management silos, PTC clearly understands the need for providing a technology platform to support the “new normal” for enterprise-wide collaboration. They have seen the future – and it is a future that will essentially be built around global solutions, powered by the Internet of Things, and supported by a solutions provider that understands how each major component of the enterprise needs to work in concert with the others.

Reverse Logistics: Doing the Supply Chain Dance

When asked “Who was the greatest American male dancer of all time?” most people would respond “Fred Astaire” without hesitation. In numerous stage shows and movies from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, he was, in fact, the greatest American dancer.

However, the response to “Who was the greatest American female dancer of all time?” is typically much more wide open, as any one of the many fine women who have graced our stages and screens over the years – including many who had danced as a duo with Astaire – could be cited as the greatest.

The nod usually goes to Ginger Rogers, although Cyd Charisse or any of Astaire’s other former partners could just as easily be mentioned. However, regardless of who is ultimately cited, one thing is for certain, as expounded so succinctly in former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, Faith Whittlesey’s now famous quotation: “Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels!” The analogy with respect to reverse logistics could not be any more painfully obvious.

Just as in accounting, where you have to deal with both debits and credits; in logistics, if you ship things out, some of them are going to need to be shipped back. However, in accounting, at the end of the day, your assets and liabilities will always balance out to equal one another; but in logistics, there are no such absolute “laws” that assist shippers in determining – in advance – how many of their out-shipments may ultimately be returned – and, if so, in what shape, and for what reasons, etc. This problem only intensifies when you have to address what to do with the returns once they are received.

It is bad enough when a customer’s shipment arrives late, damaged, or with the wrong content. Compounding the situation is the fact that once a shipment goes wrong (or the parameters change, such as the customer no longer needs the part, etc.), it only gets worse, because now the customer has to call or e-mail the shipper to arrange for another shipment, re-pack the original item, and ship it back for credit. If all goes smoothly, an incorrect shipment is little more than a “nuisance” to most customers.

However, if things go bad (i.e., shipped the wrong part, successive damaged shipments, etc.), these situations go really bad, really fast – and that bad feeling lasts in the mind of the customer for a long time.

For example, if the customer has ordered a critical part from you to resolve a critical system failure, and you deliver it late, damaged, or otherwise unusable, you can bet that your customer satisfaction rating with that customer is going to take a significant hit. That “hit” is further compounded by the fact that your customer then has to (in their own mind) “fix” some of your mistakes itself by calling you up, re-packing the part, and shipping it back to you – plus, they have to wait another day or more to finally get the right part shipped out. This has all of the makings of a bad situation staying bad for at least another 24 hours or more before the customer can ultimately “forget about it”.

However, if during that waiting period, the customer’s business system (and, hence, its production capability) has also shut down or, as a result, they have to send their late shift home early, then you’re likely to find yourself dealing with the dreaded combination of (An Already Dissatisfied Customer) + (Unanticipated Lost Productivity) + (Unexpected Dollar Expense) = An Extremely Dissatisfied Customer. All this, plus the belief that they now “have to do your job” by shipping the part back, simply makes the matter worse.

The problem that reverse logistics providers have always suffered from is essentially based on the typical human misperception that “shipments coming to me are ‘good’, but shipments I have to return are ‘bad'”. However, there are some things that can be done to make the return shipment process as painless as possible. For example:

1.  Provide as much documentation and instruction as possible – in advance – to assist your customers in handling their end of the reverse logistics transaction. Provide it in written/electronic form; make it accessible via e-mail and the Internet; present it in easy-to-understand numbered steps; etc.

2.  Provide the customer with as many tools as possible to get their part of the process done quickly and accurately. Provide them with easily re-packable shipping containers, instructions, pre-printed forms, adhesive mailing labels, etc.

3.  Provide direct customer support contact information should your customers have any questions or concerns about return shipments not fully covered in your documentation. Make sure they have access to relevant company telephone numbers and/or e-mail addresses, and make sure that these contacts are physically there for them when they make the call or send the e-mail.

4.  Make sure that all situations involving late, damaged or lost shipments are adequately covered in your service agreements with respect to contingencies, penalties and/or incentives. Resolve any open issues as quickly as possible; admit mistakes when they occur, and make good on them.

5.  Provide customers with as many Web-based self-support tools as possible. Some customers believe that anything they have to do is an unwarranted demand on their part or, at the very least, an inconvenience; however, other customers believe that anything they can do over the Internet that will shorten the time it will take for the overall process to be completed, will be glad to do so.

6.  Provide centralized tracking capabilities via either telephone and/or the Internet. More and more of your customers have become accustomed to tracking their shipments – to and from their vendors – over the Internet. (You can learn a great deal from companies like Amazon.com!)

7.  Provide an open forum for customer input and feedback. Everything involving logistics is important to the customer, and they will have a lot to say about the way in which they think you are performing.

In short, make it as easy and non-invasive as possible for your customers to work with you in handling their portion of the reverse logistics process. If you attempt to do everything yourself, then everything that goes wrong will be your fault – and your fault alone. However, if you work with your customers, provide them with the tools and direction they need, and make things as painless for them as possible, then you will have the best chance to improve your customer satisfaction ratings in the long term – or at the very least, prevent customer dissatisfaction from tainting an otherwise good customer relationship.

Service Is a Global Concept

Customer requirements for service and support will never be the same from one country to another, any more than they will be the same from one customer to another. However, one thing remains very clear – the requirements for service are becoming increasingly standardized, even on a global basis.

This is particularly true as more and more local companies are going regional, regional companies are going national, and national companies are going international in terms of sales, marketing and services capabilities.

Just a few years ago, only the largest services organizations had credible worldwide service and support portfolios. However, today, mainly through the proliferation of Cloud-based technologies; Internet, tablet and social media tools; and the use of strategic alliance partners, even the small and medium-sized services organizations are finding themselves empowered to support their customers on a global basis.

Still, the perceptions of what it might take to be a “world class” services provider remain inconsistent even among some of the most sophisticated vendors. For example, while some services providers may believe that their mission-critical customers in Europe require exactly the same level of support as their mission-critical customers in the United States – nothing more, nothing less; there are still others who believe that the only differences between required levels of service in the U.S. and the UK are the substitution of an “s” for a “z”, and an occasional “u” stuck inbetween an “o” and an “r”. However, regardless of each individual organization’s approach or perceptions, it can safely be said that services requirements are both every bit the same, and every bit different, in each corner of the globe.

Further, many services providers in the United States have discovered over the past several years that there is more than one language spoken in global service. This was a lesson learned years earlier by most European and Asian providers, as well as by Canadian services organizations that have been dealing with bilingual support for decades. However, the globalization of service and support refers to much more than simply language differences – it must also focus on the cultural, economic and business differences that are manifested in varying forms all over the world.

As most individual businesses continue to grow larger, and larger businesses continue to acquire, merge and consolidate, there will be increasing pressure on services providers to grow along with their customers’ needs for a broader and more sophisticated range of services – both in terms of breadth and scope (e.g., a full array of professional services in addition to traditional break/fix and help desk support, etc.) and geographic coverage (e.g., cross-border capabilities). The conventional wisdom is that some of the services providers that presently offer very high levels of service and support, but only among the basic, or “core”, types of services, or only in a limited geographic area, may actually end up losing out to other, less high performing providers that offer a wider array of services over a larger geographic (i.e., global) area.

The general rule of thumb is often, “why settle for varying or erratic levels of service and support over the whole of our enterprise by relying on the use of multiple vendors, when we can ensure a more standardized mode of delivery – all at satisfactory levels – provided across our entire system?” While the former mode of service delivery may range from “excellent” to “average” depending on the type of service provided, or the location of the end user, the latter mode generally ensures that, at least, there will be consistent levels of service provided enterprisewide – i.e., with no geo-by-geo “surprises”.

In today’s services environment, the true measure of a provider’s ability to adapt to its marketplace is no longer answered strictly in terms of how well it can deliver different types of support to different types of customers, but in how well it can provide desired levels of service and support to each of its customers, regardless of their size, industry segment or geographical location. This requires a full understanding of both its individual customer bases and the global marketplace, and can only be successfully addressed through a painstaking effort to learn to know each market better – that is, better than the knowledge that was previously available, and better than the competition.

The word “global” should no longer simply conjure up images of field technicians trudging through the wilds of the Great Australian Outback, or cross-country skiing through a harsh Canadian winter terrain (although this may also be the case from time to time), nor should it be interpreted solely as fostering a company mentality of trying to be “all things to all parties”.

Rather, “global” should be defined as “offering the full complement of desired services and support, either directly or through strategic services partnerships, to support the enterprisewide needs of the customer.”

It has taken the services industry the last century to get to the point where it is today. However, it will be around this definition of “global” service and support that the future of the industry will be based. Where it will ultimately take us will, as always, be heavily dependent on how the services marketplace believes its providers are responding to its “global” needs.