FIELD SERVICES RESEARCH REPORTS

Annual overview of industry trends, industry topics, the research reports TSIA will be publishing in the upcoming year and the research studies TSIA will be conducting in the upcoming year.

The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) began awarding STAR Awards to member companies in 1990 to recognize exceptional service and support operations. Over the years the categories have continually morphed to reflect the always-evolving strategies and practices within the industry, and to include all service disciplines served by TSIA: support services, field service, professional services, and education services.

The most frequently asked question regarding STAR Awards is, “Why did they win?”, and this report will answer that question, highlighting the success stories behind the most recent round of awards, Fall 2011.

TSIA identifies service revenue and profitability trends, and provides critical observations based on the current quarterly update of 50 of the largest global providers of technology services. TSIA aggregates the financial performance of these fifty companies each quarter from the public record.

For the Fall 2011 TSIA Recognized Innovator Awards, categories were selected that best represent the partners in the TSIA partner ecosystem: Products, Services and Consulting.

Innovation in Products highlights 'bleeding edge' technology available to streamline operations, capture knowledge, generate incremental revenue, or improve the customer experience.

Innovation in Services provides an opportunity for service provider partners to showcase how their innovative people, process and technology are dramatically changing service operations, and forcing companies to constantly re-evaluate core verses context.

Innovation in Consulting provides a look into the forward-looking advisory projects partners deliver to members, improving efficiency and margins. Member companies should stay abreast of innovation in the service industry and look for ways to leverage these new approaches to improve efficiencies and satisfaction, lower operational expenses, and increase services revenue.

TSIA's leadership has just released their latest book, Consumption Economics, which documents the rapidly changing world of technology services, as on premise technology moves to the cloud, and as up-front application and user license fees are replaced by micro-transactions. Consumption Economics is a must read for everyone in the technology services industry, serving as a rallying cry for service leadership to take action now to avoid being classified once again as a “cost center” as the market evolves.

As TSIA's service technology expert, I advise member companies on available technology to improve specific operational, quality and financial metrics, as well as help companies select the ‘best fit’ vendor for their needs. Consumption Economics has clear implications for technology buyers, and this report is an attempt to expand upon the trends and recommendation in the book in regard to services technology. In particular, the enormous responsibility that comes along with technology decisions as buying power shifts from IT to the business user, and a look at how companies are leveraging data analysis tools in early attempts to capitalize on user-level behavioral data, as the book recommends

This report is based on the groundbreaking book Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech, by J.B. Wood, Todd Hewlin, and Thomas Lah. The book describes the significant shift that is occurring in the services industry in response to the growing worlds of cloud and managed services, and how today's services organizations must completely re-think how they build products, how they drive revenue, and what services they need to offer in order to succeed in this new age of tech.

The focus of this paper looks at the implications Consumption Economics has for support and field services organizations.

Video is an incredibly powerful medium that is already changing the face of service operations, but the impact will be even greater in the future, as video becomes even more widely adopted, including the enablement of face-to-face customer service interactions. This report evaluates how early adopters are leveraging video effectively for knowledge management, education, and support interactions.

October kicks off the annual budget cycle for many companies, and based on TSIA member inquiries and other conversations, 2012 is shaping up to be a stressful year for technology services. Innovative technologies involving mobile and video are forcing changes—and introducing revenue opportunities—across education services, field service, professional services and support services. The customer channel mix continues to evolve, with growth expected in Web chat volume and issues resolved in online discussion forums. And after surviving the economic downturn of 2009 fairly unscathed, early indicators are 2012 will be another tough year for technology firms, and this time, service may be in the cost-cutting cross-hairs. Support executives should be aware of emerging trends to help with 2012 planning, and to have answers prepared if and when the CEO comes calling with possible budget cuts.

TSIA conducted a survey about service spare parts issues and practices during Q4 2010 and Q1 2011. The survey inquired about such varied topics as parts availability, entitlements coverage, inventory value, physical and cycle count practices, repairable parts, parts planning and forecasting methods, spare parts outsourcing practices, and commonly used KPIs and measurements.

The survey was conducted among TSIA members only. Approximately two dozen TSIA members completed some or all of the entire survey questionnaire. Although the survey sample size was relatively small, the types and sizes of companies that participated in the survey are significant. Respondents included such notable organizations as Cisco, EMC, GE Healthcare, HP, Juniper Networks, Philips Healthcare, NCR, and others. All participants have significant hardware service operations and important spare parts concerns. Therefore, TSIA believes the findings in the survey are valid and reasonably representative of the industry at large.

Service organizations that are embedded within product companies are destined to work with outside service partners. These system integrators and value-added resellers are critical in driving the success of product offerings. Historically, these services partners have represented the lion's share of the arms and legs required to successfully implement the offerings of hardware and software companies. But who owns the success of these service partners?

Last year I wrote a blog entry titled "Can PS Partner?" It was a response to data TSIA had gathered on how embedded PS organizations were working with subcontractors, system integrators (SIs), and valueadded resellers (VARs). The data clearly shows that embedded PS organizations struggle in working with and enabling SIs and VARs. Since writing that blog entry, I have spent more time with member companies on this topic of successfully engaging service partners. This report addresses the three key challenges related to partner success that product companies should review.