Here at ServiceMax from GE Digital, we are tremendously proud of our placement in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management (FSM), where we have been named a Leader for the 3rd consecutive time. This year, analyst Jim Robinson and his co-authors are highlighting the importance of new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as noting that the popularity of Cloud continues to rise. It’s a bright future for both ServiceMax and field service transformation.

When I first began working with ServiceMax from GE Digital, six years ago, the market itself was a very different space. Cloud solutions and mobile apps were rare, and what solutions did exist were remnants of older systems like Siebel. The era’s hottest vendors had strong scheduling capabilities to increase utilization rates, but left the rest of the field service process to ERPs and other systems of record, therefore doing little to make the technician more effective at his/her job. Industry events, news and insight on field service was practically non-existent. Gartner produced a Magic Quadrant for FSM, but most other analysts steered clear, frankly not seeing much to write about that would garner interest.

Perhaps it was mobile apps and the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets that changed the game, or a realization by field service practitioners that they needed to shift from looking at costs to looking at how they could grow revenue by transforming service delivery. But whatever it was, quite quickly things began to shake up in field service, with new entrants, new technologies and a drove of global businesses ready to make a change and do things differently.

We like to think ServiceMax from GE Digital lead that charge. We established Field Service Digital as a go-to resource for field service trends and topics. We grew our signature event, Maximize, from a half-day add-on at Dreamforce to a series of global events that are amongst the largest gatherings of field service professionals in the world. We established our Global Customer Transformation (GCT) team and Field Service University to help educate partners, customers and the general public about field service process, metrics and transformation.

Pretty quickly, analysts took note of a growing and thriving market. Specialist firms like The Service Council emerged. Gartner hired a full-time analyst to focus exclusively on field service (the previous analyst provided research on both field service and supply chain management). Others began producing or expanding their own updates on field service, especially as merger and acquisition activity heated up. Dozens of analyst firms cover field service now, either following the market directly, or highlighting field service as a key use case for new technology in areas like IoT, AI, Augmented Reality (AR), wearables, drones, mobility and more. As an example, VDC Research, which focuses heavily on mobile technology and IoT research, now has a research track devoted to field service management, and also recently named ServiceMax from GE Digital the leading vendor in their latest report.

The end result is that you, field service practitioners and professionals, now have access to a plethora of research and trend information that can help you make both technology and process decisions that transform your business. It’s a great time to be in field service.

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ABOUT Susan Tonkin

Susan TonkinSusan Tonkin is the former manager of analyst relations and product marketing at ServiceMax and a regular webinar speaker and writer on field service topics. Susan joined ServiceMax in 2011, spearheading analyst relations and product launch activities as ServiceMax grew exponentially. Prior to joining ServiceMax, she spent more than a decade managing product marketing at Cloud and Enterprise software companies such as Saba and Extensity; working regularly with customers, analysts and partners to bring exciting products to market. Susan holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business Administration from Saint Mary’s College of California.