01. Copperberg Podcast
Episode 08
2025 Strategic Outlook: The Keys to Success in Field Service
Running a smart and agile manufacturing operation
In this episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, we explore what’s next for field service. Lisa Hellqvist, Copperberg’s Managing Director, sits down with Martin Knook, CEO of Gomocha, to explore how companies can adapt their field service operations to meet the demands of 2025 and beyond.
02. CONTENT
From sustainability to predictive maintenance, Martin and Lisa unpack the critical trends and challenges shaping the sector, offering actionable insights for industry leaders looking to stay ahead.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
- Sustainability in Field Service
How businesses are adopting sustainable practices and how this shift is being driven by customer demand and regulatory compliance. - The Evolution of Predictive Maintenance
Why maturing predictive maintenance strategies is a cornerstone for operational efficiency and how data plays a critical role. - Outcome-Based Services
The growing trend of purchasing services over products and the generational shift driving this change. - Addressing Talent Shortages
Strategies to bridge the skills gap, retain top talent, and reimagine the role of the field service technician.
Field service leaders and forward-thinkers alike will find this episode full of actionable insights to adapt and thrive in a shifting landscape.
03. Speakers
Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters is your go-to podcast for candid discussions with the industry’s top thinkers and innovators.
04. Listen now
2025 Strategic Outlook: The Keys to Success in Field Service
05. Transcript
Nina Roper Yearwood (00:30)
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters. I’m Nina Roper Yearwood from Copperberg. Today, we’re taking a close look into field service, offering a strategic lens on where the sector is headed. Joining us for this conversation is someone who lives and breathes this world, Martin Knook, CEO of Gomocha, the field service platform empowering mobile field workers to perform their daily tasks via workflow driven processes. My colleague, our Managing Director at Copperberg, Lisa Hellqvist, sits down with Mr. Knook and picks his brain on what it takes to thrive in field service in the years ahead.
They will zoom in on significant trends, touching upon sustainability adoption in field service, what it takes to advance your predictive maintenance, the trend toward purchasing services rather than products, and what’s driving the shift towards outcome-based services, strategies to tackle talent shortages in the sector, and how companies are reimagining and could reimagine their field service operations for the future. Lots of nuggets there to chew on. So get comfortable and let’s jump right in.
Lisa Hellqvist (02:11)
Okay! And welcome! And I would like to take this opportunity to welcome today’s guest. And with me I have Martin Knook who’s CEO of Gomocha. I need to ask you first, how do you pronounce your name in Dutch?
Martin Knook (02:27)
Yeah, I’m 100 % Dutch, so native Dutch will say Knook. But after being for 10 years in the US, I’m totally accustomed to the silent Knook. So, works.
Lisa Hellqvist (02:44)
I must say, being a fellow European I still can’t pronounce your name so I’m sticking to the silent Knook. That’s easier.
Martin Knook (02:48)
Yes, there’s one advantage in the US, they do it all the same. So that’s the difference between Europe and the US.
Lisa Hellqvist (02:55)
Yeah, perfect. I’m very happy to have you here. And the purpose of today’s conversation is obviously to pick your brain. And I’ve decided to call this sort of this strategic outlook for next year and dive into some of the major trends and the keys to success in field service specifically, since this is your area of expertise and domain. But before we get going on the actual questions, I would really like to know more about you, Martin, and your background.
I mean, today you act as the CEO or you are the CEO of Gomocha. But what led you to where you are today? And can you let the audience know who you are basically?
Martin Knook (03:37)
Oh, wow! So that’s potentially a long answer that I can give here with 35 years of experience in the information technology. So, you know, back in the days, I’m born and raised in the kind of area of Amsterdam city. Did my kind of technical degree there on data communication and fell in love with computer automation. So my addiction was working with my computer programming myself, what I see my kids doing with gaming. That’s basically what I did with programming back in the days. And I’ve always been involved in startup companies, building new value propositions for new ideas in a variety of different industries.
So, I don’t want to position myself as a jack of all trades, but I definitely have been seeing a lot of many different industries struggling with the same kind of challenge – how do I deploy technology, state of the art technology today into a more efficient operations of tomorrow? And I think that’s really what I like to do most. That’s the challenge that I’m looking for.
My colleagues will typically describe me as a very high concentration individual that knows the details of everything and can still kind of aggregate it to higher level strategic goal setting. And to keep that vital, I like to challenge myself. So give me a summit of the Mont Blanc or give me the Kilimanjaro or, you know, most recently two weeks off the grid in the Himalayas. Fantastic! With a group of people just meeting at a different dimension to understand our world a little bit better. That’s a fantastic experience from Europe living in the US. My kind of pre-assumption was, I’m coming from a Western society into a Western society. And none of that was true. It’s a challenge to reposition yourself. And it makes you very much aware on the things you are not aware of in a day-to-day setup. So these kind of challenges shape me to what I do now, being the CEO of Gomocha. And the company has a legacy for 30-40 years in this domain, really pioneering with the first mobile devices.
And the team has been pivoted into a state-of-the-art field mobility platform that we deliver to our customers, that we develop with our customers, that we maintain with our customers. So we really have a community around efficiencies in field operations. And I’m really excited about the potential of growing that into the world.
Lisa Hellqvist (06:59)
Good! And I mean, I always have to ask this question. So if people are not familiar with Gomocha you touched upon it now, but what would you see as the sort of main differentiator, you know, working in this FSM space, which is obviously very competitive today. There’s a lot of actors out there, some more established, but a lot of new ones. Obviously a technology that is driven by the digital adoption, as well, the mobility of the workforce as well as, guess, fast track by the pandemic, all of that. But what is the key differentiator for Gomocha, you would say?
Martin Knook (07:37)
Yeah, it’s really empower your field technicians, enable them, enablement and looking for what we call hidden efficiencies in those operations. We have created, so, we have a platform with all the bells and whistles and all the features and you know, we have it all, we truly have it all! We have, sometimes I believe we have too much capabilities in our software.
So the concern or the challenge is really how do you kind of deploy those technologies in a way that it really makes a difference in empowering your field technicians and not to run you the entire pitch, but to say and assume that your technician can be a commercial representative and responsible to generate revenue.
That’s very easy to say, but it’s really a challenge to really implement that. And that’s where Gomocha stands out. We’re a partner in understanding our customers’ mode of operations, desires to change, and that ability to really grow that field operations step by step and support that, the ability to not have a solution for today and tomorrow, but to grow with our customers. And I think that’s what the big differentiator is. Gomocha, go mobile change. So we’re designed to change your field operations along the way. That’s the real key for our success today.
Lisa Hellqvist (09:28)
Nice! And I mean, I like what you said there that sometimes, you know, systems can be so, complex is one word, but obviously they have capabilities that are so profound and so broad that it’s sometimes hard to narrow that down to the true value proposition of your customers. So you actually have to identify their key challenges and then you have to have that continuously growing partnership in understanding their end goals. And that’s where you kind of thrive together. It’s what unlocks success in any partnership, I would say.
Martin Knook (10:05)
Yeah, can I emphasize one, I think unique approach for us? What we have learned and honestly, we have learned that from past projects where we enabled that technology and then with the implementation, we started to do the puzzle of how it all comes together. And of course we had scope and of course we had requirements and then of course they had documentation.
And then during that implementation, we kind of found ourselves in misalignment with our customers to an extent that it was not really contributing to a healthy partnership. Let me be frank, this is the past, right? And what we’ve re-engineered is that all the complexity of the delivery of the final solution to the field operations, to the real kind of real transactional environment of doing service, providing service, all that complexity, we have been taken out and we call that our blueprint and we create a blueprint before a customer even signs up with us.
So we have a simulation of how it’s actually going to work before a customer even kind of decides to work with us. And it’s really kind of a very strong, powerful way to have a strong meeting of the minds and set expectations.But also have a reference point to be successful in a digital journey that we all have to be ready to follow the kind of unbelievable tsunami of technology capabilities that’s rolling over us and will continue to roll over us if we’re not ready for it. So kind of really making that investment at the beginning of the partnership with customers, that’s really what makes us successful.
Lisa Hellqvist (12:03)
Nice! And I mean, I started off this conversation saying that we will dive into some of the biggest trends that at least we acknowledged here at Copperberg. And I think we share the same view on them. And then, you know, we’re going to take on the very small task of trying to boil them down, digest them, and what does it actually mean for the industry going forward. Of course you’re here to share your expertise and kind of your interactions on a day-to-day basis with your customers and trying to shed a light on some of these trends and where it will lead us.
And one of my favorite words right now, which I think has finally gotten the honest attention that it deserves is sustainability. And why do I put it like that? I might be a little bit provoking stating the, for some the obvious, but for others, not the obvious is that I see how that has climbed the ladder in terms of prioritization specifically for service organizations. Mainly, I would say, built on the backbone of the technology and the enablement of the technology that allows us now to do more things efficiently. We can reduce waste in many places through the service delivery chain. We can be more remote. All of these aspects that we obviously look at.
I also see that there seems to be a total mind change on the customer side as well, that they are actually sourcing providers that has a better, you know, responsible sustainability agenda. And the interesting part to me is that unfortunately before many years ago, we looked into the same thing, no one really owned it at that point. It was a top-down thing, sustainability, there was a CSO or something, but no one really owned it in the service organization. But now it’s actually can, when done correctly, affect the bottom line or top line revenue. Now it all of a sudden becomes very interesting.
That is my provocative statement. I don’t know if you agree, but what do you see in terms of technologies? I mean, obviously you were working with one of them at least, that you think is going to be most impactful in terms of advancing the sustainability adoption in the area of the field service and the technicians.
Martin Knook (14:34)
No, that would be the idea. So the answer to that question would give the ideal solution for it, Lisa, I think. You know, sustainability is and you bring it as a provocative kind of statement. So let me not get distracted on that. But, you know, it’s an urgency, right? We know that we have to do better. And I think the awareness of doing better and taking better care of our planet and preparing future for our kids and just have a more healthy life ourselves, those are all coming really close to us. So it’s no longer the kind of top ambition of a government or a European Union that wants it. It comes really close to our personal life in the end.
So I’m fully with you that that is the right motivation to act, right? Because if it comes close to me as an individual, as a leader, I’m kind of interesting and motivated to do something.
So, the one technology, to give you an honest answer, I haven’t found it. I don’t think we are going to have a technology that is going to help us and really drive sustainability into the future. First, and this is a kind of not to disqualify the question, but every business is different, right? So there is a lot there, but I think there is a very strong concept that I would like to kind of bring up here and I think, you know, I see more and more of my customers looking into circular economy or aspects of that. And I think that theme, that concept can drive, you know, the awareness and the need for technology to support that. So I think, looking for a technology is approaching sustainability at the wrong level, to be honest.
And I think it’s much more of developing that circular economy. And I see my customers putting a more emphasis on how do I get my spare parts? How do I get my RMA processes better organized? How do I know the composition of my assets so that I can anticipate on aspects of that circular economy? I think it’s really where we have to reuse, repurpose the asset as first, where I think the big win in this is for manufacturing customers mainly or focused on where sustainability goals and objectives can be met by focusing on how do you kind of create less waste to your point earlier, but also make an economy out of it.
So there is a value in your trash, right? To bring it down to that level. And, you know, Gomocha is focusing on enabling those processes and integrating those kind of processes and where I think it comes down to having a technology that support those kind of standard operating procedures much better than ever before. And that can be driven by AI, that can be driven by remote servers that can be driven by assistive technologies. It’s a variety of different things where that in the end is unique for each customer and each kind of field operation itself. And that’s for me the area I want to focus on. So circular economy around the kind of products you service. Take that as the concept to find your efficiencies and your improvements going forward. And of course you can kind of drive solar powered cars and you can do a lot more, but that’s not really kind of where we at Gomocha focus on. There is kind of, there are so many opportunities to do better in the end that will all contribute
Lisa Hellqvist (19:07)
And I mean, I think you’re actually saying exactly what I tried to say there in the beginning. It’s like the provocative statement is a little bit more maybe also around the fact that, you know, if you have had historically a very specific, you know, profit and loss responsibility and the sustainable solutions were way more expensive, for example, to implement within your own organization, those were never an option, even though there was a top agenda, right?
And, you know, everyone wants to do this, but there was no real means to do so. Now we have unlocked a totally different territory with a different mindset on the different technology that helps us. I mean, the technologies is not solutions by any means, but they are there to support the strategies we want to implement. And then at the same time, as you say, there’s the whole new process about the end of life, for example, where you’re looking at the remand, the refurb. It’s really something going on there. And how much of this do you think is driven by the customer demands in the area? I mean, we obviously see a shift.
Martin Knook (20:13)
You know, yeah, we see a shift. So did customers of the field operations, right? That’s what you’re asking for.
Lisa Hellqvist (20:20)
Yeah, exactly. You know, your installed base customers or your service agreement customers, yeah.
Martin Knook (20:28)
Yeah, where I’m still a little bit concerned about the real kind of implementation of this is I think we haven’t figured out the real affordability and what does it do with potentially price increases or price erosions. So I think the pricing models for implementing real sustainability solutions and what’s a customer really willing to pay for it? I think they are yet to be seen. I kind of, I think we’re all struggling right now and we have to kind of, you know, we cannot, I think we have no crystal ball for that. I think it’s really doing experiments. And that’s what I see, you know, my customers doing for their customers is really having, you know, concepts being presented in terms of different contract form, levels, kinds of, sustainability commitments with a price tag on it, but not packaged as a sustainability option, but really as a value for the customer in the end. And I think that’s really where the game for sustainability will be. We can build that circular economy, but then the price point needs to be really well understood and adopted.
I see customers asking for it because they are driven by compliance, you know, reporting, you name it and you have to kind of keep track. I think back to the Netherlands, my roots, think we’re now, if you give a car to your employee, you have to register the kilometers or miles that someone is driving in their personal time. That gets a big burden on the business, so there are all kinds of requirements coming up that come at a price point. So it’s really kind of, that’s where the challenge really lies. How are we going to make it a real economy again?
Lisa Hellqvist (22:36)
Interesting! And I mean, I like what you’re saying there is obviously it’s only a value if we can present it to the customer. So I’m also thinking that some of that might just start with the ability to present how you kind of contribute or not contribute to their ESG targets. So if they have, you know, compliance, as you say, for example, that it can only source or procure a certain type of services, you facilitate their decision-making process and you become a more competitive, you know, potential provider. Because of the fact that you are transparent with your carbon footprint data, for example. I’m seeing it maybe not as you’re saying there that we can showcase the effects, but just that we can showcase a step one, just that we measure it. And it’s an interesting scenario to see what the different industries will move with this.
Martin Knook (23:29)
You know what? My kind of, and I wish I had the real answer, but what I think can happen? Yeah, yeah, no, but what I think that the challenge is, potentially we’re going to get a divided market place where the more wealthy, healthy organizations, the better performance, financially better performance can afford to live up to those kinds of requirements. And where you see the less wealthy, healthy businesses not being able to live up to, and the interesting thing is, will we have a governance body that will force us all to go to the same level or will we allow split in the market as I tried to describe here in wealthy and healthy in businesses because, you know, if companies can still deliver similar competitive services at a low price point, not compliant with sustainability goals and customers aren’t buying it, there isn’t kind of a way of unfair trading being introduced, which will only slow down, right? So I think we have to make a collective commitment. At a global scale, you always see that in the car industry between China and the US. You see those kind of trade wars happening there. But I think we should be aware that potentially can happen in field service operations and competitors as well. We should be alerted to discuss and develop mechanisms to avoid that.
Lisa Hellqvist (25:02)
I really like that answer and I think it’s a very conscious decision actually which side of the ballpark you want to play in, right? Or on the field you want to play on because it’s really like either you embrace it and you move with it and it’s probably an investment for your future operation as well to sort of take that commitment seriously, but also as you’re saying the wealth versus health is sometimes a balance, you know, and it can be hard to make sure that you have the most ethical agenda in some of these aspects. Now I’m thinking from a macro perspective, of course, even though we all want that.
But it leads me actually into another segment that I really want to pick your brain in, because this is, I know, one of the, let’s say, core discussion points every time I have interactions with Gomocha, and it’s the technology integration and data management. Because I know that’s something you work with your customers actively on.
And I mean, I could give, you if I could get a penny every time someone says, you know, we’re stuck in our legacy systems, it’s siloed information, we have no data flow, we don’t even know where data sits, who owns it, you know, getting these connected, you know, or non-connected systems to connect and getting that sort of one source of truth, if one may, that is of course the, you know, dream scenario here. But I mean, you worked with so many customer implementations and integrations. What would you say is the main obstacle in achieving this kind of success when we’re trying to harmonize these technologies? Because we’re working with so many of them today.
Martin Knook (26:44)
Yeah. So, to me, this is, I like that question, at least I think for it. As soon as we’re talking with a customer that has that stovepipe organizational structure, you’re losing it, right? Sorry for saying that to people that are saying, that’s me, you’re losing. It’s really, really, very, very dated model of how an organization should work. It basically slows down everything from the modern technology. So the tsunami will literally go over you. If you’re strong enough, you will survive. But if not, you will be wiped away. I think that’s really so one of the big, big obstacles in really getting data and systems and more data that we need to benefit from technology and more that we need to benefit from a business perspective. Stop organizing your teams, your thinking in this is my department, this is what I do and this is what you do and we have our own things. We have to kind of work in the awareness that technology can enable that.
But, you know, so the role for technology strategist in teams for, you know, overseeing the technology landscape for field service operations, they have to start working almost as changing the organization to be fit for purpose. So that’s the biggest obstacle. And then, so this is my competing second one, if that’s allowed. You’re asking for only one, right? But if I can get a second one. Let’s throw out this word, master data management, the definition of data. What is the name of your customer? Is that in all your systems the same? Is it in all your system different? Give a very simple low-level example.
Lisa Hellqvist (29:14)
I know the answer in our organization is definitely different depending on who put it in there.
Martin Knook (29:17)
Yeah, so and then who is in the lead to harmonize that and create a common understanding on what it really is. So, where, like you said, we do a lot of integration. We kind of have a platform communicates with the entire world. But it’s always a challenge if people do not even know how their master data is being organized. So we have organizations where it’s really a struggle that basically integration triggers the discussion on, how do we kind of keep records of the customer name address and how do we do with contact details? And that triples, and I take customers as an easy example because we all have customers, but that trickles down into your asset composition. It trickles down into your type of services that you provide. It trickles down in invoice lines and revenue recognition. It goes everywhere through each kind of aspect of the business. Because field service is not a standalone thing, right? It’s for most of our customers, the beating heart of their operations.
And just kind of, the challenge of understanding the different data sources and making sure they can talk with each other, that’s the second one. And if you have them both, then you’re really not adaptive to change. I would say, yeah.
Lisa Hellqvist (31:02)
No, you’re in for a ride. Definitely, for sure. No, but I understand that it’s a typical thing and, you know, it always also seems to be, let’s say there’s a lack of directive, there’s a lack of ownership of this transformation process also because someone needs to define, you know, those aspects as you say, okay, what is the data record? What’s the MDM strategy, you know, whatever it might be, right? But there is like, there’s even a scattered view of certain inputs of data. And, you know, as you say, there needs to be a common understanding of the data sets. And I think the organization, we often use that word, but it’s like a minimum viable product. And I think sometimes in data handling, that’s really important to just be like, what are the minimum viable records we need? And then the rest can, you know, sleep for a bit, they can be dormant, but we need to work with the core, you know, and we need to just to be able to, because just piling data for the sake of piling data is not necessarily the most important thing is what we do with it, right? So we need to mold the data into something we can act on.
But I mean, you mentioned field service organizations, of course, that’s your core business. And that brings me to another very, and you said off-grid, but that was for a totally different reason. I suddenly understand why it was so hard to find this time slot with you because you were off-grid for two weeks. But joking aside, but it’s one of the common issues is that, we send our field technicians and you, course, in Gomocha you work in several industries with totally different, you know, utilities, etc. You have people that are then faced with regulations, connectivity, all these things that are, you know, it’s so easy on paper to say and say, we send out our mobile workforce, our technicians, but then you have this infrastructure issues that might actually set us back a bit or regulations, which is also some things that come in, adds complexity on certain, if you take oil and gas, for example. So this connectivity and data that we now talk as the backbone and the core of our field service operation.
But how do you navigate this? I think I hear quite a lot that it’s not applicable to us, we can’t act under this. What’s your thought here? Should they still do all this data accumulation, being off-grid? Of course they have an organization that supports that type of field work, I must say. I don’t think people just send people in the blind and never care about them anymore. But I mean, there must be a way of capturing that data anyhow. But what would you say when it is a very complex, regulated, maybe secluded environment? Because it doesn’t fit the ideal profile when we talk about field service.
Martin Knook (33:58)
Yeah, I think, okay, so this is my view on it and that we have implemented successfully as well for some customers, not everyone. I like to separate out, you know, a lot of different aspects in your question, like, about regulations, data, data ownership and all those kind of things. It’s what I think we have to focus on to optimize field operations is we have to separate out data that you need or want to have to learn from your customers demand, from your customer expectations, from your performance, from how you do that data you collect and in the end data that you need to perform service.
If you’re able to separate those out, the options to navigate regulations can play not a nice role because regulations are never nice, but a very, very instrumental role in helping you to really determine how much privacy sensitive customer data do you really need in the field in comparison having for your business for providing the service, right? That’s where regulation makes it a little bit more complex and having that kind of ability to go over those kind of criteria and taking this approach. In combination with a principle that I like the most when it comes to data ownership, there’s a whole lot to say. But if you can define data ownership by the measure of how often you use it. So if data ownership is driven by I use this data the most, then I own it. You will get a much more harmonized kind of way of looking at things. And that’s how I think I would suggest to navigate it. It’s hard to do because who owns this data? You know, if take an example, who owns your asset data the most or who uses it the most? But you have technology to measure that and be objective about that.
And if you kind of take that, those kinds of concepts in mind, it’s still not easy, but it lays out a few fundamental stepping stones to navigate or to crawl over the complexities that all come together here. And that’s really how I think on data ownership and security, those kind of things do come together here.
Lisa Hellqvist (37:12)
And I like that, that the people actually needing that data set the most to sort of do their daily tasks are actually the ones who should be in ownership of that data. It makes perfect sense because they also have the most contact with the data, sanity check it and whatever it might be, right?
Martin Knook (37:31)
It’s a little bit of controversial kind of approach, right? So there are groups that support that whole idea and they have the right arguments to do so. Taking a more legal approach to it, you will probably end up with a different kind of aspects of it. So there are different views on it.
I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t think like a legal perspective. But where these roads are crossing each other is when ownership comes with responsibility to keep the data secure. If you tie those together, then you’ve got, okay, so now the ownership of the data is clear, and now you have to make sure it’s compliant and secure. So you kind of get a distributed responsibility in your organization. What I fear is that we see security and data ownership as a responsibility that’s being centralized. And I think that’s just creating another stovepipe in your organization.
Lisa Hellqvist (38:42)
Yeah, I’ve never thought of it like that, but it’s a very interesting concept because of course there’s a legal framework in the accumulation storing, that kind of thing that needs to be honored. Of course, that’s regulatory, right? But then in the same point, when we say ownership of data, I mean that ownership, the internal ownership, who owns the updates, because you’re also obliged to keep the data set updated, right?
Martin Knook (39:04)
Exactly.
Lisa Hellqvist (39:05)
So that is another function to me. Now, when you paint this picture, I’ve never thought of it like that. That’s very interesting because the one that interacts with the data mostly is also the one that’s best, of course, equipped with the right set of information to keep the data right, right? So that’s also, you know, it’s a maintenance project in one sense, right? Whilst the collection and regulation around it is more of a framework that should steer how the data is collected. It’s a very interesting view, actually. And so thank you for sharing that. That was new to me. So that just gave me a lot of ideas, actually.
Martin Knook (39:44)
Great, great! Let’s continue that conversation in another talk, Lisa. I’m excited.
Lisa Hellqvist (39:49)
Yeah, and I mean, you touched upon that, of course, on the security aspect. And I mean, I’m going to then take that into the predictive maintenance connected services ballpark here now. It’s also one of those that on the, you know, the drawing board. And when we talk about it, it looks like the holy grail of field service or any service operation is, of course, to be able to have connected assets. We can see its health. I mean, it has so many great efficiency gains to it, it also has sustainability aspects that we run our assets on the optimum level and all of these things. It’s fantastic, right? But the reality is it’s not really like that. And then you have this whole complexity that we all often bounce into or bump into is that, okay, but who owns the data?
So I have my big generator here or whatever it might be. It’s connected, it’s all well, but can you plug it in? Can it be connected? And here comes the complexity of this dynamic, right? Of course, if it’s a fully leased machine, then it’s maybe a little bit different. It’s probably been regulated already in the contract, but let’s say it’s another type of equipment.
So predictive maintenance. If we start with, what’s your take on the predictive maintenance model? Because we’re not really there yet, but it’s really coming as at least the blueprint of where we want to be. And what do you see as the main challenges in terms of data around that model?
Martin Knook (41:29)
Yeah, I think, I see predictive maintenance and the level of more as a maturity indicator for your field operations, which also, and you haven’t mentioned that yet, but would also kind of touch it on the knowledge and the skill sets to deliver that predictive maintenance. So these kind of two things are connected with each other and they communicate with each other almost. And in between there is data. And I haven’t introduced the Gomocha library of efficiencies. The first question, I should have done that because that’s really the beating heart of what Gomocha is about, we are very much aware on the efficiencies that we deliver to our customers. have a library of 43. They’re all really pretty much defined in what value they deliver and what they do and how they work.
And one of the things that is my favorite is what we call practice field service journalism. And that’s, it’s a kind of a creative kind of definition which entails exactly what you need for predictive maintenance because journalism is basically helping field operations to collect relevant data points and to mature your predictive maintenance. What you truly need to do is you need to learn on what’s happening in the field because, I think one of the pitfalls on thinking about predictive maintenance is it’s very easy to create a model on today’s capabilities. If we can start all over again, then it’s really easy to create a predictive maintenance model.
I had the privilege of the scientist from Ford that has engineered the predictive maintenance models for Ford cars. And he has kind of told me and taught me about the evolution of knowing more about the engine and the mechanics of the car, collecting that for years. And after doing that, being able to make a predictive model and basically influence the life cycle of the car itself so that maintenance, you know, preventive maintenance was kind of reduced.
So that’s the whole kind of concept that comes behind it. And where this started is with that journalism. Companies that are in a position to have a long history of all their legacy assets or contract performance, the more data you have on your performance points, which is not necessarily immediately a data security or a data compliance concern. Because I think the need is you have to prove to regulators that you actually use the data. So there is a lot. So we think of limitations of regulations. No, it’s just like you have to prove that you’re storing keep data that is really helping you to perform in your business.
So if you kind of I don’t know if it’s a clear answer because I think I’m throwing a lot of concepts here at the same time, but it’s that puzzle. Don’t be too afraid of data regulations constraints. Be concerned about if you collect it with what we call field journalism. If you collect the data, make sure you use it to improve the performance of your business. And then you’ll have a lot of capabilities that come together. And of course, artificial intelligence, large language models can all help you to build capabilities in doing so and truly become better in predictive maintenance.
Lisa Hellqvist (45:59)
I like that actually regulations doesn’t necessarily have to be a limitation, they are an obligation for what you should and could store.
That is a minimum. And then of course, they can prevent you from doing other things. But at least that’s a very nice blueprint. If you want to look at, for example, GDPR came with that, I mean, everyone was like, ugh. But on the other hand, gave a very clear understanding of what we can expect from datasets now B2B, you know, trading with each other. It’s like, okay, it’s GDPR compliant. Then we know exactly what it should, you know, entail and what kind of, you know, regulatory tick boxes that needs to be checked. Otherwise, we can’t share that data. It’s a profound, yeah.
Martin Knook (46:42)
Yeah, the compliance is primarily focused on how you treat the data, right? So GDPR is not limiting. It’s setting a scene on how to treat the data, how to protect it, how to store it, how long to keep it. It basically is behavioral instructions for us to get organized around that. And for a good reason, because you don’t want your data to be widely known to your competitors or widely known to anybody in the world. There is, it’s not, I don’t see it as a, I don’t like it necessarily because it’s a lot of work and it’s complex, but I see the necessity for these programs very much to really stay vital in the businesses we do.
Lisa Hellqvist (47:27)
Yeah, I agree. I mean, predictive maintenance also brings us to maybe what we like to think of the new sort of service business models. It’s a little bit of an enabler for that, or at least the, I mean, we can obviously not sell an outcome of something we can’t predict the behavior of. So it’s a little bit to just boil it down. It’s often that.
So, you know, we speak about this service over products transition. You know, we move in from a product provider to a service provider. This is of course applicable for discrete manufacturing more than anything else, but there’s also process manufacturers that this is applicable for where you kind of have the whole end-to-end service solution. You know, you run all the maintenance, the uptime of assets, etc.
And I mean, I did my first aftermarket event in 2009. It was on my agenda back then. It still is main points of discussions on our current agendas, 15 years later. But what would you say is driving this shift currently? Because there’s obviously an idea about uptime outcome based as a service. What do you think is driving this so vividly right now, I would say?
Martin Knook (48:50)
That’s a difficult question, you know. For me, there are two drivers, basically. Servitization that first word, needs to be out here, right? It’s definitely that framework and the concept and idea is definitely driving it, but it’s based on the ability to do it. And I think that in itself is not strong enough. I would almost bring it up to the level that there is a big shift and you started with the different generations and their impact on it. I think, I hope, maybe it’s more my hope, that we will transition as society from a less ownership oriented perspective. And I think that is happening, right? So 15 years back, I was going to a store buying my DVD for the brand new, you know, it was a physical kind of appearance of a product. My kids, 15 and 19, they don’t even know what a DVD or a disc is, right? They take that service, right? They go online and they see whatever they want. You know, there’s much more choice. So I’m still buying CD and DVDs because I like it. So I’m kind of wired. It’s my hobby.
Lisa Hellqvist (50:33)
Is that still possible?
Martin Knook (50:36)
You have to search for it! Final Records is really kind of the hype, right? So it comes back.
Let’s not go into my hobbies there, but it’s like, but unwires to possess these kind of, you know, these things, you know, have a full whole garage full with toys and I think in businesses It’s the same, you know, if you see what’s happening with the rental industry, you don’t have to own all your equipment. You can just rent it maybe at a better price point when you need it. So the kind of transition of not owning assets in society and in our kind of whole thinking, that’s truly driving the need for outcome-based services.
Lisa Hellqvist (51:22)
And I also think this accountability liability thing is that if you own it, it’s my problem. If I rent it, lease it, it’s your problem. I rented, you know, it was a service from the get-go, you know, give me your tech support. It’s not working. I want my money back. You know, it is kind of, you know, and I think that is a generational shift also that we trust that if I buy a service, I can always object to the delivery of that service and get my money back.
Martin Knook (51:52)
Yeah, and, you know, in my kind of small example of my DVD/CD final collection, my kids are joking, you know, I have a limited choice and I have storage facilities in my house to keep them, right? So the liability, the point of liability and price point, you know, I have shelves filled with that stuff and they think like, hey, I can see I have the convenience of choosing everything I want. I can play every song that you like that and I have zero space needed so let me live in a small house, I don’t need a big house, so I think that’s really a kind of a symptom, but the same for service providers, you know, you don’t need all your equipment because you have to store it somewhere, you have to keep it, you have to maintain it, there’s a whole kind of chain of events that comes with owning an asset.
And if that trends goes, you know, really the way that we think it can go, as long as we can control capitalism and not create centers of ownership in the world, we have to have the distribution of wealth still maintained pretty well. I think that’s driving the need for outcome based service much more than anything else. So it’s the consumer in the end that is asking and driving.
Lisa Hellqvist (53:18)
And I think also one of the things, of course, we speak about this outcome based models and, you know, then it again goes back to the data sets, right? You know, in your opinion, to be able to sell these, I started off saying also maybe slightly provocative, you can’t sell an outcome of something you can’t protect the behavior of, you know. If you don’t know anything, you know, what are you going to sell or it will be a very complex contract to write if nothing else. What kind of guarantees can you leave if you don’t know that can be an expensive task.
So what do you think in terms of data sets? Because obviously, you know, we have this whole aspect of one is of course the asset behavior or the installed base behavior, but then you have all the other aspects of the service delivery with the maintenance programs and the actual labor of your technicians, you know, the parts.
So what kind of technology do you think we, one, need to rely on here? And what kind of methodology should one approach? I guess you have customers that have this kind of uptime guarantees and deliveries given the verticals you actually serve. I think it’s quite popular in utilities, for example. Any advice there on, because I think there’s a big maturity difference between verticals out there as well.
Martin Knook (54:36)
Yeah, there is. You know, I think the one thing, and we haven’t used that word yet, but the knowing how to work with the data set from IoT is, and I’m explicitly starting with knowing how to deal with the data set. So it’s not the data set of IoT, you know, we have assets that can talk. We have sensors we can install everywhere. So in the utility space, they have huge programs, but just rolling out sensors to know the real status of things. And that goes in many different aspects of it.
And I would say deploying that technology as such is not the complex task. That’s the work you need to do to enable it, but then receiving the amount of data and making sure it’s not giving you a black and white dotted screen without any information, really, yeah, they’re really detecting the pattern in the data to get educated decisions or educated guests first, because it’s a kind of a learning experience, right? So it’s not like the data present itself and then will help you, but the potential data set that will make the big difference there is the IoT data set. And I think we’re at a point that the technology is there, the sensors, the kind of infrastructure to communicate. Because there are all kinds of prerequisites to be successful with that. That’s readily available for us. But the real challenge there is to learn to work with that data set. And it almost comes down to knowing what to store and what not to store.
Lisa Hellqvist (56:52)
It really does. And it brings me maybe to the final question on the generational gap here in service. Something I bring up that we know that the younger generations are more inclined to buy value added services over core products and more soft products. I’ve read just a report on Forrester that said that 70% said they were willing to pay more if there’s an embedded service into it. It gives us like an indication where we’re heading.
But I think the interesting part here is just what you’re saying. If I am a part of your install base or a part of your customer line. We have these IoT sensors that my provider can read from. It comes with a set of expectancy on my end as a customer. You know all of this. You know this. So how come you haven’t predicted this? It’s like driving. I always use the car situation. My car tells me when it needs service. It tells me where I should go to get my service. When I get there, why isn’t my parts there?
It’s been telling me this for ages, you I’m always, you know how it is, you know, I’m waiting until the final minute and then you rock up at your local, you know, workshop and they have no idea and we have to start all over and I’m like, but the cars even told me this, you know, my expectancy here is my expectation is that you know this, you know. And I’m then paying for an intelligent car, but the service isn’t intelligent to match that car’s intelligence.
So how do we bridge that gap with the expectations? Because I think the younger generation will demand even more from the data they’re providing. Like what’s in it for me now? Because they’re used to everyone knowing everything about them, right?
Martin Knook (58:32)
I think bridging the gap, I think that’s the transition that we go through, right? So we can easily talk about the future state of things, but how to bridge the gap is really start implementing those capabilities and adopt to change. That’s why within Gomocha we’re so much focused on adopting change. That is really something that needs to be understood. The expectations are out there. And I think it’s a side note on the car, but allow me, then it’s out of my head. Where I’m a little frustrated with that my car talks to my dealer and then my dealer starts to set appointments for me and call me when I come. That’s over. And but the point here is not about my car and my personal frustration, but it’s almost over delivering against that.
Lisa Hellqvist (59:37)
Yeah, it’s almost invasive. Yeah, almost invasive.
Martin Knook (59:38)
It’s very invasive. It’s like, come on, I have my own schedule. I’m on vacation. I’m not around. I cannot do it. And so it’s like, it’s really finding that balance.
Lisa Hellqvist (59:53)
At least it doesn’t drive you to the workshop yet!
Martin Knook (59:56)
Not yet! It should do that when I’m parking it. It knows when I sleep and it takes my car.
Martin Knook (01:00:04)
Yeah, but you know, in terms of expectations in a more, you know, a B2B kind of setup, you know, we will definitely see similar concepts where I think, and it is a technology we haven’t touched on, but, you know, assistive technologies, and I don’t want to refer to glasses or other kind of concepts because they are too narrow and too limited for me. But I really think along the line on how assistive technologies can help you to be better informed about what’s going on. And I think that’s really where the focus should be to bridge the gap between expectations that service organizations need to kind of be really focused, you know, and I need to be informed about what’s going on. And that’s, think, the next plateau that we can reach. And if we have established that, we can definitely think of next steps into that transition on how you can kind of, you know, apply that to predictive maintenance and maybe even avoiding outage and issues by just doing timely repairs or replacements or reaching out with new contracts or even new estimates. I would like to bring that example back from a car. I would love to receive a proposal from my dealer saying, hey, your car is now five years old. Your cost level for maintenance will go up here. You might consider buying a new one. They’re actually doing that. There are so many different and that’s an aspect I like. Now we have an argument at home to buy a new car, right? So that’s what we that’s now.
But I think there are so many different plateaus for each business to come up with by bridging the gap is making progress. Start acting. Do it now. And and I do not see a common approach for the entire industry because it’s constantly unique. And to bring in an example on where setting expectations, I think it falls short in some of the field operations. It’s a real-life example where we do a blueprint. And it’s a service that provides security guards around the replacement of high-risk assets. So repairs in data centers, ATMs, government installations. There is always a certain high level of security required and that’s a company that provides that service. It’s fantastic. 70% of their communication relies on WhatsApp, SMS and phone calls.
And talking with the leader of that organization, the owner of that business, he basically says, yeah, but it works fine. And it’s true, but at the same time, he’s not learning anything about what’s going on in that communication. So he’s blindfolded by I have a well-performing business. I want to digitize it a little bit. But he’s missing out on the potential of what will happen if you streamline all those data points. So this is not even IoT, this is just human interaction, but you capture that with the field service journalism that Gomocha loves to offer to everyone. And then analyze that with an LLM to find the narratives and find the improvements and find the new services that you can kind of offer to your customers or new processes or new contract forms.
I think collecting this data and giving the right interpretation will help a lot to develop and design better new surfaces that will give you that competitive edge advantage. And that’s where I think that data model can help. So it’s a long way to get to the point of use your data for product development and design as well for the future.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:04:49)
100 % and I think you’re right, they’re capturing that and actually brings me into my final kind of segments that I want to pick your brain on, which is on the, we can’t have a field service discussion without addressing the fact that we are suffering a little bit from a talent shortage. There is a high circulation of technicians out there and they seem to start and leave quite frequently, you know, the turnover is quite high that we know, so it’s also an expensive sort of task to get people up to speed and, you know, keep on training them if they’re leaving.
And of course, we have this whole knowledge management gap that we need to bridge. I mean, it’s definitely, we call the silver tornado. So many fancy names of this as well, right? So we know a lot of people are going to retire. They sit on a lot of customer knowledge and product knowledge or installation knowledge.
Then we have, of course, the same thing where we have a shortage. Not enough people are actually graduating with the right degrees. We have already from the get go, we have too few to choose from, then we’re in this highly competitive landscape where we have to compete with the talent that’s around and then on top of that of course we have the new sort of technology that also maybe forces us to look after slightly different personas, maybe opening up another talent pool, hopefully.
But what’s your take on this right now? I mean obviously technology without simplifying it, I would say, it is a simple way of saying it, but I think it is a true backbone and a cornerstone in how we bridge the gap? Because as you were touching upon there, are ways of accumulating data that allows us to capture information so it could stay within the walls of our organization, no matter who works with us. So that’s of course, a risk mitigating move as well, especially if we’re looking at losing talent. What’s your take on the technology’s role in this whole, you know, I would say it’s a pickle. To boil it down to one word.
Martin Knook (1:07:04)
Yeah, I’m to be honest, always this question always triggers a little bit of my kind of and I’m getting a little irritated with it at times, to be honest, because, it’s been around for years. And at the same time, and it’s probably because I’m getting older, but at the same time, the prediction for, you know, number of jobs available to pick and choose from in the future. It’s going down, right? We see predictions on where 40% of the jobs we have today will no longer exist in 10 years and we will have 20% of new jobs being back in a new nature. That’s why I’m saying I’m probably getting a little too old because I don’t get the young generation to be alerted by that. So that’s my first kind of, I have to take that out. So I think to not put that on young generations, I think we in our leadership position do something wrong. We do something wrong that we cannot reach out to those young generations and say, but wait a minute, there is a transition going on in the world and we cannot activate them. So it’s a little bit of that that I’m really worried about.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:08:26)
Somehow we must, we need to make the field service, you know, trade more attractive to people and appealing. And also in one sense, include the second gender, or maybe there’s more genders now, but the female gender into the equation, because obviously, you know, there’s definitely a talent pool there that’s overlooked. Or maybe they are self-fulfillingly not choosing or opting for this industry, but it’s definitely, that’s a combat. It’s 50% of the graduates.
Martin Knook (1:09:04)
Yeah. So to your point like education and the cost of education, other industries are being organized in associations that provide structural education and makes the work interesting and attractive. So I think there are some small initiatives that I have come across, but there is not a kind of a real recognition for the work that field service technicians are doing. So it’s a kind of hidden responsibilities. When you’re a nurse, you’re being seen, when you’re an electrician, you’re extremely important in the energy transition today. So I think we have to find ways to give it more respect, I think. That’s one thing that the industry, to my opinion, needs to work on to at least get a better, stronger inflow.
Where I see my kind of conversations going with customers when it comes to highly skilled activities, resources that can do those activities. I see kind of an ongoing interest in redesigning their standard operating procedures in the field and lack of better word, chopping them into different steps and get a concentration of highly skilled work as a portion of it and organize everything around that service in a totally different way. It could be the distribution and logistics for equipment or spare parts, but I think that’s where a potential for those organizations that can do that.
If you can do that in the field, then you have the potential to benefit from something like, you know, remote support. Because for me, it doesn’t make sense to have, you know, work that takes two and a half hours and try to do that in a remote setup. It’s still two and a half hours and people lose their freedom. They’re not. But we have to think in a way that how can we get that highly skilled resource back to 30 minutes, organize everything around him, for him and then have him remote work 30 minutes and then contribute a value of two and a half hours. So I’m just giving a kind of a practical example here on where I see customers starting to think along those lines where I think that with a better positioning of the field engineer work can make it more attractive but I don’t want to kind of repeat.
And then technology can help with that. But finding out where do you need the skills? I think a lot of field engineers are underutilized when it comes to utilizing their specific skills. They’re too busy with others. That’s what they, you know, someone highly skilled, don’t want to do the boring stuff. You want to do the interesting part of the work. So I think that’s kind of the whole transition that is happening.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:12:33)
No, and I see that too, that is more popular with like different kinds of service escalation levels and you have different kinds of technicians dealing with different things, you know, depending on where their forte is. You know, if it’s remote support, you have a unit that might be more back office, more, you know, more programmers almost like, you know, it’s a totally different customer support. And then you have the people that are more hands on. It’s like a hospital, you know, one is in the reception, one will be the surgeon, you know, There’s different levels of competencies, of course, that, you know, will enter with the patient.
Martin Knook (1:13:05)
I’m not going to give you the brand here, Lisa, but there is one manufacturer of oven equipment, only that. And a friend of mine is a technician there and he loves his job because everything around him is organized. So he has his truck in front of the house and he is able to work short work days, but contribute a lot.
And that organization made the fundamental decision to no longer put more work on him to benefit from the eight hours, but let him deliver the value of eight or maybe nine or 10 hours of work in as quickly as he can do it. He kind of, that organization creates a lot of respect for the technicians. And I see kind of the discussion on labor and skills and being mixed up with efficiency and productivity. I think that’s the scary thing. If you want to reward highly profile, knowledgeable field engineers you have, you should not care about if they do the work in four hours, five hours, six hours or eight hours. That’s not the criteria.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:14:25)
It’s almost outcome-based labor, right?
Martin Knook (1:14:28)
This is really a leader in that field and this is how they do it. So that individual lives like a king on earth, you know, because he experienced all the freedom and still doing a very good job for his business. You know, that’s a nice balance. And I do see too little of that thinking in our industry, to be honest.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:14:54)
But I mean, I think it’s a natural progress. It’s also an interesting thought because of course, if we look more at the outcome service level, you have to take the, you’re supposed to do this many customers a day, for example, that is what we constitute as a very well done job. Then of course, you know, maybe what’s the point of being on a payroll if you don’t do what you’re, I mean, it’s just, you know, if you get the job done, you know, it’s more the gig economy mindset, right? Which is an interesting mindset even here.
But I will actually let that be your final, let’s say remarks. Maybe that’s something to strive for in the future. We leave that with the audience that can we also make our field service technicians mirror what we’re kind of trying to provide our customers with, then we might have a more fully aligned business model where the delivery is also, let’s say, monetized and paid for in the right way, even with our own staff.
Is there any final words you would like to leave our audience with or any final remarks on your end, Martin?
Martin Knook (1:15:54)
No, yeah, wow. I thank you for providing that final quote there, Lisa. I fully support that. I think one of the things that, and I do that myself as well. So field service operations are so detail oriented. It’s such a, there’s so much coming together and it really performs in the details of everything that sometimes I think we’re taking not enough time to imagine a real new kind of set up of things. And, you know, that’s where I think we should kind of hold each other accountable for to just kind of forget about the here and now and today, just think about for a minute on how it can be because that will potentially create much more of a vision and a strategic objective to center and organize your activities around.
And that’s why I hope that we can find a way that we can, you know, call it imagination, but it’s maybe, you know, having a fantasy about how it can be done or out of the box thinking if you want to bring it a little bit more in the business context. But I think that’s also sometimes what I miss on conferences. It’s so much about sharing experiences and experience are about the past, right? And look at where I am. I’m saying it and I’ve shared some experience here in this composition. So it’s a huge pitfall. But that’s what my final thoughts are. Just allow that out of the box imagination.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:17:46)
I think that is a brilliant final quote. Thank you for joining me, Martin, and thank you for being a guest here today. It was a pleasure and I hope the audience enjoys this discussion as much as I do.
Martin Knook (1:17:57)
Thank you very much, Lisa, for having me and helping us to promote Gomocha into the world of field service.
Lisa Hellqvist (1:18:05)
My pleasure.
Martin Knook (1:18:07)
Thank you. Bye-bye!
06. Related Resources
