Gartner Field Service Management: Critical FSM Capabilities

Gartner analysts evaluated Field-Service Management (FSM) Technology vendors to find out how they ranked on the topic of Customer Experience. Let’s take a peek at a few of their key findings and learn more about how the vendors stack up.

We believe this Gartner field service management research was written with the purpose of offering the vendors of various field service organizations information based on their recent evaluation of these three common challenges:

1. High Volume and Volatile Technician Schedules
2. Complex Service and Support
3. Equipment as a Service (same-day inventory, which enables first-time -fix-rates)

We are confident that the intent is to help vendors in this category evaluate the 16 top tech providers in the field and find out which vendors stand out as the right fit for their organization, dependent on their biggest challenges.

Gartner Field Service Management: The Impact of Smart Homes

• The Field-Service Management (FSM) software market is experiencing unprecedented growth (20% year-over-year is the documented average)
• Innovations that customize software solutions to meet the needs of individual companies are now common.
• Senior Execs have found new revenue streams due to this new technology.
• FSM leaders expect vendors who provide an integrated software platform linking multiple Field-Service functions to yield a better consumer experience over best-of-breed providers.

Further, New technologies such as IoT-enablement for predictive repair and replacement and Augmented Reality (AR) devices (such as smart glasses that provide detailed photographs of complex repairs), are making a positive impact in the field service industry as more and more homeowners are buying smart home devices that are connected to the Internet.

What Kind of Software is Most Commonly Available to Field-Service Organizations

 According to Gartner’s analysts, “FSM products typically cover these six categories of application functionality demand management, work planning, technician enablement, work order debriefs, back-office operations, and analytics/integration — in varying degrees of depth, depending on where they started from.”

1. Demand Management (service request coordination)
2. Workforce Planning (for FTE and contracted technicians)
3. Technician Enablement (Mobile tracking and planning apps)
4. Work-Order Management
5. Back-Office Operations, such as billing and claims management

Gartner Field Service Management Analytics

For example, some products have deeper mobile-application capabilities than scheduling optimization, while others have the opposite focus.

We believe that Gartner’s product evaluations for this research were made based on functionality released and availability in June 2017.  Gartner has identified and weighted the functions most likely to differentiate or influence evaluations as well as any that might affect additional costs or implementation efforts.

Curious about the most up-to-date 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management? Access the report now.