Part 1 of this blog series introduced ClickSoftware Technologies (NASDAQ: CKSW), which until recently has focused solely on workforce and service optimization software solutions for large field service companies. Gradually, via both internal development and a few appetizing acquisitions in 2009, the vendor has added a few important growth engines, such as mobile computing solutions, shift planning (rostering) solutions, and solutions for small to medium businesses (SMBs).

Part 2 then analyzed the individual modules (in a price list manner) and logical bundles of the vendor’s flagship Service Optimization Suite as well as a number of original concepts that have differentiated ClickSoftware in the field service workforce optimization market. One of these concepts is the so-called real-time service enterprise.

Part 3 analyzed ClickSoftware’s Mobility Suite, as the major enabler of the real-time service enterprise as well as the vendor’s existing customers and go-to-market strategy. One of the major tenets of the vendor’s expansion into new markets has been the strategic alliance with SAP. This final part will recap the company’s strengths and point out its still outstanding challenges. 

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Part 1 of this blog series introduced ClickSoftware Technologies (NASDAQ: CKSW), which until recently had focused solely on workforce and service optimization software solutions for large field service companies. Gradually, via both internal development and a few appetizing acquisitions in 2009, the vendor added a few important growth engines, such as mobile computing solutions, shift planning (rostering) solutions, and solutions for the Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs).

Part 2 then analyzed the individual modules and logical bundles of the vendor’s flagship Service Optimization Suite as well as a number of original concepts that have differentiated ClickSoftware in the field service workforce optimization market. One of these concepts is the so-called real-time service enterprise. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced ClickSoftware Technologies (NASDAQ: CKSW). Until recently, the software company focused solely on workforce and service optimization solutions for large field service companies. Gradually, via both internal development and a few appetizing acquisitions in 2009, the vendor has added a few important growth engines, such as mobile computing solutions, shift planning (rostering) solutions, and solutions for the Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs). 

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My recent series of tutorial articles entitled “Navigating Between Service Management Scylla & Charybdis” and “The Magic Behind Planning and Executing (Optimal) Service Supply Chains” have drawn solid interest and valuable feedback. Along similar lines was the series on general workforce management (WFM) systems (i.e., not necessarily only in field service) entitled “Integrated Workforce Management (WFM) Platforms: Fact or Fiction?”

The software vendor whose work and solutions largely inspired the first two series is ClickSoftware Technologies (NASDAQ: CKSW). With its recent acquisitions (to be explained shortly), ClickSoftware has also become somewhat related to the latter series on general WFM considerations. 

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Part 1 of this series established that service supply chains have many planning levels and time horizons, which can be roughly divided into the following categories: the immediate period around the day of service, and forecasting and  planning for the day of service. My blog post then expanded on the various approaches to the challenges on the actual day of service.

Part 2 delved more deeply into the intricate execution issues on the day of service, starting with optimized scheduling, or the “W-6” optimization challenge: Who, does What, with What, When, Where, and for Whom? Mobile communication was established as the best means for dispatchers to communicate the schedule and job details to the resources, receive updates, notify customer cancellations, and continually optimize their schedule in response to all changes. Additionally, astute dispatchers use location data from global positioning system (GPS) tools to continually optimize schedules and divert the right resources to an emergency job.

Yet, the service chain is bigger than just optimized scheduling on the day of service. Even the best optimization algorithms can hit an early limit if the rest of the chain is ignored. If a service company’s workload is, say, 150 percent of its capacity for an extended period of time, then no level of optimization can overcome this reality. 

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Part 1 of this series established that service supply chains have many planning levels and time horizons, which can be roughly divided into the following: the immediate period around the day of service, and forecasting and planning for the day of service. My post then expanded on the various approaches to tame the challenges on the actual day of service.

The most advanced approach is to use service chain optimization algorithms that balance customer satisfaction and operating costs. But, as in any business environment, the catch is that conflicting forces pull any company’s service scheduling optimization decisions in opposing directions.

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The recent three-part series entitled “Navigating Between Service Management Scylla & Charybdis” analyzed the phenomenon of service economy, or the increasing importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. But while the vast customer service software market’s opportunity was examined there, the series also pointed out the treacherous complexity of planning and executing service supply chains.

Compared to manufacturing and distribution supply chains, which are already complex on their own, service supply networks add a few more complicating variables. The series introduced the notion of the “perfect response” in service chains (vs. the “perfect order” in manufacturing and distribution) or how to get the right person with the right part and knowledge at exactly the right time to solve a particular customer’s need. And all that perfect response has to repeatedly and continually happen for almost every customer while maintaining a financially viable service business.

Every service business is ultimately measured by its performance on the day of service, and ensuring that the company has the right resources in the right places at the right times is critical. But the ability to deliver service on the day it is actually required is only the last link in a long chain of decisions that must be made weeks or months before the day of service.

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Part 1 of this series analyzed the phenomenon of the service economy or the increasing importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. Especially in a sluggish market, the service delivered after the initial sale of a product is what can truly differentiate competitors.

The service opportunity is also there, since after-sale service is quite difficult to replicate. Thus, while durable (hard) goods orders decline and product-based profit margins diminish in maturing and commoditized industries, service margins remain very healthy. When consumers or businesses focus more on maintaining what they have vs. purchasing new products, after-sale service can have a substantial impact on any company’s revenue, profitability, and customer loyalty levels.

Thus, Part 1 asserted that one saving grace for the economies of these developed countries (the Group of Eight [G8] and beyond) could be the post-sale service or aftermarket business model in which services to repair, maintain, and optimize products are sold to installed bases. Part 2 then discussed the accompanying service lifecycle management (SLM) software category and the potential benefits of using mobile computing technology.

We might want to note here that the word “resource” throughout this series refers to any type of mobile field worker including engineers, technicians, inspectors, surveyors, gang, crew, shared vehicle and so on, while “job” or “task” refers to any type of work that these resources perform. Given the apparent market growth opportunity, service chain optimization would be about putting the right resources in the right places at the right times to deliver superior service to customers while keeping costs down.

As simple as that, right? Well, not really (and thus the Scylla & Charybdis reference). 

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Part 1 of this series analyzed the phenomenon of the rise of the service economy: the increasing importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. Especially in a sluggish market, service delivered after the initial sale of a product is what can truly differentiate competitors.

In fact, after-sale service is quite difficult to replicate. Thus, while durable (hard) goods orders decline and product-based margins diminish in maturing and commoditized industries, service margins remain healthy. When consumers or businesses focus more on maintaining what they have vs. purchasing a new product, after-sale service (or aftermarket) can have a substantial impact on any company’s revenue, profitability, and customer loyalty levels.

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It is no longer breaking news to say that the US and the European Union (EU) are turning from product-based to service economies. The trend of the increasing importance of the service sector has only been accentuated by the recent (and perhaps still ongoing) subprime mortgage and financial system meltdowns, volatile stock markets, declining durable (hard) goods orders, dwindling physical product-based profit margins, and so on and so forth.

But one saving grace for these developed (the Group of Eight [G8] and beyond) countries’ economies could be the post-sale service or aftermarket business model offering services to fix (repair), maintain, and optimize products that are sold to installed bases. While durable goods orders decline and product-based margins diminish in maturing and commoditized industries, service margins remain very healthy. Thus, service businesses currently contribute about 70 percent of the world economy.  Read the rest of this entry »

The first part (Part II) of this blog series described the opportunities for software as a service (SaaS) or on-demand applications, especially in the current difficult economic milieu. Part IIa then analyzed the top five SaaS assumptions (misconceptions) recently outlined by Gartner.

Before any vendor can embark onto delivering a SaaS offering, it must thoroughly consider a number of harrowing SaaS technology choices and their implications. Thus, Part IIa also analyzed the decision’s impact on the functional footprint (scope) of the future SaaS product, after which the aspiring SaaS vendor must identify gaps within its in-house skill sets and define how to fill them.

This part continues with the other major remaining technical considerations before any vendor can embark on delivery of a SaaS offering. Read the rest of this entry »

Customer support agents (CSAs) are the first line of support for the client when a problem arises. If a level-1 CSA has tried all introductory problem-solving skills, has referred to the company knowledge base (KB) for a possible solution, and is still unable to resolve the problem, the incident ticket is escalated to second level (L2) support, where CSAs have advanced training and more knowledge on how to resolve the issue. If the problem is software-related, the CSA at this level can guide the user on how to fix the problem. If the client is not computer savvy, the CSA can remote into the client’s workstation, and by taking control of the client’s machine, can resolve the problem more efficiently. Now if the problem is hardware-related, the ticket must be sent to third level (L3) support. This is when an on-site technician must go to the client site and physically change hardware parts or peripherals in order to close out the ticket.

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Part I of this blog topic introduced MCA Solutions and its flagship Service Planning Optimization (SPO) solution for planning and optimizing spare parts [evaluate this product]. That blog post also tackled MCA’s notably good times during 2007. In the meantime, an informative post on MCA was also published by the Sourcing Innovation blog.

A related 2007 milestone at MCA included a significant expansion with both new and existing customers in core markets, including aviation and defense (A&D), high-tech, and semiconductor manufacturing. Specific wins included the first joint effort with SAP for a large commercial aircraft manufacturer, expanded work with the US Navy to include planning for the entire naval aviation fleet, and successful deployments at new medical and capital equipment customers.

In addition to working with the largest corporate customers, MCA also cited growing revenue in the mid-market.  With its SPO OnDemand Software as a Service (SaaS) offering, MCA hopes to bring to smaller service organizations the same capability that service leaders in the Fortune 500 are seeing value from, but with a much lower upfront software and information technology (IT) infrastructure investment.

These benefits are attributed to lower monthly costs and faster implementations. The vendor will be expanding this offering in 2008 to make it even more appetizing and faster to deploy. The most recent win with the OnDemand SPO solution at Unisys Corporation might be a sign of succeeding with on-demand model at larger corporations as well as appealing to the mid-market. Read the rest of this entry »

Regardless of the economic environment (and sentiments), I always think of the opportunity within the aftermarket service and support as a profitable, high-margin and customer-captive business, and yet, still underserved. General Electric (GE) would be the proverbial example of a company that has focused on aftermarket opportunities, going so far as to call itself a “services” company as opposed to a “products” company.

GE indeed, starting with Jack Welch’s long chief executive officer (CEO) tenure, has been widely reported to have significantly increased both its total revenue and profitability by focusing on services opportunities in addition to developing world-class products.

The manufacturing corporate giant has certainly proven the value of serving the product aftermarket, which has recently been purported in a quantifiable manner by many pundits as a high margin business. For instance, AMR Research reported recently that businesses earn 45 percent of gross profits from the aftermarket, yet it is only 24 percent of their revenues, while a recent article in Harvard Business Review claims that we all spend US$1 trillion every year on assets we already own.

A related software category term was mentioned in TEC’s 2003 article titled Service Lifecycle Management - Tapping into the Value of the Product Aftermarket. Namely, Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) is a business initiative focused on servicing a company’s products, and the customers that bought them, after the product has been sold. Simply put, SLM focuses on making more money from the product after the initial sale. But it is more than that — it is also a way to become a strategic part of the customer’s business after the sale is completed. Read the rest of this entry »