How to Identify the Best Solutions for Your Field Services Company

Introduction: This is the ERP Advisor. Today's episode, How to Identify the Best Solutions for your Field Services Company.

Rebekah McCabe: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's webinar, how to identify the best solutions for your field services company. Shawn Windle is our speaker for today. Shawn is the founder and managing principal of ERP Advisors Group based in Denver, Colorado. Shawn has over 25 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, helping hundreds of clients across many industries with selecting and implementing a wide variety of enterprise solutions. His podcast, The ERP Advisor, has dozens of episodes with thousands of downloads and is featured on prominent podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify. On today's call, Shawn will uncover the most important factors to consider when selecting software for your field services company. Welcome, Shawn.

Shawn Windle: Thank you. We got to change this though, because it needs to say our and we. Like, seriously, we're going to change the intro because this gal's killing it.

Rebekah McCabe: Okay, we can revisit that after this.

Shawn Windle: We're going to revisit it, but it's great to be here. Thanks again, as always, for you being here and Nick and Erica. So here we go. I love it.

Rebekah McCabe: So field service solutions and capabilities were a big point of focus for vendors this year. I know I saw it a ton in the news for the ERP Minute. And so I think that's kind of the focus of the call today is really like what those solutions are and why they've become so important. But just to kick us off, Shawn, can you describe to our audience what is a field service management application?

Shawn Windle: You bet. And it's funny because as you were doing the intro, other than the we part, I was thinking about, you know, this area of field services, It's sort of been around for a really long time. I'm sorry, field services applications, I should say. Field services has been around forever, right? I mean, you think about, you know, decades, centuries ago, there was a problem at the Coliseum. And so the guys that own the Coliseum are calling somebody saying, hey, can you come out and fix the whatever's in the Coliseum? I can guarantee that happened, I don't have proof of that, but I'm sure it did, right? That's a couple 1000 years ago, probably even earlier.

Rebekah McCabe: All the bricklayers.

Shawn Windle: Yeah, but when you think about field services software, field services applications, field services ERP, I think we're going to get into what does all that mean? But ultimately, what we're talking about is this. Certain business models require their employees, or I should say businesses require their employees to go into the field and provide a service.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah.

Shawn Windle: I just described it. Holy cow, I guess it's that easy. I wish. But if you think about it, that's just the simplicity probably stops there and then it goes in terms of complexity. Who, what, when, where, why, how? Who do you send? What do they need to take with them? What work are they going to do? Why are they going? How are we going to bill? And I'm sure there's even more questions that you have to ask. How do you decide which person to go? Does that, which asset? does that person go in? I've had plane flights or I'm just hanging out, whatever, and I never forget this flight. I was sitting next to a guy, really, you could tell he was a really good, nice guy. And I think I turned on the light or the error, no, it's the light, and it didn't work. And he was like, oh, here, let me fix that. And he undoes it, does whatever, does it back. And it works. And I was like, oh, that's hilarious. I was like, this guy's like a genius. Like you could tell that this is one of those dudes that's like, you are really like wicked smart with airplanes. And it turns out he's a field service professional for a company that services airplanes. Funny. So he just knew this stuff, right? So there's people that go out into the field, right, that provide a service, and that can be all kinds of services. But usually that entails things like dispatch, asset management, equipment management, vehicle management, right, the things that they're using. There's usually a ticket or a, you know, a call number, some kind of a document that sort of, you know, pulls everything together. There's always work performed. Well, not necessarily. The work performed could just be driving out and saying, eh, it's fine. You know, I'm not gonna do anything. All the way to, yeah, we need to replace everything that's here, right? And then there's usually some kind of parts that go into it too. And so then billing is a big part of it as well. And then there's usually even some follow-up. It could be warranty on the work that's done. It could be something else, and even most of our field services clients we work with now have recurring services that they're selling. I had my, I mean, just personally on the consumer side, we had a guy come out and change a filter on the washer. And he said, okay, so I can get you on a program where we come out once a year and we do all this stuff, right? I always buy that stuff. I'm not on the electronics. I don't, although I do get, we always get to AppleCare. But like the other stuff, I don't do that. But like on the home stuff, I'm like, oh my gosh, have to do is call and you'll come fix it. This is amazing. Well, imagine if you're an energy company and you own transition lines that go throughout, you know, the country under the water, or even renewable energy companies that are building these huge solar and wind farms, and they have service, field services partners that will service their equipment, the turbines. There's only a few folks in the world that service turbines, right? So, having these kinds of programs, all that being said, right, you have to understand the business model to understand the software, right? And so the software supports all those business processes. That's basically what it comes down to at a high level. Does that make sense?

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I mean, I've seen a few field service demos this past year as I've been interacting with the vendors. And it's so... not to even complicate it more, even more, but within the accounting, it's so interesting. And you need specific systems that can even link up to your ERP or like the other applications that you're using in order to, like if you have stock versus non-stock items. and you're out in the field and you're like, no, they provided this. How do you account for that?

Shawn Windle: Exactly.

Rebekah McCabe: Because then you just did the business, but the client, it's all so complicated. It's a big thing.

Shawn Windle: Well, it's on right now. We're taking off the gloves. Let's go into this. Because the hardest thing that I have seen in the field services area, I never start with the hard thing, but we're in it.

Rebekah McCabe: We're diving into it.

Shawn Windle: We're in it. Is asset utilization to a specific ticket. So we've seen this with mining companies. Are they field services companies? Well, kind of, not really. You don't think of them as that, but the requirements are very similar. But if you think about specialized tooling or equipment that you have to use on a job, you need to allocate and bill for that time. And usually that's pretty straightforward. Like you have to get a crane in for the day or two. There's a cost that maybe you get it from an outsourced third party, or maybe you have it internally, and they usually set up hourly rates, daily rates that you bill. Oil and gas, it runs into this all the time, the field services firms for oil and gas, all the time they have this, right? But it's the costing side that's really, really difficult to figure out. How much did that job cost us to do? And that's where these integrated systems, end-to-end data flows, blah, blah, blah. But that's really, really important that side of it is by far the biggest challenge. But I'd rather go a little higher level. You were saying?

Rebekah McCabe: Yes.

Shawn Windle: I digress.

Rebekah McCabe: I mean, you already dove into this, kind of giving that overview. And so I think really the next anybody on this call who deals with field service stuff, I'm sure has dealt with a field service's best of breed versus a field service ERP, one that might be built specifically for their needs. Can you dive into a little bit about what those big differences are?

Shawn Windle: I totally can. And it's not easy. I think even preparing for the call today, we're both kind of like, okay, so how do we sort of handle this? Here's what I thought of. Well, I just thought of it a second ago, but here we go. You know, when you think about enterprise resource planning, ERP, I, and I think I might be the only person on the planet that says this. I think even the team's like, what you talking about, Willis? But I think about it like a conceptual framework. It's not an app, it's not a company. It's just a framework that captures the concept of what do you want software to automate? That's literally it. Now, in an ERP, enterprise resource planning, forget the planning for a minute, but we're talking about the entire business, the enterprise, or the nonprofit, or the government group. Resources, people, inventory, projects, customers, tickets, those are all resources, right? So across the whole business. So and a field services ERP really focuses on the kinds of problems and business processes that a field services firm has end to end. So, you know, IFS is one of these apps. They actually have really strong built-in field services, enterprise asset management, accounting, billing, purchasing, the whole thing, even HR, right? It's all in one platform. That's really cool. Like, that's really helpful for some companies. But other companies are like, well, you know, I have an accounting system and, you know, my field services sort of operates autonomously over here. So maybe we just need a field services app. And the interesting thing today in the market is, man, there are tons of smaller, like field services specific products. Actually, this is a great example. I was able to step away for a little bit from the business in the last couple of weeks. And I met a guy who runs a handyman service on the East Coast. Huge handyman business, like tons of people. And they're talking about software and everything. And, well, I shouldn't say they're not that huge. That's not true at all. There were like 50 people. But I mean, imagine 50 people running around, all these handymen trying to figure out what to do in a B2C environment. We have some clients that have 3,000 field services people, right? But by the time they've gotten that big, they do have systems in place. But for this guy, really neat guy, he's trying to figure out, what do I do? Like, how do I automate this? And I just said, I literally went on QuickBooks Online's page into their market, whatever, it's called Apps Market or whatever, and there were like 5 or 6 field services vendors that were built specifically to integrate. Just do that. That's fine. It's better in spreadsheets, right? So there he's using an accounting system and then a little field services app. But those little field services apps are more than just little field services apps because They can do things like scheduling. They can do things like putting, getting up a website where a customer can go in and say, okay, here's why I want you to come in. But the bigger applications too, like we implemented, we had a project, I should say, with Salesforce Field Services recently, and they did a joint venture, Salesforce with ServiceMax, and built sort of an app on the Salesforce platform. So we did that too. ServiceMax is another big one, ServiceTitan. Of course, the one that has been around for a long time is Maximo. So let's just say you have Maximo all the way down to the teeny tiny little software as a service, you know, $5 a month per service person app. And all those do is functionality around field services. They don't handle accounting or purchasing or some of those other things, but you would rely on your ERP or your financial or supply chain system for those. So there's, so this is what we do for every client. If anybody's heard anything we've ever talked about, when we talk about a needs analysis, like make sure you know what you need before you do this. We always say, do you need an all-in-one? a best of breed or a hybrid. All in one, think about SAP, think about IFS for field services. There's others. The best of breed, I said that right, all in one is that. Best of breed would be a specific accounting system, a specific field services system, a specific purchasing system, whatever. And then we really like the hybrids because there's less vendors, less, you know, less throats to choke, less integration points. But then you can usually get the best of both worlds, right? You can get apps that are purpose-built for that particular function. And that you also know they're gonna continue to invest and invest and invest in these products. But sometimes, there's one company I'm thinking of right now that we did a field services app with for oil and gas company for a fracker. And we selected the solution and the vendor didn't invest that much in it going forward afterwards. So there's risk when you go with a smaller field services company. So you have to sort of blend all that stuff. But that gets, I want to just stick with what is and what the market looks like. And that's what I would say, if that makes sense. Again, good. To be honest, because you have seen, my friend, I love that, my friend part, which is like my warning of like, I'm going to put you on the spot. You have seen a lot this year at the software conferences. What have you like in the trenches seen when you've talked to these vendors for field services apps?

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, so it's interesting. You and I have talked a lot about this, where the vendors are kind of moving into micro verticals and adjacent services. And I think the market is forcing businesses to do that, especially in the mid-market space, kind of forcing them to evaluate their options in terms of, okay, so now it's time for us to probably offer us a field services department or something. We need to offer that for the product that we've been producing. And the vendors followed that trend by acquiring a lot of field services applications this year. And it was super interesting because it started pretty early on and you see it and I'd heard of FSM, I was curious about it, and then all of a sudden, another vendor acquired one, and then another vendor did. And they're trying to create these, they're acquiring larger solutions that already have customer bases and then transforming the actual product to work on whatever platform they're working on. So I think they see that there is so much of a need for field services right now that they need to actually have a native product. functioning, working alongside the ERP. And it can't be adjacent or can't be like, I'm just going to pull this in and do that. There have been issues. And they're not, they're trying to ease the process of these companies trying to add field service capabilities.

Shawn Windle: Makes sense. I mean, I'm thinking I have to bring this example out because again, I want to make this real to everybody that's listening. We have a client that is unequivocally a distributor. No question, absolutely, positively. And they distribute industrial machinery for a specific micro segment, blah, blah, blah. Doesn't matter. I don't want to get too much into it because if I say what they are, everybody, oh, I know who that is. But they do this really interesting thing, right? So they basically take an order. And then the fulfillment of the machines comes from, in this case, we have other clients that have machines that are sent from Germany. This one happens to be Japan. So the machine is sent to the customer, and then our client has people that goes out and they set up the machine. But they don't just set up the machine. They may come back a year later, do a little bit of work. They may... sell an upgrade on the machine a couple years later, they may go out and do an install. They might not even do the install. There may be a third party that they hired to do the install, but they oversee the install. But they warranty this machine too. And so they have to keep track of what in the world happened with this machine? What maintenance occurred? Because if something breaks, the customer may have to pay for it or they may have to pay for it. So even though they're 1,000% a distributor, they're really more field services. Because the distribution part's pretty easy. It's like, okay, here's an order configurator. You want this with these couple options. Great. Good. Okay, give us some cash. We'll place the order with the manufacturer, with the plant. Plant makes it, sends it over, and that's it. They're really just an order taker. Now that's, they do a ton more education and value. It's another client that I've had in the past that was very similar to this. where they add a ton of information, how to buy, why you should buy this, why it's great, et cetera, et cetera. But then they place the order and then that's it. Oh, oh, oh, no, no, no. There's all this other stuff that goes on. And so they happened to select, which may be why they hired us, but they selected an app that wasn't really that great for tracking that asset. And so they built a ton of custom stuff to manage that asset and the life cycle. We call it a customer-owned asset. So it's not like something we have to depreciate. All the accountants out there, like when I hear asset, I think depreciation. No, no, no, no, no, we don't own this. But the field services people are thinking, okay, what did we do to that thing last year? Or what's the scheduled maintenance on this thing? And so they built out a whole custom system to do it and on a bigger platform. And then, it's become very unwieldy to support it. They've grown, et cetera, et cetera. So they call us and we're like, oh yeah, we can just get this stuff out-of-the-box now because you look at like. I mean, Microsoft, Acumatica, NetSuite, Infor, all these vendors have out-of-the-box solutions that do exactly what these guys do today, distribution plus field services. It wasn't that way, even as recent as five to 10 years ago. So like you said, and even this year, I think NetSuite bought...

Rebekah McCabe: Next Technique.

Shawn Windle: Next Technique for their...

Rebekah McCabe: Field service requirements, yep.

Shawn Windle: And that's a big play for them. And it's good for Next Technique to be ahead of that. So they're making, like, this is gonna be part of our overall offering. So it's really a great time, I think, for a field services firm to be looking for software, because like you're seeing, there are real investments being made by these partners or these companies. It's not just, it's just time and billing. You're like, whoa, you don't understand field services at all. It's not time and billing. That might be what your pro serve teams does, but it's totally different what field services does.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, and kind of going into what you said, that not all applications are created equal. And I think as we dive more into these field services applications, they're also going to be built out to service specific field service industries.

Shawn Windle: That's true.

Rebekah McCabe: It's not just going to be Same with ERP. I can't just say, well, I'm going to go buy an ERP. Okay, what kind of ERP are you buying? I don't know. I'm going to pick one. Like, you can't do that. Your business is unique and these field services solutions are going to become just as unique.

Shawn Windle: I mean, I can even think of a super simple example that we had a client that was They had multiple parts. They were a construction business, which it's just like saying that that other company was a distributor. Yeah. And one of the divisions they did, did roofing, industrial roofing. And so they had hundreds and hundreds of people out scheduled to do roofs. These guys were in Florida. And I was like, how in the world do you do roofing in the summer? They're like, we're up, not just at the crack of dawn. They're on the site with their tools ready to go so that when the sun goes up, they work for like 8 hours from like, 5 to 1 or probably even earlier than that. They cut off and it's crazy, right? But there was a thing called geofencing, which I'm sure a lot of people have heard of, which is when a person comes within a certain A longitude and latitude box, longitude and latitudes box, basically, they pick them up and the person's charging time to that project, basically. Or we're tracking their location through geo tracking, and then they put their time in through their phone. And if the person's not in that geo fence, then they didn't, they don't have paid for it, right? So I mean, there's some... I mean, and that's technology we've had for a while. I can remember with my kids, what was that thing where you would use like the GPS system to go find geocaching, maybe?

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, people would go hide things and you'd go look for them. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Shawn Windle: Yeah, this is like, actually, we're going to pay you if you're like on the job, you know? So there's, but there's newer trends and things that are happening where, you know, like it's pretty cool stuff. So there's the options that these software vendors have is super exciting and super helpful.

Rebekah McCabe: Definitely. And here's a little fun fact before I go into the next question, but with that geofencing, one of the vendors was talking about their product and I guess you need a postal code. So some in certain systems, they can't actually do the geofencing because if you're out in the middle of nowhere servicing a wind turbine, there's no postal code.

Shawn Windle: Oh, wow.

Rebekah McCabe: And so the vendors are working towards trying to figure out, okay, how can we use specific latitude, longitude in order to like capture those things? How are we going to advance the technology? Because I mean, there's still so much to be done in this field. So, and that, with that, now we're gonna dive into probably what any field services company on the call is looking to find out, and what would drive a field service company to change their ERP.

Shawn Windle: I think most of our clients, it's not necessarily, oh, they all wanna go to an all-in-one platform, but it's also not necessarily, oh, we really need detailed functionality. What really drives them, I want to just say growth, but I really, I want to look at that a little bit more because sometimes it is growth. It's definitely growth. It's, we have more people. So our Excel scheduling is just unwieldy, right? Or we've got to track these assets better, not just to truck or specialized tools, but maybe they do have, like I mentioned, just as simple examples, cranes or other assets that they're, you know, just don't worry about them. Just get it out to the job, do what you gotta do and move on. No, no, no, no, no. Like these things are like, you know, we have $10 million or $25 million of really specialized equipment that we have to track usage. So it usually is the company's gotten to a point where they can't just kind of bailiwick and duct tape it. And I mean, of all of our clients, usually field services people are really good at that, right? Because that's what they do for a living. I mean, these people are, I love working with field services people because they're out in the field doing things, whether it's working on HVAC systems or even installing plumbing or whatever it is, construction, you know, kinds of stuff, but they're not construction companies per se, but anyway, it usually is growth and it's a need to control cost. It's a need to make sure that ticketing is getting billed correctly and getting out better. Like the one client that I mentioned earlier too, the reason why they're going through the change is because they did have a custom system and the person who wrote it wants to retire. Yep. So, and we run a, I think we mentioned on every single call that we do now across industry. But you can just imagine how, you know, I'm trying to think of an example, but I thought of another company that's even more funny, but I can't bring that up here 'cause it's not applicable. But maybe your brother-in-law did write the app when you were tiny. Now you're like, oh, okay, we're a thousand people. Or we had another client that went through, there's a lot, a lot, a whole lot. unbelievable amount of consolidation that's happened. happening in field services right now. The multiples are super high for business services companies like ours. But there's a lot of private equity plays that are buying HVAC providers or they're buying, you know, energy field services companies that go out and service the plant of a, you know, a normal kind of energy company. There's a lot happening around just assets in the field with the renewables. Also, somebody's got to take care of all that stuff. And so those are also sort of recurring revenue streams because you can get on annual contracts and there's preventative maintenance, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a very highly interesting market for a lot of PE plays. Yeah. So, okay, you were 1000 people or even 500 or even 200 employees today. Even 25, we had an elevator company that was like this that services elevators. And they went from like 25, 20 people to now they're like 100. And they're like, okay, we need to go out and buy like the biggest field services app we can. We're like, no, you won't. You will not use this. Because that's, there's something extremely important. I'm looking at the time that I have to make sure that I share about this. But that's what drives why you should look at these changes. And the truth of the matter is, It's true. It really is true. It goes back to the basics of enterprise software. You know, there's three of them. Does the software automate our processes? Will it really, no kidding, for sure, not eliminate people today, but enable us to not hire a bunch of more people in the future, right? And then the third one is, it really, truly creating enterprise value for us? If we do this software solution, is our business worth more? That's not why you do it. But it's a really easy way to measure like, wow, this is really the right thing to do for the business. And I think for field services firms, if they look at those three things, they'll know if they should change or not.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah. Is there a situation where a field service company who is on a good field service application, maybe that's what they applied first, but they're on a legacy ERP, a case for just upgrading your ERP?

Shawn Windle: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, especially, especially when you look at like, you know, SAP or IFAS, Microsoft's a different play, but for the platforms that have a module that's field services, JD Edwards is another example of this. They might not have to get off the ERP, they just need to implement the module. CloudSuite Industrial is a great example of this. We had a company actually right around the corner from here that makes laser engraving machines. And they have a lot of field services, right? We spun up, it was a Cloud Suite Industrial project, actually, we spun up their service management app. So perfect. That's great. I would love to see that happen. Hallelujah. We don't want to change ERPs if we don't have to. If it's literally just set up another asset, excuse me, another module, the benefit to that is you're already in the same database as your inventory or your purchasing flow or your accounting. So whether it's a cost into service or it's a revenue out from service to accounting and invoicing and that, it's easier to integrate. But sometimes maybe a client's requirements are greater than what the ERP vendors module can do. So you should always talk to your existing providers. But also if you do just look in the market a little bit, meaning just Google, field services management software, field service software, whatever, right? Literally, you'll find a bunch of apps that pop up and you can take a look at them. Of course, they all sound great.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah.

Shawn Windle: You know, it's like being in a fight with your spouse and then you go on to a dating app. You think it's going to get better? It ain't going to get better. Uh-uh. You got to deal with your fundamental problem first. Software is just like that. I have to plug for Valentine's Day. You know how that goes. Anyway, we missed the topic of Valentine's, I guess, this year. We'll talk about field services instead. But it's, you know, there really are things that you can see pretty obvious when you look at it.

Rebekah McCabe: And I think you kind of already answered this question, which is the most important factors to consider when upgrading in field service applications.

Shawn Windle: No, thank you. No, and I really mean this. If I haven't lost everybody because of my crazy Valentine requirement, please listen. Of all of our industries that we work with. Is that really true? I'm thinking of software, manufacturing, distribution, nonprofit, public service. Like, I can think of everything we've worked with. The mistake that I have seen with field services is by far what I'm about to say is the most important for field services. And it's so prevalent that it's more, it's just so important across all of our verticals. Field services is usually the industry that does this the worst, which is bite off more than they can chew.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah.

Shawn Windle: Here's the thing. When you're implementing an accounting system, who's impacted?

Rebekah McCabe: Who's impacted? Yeah, I mean- who is it? I mean, an accounting system, it's the whole business.

Shawn Windle: It is, but who's really using the accounting system?

Rebekah McCabe: The accountants.

Shawn Windle: The accountants.

Rebekah McCabe: They're the ones that are upset.

Shawn Windle: They're the ones that get upset, right? If you're implementing an inventory system, who's really impacted?

Rebekah McCabe: Well, okay. I know where I'm going. I know where you're going, but I'm trying to think. I was like, it could touch a couple of different places.

Shawn Windle: It does. There's impacts and there's reports and stuff, but who enters the inventory that we received? Who shows the inventory that we took off the shelf? The inventory people. Yes. Right? So who is impacted by a field services application?

Rebekah McCabe: The people in the field.

Shawn Windle: The people in the field. Yeah. Not one or two of them.

Rebekah McCabe: And the dispatchers.

Shawn Windle: And the dispatchers, the admin, the management people, like the billers.

Rebekah McCabe: Yes.

Shawn Windle: Maybe even the people that are buying the assets that we're using that, you know, like trucks and stuff like that. So it's like everybody. And it's so funny, like this concept of organizational change management for ERP is, I mean, it reminds me of like Cheetos. I've never said this before and I'm about to say.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, I don't know how this is going to be.

Shawn Windle: This is going to be fun. I like chewing on Cheetos every once in a while. I really hate them, but Erica does. She gets the, and I watch her and I'm like, dang. I take a Cheeto. Do you take a Cheeto? Have you ever had a Cheeto before? You know, maybe. Okay, yeah, like you get them sometimes. And people like the Cheeto puffs. There's no nutritional value to those things. I literally think they're made on like Mars because they represent nothing on this planet. They're these bright orange puffy things made of some substance. Don't get me wrong, Cheetos manufacturers, probably Frito-Lay, love you, you're doing great. You know.

Rebekah McCabe: They're delicious.

Shawn Windle: They're delicious. There's a place and a time for Cheetos. I don't even know why I said that now, because I love Cheetos too. But the bottom line of what I'm trying to say is field services apps literally affect every single person in the field. Now, oh, I know this is why I'm saying this. When people talk about organizational change management, I want you to think about it as a Cheeto. What I really want you to focus on, instead of some phrase that nobody knows what it is and we're going to sell you at $400 an hour a bunch of advice that no one's going to do anything with, AKA, you know, OCM slash Cheetos, what I would rather you do is just say, who are the people that are going to have to use the software? Who are they? That's it. If you're implementing a new ERP, okay, that's fine, but who's really gonna use your ERP? Remember conceptual framework. Well, really for us, it means accounting. Ah, so who's really impacted by it? Accounting. Accounting people are usually pretty systematic and they kind of really don't care what app you use as long as it does well and they can use it, they like it and it works well, easy. Now, if you're gonna implement a field services app, you might not actually impact the entire field services because some organizations have a manager or they have a supervisor that interacts with the system, right? That's how a lot of people that work in oil and gas are like that. They've got a person who sort of oversees everybody and that's the person that goes into the trailer. You know, it's all hooked up by satellite and interacts with the systems. But a lot of field services firms are not that way, where the individual tech on their phone or through their iPad, they're entering information, so they're interacting with the system. So again, OCM equals Cheetos. People impacted by the systems equals success for ERP, or for any enterprise software for that matter. So of all of our industries, the field service is the most important to do what I'm about to tell you. Minimum, Viable product. I'm thinking of a very specific implementation. You had some involvement in that from a video perspective, that we attempted to do that and it didn't go great.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah.

Shawn Windle: Now, the thing about it is, again, usually a field services company is coming off of like whiteboards for dispatch. There's usually some spreadsheets to manage something. And there might even be some systems in place that even do some billing and some other stuff, right? Then you see one of these new service systems, service management systems, you go, oh my gosh, this is going to change everything. I want it all. Mistake number one. Now, the second mistake that happens is the software vendor and the implementation partner say, oh yeah, we can do all this. And they can, because they wrote the software. And the implementation partner knows how to set it up and all that stuff. So that's not a problem. But then the third problem comes in, we start doing the implementation. And the other thing that I love about our field services clients, drives me crazy, is that these people are freaking busy. Yep. All the time. I mean, they're out working on field services, right? They've got tickets, they've got projects and whatever. So are they gonna take their best people and put them aside to work on the ERP project? Nope. Nope. And some do, and a lot of them will, they'll take a couple people, they may take 10 people to work on the project, which is amazing. But the other thousand are so freaking busy that they don't even know anything about this. So, oh, OCM says do this, do that. I gotta watch my language, Heimel's. I shouldn't have said that. BS is what I would say. That's not, it won't happen. You do have to have some key people that really do know the life, the day in the life of the field people. They have to be engaged on your implementation and solely focused on that implementation. Okay, fine, part-time, but for real, And then they can translate the impact to the field, to the developers, to the implementation partner, but also the software to the field people. So I dragged that on too long. But it really is true that of all of our industries, fire is like this also, because they basically have field services people do. Instead of working on the electrical plant, they work on bodies and fires and stuff like that. But it's the same thing there where you really have to think with, you're changing these people's lives, right? Just recently, you can see this hotel over here. I was gonna bring that up. Yes, I use a company in town. They're really wicked expensive, but they're amazing. And they had all their trucks over here because they were doing an implementation with the new software solution. And if you look, I bet there were 50 trucks over there. And you think about one hour of all 50 of those people being in that training costs a lot of money, right? So these systems are not cheap, and it's not just about the software, the implementation, it's the impact to your people and the downtime that they have. So please, please, please, if you're in field services and you're listening to this call, just throw the OCM crap in the trash and just look at, I have people that I love these people. I mean, imagine you'd started a firm or you're responsible for it, you're a manager or whatever. These guys and gals are out here doing stuff that some of them are risking their lives. They're in the heat, they're in the cold, they're doing whatever. They're like great, great people. Do the right thing for them. So just when I say minimum viable product, just do a little bit in phase one. Get them off the old crap and the old spreadsheets and the, you know, people go back to the truck and they write stuff on a piece of paper. Maybe they go back to the truck and they're in their iPad. That's too much. They're like, fine. So then when they get back to the hotel that night, maybe they're entering stuff or whatever. But just think about gradients. Think about something simple to start with. Just getting the platform in place, you will get benefits unequivocally. That will happen. Then you get the automated time goes through to accounting in real time, right? So we can invoice that night or you get some basic stuff, right? But don't try to get the whiz bang dispatch and scheduling in phase one. Maybe you just get the basics in phase one. Phase two, hey, let's start talking about some of this cool stuff. You know, phase three, do it, right.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah.

Shawn Windle: Because typically by phase two and phase three, you've worn out the company ERP fatigue so much that you might not get it all. So it's just, of all of our industries, there's so much people, it's such a people intensive field services, so people intensive, and it's always going to be that way. AI or robots or whatever aren't going to replace this stuff. But you really have to think about what's really right for my people. Or you could spend a ton of money and the system gets set aside and then you get fired. So anyway, that was a long time. I watched the time. I'm like, oh my God.

Rebekah McCabe: It was, but I mean, you answered two questions. Because I think you really dove into kind of what the riskiest thing is.

Shawn Windle: I did.

Rebekah McCabe: And I think everyone wants to be ambitious. I don't think that that's... It's totally unique to field service companies. I think other companies come in and just wanna, oh, we're gonna get this done right away.

Shawn Windle: Exactly.

Rebekah McCabe: This is gonna be done in a month. No, it's not gonna be done in a month, but that's definitely a risk you take on.

Shawn Windle: You got it.

Rebekah McCabe: What types of solutions work well for field services?

Shawn Windle: There's a couple things I would say there. I do think, I mean, I can get into a lot of technical stuff, right, let me just go there fast. So you have to, again, think about where your people are doing their services. If they're, in metropolitan areas, great, no problem. They can get access online wherever they go. Oh, good. But what if they're not? What if they're in a rural area where those zip codes aren't or wherever, postal codes, and they're out in the middle of like nowhere? Are they going to be able to get onto their phone and enter their time? No, right? It seems obvious, but there's certain things you just need to consider. So fine, some of the vendors have offline use for the app, and as soon as they get connected back to just even a cell network, whoop, the data goes and everything's fine. So there's some technical aspects to it. There's a ton of usability where you do want to make things. It doesn't have to be simple per se, but it just needs to facilitate what you want from them to do in the app and not take away from focusing on the work that's at hand, right? So that's why I love things like geofencing or other kinds of AI stuff that can offer to help this person to just make their life easier to interact with that. So usability is the second very, very important thing. I do think the third thing is this crawl, walk, run approach to software that, you might, when we do a selection for a field services firm, we will look at all of it. We will absolutely say, okay, you're five years, you're a growth, you're going to be a platform. We're going to go out and buy three or four companies. You're going to go from 25, 50 million, 100 million to 500 million or whatever. That means you need all this stuff. Let's go find a vendor that can offer maybe this much, but can do it on a gradient. And we can do the minimum viable product plus the phase two, plus the phase three, plus phase four. So you want a solution that is scalable, not just in terms of the number of transactions, but also on a gradient, decide what functionality you can take on. I think that's really important. And also, where do you partner? This would probably be the fourth thing I'd say is, Very rarely will one vendor do every single thing you need for field services. True. So what partnerships do they have with really deep dispatch solutions, right? Or what kind of partnership do they have with vendors that literally track trucks, right? We had a client that you put a device in the truck, I think all of them have this. And where the truck is at any given time, right? the core field services apps aren't going to do that. So they rely on partners that can do that to determine how much to build a client based on what the actual mileage was that truck went. Save the person time. You know, there's this thing called AI. I wonder if that could help, you know? Yeah. So you also, the fourth thing is you really want to dive into the partner solutions that they offer in their ecosystem. Pre-built is preferable so that you don't have to pay for an integration that then, you know, they take and sell to others. But that would be another piece I'd say that's important.

Rebekah McCabe: Awesome. And that kind of leads into our last question. Who are some of the prominent vendors in this space and how do they solve field service needs?

Shawn Windle: Yeah, so there's definitely ERP vendors that focus on field services. I mentioned a couple. I mean, SAP is sort of the grand hoobah, right? We've been around for a long time. But also doing more modern solutions with SAPS for HANA Cloud and that for sure. IFS has spent a lot of focus on really gearing towards the field services they sell for manufacturing also, heavy asset intensive industries. We see in the tier 2 solutions, you know, NetSuite with the next technique, technique. Actually, I think they were Swiss, Swedish. Actually, I don't remember where they were from, but they were in sort of that origin of the world, which is so cool. My daughter's going to go to Sweden this summer. She got into a cool program, so I'm excited for her. Maybe she'll see the next technique people. I don't know. I know. Go find them. Anyway, so I'm like, wait, what is, where is Sweden versus Norway versus, hey, yeah, our friend from Microsoft will remind us about that too, which is good. Yes, he's good. But anyway, I digress as usual. But you know, Acumatica has some bolt on stuff for field services. Like I mentioned, Infor has some good stuff too there. So, you know, most of the more product-oriented SAPs, or excuse SAPs, SAP again being the top, but the ERPs that are all kind of created in the shadow of an SAP, right? Other apps aren't. That's why I say that. But if they're usually product oriented, they usually have something with field services. Yeah. Now, there are the best of breed field services. We've done selections and have, you know, identified 50 different field services apps. I'm sure there's even more. But you have like ServiceMax, ServiceTitan, you've got Maximo, like I mentioned earlier. There's a lot of, like Liquid Frameworks is another one specific for oil and gas. but other verticals too. There's other scheduling solutions and everything else. It's a very confusing market because there might be one that's really focused on dispatch. There might be one that's really focused on HVAC. There might be another that's focused on Tickets, right? So there's, you get this blend of business processes that they cover and industries and even company sizes. Those are the three variables you have to, if you're, if I were to talk to a vendor, I would say, okay, which industries or, you know, which portions of field services, micro verticals do you sell to? Like where are most of your customers, right? Top three types of customers. What business processes are you really automating? And how big are your customers? Are they super huge? Are they teeny tiny? and then you want to find that parity for sure. And within that, there's only going to be a couple that probably fit in there. But there you go. I just hopefully made everybody on the call an ERP advisor consultant. We need to send out a badge and say, you've been designated an ERP advisor consultant. You should come in and get certified.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, definitely. And it all always comes back to needs, knowing your needs, knowing your requirements. It's because there are so many solutions out there, and like we were talking about earlier, each field service application's gonna become even more personalized, even the ones that are with vendors. So, if you don't know your needs, you can't select the right thing.

Shawn Windle: That's right, yeah. I mean, even as you're saying that, you know, Salesforce has Salesforce field services and... There's just, so it depends, oh, I wanna be on the Lightning platform on force.com and have that integration. Boom, there you go, right? You should look at that. Maybe you should look at it for other things. So those needs aren't just feature function, but they are technology, they are scalability, all the usual stuff that we talk about, it's all over the website, you can check it out. But especially in this area, you do have to know that because it's so freaking confusing.

Rebekah McCabe: Yep. So, well, thank you, Shawn. I think that was very informative. I hope everybody learned A lot. I know that I did. This is all, there are always new things uncovered when we do these calls. So.

Shawn Windle: I think I made-up half of it. No, I'm just kidding. But I do want to say, I mean, I really appreciate you doing this.

Rebekah McCabe: Yeah, of course.

Shawn Windle: But I think for the people that are listening, like, we really don't want them to make mistakes.

Rebekah McCabe: No.

Shawn Windle: And we're again, most recently coming off of another project where it got stalled because there was some acquisition stuff going on, but... It's just, it's so easy to make mistakes in this area. Don't hesitate to give us a call, right? And we can just give you a little bit of direction to make sure you're going in the right direction, please, because we love this business model a lot. That's all I'm gonna say.

Rebekah McCabe: Definitely.

Shawn Windle: Good.

Rebekah McCabe: Well, thank you again for joining us for today's call. As Shawn said, please, let us know if you have, if we can answer any questions that you might have or clarify anything that you heard during the call. Be sure to join us for our next webinar scheduled for Thursday, March 7th, Introduction to ERP Systems. where Shawn will provide a crash course on the basics of ERP systems and highlight the value the right system can provide to your business. This event is eligible for a free CP credit, so be sure to join us. Please go to our website, erpadvisorsgroup.com for more details, including the learning objectives and to register. ERP Advisors Group is one of the country's top independent enterprise software advisory firms. ERP Advisors Group advises mid to large-sized businesses on selecting and implementing business applications. from enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, human capital management, business intelligence, and other enterprise applications, which equate to millions of dollars in software deals each year across many industries. This has been the ERP Advisor. Thank you again for joining us.