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Discover how AI is revolutionizing the future of field service with Maureen Azzato | Transcription

Discover how AI is revolutionizing the future of field service with Maureen Azzato | Transcription

Hi Maureen, it's a pleasure to have you join us today for the Asindo AI Experience Dialogue Podcast. Usually this particular podcast, what we do is it's just a conversation and it comes up with a lot of passion. So we bring in passionate speakers like you and we're talking over each other, just like how friends are having a conversation. And it's a big message for AI in service and you are doing Field Service USA. I loved when you say that you are the producer of Field Service USA, so welcome. Thank you, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, yes. And as the producer, I know it sounds like a Hollywood role, but as the producer, my role is to create the program. I do a lot of research, we develop the program, we come up with a topics based on what service practitioners and some vendors in the community tell us is needed, where their focus is, where their interests lie, where the next five years, where do they wanna be? And based on that research, we put together the program every year and it's based on interviews with about 50 service leaders as well as about a dozen vendors. And then we also have a more qualitative research that we do here, obviously we're called Worldwide Business Research and we have a big research arm as well. So I rely very much on the information that we generate here to build a very meaningful and relevant, right? We want it to be as relevant as possible to where service practitioners are. So yeah, so I'm really excited about the program, we're only three weeks away, so. That's right, it's only three weeks away and you've been doing this for five, six years, Maureen, and you've seen things are changing over a period of time. What is changing this year? Yeah, I think there's been a huge focus on AI, of course, over the past couple of years, right? I think ChatGPT kind of, when they came on to the scene, everything was more focused on sort of knowledge capture, knowledge management, and I think also internally using AI to become more efficient, more effective on their internal operations. I think what we're gonna start to see this year is a more outward look, sort of how can we use AI to solve real customer problems, right? What are the best use cases to do that? And I think we're gonna see a lot more, a deeper look at AI for real solution enablement on the customer side. Yeah, so one of the things that you're exactly right, service leaders are looking for is consistency, safety, quality, and efficiency, productivity, all of that, right? So an AI sits right in the middle. Within AI, service leaders are looking at use cases and you have covered a whole lot of use cases across the entire spectrum in three days. So can you speak a little bit more about what AI specific topics that you're covering over the period of three days, Marie? Sure, sure. And I think, Kay, as we were saying sort of offline when we spoke a little bit a few minutes ago, is AI is really not just this one thing that sits on the side of your service menu, right? It's being integrated into everything we do. As consumers, as well as service practitioners. So it's hard to extrapolate AI and just talk about it as sort of this standalone thing, but it is running through, the theme is running through the whole event. But I can highlight a few things that we have going that I think will capture people's imagination, if you will. For example, on day one, we have a workshop by Katie Diaz, who is with Schneider Electric, and she's gonna talk about how to maximize service profit in the area of AI. Of course, there's been more pressure on service organizations to deliver more profit as there's a little more inflation and some trouble markers in the economy where people might not be spending money on, as much money on new equipment. So they want their equipment to last even longer. So that's a great thing for a service organization to hear. And service, I think, is also getting credit now for being a profit generator. So I think that's gonna be really interesting. On day two, we have a panel on taking AI- Hey, I just wanted to interrupt you. Before you go to day two, I think you are exactly right. That's this entire thing about profit generation. We did a research recently and we noticed that product revenues are tapering, but actually service revenues are shooting up and you are exactly right with respect to the profitability. And again, AI sits right in the middle of that profitability to enable reduced downtime, to make sure that preventative maintenance is happening right on time by reducing labor costs, by reducing material costs. All of that will increase the profitability and the extension of the asset in the install base. So you're right on. Sorry for interrupting. Please go on to day two. I just was like, brr, brr. No, but you're absolutely, yeah. And it's definitely, and I also managed the event in Europe and the same themes are coming up there because now the economy is even more, a little compressed, right? And a little more concerns about hyperinflation and what's happening. And service is kind of coming up and being recognized as the heroes really in profit. So it's nice because they work so hard. So it's nice to get the enterprise credit, right? As an important department within enterprises. So yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah. Please go on to day two. You were speaking about day two, yeah. And I'll come back. We are doing the case study showcases for our AI advisory lab also on day one. And I'll explain those more when we talk about the AI advisory lab because that's sort of a very unique and new thing that we're doing this year that we're quite excited about. And that Ascendo is sponsoring. Thank you very much. We appreciate your support in kind of marching out and doing something really innovative and different to communicate the different things that AI can do in the service ecosystem. The other session that I think is really important is day two. We have a panel in the morning and it's taking AI to the next level. That's the title. And it's ensuring accuracy, speed to value and solving real customer problems, right? This is the crux of the matter. This is now, you can do all the internal work and take the cost efficiencies and become more efficient in your service operations. But now I think the industry is ready to look more outward. How can we solve real customer problems using AI? So I think that's gonna be the shift this year in particular. So I'm really looking forward to that panel. We have an amazing roster of speakers for that one. Yeah, that particular one, not just that panel, I was noticing the entire list of people who are actually thinking about all of the use cases all throughout, right? So the day two, I noticed that you actually had a track on supply chain and during the supply chain turmoil, how the parts are coming up and you're bringing in digitization even there. So you're basically covering everything from what a customer is engaging with a service team to when a dispatcher or a remote support engaging with a service team to when field service is coming with that service team all the way to logistics and spare parts and new profit, new sales and marketing opportunities that field service can bring in because they are right in front of the customer. So you have the conference completely end to end which is one of the reasons why we were sponsoring because we look at ourselves as a experienced person hired into the sales service organization because that experienced person just doesn't do one thing like regurgitate knowledge manuals or something like that. They go from customer phasing all the way to logistics to identifying opportunities. So I love that you brought in that end to end perspective. Well, great. Well, thank you. And I think this is what the industry is asking for. So as I said, we build this program based on what the industry is focused on and what they need to know and where their pain points are. So yeah, we're really excited about it. We do have a great track. It's track a D on service parts, inventory management with a global supply chain still in flux, right? Real challenging things going on, not to mention the tariffs and other issues that people are concerned about. So how that's gonna change the world, we'll see. But AI plays a role in all of these aspects of business, in the data piece, which is so important, even in labor and HR and supply chain and service parts and also integrations. I think there's gonna be some help along the way, maybe not yet, but where AI is gonna help integrate more of these platforms and apps together to make them more seamless for that front end field service agent. In a way it puts the service leaders right in center of any organization within the C-suite itself. It kind of elevates them because now they are giving all that feedback to the rest of the company about how they install basis. It's like a pulse of the customer that they are providing. So it elevates them pretty much, right? Yes, yes. No, I would say for sure. I think to what we were talking about before, I think the service department in general is getting elevated because they've done their job. They've worked really hard over the past several years to become more profitable, focusing on the commercialization of service, right? As a profit center, not just a cost center. Years ago, it was just a cost center and it was a drain on an organization. And now it's really coming into its own and getting the credit it deserves. So I'm happy to see that happening. Yeah. So if I'm a service leader of a enterprise and I want to connect with a sponsor like Acendo AI, right? How do I do that? Yeah, we have a great... Well, first of all, we have the website where you can find out everything about the event, every track, every program, it's all listed in the website so you can plan your course. You can see who all the sponsors are. We also have the profiles of each sponsor on the website so you can see what sponsors are focused on, which areas of business, so that you can plot your course even at the expo and determine where you want to go, who you want to see, who you want to meet. The other way is also using the app, which is going to be coming out in a couple of weeks, usually at least a week before the event we send that out. And it's a great way to connect with people. So I always encourage people to connect with the folks they want to meet, do those connections on the app before the event because they'll accept your invitation to connect and then you can hit the road. When you get to Palm Springs, you can begin to have those conversations and meetups and those kinds of things. So I encourage people to spend some time on the app before they even get to the event. Sounds like a lot of learning and condensed in three days. So in addition to that, yeah, in addition to that, you are also bringing in something called the AI Advisory Lab, I believe for the first time, right? It is, this is my baby, Kay. So yes, I'm very excited about it. I just, this was something that came up in our research with several practice, service practitioners, saying, hey, technology companies do this a lot, have like their labs. Why can't we do something like that for AI and make it even more meaningful for people? So we batted it around and really what we're doing, this is gonna, it's all on day three, but, and Ascendo is a sponsor and we have a couple of other sponsors as well, but you have a showcase on day one, which in 10 minutes, you're gonna explain to people what you're gonna be doing at your AI lab in your station and the use cases that you're gonna be focused on. You bring in a client with you, which is wonderful. So on day three, if you have burning questions as a service practitioner, you'll make an appointment with one of the sponsors who have stations at our AI lab and you can sit with them for 15 minutes. You're not sitting with a salesperson, I would say, you're also sitting with a technical expert from the sponsoring company, but they're also gonna have one of their main customers with them who are using AI and you can ask them anything. In that 15 minutes, you can get so much demystified by having this conversation with a practitioner and a technical expert. And you can talk to them about your business, tell them where you are, what your situation is, what your challenges are, and hopefully they'll give you a place to begin. I think that's the hardest thing mostly for people, Kay, is if you haven't really dabbled in AI yet, and there's a lot of people out there are a little trepidatious about AI, but this will give them a place to begin. Everyone needs an entry point, right? You don't have to boil the ocean, right? But just find that one use case that might have huge implications for your organization, but might not be so hard to implement. And then it's a building block from there. But we're very excited. That is very, very, very... Yeah, yeah, I'm so happy to be part of your baby this year. So I just wanted to throw in a statistic that may be very useful for the people who are listening in, right? So Anthropic, which is one of the open source AI companies, released a economic index report that talks about who are the people who are utilizing AI in general. And the fourth use case, of course, the number one is coding. The fourth use case is service and support. And they estimated 4% of the people are playing around with AI. But the real thing is only 4% of the 4%, which is 0.16% of the people have actually implemented AI in the enterprise, et cetera, et cetera. When we read about that, and when we recently had a large chief customer officer get together, and chief customer officer, chief service officer, and they were also confirming that a lot of the people are playing around with it. To your point, people are just trying to figure out where they need it to be. People are actually just playing around with it, and leaders are confused where to begin. So in that end-to-end that you're showcasing in the field service conference, pick one and start from the journey from there to go all around. That is an excellent message. And so thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. No, I think sometimes it gets overwhelming if you just look at the whole thing, you know, it's like, and it just, but, you know, that's really as simple as finding a use case. It's gonna have huge impact to your organization. It's kind of low hanging fruit, you know, take that and then grow it from there. And then you have something to show. I think, you know, all C-suites wanna see results, right? They wanna see ROI. So you wanna have a, you know, a building, you know, you wanna build your case so that they'll continue to support it. Because I think there still is some pushback, you know, from C-suites, like show me the money, show me how it's gonna work, show me how you're gonna, you know, save X, Y, or Z. So we, you know, I think service organizations have to continually prove that this is something that they need. And I think over time, Kate, it's not gonna be long, you know, I think it's pretty apparent to most everyone, no matter, you know, what area of business you're in, AI is here to stay. It's gonna, you know, hugely change how we do business. It's gonna hugely change how we live as consumers even, you know, just as individuals, as humans. So I think it's gonna be cataclysmic changes and it's gonna come really fast. So no time for navel gazing, it's really time to learn, get on the AI train and, you know, start learning and start doing. Exactly, and that is one of the reasons why we architected like AI agents too, right? So one of our customers who will be there during the conference, EDF, they're a very large energy utilities company, but they had, from the time they signed up for terms of service to the time they had the first AI agent up and running, it was 40 minutes. So they were blown away. And this is a very large company who could have a, right? So these kinds of stories are gonna make service leaders feel, hey, I can do this. And it doesn't have to be a six month effort, one year effort to see ROI, right? So it can be fast and it can be quick. The key is to pick one agent that will fit in into that one use case and then build the journey from there to the rest of the company as you're showing ROI. So no longer a humongous implementation that will take a year or two years, et cetera. So this can be fast and that's a good message that people will get. That leads to the next question, Maureen, which is, you know, one of the complaints that I hear from people is vendors like us end up standing up on stage and constantly talk about how great the product is, right? So, and as a service leader, okay, I get tired of it after three days of listening to vendors saying how great the product is. So you are actually making it different to have the practitioners speak about what they have accomplished and that actually becomes a takeaway. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Yeah, in fact, it's rare that you'll see a vendor anymore stand up on our stages and talk just about their product. We don't allow pitching from the stage. We really encourage them to show us the value. And the only way we feel that you can show credible value is to bring a client with you. Let the client show how they're using your product. How can it be more believable than that? Instead of having a vendor stand up there and say, your client is saying, here's the use cases we did. This is the results we saw, and this is what we're doing next. That's a winner. That's a winning presentation, right? So we're encouraging, and I would say 99% of vendors listen to us and bring clients with them because they understand the value of having a client speak for them. Yeah, and can you, is that how you were visualizing the AI advisory lab to be also? Yes, and I think, you know, some people complain in the expo because there's so much in the expo, right? And there's not a lot of time to go too deep on, you know, in conversations because it's kind of loud and it's a lot of all that excitement and they're getting sold, right? And they understand that because that's what expos are about. But they wanted an environment where, you know, they also can be a little intimidating if you don't understand a lot about AI yet and you wanna ask lots of questions but you don't wanna feel stupid, right? So we wanted to give them a forum where they could sit down calmly, quietly and ask those questions, those burning questions that they have about AI. And, you know, with technical experts, not salespeople from the sponsoring company and then their customer. So I think that balance of having both there will be really valuable to the practitioners who sit down at the stations in the lab and have those meetings. Yeah, you know, even as a vendor, someone who's early in the agent tech world, right? I can see that there is a lot of thought leadership that we have to give and it's a journey that we have to hand hold the service teams to. So a lot of times, you know, we also love the opportunity to not be salesy but truly understand the challenges that service leaders are facing and help them with the challenges. And I love that this is an opportunity for to be able to do that. And for service leaders to be open enough and talk to the technical people as well as talk to the people who have seen value from it and learn from that. So that's wonderful. Yes, yes, no, absolutely. And I think for the sponsoring companies who are brave like Ascendo, it's a great opportunity for you to sit with potential customers and hear their pain, right? Where are their pain points? Where are their challenges? Because you all are innovators, right? You're creating solutions and helping service organizations. And I think it'll be very valuable for you all to listen and learn with them. You're listening and learning different things, but you're learning more about their business and how you can better support it in the future. Yeah, I think it's a win-win for both sides. Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you for doing this and thank you for being the producer. I just love it. So, and thank you for taking the time to come here. You must have a next, the very, very busy week. So thank you for being here. Well, it's my pleasure, Kay. Look forward to partnering with you on our AI lab and hearing your showcase and your use cases. It's gonna be wonderful. And thank you so much for sponsoring and taking the risk with us and being innovators. Absolutely, that's what we are here for. Thank you, Marie. Thank you. Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai . Go Unlimited to remove this message.

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