As field service organizations work to manage the ever-growing demands of the industry, they are focusing on balancing centralized and decentralized service approaches. Centralization emphasizes efficient, standardized processes and using consolidated resources. Decentralization, on the other hand, is rooted in local expertise, adaptability, and resilience.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many field service companies leaned heavily toward a centralized field service model to maintain standardized efficiency and global reach. A centralized approach also offers the attractive benefit of consolidating resources to unlock substantial cost savings. However, numerous disruptions caused by the pandemic forced companies to incorporate decentralization into their service strategies, becoming adaptable to changes and maintaining resiliency in the face of challenges.
Organizations that fail to develop and fine-tune their service approach with a combination of centralization and decentralization are experiencing some challenges that they must overcome with the help of decentralization if they want to thrive in this competitive field service environment:
Providing High-Quality Customer Experiences
Field service organizations must balance offering consistent, efficient services and localized adaptation and responsiveness, centralizing decentralization. Companies that shift toward centralized operations risk the loss of personal touch, which can result in suboptimal customer experiences. In today’s unstable economic environment, top-notch client experiences are even more of a critical differentiator between field service organizations.
Further, companies should seek technicians with the skillsets that drive exceptional customer experiences as they transition toward servitization.
Maintaining Service Across a Wide Range of Geographic Locations
Managing a field service organization across geographic locations can be complicated and involves coordination between standardized processes, skilled technicians, and quality technology. Operating inefficiently and in a homogenized manner can lead to poor service delivery that doesn’t meet the needs of locations with differing cultural variances that require the customized solutions that decentralization offers.
As companies work to provide excellent customer experiences, they must effectively balance the local essence and their overarching organizational standards.
Navigating World Events That Impact Operations
Field service organizations have been impacted by several recent global events, including climate change and varying governmental and industrial responses to it, the collapse of Schengen during mass migration, and continuing crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. These issues have revealed how fragile operations can be when businesses depend on global networks in a centralized approach. These world events have resulted in shuttered borders, impacted supply chains, and a slow flow of parts. They have also affected technician movement and service response times.
However, despite the chaos, the field service industry is experiencing significant technological innovation to help mitigate these issues. Field service management platforms, such as Gomocha, assist organizations in operating more efficiently and remotely.
Features offered by these field service platforms can help companies strike a balance between a centralized approach with efficient, standardized processes and a decentralized model with adaptable strategies that focus on localized strengths.
As field service organizations prioritize centralizing decentralization, they face challenges they must overcome. While it can be tempting for companies to implement a centralized strategy, incorporating elements of decentralization is crucial for sustained growth. Providing exceptional customer experiences, delivering service across multiple locations, and handling the impact of global events on operations with a combined centralized and decentralized approach is imperative to ensuring continued success and cultivating long-term customer loyalty.
Read the full white paper, Centralizing Decentralization — Adaptive Service Networks: Balancing Centralization, Resilience, and Local Expertise with Next-Gen FSM Systems, for further insights into this timely topic.