15-Year Recap of Digital Transformation Success with 42Gears – Field Services

Field services have undergone a major transformation over the past decade. Before the 2010s, the concept of field services was mostly a reactive approach to servicing customer demands, where technicians and on-field representatives had to rely on landline phone calls and emails to diagnose and resolve issues. 

Today, it’s vastly different. Field services have evolved into an integral part of business operations that prioritizes speedy resolutions based on real-time information. In fact, the market size for Field Services Management is expected to increase from $4 billion in 2023 to over $7 billion in 2028, at a rate of 12.8% CAGR. This development has been driven by the enhancements made in smartphone operating systems and applications, creating opportunities for on-field technicians to effectively work from their handheld devices. 

In this blog, we’ll take a look at how mobile devices and applications played a huge part in transforming field services, how Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions became a necessity for businesses relying on proactive field services, and a few examples of how 42Gears MDM offerings catered to the development of the industry. 

How Mobile Device Management Helped Evolve Field Services

Multiple industries employ field service solutions that empower on-field technicians to do more with their handheld devices. As mobile operating systems became more capable of running applications that could communicate, as well as process real-time information, like the status of a service maintenance activity or review on-site issues, businesses needed to leverage Mobile Device Management solutions to provision, secure, monitor, and manage their growing fleet of on-site devices. 

MDM solutions empower field technicians to do more, and at the same time, securely access sensitive information from their devices. With innovative features, like Indoor Location Tracking, constantly being added to the feature list, the use cases for IT teams managing on-site technicians and field service agents keep increasing. 

A few key industries that employ MDM solutions for driving their field services operations are:

1. Telecommunications:

   MDM solutions helped telecommunications companies support their on-site technicians in diagnosing and fixing issues with cable lines and network towers. 

2. Construction:

   Companies that offered construction services could now monitor and manage their mobile devices, as well as their rugged devices, from a single console. This allowed field service personnel to effectively communicate with each other, and collaborate when fixing construction issues. 

3. ONGC:

   On-site field technicians are employed by ONGC companies to inspect and fix faulty gas pipelines, oil wells, and other infrastructure. Since pipeline networks can be huge and lengthy (often spanning across multiple kilometers), technicians need to rely on their devices to communicate, collaborate, and fix issues efficiently. 

4. Healthcare:

   The healthcare industry has also seen a surge in adopting field services. Field technicians in a healthcare setting will need to rely on their devices to provision medical equipment, facilitate healthcare services at homes, and perform maintenance activities on medical devices and equipment. 

The Impact of 42Gears Solutions On Field Services

42Gears is a proud partner of multiple customers across industries in empowering their field services. Through the combination of industry-leading MDM and UEM offerings, like SureMDM and SureLock, we have helped businesses successfully implement field services into their existing operations, and have actively continued to support their device management requirements. 

Here are a few examples of our engagements in the field service industry:

Signal 88

Challenges:
Signal 88 is a US-based security firm that offers security solutions for residential and commercial properties. As part of their digital transformation initiatives, Signal 88 provided Samsung tablets to their employees that had their own application called ‘88Edge’ installed. 88Edge was an application for both employees and customers to securely communicate in real-time. However, Signal 88 faced challenges when their 88Edge app crashed, requiring a passcode to be shared with employees to reset the application, causing security risks. Signal 88 also encountered instances of their employees accessing other applications, disrupting productivity and increasing data consumption. 

Solution:
SureLock kept employees focused on the task at hand, while repairs were made easy thanks to SureMDM’s Remote Control functionality.

42Gears provided SureMDM and SureLock to address Signal 88’s challenges. SureMDM was offered by 42Gears as a robust, feature-rich platform to remotely troubleshoot faulty tablets, avoiding the need to share sensitive passcodes to employees. SureLock helped their IT teams convert their tablets to single-purpose devices that only permitted the usage of the 88Edge application, minimizing disruption to productivity and data consumption costs.

TrackForce

Challenges:
TrackForce faced challenges in monitoring and managing its fleet of on-site devices, such as a lack of central device management dashboard, instances of device misuse, difficulty in deploying applications remotely, and servicing devices without the need of a service center. 

Solution:
42Gears implemented SureMDM to help TrackForce overcome their operational challenges. By leveraging the centralized dashboard view of SureMDM, TrackForce was able to remotely monitor, manage and troubleshoot their fleet of devices from a single console dashboard. They could also provision single app mode on their devices, which helped minimize device misuse and improve overall productivity. SureMDM helped with the mass configuration of devices, along with the ability to install applications and configure jobs. 

The Onin Group

Challenges:
To empower their on-field workforce, The Onin Group needed a robust MDM solution that could help their IT team remotely monitor and manage their fleet of tablets. They also needed a solution that could help them secure their devices from misuse and cyberthreats. 

Solution:
42Gears provided SureMDM and SureLock to help The Onin Group tackle their operational challenges. With SureMDM, The Onin Group were able to secure their fleet of tablets, and remotely monitor and manage their devices. SureLock helped them lock down their devices to permitted applications, ensuring employees and users do not misuse or tamper with their devices. The combination of SureMDM and SureLock helped them improve operational efficiency, employee productivity and device security. 

To learn more about our engagements in the field services industry, check out our case study page and select ‘Field Services’ from the Industry dropdown menu. 

How 42Gears solutions cater to Field Services Management

42Gears has actively contributed in developing the field services industry by offering solutions that benefit both on-field technicians and IT administrators. With a proven track record of facilitating secure and enhanced device management operations for field operators, 42Gears will continue to support field services with new technologies and innovative device management solutions.

• Enhance On-field Productivity:

  Solutions, like SureMDM and SureLock, help IT admins convert their fleet of on-site devices into single purpose devices, restricting access only to permitted applications. 

• Seamless Provisioning and Deployment:

  SureMDM supports major mobile device operating systems like Android, Windows, iOS, iPadOS, maOS, Linux, and many more. This means, IT admins can monitor and manage all their devices, regardless of which operating system they run on. Admins can also securely configure devices and deploy content and applications from a single dashboard. 

• Improve Device Security:

  With new innovative security technologies, like Mobile Threat Defense (MTD), SureMDM now offers a holistic approach to combining proactive device security and comprehensive device management capabilities, which translates to always being one step ahead of operational challenges and cybersecurity threats. 

• Streamline Device Deployment:

  IT and operations teams can securely configure devices, and deploy necessary applications and information to their fleet of devices. This capability empowers on-field technicians with devices running on the latest OS updates, while complying with regulations. 

• Leverage Industry-Leading Technical Support and Maintenance:

  Remote and dedicated technical support has always been a strong forte for 42Gears, and with field services, we have actively supported our customers with timely and satisfactory resolutions. 

Field services will continue to transform, so will our solutions

Customer-centricity is a key driving factor for us at 42Gears. Our solutions always put the customer's requirements first, and we believe in offering flexible, customizable solutions that accommodate feature requests to cater to unique requirements. We are one of the few leading UEM providers that supports all major operating systems, making our solutions perfect for any business dealing with a diverse, growing fleet of on-site devices.