Enterprise Resource Management is a staple of most companies and for companies that strive for Field Service Management excellence, FSM software is a must. In a survey by Stratistics MRC, the global Field Service Management (FSM) market is set to reach a valuation of $4.45 billion by the year 2022.
Adoption has been driven by a number of factors. Increased market competition, heightened customer expectations, and dependency on mobility are some of the main drivers. Traditionally, most businesses started off with only an ERP software. As the company grew into field-service requirements or mobility requirements, they simply started implementing necessary systems to fill the gaps their in-house Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software couldn't fill.
Eventually, this would turn into a mess. Managing multiple licenses increased cost, and internally operating many disparate systems confused and demotivated employees. Using many different systems also made it complicated to decipher actionable insights and usable data for decision making. Most Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software cannot handle field services like on-field worker scheduling, contract management, or warranty management. This is where an integrated Field Service Management software can become invaluable for your company.
Why IFS ERP + FSM?
The major benefit of a component-based, modular enterprise software suite like IFS Applications is its integration capabilities. In fact, IFS provides a dedicated integration framework that allows companies to easily integrate with a variety of providers like SAP and Microsoft. Because IFS provides a standalone fully featured Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software too, integration with IFS Field Service Management is even easier. By joining the two systems you can obtain complete visibility over all your enterprise as well as field service processes that optimize operations. A combined ERP and FSM solution can help you cover the entire field service lifecycle.
How does the exchange of information between the two systems help? Let’s say your on-site technician needs to use a spare part from the inventory and thus needs to adjust inventory levels during their work. If the integrated FSM software can access and transform the master inventory data from the ERP system, your inventory levels can be adjusted in real time. Sales and accounts teams also benefit from the combination as things like work invoices and sales and service orders can now directly be updated on a single system, instead of doing double the work across two systems. Not to mention the complication, the duplication results in.
Optimizing and streamlining all these processes between the two systems through the helpful exchange of information leads to real-world service benefits for your business and your customers such as shorter location drive times, increased first-time fix rates, and happier employees and customers. Functionally by spending less on operations through optimized processes and faster service delivery, you are able to achieve better revenue for your company.
Ready to reap the benefits of a combined ERP and FSM software suite? Give us a call at ProV!
ProV is an award-winning partner for IFS ERP and IFS FSM. ProV’s competitive IFS Applications pricing and best-in-class services for IFS implementations, IFS software support, and IFS customizations help you achieve the most from your software investment. Request our FREE Consultation today to get started!
