2016’s hot industries for field service management

As many of you know (from working within it!), field service management is itself an industry, but also spans dozens of other industries, including:

• Maintenance
• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Construction
• Telecommunications
• Health care
• Refrigeration
• Landscaping
• Gas utilities

The list is virtually infinite in some ways.

Are there any sectors of the overall field service management industry that might be ‘hotter’ for 2016, though?

Food analytics and technology

This is predicted to be a major growth industry in 2016, and it has ties back to field service management: companies in the food analytics space are essentially developing ‘smart devices’ that help consumers (individuals and restaurants) with inventory management and logistics systems. Those devices would be part of the broader Internet of Things (IoT) framework and typically require relationships with field service providers in terms of monitoring and service.

Home health care

Look at this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 10-year data, which attempts to forecast jobs Americans will hold by 2022:

161 million Americans are expected to be working by 2022, and above are the five top professions that will employ them. Healthcare practitioners is No. 1, with healthcare support at No. 4 and personal care (which you could argue is close to home health care) at No. 5. Thus, 60 percent of the top five emergent jobs are in healthcare or home health care -- both of which are industries largely supported by field service management and techs.

Construction

Reference the chart above as well. Even though there is a narrative about the millennial generation buying homes less, the construction industry is expected to grow about 8% in 2016. (This is good, as it’s often seen as a broad indicator of economic success.)

HVAC

The HVAC market is growing at around 7%, with a belief that just the automotive side of that industry may be worth $22 billion by 2022. Because HVAC systems are often large and complicated, they almost always need help from field service organizations and techs -- and if the IoT movement creates ‘smart’ HVAC machines that allow for information to be sent directly over a network to the field service management team, that’s even better for fostering customer satisfaction on your end. You’ll be able to spend less time and overhead on one-off service calls and focus on delivering true value to your partners.

Anything technology

The logic on the field service management side is this: Technology is now everywhere, which means people everywhere will need help maintaining it, servicing it, and fixing it. You see this in subsets of field service management from home security and alarm systems to medical devices and computer/database upkeep. Technology is still a good bet as a growth area -- and, in fact, it’s probably becoming an even better bet.

 What else have you seen thriving in terms of the industries you intersect with?

Written by Jim Hare