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A common challenge facing field dispatchers is the organising of resources for the most effective schedule to meet appointment requirements. Frequently, this begins with field service engineers. Field service management software removes much of the strain and there are many options to choose from. Finding the right solution for your business can be tricky, and must take into account ideal outcomes now, and the direction of travel (into the future).

The first consideration is deciding between end-to-end and best of breed field scheduling software. Before we look into that, lets establish the difference between the two. An end-to-end solution will provide the majority of the required features within a single product. Best-of-breed combines different pieces of highly specialised software to meet your individual needs.

End-to-end field service management software can provide a simpler solution to service optimisation. A single product to meet all requirements might be ideal for smaller businesses with fewer appointments and a regular field schedule. Schedulers and dispatchers will not be encumbered with the task of getting to know a number of different technologies. This means end-to-end is often seen as a more modern solution for wide scale workforce optimisation.

DISCUSSING BEST-OF-BREED SCHEDULING AT THE FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT EXPO

These days, any business which relies on mobile service engineers are faced with an ever increasing array of challenges. From traffic jams and breakdowns - to finding the correct part or engineers with the necessary skills to complete a job. This is where a best-of-breed solution makes it mark. Field scheduling software such as Fast Lean Smart's FLS VISITOUR is able to deal with billions of possibilities and re-adjust schedules and route plans within seconds. This is an optimisation feature that would simply not be possible with an end-to-end platform.

The benefits of best-of-breed scheduling software was highlighted by FLS Jeremy Squire at Field Service News' 2017 Field Service Management Expo:

"There is a dramatic amount of benefit to be had with choosing the right technology for your business. There is nothing, that I’m aware of, that gives you more value in field service than truly optimising your time and resources. Compared to a built-in scheduling solution from an end-to-end service management provider. We could save you up to 30 percent of your time. So it's very much a 'horses for courses' situation. If your company has a complex infrastructure with a number of technicians to organise, a best of breed solution as provided by FLS will be far more effective in optimising the time and resources of your company".