Industrial Asset Management Tech Implementation Providers Help Overcome Three Key Buyer Challenges

Industrial Asset Management Tech Implementation Providers Help Overcome Three Key Buyer Challenges

As part of our report on tech implementation services for asset management in the industrial space, we interviewed buyers to understand their challenges, approaches and general feedback about their experiences leveraging implementation consultants. Customers in the report come from large organizations ($250 million+ in annual revenues) across oil and gas, manufacturing, utilities, transportation and infrastructure. Often, interviewees had highly specific takeaways from their experiences, but there were recurring pain points that drove interactions with service providers:

• “We know there are lots of vendors in the market, but we don’t know who is best.”
  Choice is good. For some industrial organizations, however, there can be too much of a good thing. In the case of asset management technology, there is a wide variety of vendors available to buyers and it can be difficult to sift through the buzzwords and acronyms to find the best-fit solution.
  
  Service provider value-add: asset management tech consultants offer two approaches to this challenge: independence and partnerships. An independent partner allows buyers to evaluate tech solutions with relevant criteria in mind, without a service provider’s partnerships influencing the procurement process. For buyers who have a solution in mind, a services firm with strong vendor partnerships is ideal, evidencing a track record of implementing the chosen solution.
  
  
• “We are keen to implement new technology, but we aren’t sure how to get users onboard.”
  Changing work processes, especially when introducing new technology, creates headaches for people managing the change and the workers experiencing it. Even assuming the technology has been correctly installed from a technical standpoint, getting workers to properly leverage the tool and get value from it can be challenging. Some of the hurdles decision-makers need to consider are new compliance frameworks, processes to mark work completed, and how workers report issues on site.
  
  
  

  Service provider value-add: consultants help to establish roles and responsibilities within change management, typically drawing on cross-functional personnel to ensure different parts of the organization have visibility. Another key role for service providers is user training. Implementation consultants are experts with the tools they implement, and can provide regular high-impact training sessions, alongside ad-hoc engagements, to drive adoption and excellence in using new tools.

• “We know new technology will give us a competitive edge, but our industry is highly complex.”
  Barring industry-specific point solutions, asset management software is typically industry-agnostic. However, implementation challenges do vary considerably by sector. In addition, many industrial facilities are spread over a large area, are located in a remote region, or have little to no connectivity. As such, buyers prefer service providers with intimate knowledge of specific industries to ensure specific challenges are well understood.
  
  Service provider value-add: many service providers have a broad track record across many industry verticals, but their heritage imbues them with deep expertise for particular facilities. This expertise reflects service lines outside those in implementation, but which inform the implementation process. Frequently, individual consultants will have a background in specific industries that serves as a foundation for their implementation support.