Success Story: BenLink's experience with SAP & SYBIT

Starting point

There is a major shortage of qualified technicians in the service sector. At the same time, customers are increasingly demanding greater availability of resources and faster deployment times. However, hardly any OEM can afford an entire network of expensive technicians. This is precisely where the business potential of BenLink's crowd approach lies. The declared aim is to bring high-quality service very close to the customer worldwide and make it possible to plan flexibly. This means more available service staff who can be deployed quickly on site. However, a completely new technological basis was needed to put this idea on the road, as numerous complex requirements had to be combined: an automated solution, crowd approach, field service planning, purchasing processes, integration of non-SAP solutions, reduced costs and low maintenance requirements. A combination of SAP CX FSM and the new SAP Extension Factory (Kyma) was chosen as the central technological basis that could achieve all of this. The latter is a new SAP product that SYBIT was the first company to implement productively. This brought with it a lot of challenges: the company was considered the “first mover” of the new product, had to learn on-the-go and cope with many software changes. Since then, BenLink and SYBIT have been considered the first companies to successfully implement the Extension Factory, including the newly developed interfaces.

Project details

Together, BenLink and SYBIT have created a crowd service platform that allows technicians to be scheduled using an algorithm. In the system, an algorithm compares a service request with the qualifications and availability of the registered technicians and dispatches them automatically. This is very similar to the Uber app, which sends a suitable driver depending on the destination. Dispatching a technician is also seamless with BenLink: the platform is connected to the OEM seeking the service and lists the machines used in the system. The necessary information on spare parts, for example, is provided directly. The technician also receives this information on their app. Once the service has been booked and carried out, the platform automatically invoices the hours incurred. In the end, this process ensures faster service assignments, reduced planning effort and a noticeable reduction in service costs. This is made possible by the technological basis. The underlying technology, the SAP Extension Factory, integrates the two other central solutions: SAP CX Field Service Management (FSM) and SAP CX Commerce. The crowd service runs in FSM and serves as technician and order management. CX Commerce functions as order and customer management. The advantage of this set-up is that the Extension Factory can not only be developed in much less time, but also allows the individual systems and business processes to be decoupled.

How the crowd service platform works

Technicians, companies and freelancers can register on the BenLink platform. Using an algorithm, the system matches the individual requirements of a service project with the qualifications and availability of the employees. The selected technicians are then automatically assigned to a field service assignment. The assigned service technician receives all relevant information on their mobile device.

An application example

If, for example, flows in a system/machine need to be cleaned, specialists with special expertise often had to be deployed in the past. This is very expensive for a rather simple task. With the BenLink platform, technicians from outside the field can now also be ordered. These are instructed by a suitably trained OEM technician and are therefore significantly cheaper, but can carry out routine tasks just as well. It is also much faster: OEMs do not always have an unlimited number of technicians available from their fleet at any given time.

The agile SYBIT project methodology

BenLink opted for agile project implementation right from the start because they wanted to break new ground and therefore many questions were still unanswered at the beginning of the project. The specifications were clear: fixed budget, fixed time, open scope. The overarching goal was also fixed, and several iterations were then used to work out how the goal could be achieved. SYBIT's agile methodology allows us to work effectively under precisely these conditions. As a result, the team grew together very closely during the project, the customer was fully integrated into the development team and actively contributed to the process.

Result

• Completely new crowd service business model established, which was continuously developed during the project
• The advantages of the platform: much faster response time in the event of a service call, minimal administrative effort, significantly higher customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Very fast market launch: a pilot platform went live for the first time within three months
• Pilot in the UK, now live in Switzerland, Germany and Ukraine
• First-time implementation of the Extension Factory brought high technical flexibility with reduced overall costs for implementation and maintenance
• SYBIT built the entire front end of the crowd service platform, including design and concept
• User interface strongly focused on the customer
• After one year, BenLink was able to take over operations independently, with its own IT staff
• Perfect interaction between BenLink and SYBIT, characterized by pragmatism, flexibility and transparency