You know the old 80/20 rule, right? ”80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.”

Well, there’s a new 80/20 rule for 2022:

“You can get 100% of what you need, for only 20% of the resources you expected.”  

How is that possible?

To understand how that can happen, take a step back 40 years or so. In the 1980s, the state of the art for running an efficient field service operation typically involved pen and paper, along with devices most of haven’t seen for quite some time, like fax machines, and payphones.

In the 1990s, the top-of-the-line approach to optimizing your operations typically involved custom-developed “bespoke” software. Maybe you had an in-house team developing it, maybe you engaged an outside firm. Either way, it took a long time and had a price tag designed to send your CFO into fits. But the software was designed based on the very specific requirements of your operations (although there was a decent chance those requirements would have changed by the time the software went live…if it ever did).

In the 2000s, a new type of software came onto the scene: ready-to-go off-the-shelf software, some of which even embraced the new cloud paradigm. But these options came with some significant tradeoffs, most of which boiled down to “take it or leave it.” The lower cost and faster deployment were appealing, so many chose “take it,” even if it left them feeling a little downcast and dejected.

Fast forward to 2022 and there’s a new paradigm in town, one that combines the benefits of off-the-shelf point solutions with the power and flexibility of custom-developed systems. With a hybrid solution like Zinier’s field-service automation software, 80% of everything you need is already baked in.

‍The Hybrid Paradigm

‍Before you even start defining your requirements or putting together a scoping document, the system already knows that you’ll be looking for things like better overall performance, improved visibility, reducing costs, and maintaining SLAs.

It also has a few hunches about the business context underlying everything: you need it to be up and running ASAP, you need the price tag to be as low as possible (and payback to be faster than it ever was before), and you can’t accept any compromises in functionality.

Oh, and it needs to be easy to update, maintain, and adapt to whatever’s down the road.

‍From COTS to COTS

‍If you’re currently struggling with the limitations of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) point solutions, this new hybrid paradigm will help you finally get everything on your list of requirements. You can think of it as customizable off-the-shelf (COTS) that starts with a core of functionality that can deliver 80% of what you need, coupled with easy-to-use low-code development tools to help you create that final 20%. The new COTS2 hybrid approach keeps your options open, so you’ll never be locked into what you thought 2025 would be like way back in 2022.

And if you’re currently struggling with the slow pace of maintaining and updating a custom solution, the new hybrid approach will make it faster and easier to translate your ideas for new functionality into realities. This new generation of hybrid solutions requires a few key elements to make it work:

• The ready-to-go components need to incorporate deep expertise about the tasks at hand (such as field service)
• The customization components need to embrace a low-code approach that won’t require hiring or contracting with specialized developers every time you want to update the solution
• The software should leverage AI and other underlying technologies to drive optimal performance and meaningful insights

There's a free on-demand webinar that will walk you through how the new hybrid paradigm is helping field service operations get up to date. Click here to sign up.