The road to predictive maintenance with AI is not always a straight one, but some key strategies can help you chart a path to success.
Transforming Field Service to Drive Efficiency and Growth
Field and aftermarket services keep mission-critical equipment running—and value coming. But key challenges, such as a scarcity of skilled technicians, threaten to hold back the industry and those who rely on it. Field Service AI by BCG X combines cutting-edge technology with people and process transformation to infuse AI into aftermarket services. Used wisely, AI in field service does more than optimize service. It deepens providers’ relationships with customers—and creates opportunities for growth.
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2x
digital service revenue growth
10%–15%
productivity gains
10%
effectiveness gain
5%–10%
margin expansion
About Field Service AI by BCG X
The field services industry is experiencing shifts—and with them, pain points. As experienced professionals leave the workforce, providers struggle to retain institutional knowledge and fill technician ranks. Increasingly complex equipment means more difficult and time-consuming repairs. And in a world that’s ever more digital, customers are expecting—but not often getting—faster service and improved visibility into the field services industry’s progress. Yet, one shift promises to empower, not hinder, providers: the rise of AI in field service.
It’s not just about better AI models. It’s also about advances in wearable devices, connectivity, and data platforms—in all the enablers that bring AI out from the desk and into the field. By transforming field service, AI can streamline processes and reduce costs. But its potential goes beyond efficiency. AI field services let providers anticipate maintenance needs, understand a customer’s usage, and recommend relevant offerings. It builds stronger relationships that spark satisfaction, sales, and growth.
Getting there takes more than technology. It requires understanding that transformation is also about people and processes. That’s why Field Service AI by BCG X takes a holistic approach. It combines cutting-edge AI tools with robust change management and an emphasis on enablement. We don’t simply build solutions. We build a foundation so clients can continually innovate, implement, and deliver.
It’s not just about better AI models. It’s also about advances in wearable devices, connectivity, and data platforms—in all the enablers that bring AI out from the desk and into the field. By transforming field service, AI can streamline processes and reduce costs. But its potential goes beyond efficiency. AI field services let providers anticipate maintenance needs, understand a customer’s usage, and recommend relevant offerings. It builds stronger relationships that spark satisfaction, sales, and growth.
Getting there takes more than technology. It requires understanding that transformation is also about people and processes. That’s why Field Service AI by BCG X takes a holistic approach. It combines cutting-edge AI tools with robust change management and an emphasis on enablement. We don’t simply build solutions. We build a foundation so clients can continually innovate, implement, and deliver.
Benefits
Field Service AI by BCG X combines digital and AI solutions to empower stakeholders across the field service value chain. Operations managers can more effectively route and manage technicians, sales representatives can leverage dynamic pricing and AI-driven insights, technicians benefit from remote guidance and automation that speeds their work, and customers get advanced tracking and self-service capabilities. Field Service AI by BCG X offers a lot more too—creating new lines of business to fuel growth. Here are the key components.
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Hub Performance Tools
Bring out the best in your people. Dashboards give visibility into technician productivity, sales data and lead flow, and overall operational health—helping to identify issues, inefficiencies, and opportunities. Advanced pricing mechanisms mean quick creation of bespoke pricing, while lead generation and scoring put the right prospects in the right order. -
Asset Reliability and Performance Tools
Act, don’t react, and save time and costs. Remote diagnostics and resolution keep downtime—and on-site visits—to a minimum, asset monitoring reveals opportunities for preventive maintenance, avoiding more serious repairs down the road, and demand forecasting leverages AI in field service to help providers understand future technician labor requirements. -
Scheduling and Technician Productivity Tools
Empower technicians and scale expertise. Remote support—enhanced by wearable devices that display information in the user’s field of view—provides guidance. Intelligent scheduling optimizes assignments based on technician skillset, location, and other factors. GenAI chatbots provide on-the-fly and on-the-mark recommended actions. -
Customer Experience and Support Tools
Increase customer loyalty and retention. Field Service AI by BCG X enhances the customer experience through capabilities such as service and order tracking (so customers can understand where work stands and when systems will be online again) and self-service platforms (simplifying purchases of equipment and parts).
A Look Inside Field Service AI by BCG X
By unleashing AI in field service, companies can cut costs, optimize processes, and fuel new revenue streams. Success is one part technology: implementing the right tools. But an even bigger part—70% of the total effort—is people and process transformation. We help clients build the platforms and capabilities they need. We also spark adoption through process redesign and change management. Mastering both fronts lets companies extract full value from Field Service AI by BCG X.
Our Clients’ Success with Field Service AI by BCG X
Truck Rental Company
A truck rental provider responsible for maintenance across its fleet of vehicles projected a $200 million revenue uplift from an initiative to develop telematics and AI lead generation tools. BCG and the provider partnered to design a digital roadmap, develop AI-based analytics capabilities, and implement a go-to-market strategy for retaining and expanding business through enhanced service.
$150m
recurring annual revenue uplift
Meet the Field Service AI by BCG X Team
The industry needs a new approach to growing revenues and meeting customer needs. Carriers that embrace offer management can achieve those goals—but transformation is needed.
COOs always focus on costs, but inflation, uncertainty, and other prevalent factors today increase the urgency of making their companies’ operations more efficient.
Laura Juliano thrives on solving complex challenges. Whether optimizing operations, mentoring future leaders, or driving community impact, she’s always looking for a better way forward.
With foundries and forges a critical choke point for aircraft production and servicing, we outline steps to help OEMs partner more effectively and unclog the jam.
Industrial companies must quickly strengthen their ability to cope with crises and uncertainty affecting the availability of crucial supplies.
A new tech stack is taking shape in the auto industry. Tier one suppliers that are still trying to determine where to play risk being crowded out.
As vehicles become “computers on wheels,” key insights about the rapidly changing market landscape point to the need for greater collaboration among industry players.
Every automaker is preparing for the full transformation to electric, connected cars. Are their operating models, talent pools, ways of working, and corporate culture ready?
Digital-age car buyers will favor customer-centric vehicles that can be personalized and updated just like a smartphone. Automakers must transform to tap this lucrative opportunity.
In recent years, the industry has dabbled in artificial intelligence applications, with disappointing results. But as companies look to the postpandemic future, AI’s time has arrived.
More capable and practical than ever, extended reality technologies give frontline workers superpowers—while turbocharging the recruitment, training, and support of these crucial employees.
News organizations and other creators are blocking access to the diverse, high-quality content that feeds GenAI models. Here’s a way for the two sides to work together.
Most companies and institutions are at least experimenting with one or more use cases, but less than 20% have established a strategy to guide their activities.
TMT was hit hard by market volatility in 2022—but AI and other technologies are setting the scene for the next wave of value creation.
From personalized medicine solutions and automated provider workflows to integrated ecosystems, global experts from BCG and BCG X share their insights on digital health trends.
To succeed in the future, manufacturers must learn to deliver industrial solutions as digital services. This playbook describes the first steps involved in executing this complex strategy.
The shift to alternative proteins based on plants, microorganisms, and animal cells is just beginning to pick up speed. The market will hit $290 billion by 2035.
Successful serial acquirers deliver more growth and create more value from acquisitions than their peers. What explains their success?
Agricultural-input suppliers need to act fast because the rapidly increasing use of digital information will quickly sort the winners from the losers.
The road to predictive maintenance with AI is not always a straight one, but some key strategies can help you chart a path to success.
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