2025 Retrospective with Roy Dockery of TSIA

·46 min·4 clips

Roy Dockery and Sarah Nicastro judge how accurate their 2025 field service predictions were in this candid retrospective.

Sarah Nicastro welcomes back Roy Dockery, Senior Director of Field Services Research at TSIA, to reflect on their 2025 predictions for field service. They start by examining workforce flexibility, noting that while technology like AI and remote tools exists, many organizations still prioritize outdated metrics like utilization over technician empowerment. Economic uncertainty has reduced pressure on companies to adapt to workforce demands. Next, they discuss customer expectations, where customers now demand resolution over response time, but many service organizations lack the data and pricing models to offer outcome-based services. The conversation shifts to technology debt, highlighting how field service often receives investment last, with some companies still using spreadsheets in 2025, lagging behind customer experience standards. AI adoption saw wins in existing platforms but missteps as providers struggled to deliver features quickly, and success depends on foundational data readiness. Storytelling is identified as a crucial skill for service leaders to inspire teams amid flattening organizational structures. Roy shares his predictions on talent acquisition, cost optimization, and supply chain disruptions, noting increased focus on asset management. They share personal highlights, including Roy moving closer to his community and Sarah's family trip to Costa Rica. Professional highlights include the Standout 50 event and a keynote on service north stars. For 2026, Roy plans to focus on AI enabling human technicians and industry-specific challenges, while Sarah teases upcoming research and events.

As heard by us

A clear field-service look-back on the gap between recognized priorities and what teams actually executed.

Sarah Nicastro's 2025 look-back with Roy Dockery revisits field-service predictions after a year when awareness seemed to outrun execution. Nicastro returns to her view that frontline workforce flexibility had become essential, while Dockery, Senior Director of Field Services…

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You want to know how 2025 field-service predictions held up after a year of real operational pressure.

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