Most companies working in field service today use some form of technology in place of the manual, often paper-based, processes of the past, whether it’s basic smartphones or the most complex of the emerging field service management solutions out there.

The maturity of a company’s field service operations is dictated by many factors: company size, type of industry and clients served, complexity of workflow, value of the assets and equipment they supply and service, and their leadership.

What’s common to all field service organizations, though is that their organizational maturity—and their ability to serve as a business differentiator—corresponds directly to the effectiveness of their technology, regardless of what that technology is. The more effective it is, the better the organization can serve the larger business.

In the simplest terms, the operational maturity of a field service organization can be broken down into stages.

At the most basic, the field service team or department is a service delivery arm that purely reacts to the wider business needs. Such a team probably operates mostly in a silo and is highly function-based. At the most advanced stage of maturity, the field service organization is wholly connected across the company, applying analysis to continually improve performance, and adding value to the business through product and service innovation.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that an organization should immediately dive into new technologies to advance its field service operational maturity. First, it’s critical to understand the business improvement needed, what needs to change to achieve it, and the urgency involved. The right technology and provider can adapt and evolve along with a field service organization’s operational maturity.