Top Speaker Takeaways from Field Service Palm Springs and What to Expect from Them at Field Service Europe
With enterprise functions now grappling with technician shortages costing industries billions annually and facing unprecedented digital transformation pressures, the insights shared at Field Service Palm Springs 2025 have never been more relevant.
Now, four of the speakers from the Palm Springs event will cross the Atlantic to address European audiences on 27-29 October 2025. They bring with them a wealth of practical experience navigating these challenges, offering both retrospective wisdom from California and forward-looking strategies for Amsterdam.
Here are the main takeaways from these speakers’ sessions at Field Service Palm Springs 2025, and what you can expect to hear from them at Field Service Europe 2025.
Clinten van der Merwe – TOMRA Recycling
Clinten van der Merwe is theSenior Vice President of Global Service and Project Management at TOMRA Recycling. He uses his years of field service experience to inspire and inform audiences, compelling them to action.
Field Service Palm Springs: "Articulating Your Service ‘North Star’”
At Field Service Palm Springs, van der Merwe delivered an inspiring and strategic presentation through his IFS partner keynote, "Articulating Your Service ‘North Star’ & Defining What It’ll Take to Achieve the Vision.” He established the importance of creating a bold, compelling organisational vision and working toward it through collective action.
"As service leaders, it’s more important than ever to market yourselves, to create a common language that brings service to the center of the business,” he said.
The keynote explored what a "vision” looks like, how organisations can create one, and why it matters in the service sector. He also touched on how leaders can articulate their vision, so it resonates across the business and not only in the service sector.
Importantly, van der Merwe explained that working toward the "North Star” required "pragmatic actions.” These actions can take a variety of forms, including cross-functional collaboration, transforming one’s approach to talent, creating a scalable digital foundation, and leveraging data to generate value.
Field Service Europe: "Balancing Service Sustainability with Business Growth”
Amsterdam will witness Clinten van der Merwe opening Day 3 with a keynote that builds substantially on his Palm Springs foundation whilst addressing the unique regulatory and economic pressures facing European service organisations. The address, entitled "Balancing Internal and External Service Sustainability Initiatives with Business Growth Objectives," will explore how field service leaders can strike "the right balance between internal operational efficiency and external service commitments.”
The session will feature actionable strategies that attendees can use to integrate sustainability into service operations. Most notably, van der Merwe will provide the audience with best practices for aligning environmental responsibility with revenue, which has long been a challenge across industries.
Featuring case studies and examples of real-world success in this area, the session will be a must-see for leaders interested in how they "can champion sustainability without compromising business performance.”
Jessica Murillo – IBM
Jessica Murillo is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Technology Lifecycle Services at IBM. Her current position is one of several infrastructure services executive leadership positions she’s held over the years.
Field Service Palm Springs: "Efficiencies, Efficiencies, Efficiencies”
Murillo’s contribution to the "Efficiencies, Efficiencies, Efficiencies" panel represented one of the conference's most grounded discussions on technology implementation. Her frank admission that IBM had become "a little over-indexed in technology but under-indexed in value" provided a refreshingly honest counterpoint to the frequently optimistic tone surrounding digital transformation initiatives.
"We wanted to bring the people, technology, and data analytics together to improve value creation,” she said.
Her narrative traced IBM's journey from platform proliferation—managing "over 100 different platforms”—to strategic consolidation around Salesforce. This consolidation enabled the consistency that became central to IBM's global service delivery model.
Murillo’s example of delivering identical service experiences across different geographies and product lines, from laptops to mainframes, illustrated the practical benefits of technological standardisation. Her focus on consistent customer experiences highlighted how technology choices directly impact service quality.
Of particular note was Murillo’s approach to efficiency metrics. Rather than relying solely on utilisation measures, IBM implemented throughput metrics that span their entire service spectrum. This metric innovation—measuring jobs completed per day across vastly different service scenarios—demonstrated her team's commitment to meaningful measurement rather than vanity metrics.
Field Service Europe: "Demystifying ‘Agentic AI’”
Jessica Murillo will appear on a panel in Amsterdam entitled "Demystifying ‘Agentic AI’ and How Should It Be Balanced with Human Capabilities and In-Person Customer Interactions.” European audiences will benefit from her hard-won experience as she examines the practical deployment of autonomous AI systems within field service operations.
The European context will allow Jessica to explore the intersection of agentic AI with data privacy regulations, an area where her IBM experience may provide valuable insights. Furthermore, her Amsterdam discussion will likely expand on her Palm Springs theme of preventing technician isolation, now through the lens of AI integration.
Michel Zweers – Hach
Michel Zweers is Senior Manager of Global Business Development & Marketing at Hach. He has more than twenty years of experience leading service and sales teams. His "credo” is, "No Sales without Service; no Service without Sales.”
Field Service Palm Springs: "How to Seismically Change the Culture of Your Service Organization and Teams”
Zweers’ contribution to the cultural transformation panel at Palm Springs established him as a thoughtful voice on the human dimensions of service evolution. His emphasis on service technicians needing "commercial-sensitive skills" alongside technical competencies reflected a sophisticated understanding of how customer expectations have evolved beyond simple repair capabilities.
"We want our service technicians to be those ambassadors, to learn from Sales and customers,” he said.
Zweers takes a practical approach to skill development, using the seemingly mundane example of keeping a service van tidy before entering a wastewater plant. This attention to detail exemplified his broader philosophy that service excellence emerges from consistent habits rather than sophisticated dashboards or complex systems.
His perspective grounded the often abstract discussions of cultural transformation in concrete, actionable behaviours.
Field Service Europe: "New Service Models”
Michel Zweers will take part in a panel at Field Service Europe 2025 entitled, "New Service Models: Moving Away From Parts & Materials to Selling Solutions and Capabilities." During this session, the focus will shift from cultural foundations to practical business model innovation.
European attendees may hear about Hach's subscription-based water quality monitoring service, known as "The Plus Program.” This service moves beyond traditional equipment sales to outcome-based agreements. Specifically, it is a bundled service that provides customers with "Hach’s collection of innovative instruments and measurement technologies, expert customer support and maintenance, and on-demand supplies and consumables all in a budget-friendly monthly subscription.”
The regulatory environment in Europe also provides Zweers with rich material for discussing solution-based service models. European water quality standards and environmental monitoring requirements create natural opportunities for service providers to offer comprehensive compliance packages rather than discrete technical services.
Norman Apfelbaum – Coherent
Norman Apfelbaum is Vice President of Global Customer Service at Coherent, Inc. He has held multiple positions at Coherent, Inc., including Global Customer Service Leader for Systems & ELA/Excimer and Director of Customer Support & Factory Support.
Field Service Palm Springs: "Training that Drives Behavior Change”
Apfelbaum’s workshop at Field Service Palm Springs was entitled "Training That Drives Behavior Change and Tangible ROI." It established him as a clear thinker on the relationship between skill development and business outcomes.
Field Service Europe: "How to Monetize ‘Service Avoidance’”
Apfelbaum’s Amsterdam role as a facilitator for the Mastermind Discussion on "How to Monetize 'Service Avoidance' With Proactive, Predictive and Self-Serve Models" represents a significant evolution from his Palm Springs focus. European audiences will hear him discuss how they can use proactive maintenance to reduce service calls, as well as how they can price proactive service plans for the benefit of the organisation and the customer.
Other topics that will be discussed at the session include monetizing predictive analytics, innovative self-service models, and cultural shifts within the organization.
Applying Insights into The European Market
The broader context for these speaker insights involves the transformation of European industrial markets toward greater environmental accountability and digital integration. Field service organisations that can successfully combine regulatory compliance, sustainability initiatives, and technological capability will likely capture disproportionate market share as these trends accelerate.
The speakers' focus on human factors over technological solutions provides European audiences with a practical framework for managing this transformation. Rather than pursuing technology for its own sake, their insights suggest focusing on customer outcomes and employee development as the foundations for sustainable competitive advantage.