Workforce Solutions for Field Services with AI - with Rommel Ong of Belimed

**Matthew DeMello** (0:17)
Welcome everyone to the AI in Business Podcast. I'm Matthew DeMello, editorial director here at Emerge AI Research. Today's guest is Rommel Ong, regional service director at Belimed. Belimed provides sterilization and infection control solutions for healthcare facilities. Rommel joins us on today's program to discuss AI's role in addressing field service challenges like staffing shortages, paperwork burdens and technician training. Our conversation also covers practical workflow changes, including AI-driven data capture of tribal knowledge via chat systems, remote equipment monitoring to reduce on-site visits, and net promoter scores for improving customer sentiment and service efficiency. But first, are you driving AI transformation at your organization, or maybe you're guiding critical decisions on AI investments, strategy or deployment? If so, the AI in Business Podcast wants to hear from you. Each year, Emerge AI Research features hundreds of executive thought leaders, everyone from the CIO of Goldman Sachs to the head of AI at Raytheon, and AI pioneers like Yoshua Bengio. With nearly a million annual listeners, AI in Business is the go-to destination for enterprise leaders navigating real-world AI adoption. You don't need to be an engineer or a technical expert to be on the show. If you're involved in AI implementation decision-making or strategy within your company, this is your opportunity to share your insights with a global audience of your peers. If you believe you can help other leaders move the needle on AI ROI, visit emerge.com and fill out our Thought Leader Submission Form. That's emerge.com and click on Be an Expert. You can also click the link in the description of today's show on your preferred podcast platform. That's emerge.com/expert1. Again, that's emerj.com/expert1. AI agents accelerate workflows, but errors can multiply fast. Rubrik Agent Cloud provides full visibility, enforces policies, and rewinds actions in minutes. It runs continuously, giving guardrails, tracking activity, and providing a safety net so teams can scale AI without risking critical operations. This segment is sponsored by Rubrik Agent Cloud. If your business relies on AI agents, you can get exclusive early access to monitor, govern, and rewind their actions at rubrik.com. That's rubrik.com, rubrik.com. Without further ado, here's our conversation with Rommel.
Rommel, thank you so much for being with us on the program today.

**Rommel Ong** (3:01)
Thank you for having me on the show, Matthew.

**Matthew DeMello** (3:03)
Absolutely. We're very, very honored to have you here from Belimed. I know you guys are going through a merger right now. We'll explain a little bit more in the introduction to the show when I record it, but I think it's a really interesting time to be looking at the field services space writ large right now and an especially great time to be talking about tribal knowledge and workforce challenges. Just kind of given that so many of our listeners are in companies that are going through massive change, even having some tangential, even outside the specifics of the company, just kind of insights on how best to handle it around the topics we're discussing today is going to go a long way. So just starting from the top, even outside what's kind of going on at Belimed right now, what would you describe as the biggest challenges currently facing field service leaders in this space that are making AI more relevant?

**Rommel Ong** (3:50)
So I would think that staffing would be probably our biggest challenge right now across the industry. We have, the times right now seem like we're a little bit short in being able to find qualified candidates, and candidates are willing to do the work that's presented to them in the amount of salary or pay that is being offered to them at this time.

**Matthew DeMello** (4:12)
It's a very interesting space. We've had a couple of conversations that really touch on this, and the impression that I've gotten across our guests right now, just in terms of the, basically, the workforce itself, the people that would normally be coming into this space, maybe from vocational schools, other sourcing, other ways of getting into the industry. Those platforms are changing, and also the substance of the work itself is going in a new direction. We're seeing this in a couple of different ways. It's driven by AI, and it's not, it's not 100%, but like a lot of jobs right now being touched by AI, there's a sense of, we don't need people that are trained on XYZ-specific skills. They don't, hey, if we're making washing machines, they don't need to know everything about washing machines, because hey, we might turn on a dime and make something new in about six months. What we really need are people who can prove that they're kind of all-purpose Swiss Army knife problem solvers. And I'm wondering, are you seeing that out there? And do you have a sense of how much technology is or is not driving?