By Jon Woodforth, Chief Technology Officer, Totalmobile
After another run of high-profile security incidents this year — M&S among the most high-profile — many organisations are asking the same question: how do we keep services running when the pressure never stops?
You can’t do it with scattered systems. You do it with a platform that works as one. And that’s the heart of Field First.
When people ask me what it is, I keep it simple. It’s the platform that helps make the lives of field workers better. From paramedics to boiler engineers to community nurses, we support the people out there doing the real work. We keep them safe, give them the information they need to do their jobs, and coordinate it all in one place.
And that “all in one place” matters more than people think.
Too Many Systems, Not Enough Connection
Many organisations still rely on separate tools from different suppliers. Each one works, but they don’t work together. So teams end up stitching data between systems, maintaining integrations, and trying to keep everything secure.
That’s time-consuming. It’s expensive. And with security threats increasing every day, it’s risky.
The Shift to Platform
Totalmobile has been on a journey from individual products to a true platform for a while now. Not just tools that “talk”, but a single experience where everything fits harmoniously together.
Scheduling, mobile working, job management, field insights, lone-worker protection; it all now lives in one place – the platform.
That means customers don’t need to build integrations or maintain them.
They can choose the capabilities they need and go. For field teams, that means fewer hurdles. For organisations, it means faster deployment, better resilience and a clearer picture of performance.
A Stronger Security Posture
Security threats are constant. They’re smarter, they’re faster and more common now than ever. That’s why we invest so heavily in staying ahead.
We have a dedicated security team, regular audits, penetration testing, and a 24/7 Security Operations Centre watching over the platform while everyone else sleeps.
A single platform makes this easier. If data stays within one environment, you reduce exposure.
You reduce complexity. You reduce risk.
And we focus our effort on keeping one platform safe rather than trying to secure dozens of connections between different suppliers.
Making Information More Useful
The real challenge isn’t more data, it’s making data more useful. We want the right information, delivered simply, at the right moment and quickly.
That’s why we avoid putting sensitive personal data into AI models and apply strict permission controls. And it’s why we’re building features that give people clear summaries rather than walls of data and jargon.
The best example of this is our ‘Visit Summary’ in our job management system, a feature that will be released very early in 2026. Instead of scrolling through a long history of work, you click a button and get a short, easy-to-digest snapshot that tells you exactly what you need to know.
Over time, this will extend across more parts of the platform. And as mobile working evolves, voice interaction will become more natural. Imagine driving to a job and asking: “Tell me what I need to know about this property.” That’s where we’re heading with the platform.
The Future of Our Platform
Over the next 3 to 5 years, the platform will grow.
We’ll add new capabilities, enter new geographies, and push harder into AI and mobile innovation. And one thing excites me most: AI. It’s changing everything faster than people realise. But the value only appears when AI sits in the workflow, not in a silo. Sometimes we try ideas that don’t work, and that’s fine. We fail fast. But when we find the gem, like our ‘Visit Summary’, we get it out to customers quickly.
If we stay focused on making life easier for our field workers, the real people doing the real work in the field, we’ll stay on the right path.
