Servitization is an approach that is not only beholden to your own organisational maturity but must also understand the maturity of your customers and the sector you exist within…

As we have seen across the series of features from this particular Field Service News Think Tank session, servitization is a topic with many facets and much nuance. However, the consistent points outlined by the Think Tank members in attendance of this session is that organisational maturity is vital in the equation, as is strong leadership. When it comes to servitization, both it seems, are crucial to success…

As Coen Jeukens, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax explains “Servitization requires a well thought out change strategy and part of this strategy has to be understanding our own maturity as a company, but also we need to understand the maturity of our customers as well. If there is no overlap, then maybe servitization for your organisation is not right at this time. The mapping of maturity of those two axes of internal and external is crucial if we are to establish whether we are at the crawl, walk or run stage of our development.

“Once we have established that we as an organisation are mature enough to develop a servitization strategy, and we have also established that there is a customer our there mature enough to work with us in such a manner.

Only once you can showcase those early successes and that customers really do want to buy this type of solution, can you begin to elaborate on the workflow…

     – Coen Jeukens, VP Global Customer Transformation, ServiceMax

“Then we are in a situation where we can work with a launch customer in a small development group to create something with that launch customer together to prove some early success. Only once you can showcase those early successes and that customers really do want to buy this type of solution, can you begin to elaborate on the workflow and introduce other methodologies such as agile and scrum moving forward.”

Jan van Veen, Founder, moreMomentum concurs adding “There is always a challenge of getting buy-in, but how much buy-in do we need can really depend on the maturity of the project. If it is in its incubation phase, then that buy-in could be as simple as al-lowing the space and some resources to develop the ideas. If we are talking about integrating the new development into your existing business, then more buy-in will be required.

“I think it is always important to look at the bigger game, what is the bigger problem we are trying to solve? Service is one of the three core elements of a solution, if you can understand this and where your development is going to sit in the wider picture you are likely to have greater internal success.”

The first thing that is required for a successful servitization project is a clear vision and the drive from the top…

     – Maarten Wijnheijmer, Global Aftermarket Sales Director, Howden

It is this understanding and vision that Maarten Wijnheijmer, Global Aftermarket Sales Director, Howden believes is the essential ingredient in a successful servitization strategy.

“The first thing that is required for a successful servitization project is a clear vision and the drive from the top,” he explains.

“There is a big difference between the companies who have this and those that don’t. I also fully agree with the importance of service innovation capability, a creative group that has the space to develop ideas. The third thing I believe that we need is buy-in, but this needs to be in the deeper layers of the organisation as well.

“It needs to land there, not just because of incentives but they need to understand it as well. This is the fourth aspect for me. This understanding will be best delivered with some early success. This early success will come from working with customers who are mature enough to understand these new concepts and with these on-board it is easier to leverage those case studies to help drive the project further.”

All members of the Field Service Think Tanks are speaking from their own personal opinions which are not necessarily reflective of the organisations they work for.