For this instalment of interviews with our Relationship Managers, we are talking to Chris Owen, Senior Teaching Fellow and Relationship Manager to our partnership members, about his role and experiences.
The Advanced Services Partnership is an industry consortium of multinational companies that are seeking to excel at servitization through the implementation of advanced services. Executives benefit not only from networking with like-minded business leaders, access to the latest research as well as tools and techniques to accelerate their servitization efforts. Each company is assigned one of our Servitization experts as their dedicated Relationship Manager to guide and advise them through their servitization journey.
How do you support your partners?
My role as relationship manager is to understand the challenges faced by my clients in my partner company and then to support them in most appropriate way. Sometimes this means bringing their challenge to the attention of the wider partner network so that we can bring to bear the collective wisdom of the partnership. Alternatively, this can be carrying out an activity with them or a targeted piece of research. Often the challenges and opportunities faced by our partner companies are complex and new and so having a sounding board of experienced experts to draw on can be really powerful. This way they are not alone in facing the challenges and this is the power of the partnership model.
What do you bring to your partners?
Prior to joining academia, I had a 25 year career in industry and consulting, much of which was spent in the aerospace and defence industry. This means I have wide and varied sector understanding and experience. I had front line operations and supply chain roles, so I bring a very pragmatic understanding, as well as the academic rigour of our research. From my time in consulting, I also understand the challenges of bringing about change in complex and matrix driven organisations.
How do the partners benefit from your research?
In the Advanced Services Group, we are researching with our partners how and why organisations adopt advanced services. This means that we are uniquely positioned to support companies who are embarking on this journey because we are working and sharing the fruits of our research in real time. For example, recently, my partner company brought a question to us on the topic of standards in advanced services. We were able to respond with a targeted piece of research as well as coordinating and collating responses from our partner companies. This means partner companies can get feedback in real time about the challenges they are facing.
What is your top tip for the servitization journey?
In certain markets, customers will obtain more value from achieving an outcome than from owning the asset that delivers that value. Many businesses have reported that delivering these outcomes is best achieved by offering services associated with the asset that the company is selling. Thus servitization offers a route to significant profitable growth which at the same time increases the value that the company delivers to its customers.
Our next Advanced Services Partnership Roundtable will take place in March at Tetra Pak in Lund and will include a showcase day for those interested in joining the partnership. If you would like to find out more about membership, please contact us at ask@advancedservicesgroup.co.uk.