26th November 2026 | 10am – 5pm | Düsseldorf, Germany
The Servitization Bootcamp is a one-day working session jointly designed and delivered by The Advanced Services Group and Black Winch for leaders responsible for developing and scaling As-a-Service businesses.
We start with real-world experience from Tom Palmer, former Head of Services at Rolls-Royce, and Dave Mackerness of Kaer, exploring not only where their service businesses are today, but the journey they took to get there.
We will look at key moments along the way: where they started, the challenges they encountered, what changed as their service businesses developed and what they would do differently today.
Drawing on practical frameworks, research and experience from The Advanced Services Group and Black Winch, we will explore the patterns and lessons behind these journeys and help participants relate them to their own As-a-Service ambitions. There will be plenty of opportunity to exchange perspectives and learn from the experiences of others in the room.
In the afternoon, three to four businesses will bring a real As-a-Service challenge they are currently facing to the Hot Chair, giving the group the opportunity to explore it together.
- Getting customers to adopt a new service model
- Finding the right pricing or monetisation approach
- Moving from pilots to scale
- Building internal alignment
- Changing the sales model
- Defining contracts and managing risk
- Creating the operational capabilities needed to deliver
- Proving the business case
- Protecting profitability while scaling
Participants will work together to explore these challenges, contributing ideas, sharing relevant experiences and questioning assumptions. We will then bring some of the key issues into an open discussion, drawing on the collective experience of service leaders, practitioners and experts in the room.
The aim is not to arrive at a single perfect answer, but to provide new perspectives, practical ideas and shared learning that participants can apply to their own businesses.
You will gain a clearer understanding of your own As-a-Service challenges, perspectives from leaders who have faced similar issues and practical ideas you can take back into your business.
We’ll capture the insights and working notes generated throughout the Hot Chair sessions and share them with participants after the event, so the collective thinking from the room continues to be useful after the day.
The Bootcamp is designed for senior leaders responsible for developing, growing or transforming service and As-a-Service businesses within product-based organisations.
This includes leaders working across Advanced Services, Service Solutions, Service Strategy, Transformation, Aftermarket and As-a-Service business development.
Whether you are developing your first As-a-Service model or looking to scale an established one, the Bootcamp provides an opportunity to work through the challenges you are facing and learn from others tackling similar issues.
The Bootcamp is jointly designed and delivered by The Advanced Services Group and Black Winch, bringing together complementary expertise in helping manufacturers develop, commercialise and scale service-led business models.
Throughout the day, both teams will work alongside participants, combining real-world experience with practical frameworks and research-led insight to help translate the challenges discussed in the room into practical learning.
Meet The Team
Our expert team is made up of researchers, practitioners and business transformation pioneers.
Sasha is Senior Industrial Fellow at Aston Business School and the Advanced Services Group. He brings more than 22 years of senior leadership experience with Tetra Pak, where he played a pivotal role in shaping service-led growth, innovation and transformation on a global scale.
Throughout his career, Sasha has been instrumental in developing outcome-based service solutions that redefined how value is delivered to customers. His leadership supported Tetra Pak’s strategic development, helping to embed advanced services at the heart of its business model and enabling sustainable, profitable growth.
Sasha’s expertise lies in turning strategy into practice, guiding organisations through complex change and demonstrating how servitization can deliver competitive advantage. He continues to champion service innovation as a powerful driver of industrial transformation.
Sandra is a Senior Industrial Fellow with the Advanced Services Group and a business consultant based in Germany. She has extensive experience in and passion for accelerating company transformation through business model innovation and technology adoption. As Programme Manager for the Advanced Services Growth programme, she supported 80 UK-based SMEs to boost GVA by £19.2M and create 70 new jobs.
Sandra supports ASG’s advisory services across Europe, delivering organisational development workshops, executive education and commissioned projects. As an Enterprise Educator and Business Mentor, she has advised more than 500 senior executives and founders, applying expertise in business ideation, lean start-up, customer value proposition design and business model innovation.
She is also an International Telecommunication Union Digital Innovation Expert, working with governments worldwide to strengthen ICT-centric innovation ecosystems. Sandra holds an MBA with distinction from Aston University.
Ian is a Visiting Industrial Fellow at the Advanced Services Group, bringing more than 20 years of senior management experience in growing service businesses within the food manufacturing industry. Over the last 15 years, he has focused on service innovation, driving the shift from product support to advanced, outcome-based solutions through servitization.
Since 2008, Ian has held a series of global leadership roles with Tetra Pak, including Director Expert Services and Director of Service Solutions. In these positions, he designed advanced service strategies, built global organisational capabilities and deployed solutions that created measurable value for customers around the world.
Ian is motivated by the opportunity to help manufacturers unlock new ways of competing, showing how advanced services can deliver stronger, more sustainable business performance.
Dimitris is a Senior Energy Efficiency Business Developer Specialist at the Swiss organisation Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE). With more than 13 years of professional experience in the field of energy, entrepreneurship and sustainable technologies, Dimitris has experience in business model innovation, valuation principles and project execution.
Within BASE, Dimitris plays a key role in accelerating the deployment of Servitization worldwide, including the Cooling as a Service (CaaS) model.
Dimitris is part of the founding team of the Servitization for Energy Transition (SET) Alliance – aiming to further engage both private and public markets to adopt the model and accelerate the path to a more climate resilient and circular future. He holds an MEng Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College and and MSc of Management, Technology and Economics from ETH Zürich.
Denise is a qualified sustainability practitioner with over 30 years of experience working with businesses in the manufacturing and construction sectors. Her work at Wylde Connections helps diverse industries create and apply sustainability strategies, ensuring businesses can meet sustainability challenges while staying commercially viable.
Her aim is to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial practice, fostering innovation in sustainability and environmental stewardship.
