At the Advanced Services Group, we are looking to speak to companies that are interested in joining our consortium of manufacturing companies wanting to successfully and rapidly scale Advanced Services. The consortium is called the Advanced Services Partnership and since 2015, it has been bringing together 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.
Today, we are talking to Dr Andreas Schroeder, Reader for Information Systems and Relationship Manager at the Advanced Services Group.
How do you support your partners?
An important part of my relationship management role is to carefully listen to the discussions of the challenges my partner company is facing. Servitization takes place within the context of an organisation and if I want to effectively support my partner company I need to understand the context of their challenges. I am plugged into a large range of conversations and understanding the context helps me to propose meaningful approaches that will really address the challenges.
What do you bring to your partners?
My background is digitalization which is a topic that is hugely relevant for servitization. Literally all servitizing customers at some point will arrive at the question of how digitalization will or should align.
As an academic, I have conducted several large-scale research projects that identify these specific opportunities that digitalization offers. I have arrived at the conclusion that servitization is the business model that can monetize the digital investments of manufacturers.
But despite been focused on digitalization I am advising partner companies to be careful about making the investments without first clarifying what their focal value proposition is and what kind of digital infrastructure needs to be in place to enable it.
How do the partners benefit from our research?
Servitization is not a quick fix that manufacturers can quickly adopt and compete with. It requires a considerable range of important strategic and operational considerations for the manufacturer and its network.
Our research and support work focuses on the details which helps manufacturers to move beyond the buzzwords to understand what will truly make a difference in the acceleration of servitization.
What is your top tip for the servitization journey?
The opportunity to create customer value is the beginning and end of servitization. A deep understanding and consideration of the customers and their needs is a critical part in identifying a focal direction, getting external and internal buy-in.
We work a lot with partners to support them running servitization pilots with their customers and repeatedly identify how important these additional learning opportunities are for developing a well-thought through value proposition.
Our next Advanced Services Partnership Roundtable will take place in early 2023 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.