Interview with Tina Osojnik, a mentor in THINGS+ project
"Servitisation for me is data processing for a specific purpose, offered to customers," says Tina Osojnik, an expert, who helps companies protect, lead and integrate the development of innovation and knowledge. A founder of a service providing company, familiar with servitisation process and implementation of it in companies will answer a few questions, related to Servitisation - one of the most discussed topics on Industry 4.0.
Is servitisation just a name for improving efficiencies in product maintenance and aftersales services, or is there more to it?
On our everyday life, we are considered impatient customers, we want everything ondemand, we have customer support 24/7 for every product that we buy, same day shipping, last-minute flights and the list goes on. We need it NOW, yesterday if possible. And “right-now” customers demand “right-now” brands. This is where servitisation comes, as a “1+1 offer”. By being a user-friendly, customer-oriented company, focused on what customer demands are, your service comes as a life-changing experience to make your customer life easier. Imagine a company that offers a product but not the after-service that comes with it, it just wouldn’t be appealing to the customer. And that’s why, servitisation is completely the greatest offer that companies can give to customers, for example: in manufacturing companies it has become the best way for the industry to show their support their customers, not to say the easiest way to create contact with them.
Do you think that service market should be considered as a next phase in the product lifecycle or a process that goes along with the product lifecycle?
Service market is definitely a phase that comes different in the product lifecycle based on the company maturity. Servitisation now is the new concept, new trend let’s say. But here comes the trick. We have start-ups which embrace servitisation within the product development phase, as part of it-and we have matured-companies in which servitisation develops afterwards.
The new start-ups are working on the new product to develop it, so servitisation comes of course as part of it. They are more agile and think upfront because they are actually living it.
While matured companies already have a product, a strategy for which they have worked on for a long time. Changing it requires resources, data digitalization, mindset change and not to mention the challenge to implement it. What is happening now, we can call a “collaboration” between mature companies and startups, in order to face these challenges together. Mature companies are inviting startups in order to broaden their agility and change their mindset on an organizational and commercial matter. Re-locating the resources, making projections and sticking to it, isn’t easy. For these companies it can be game changing to keep the product but also to know that the revenue can come from the service.
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