Organisational transformation for
effective delivery of integrated products and services
THE RESEARCH
The servitization of products is not a completely new strategy, but many organisations are capitalising on the provision of integrated products and services.
The strategic transformation to deliver integrated product and services, also called “servitization”, has become a critical strategy for many organisations to sustain and compete on the basis of value delivered. Many organisations have embarked on the transformation journey with expectations to move away from the commoditization of their existing products, raise their financial revenues, lock-in customers and lock-out competition by extending their product-service portfolios and customers relationships. All these high expectations are supported by the successes of a few exemplar cases such as Rolls-Royce and its Total Care offering and IBM Global services.
The reality is that organisations transforming into product-service providers face tremendous internal and external changes. Current practices and methodologies offer very little guidance to help identify the challenges or suggest how to overcome them. The key reason is that the transformation to deliver integrated products and services is wholly dependant on the context; in particular, on how far the transformation will go – from the current to the future product-service delivery position.
The transformation to integrated product-services could be a short or a long journey depending on: where your organisation wants to go; if your market and customers are ready for the change; if your organisation’s capabilities, skills and staff mind set are ready; if you have the right budget to support this type of strategic change; and more importantly, whether your top management board is convinced and ready to embark into a transformation’s journey.
Three and a half years of intense study and research by Cranfield University (funded by IMRC / EPSRC under the grant number IMRC 154), into the design, implementation and success of Product-Service Systems reveals that a single medicine does not alleviate every organisational ill. Instead, it demonstrates that the transformations to deliver integrated products and services are context specific. What works for one organisation or business unit of the same organisation, might not work for others. Hence, the big dreams of achieving a successful integration of products and services often comes with painful times of planning and analysis of the changes required.
The research took the form of active and retrospective analyses of the real transformations to integrated products and services. 62 organisations including CEOs, senior managers, operations people and customers participated in this research. To strengthen the validity and reliability of our research different research methods were used, including companies’ cases, focus groups and workshops.
THE OUTPUTS
The Workbook
The Organisational Transformation for Effective Delivery of Integrated Products and Services Workbook does not advocate that the transformation to the delivery of integrated products and services is for everybody, but aims to provide a realistic and expert analysis for organisations who are considering strategically transforming and becoming integrated products and services providers.
To help overcome the practical issues and challenges of organisational transformation around the servitization of products, we have created a novel approach to planning and executing your transformation based on a series of questions and suggestions that will shape your journey. The research supporting this workbook is rooted in the new Service Performance mode of thinking. The use of this workbook allows your organisation to:
- Define your organisation’s current and future positions on the strategic delivery of integrated products and services.
- Identify the set of factors that assist or hinder the strategic transformation.
- Ask a key set of questions to guide your organisation’s transformation.
- Select ideas from a set of suggestions to help you in your transformation journey.
This is the first workbook that provides a set of analytical questions and suggestions. It provides you with the right pointers to better plan and prepare for the challenges incurred by your strategic transformation. By applying this workbook, you will understand enablers and barriers, and be equipped with suggestions to shorten your transformation journey and find the right servitization solution for you.
If you are interested in receiving a copy of the workbook, please email Lisa Hall referencing the title:
Organisational Transformation for effective delivery of integrated products and services: Thoughts on practice.
The Management Tool
This Visual Demonstrator has been produced to help organisations to mange their transformation to deliver integrated products and services. The objective is to provide a simple guide as to how organisations could better analyse and plan their transformations’ journeys to deliver integrated products and services. This takes 10 – 15 min. of your time.
Try the Visual Demonstrator for Organisational Transformation for Effective Devlievry of Integrated Products and Services
Read our academic and industry papers