Servitization Momentum Is Increasing

We attended a very good event at Cranfield University last week (details in earlier blog post). The faculty, staff, guest speakers and audience members were great and the quality of discussion was excellent. Cranfield are taking a leading position in this field and it shows in the expertise of the team there and the Product Service Systems (PSS) programmes underway. Cambridge are also doing some important work in this area and a presentation from one of the guest speakers, Guangjie Ren, a PhD graduate from their Institute of Manufacturing was particularly insightful.

One important take away from the session is that the study and application of servitization is accelerating. Another is that its been a long time coming and is more complex than was originally anticipated. Governments are increasing funding in this area, research institutions are expanding their programmes and businesses are becoming much more aware and active.

The net effect of both increased inputs (funding and research) and increased outputs (organisational and marketplace change) is that more companies are doing more in the whole area of service innovation, at a faster pace, than ever before.

There are various potential reasons why this acceleration is occurring now. One is the general accumulation of research and experience since the term servitization was first coined in 1988 – time and scale may have reached a tipping point. Another more likely explanation for the timing  is that the economic background and the commoditizing impact of global competition has focused attention on ways to differentiate and innovate through services.

Transformations to Servitized Organisational Forms Industry Day

Cranfield University, one of the worlds leading academic authorities on servitization and service science, is hosting an event called Transformations to Servitized Organisational Forms Industry Day on June 17th. There is increasing momentum behind the trend of servitization and service innovation and events such as these provide important insight and discussion between those involved in this transition.

Servitizer will be attending this event and look forward to learning from and contributing to other leaders in this field. We will post a blog entry afterwards summarising any interesting findings.

Steve