Turning the Spotlight on As-A-Service Trend

Jun 16, 2021 • Features • Advanced Services Group • Professor Tim Baines • Servitization • The View from Academia • Servitization and Advanced Services

Professor Tim Baines’ name is synonymous with all things servitization and advanced services. Today, he is talking to Field Service News about Servitization Live, the business event solely dedicated to Servitization and advanced services, taking place 4-6 October.

Servitization: where, what, how? Internationally, the appetite for servitization is growing and the idea that services can be key to business growth is gaining ever more traction. Not only that, but a focus on delivering outcomes is increasingly seen as a valuable ambition for those business executives looking to make their company stand out from the crowd. And more and more are recognising that through such services, businesses can grow, become greener, more productive, make better use of digital and improve their resilience to economic disruption.

Yet with this growing enthusiasm come challenges and uncertainty.

Servitization Live is the event where we set the record straight! It is a business event exclusively exploring servitization and advanced services and this year, we will turn the spotlight on how servitization is turning the way we use and consume products and services on its head. Over three days, Servitization Live will showcase how the as-a-service trend affects us all on a daily basis, and how services business models present the solutions to some of the biggest challenges our planet has faced such as climate change, a growing and ageing population and health crises.

With themes that we can all relate to in our everyday lives, Servitization Live challenges you to imagine how the learning from our consumer lives can be taken into your own industries and how you can innovate the services-led business models of the future.

The keynote line up will feature experts in fields such as health, the built environment and food production, who will set the scene regarding the global challenges we face and how technology and services are beginning to address these issues in innovative ways. Speakers from manufacturers and technology businesses, will then showcase their services offerings, how they deliver additional value both to the customer and the manufacturer, and how they help to address some of the challenges facing the planet.

These speakers include Ben Wilson, Marketing and Offer Manager at Schneider Electric who will speak about how Schneider went from conceptualisation to launch and delivery of its Secure Power-as-a-Service offering in little over a year. Schneider’s offering supports the likes of hospitals and care homes to both minimise capital expenditure and energy costs, and focus on their core business of looking after people’s health and wellbeing- their strapline being ‘ Dedicate your time, expertise and capital to your core business – let us take care of the rest!’

Oliver Moffat, Segment Manager for Multi-Occupancy, Heat Networks & Heat-as-a-Service at the domestic boiler manufacturer Baxi Heating, will speak about how the company is exploring the technologies and services business models that will support a whole new way of heating our homes. They are working on ideas to enable a move away from buying gas-powered boilers and towards newer, cleaner technologies and, potentially, payment models for customers based around buying heat rather than a physical product.

Day three of the event will be dedicated to a celebration of regional SMEs and their innovation in services. We will showcase the very best of SMEs who have transformed their business models though servitization. You will hear how these business leaders changed their approach, capitalising on their expertise and getting closer to their customers, all through the adoption of services based strategies and ultimately resulting in increased revenue.

Following on from last year’s World Servitization Convention where over 360 attendees joined online to explore exhibits from the likes of Goodyear, Legrand and Omron and heard keynotes from Tetra Pak, Rolls-Royce and Thales, the event is hosted by the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School who are at the forefront of thought leadership in this field. Servitization Live is delivered as part of our mission to educate and inform those business leaders shaping industrial practice.

Servitization Live will take place 4-6 October 2021 online. Centred on an exhibition of business models from mainstream manufacturers that are leading in way in servitization, the event features a packed programme of industrial keynotes, workshops and panel discussions from leading industry experts. Visit https://www.servitizationlive.com/ for more information and to register.

The three-day event is sponsored by IFS, Xait CPQ, DLL, and Servitly and supported by Field Service News.

Who is the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School?

ASG is a centre of excellence in servitization research and practice at Aston Business School. We provide education, training, research and a community of likeminded practitioners around advanced services and servitization, helping global manufacturers and technology innovators to develop services-led strategies.
The Group is led by Professor Tim Baines, the world's leading scholar on servitization.
Tim is the author of over 200 publications on manufacturing strategy, including Made to Serve, the leading textbook on transforming a technology based business to compete through services.