Turning the Corner with Smart Service Chains

As I've mentioned in previous posts, industry discourse continues to intensify around how smart services can enable OEMs to become more predictive - and in due course, more profitable - in the way they design, sell, and service their products. For those of you interested in another installment in this ongoing discussion, make sure to mark your calendars on August 5th, 11:30 am ET (10:30 am CT).

At that time, I will be participating in a one-hour webinar - Turning the Corner with Smart Service Chains - hosted by BetterManagement.com, in association with SAS. "Join a panel of industry experts from Qualcomm, Gardner Denver and SAS to explore a major transition taking place in the post-production service chain – smart service chains. Made possible by smart services technologies, these service chains allow companies to anticipate the future actions they need to take to make sure customers are more than satisfied, they are delighted and become vigorous advocates of the products they buy."

To register for this webinar, visit BetterManagement.com.

Nashville Round-Up

What a difference a year makes. I had the honor of chairing IQPC's Remote Monitoring conference in Nashville last week, which was a markedly different experience from last year's event in my hometown Boston.

To sum it up, the Grand Ole delegates were much more concerned with questions of "how" than were their Beantown predecessors, many of whom were struggling with questions of "why." That is, there was a collective understanding of why remote monitoring makes business sense; it’s now become a matter of how to deploy, integrate, and extract maximum value from smart service solutions. This is a great indication that remote monitoring is making its way into the fabric of our core businesses.

Also, as evidenced by Gilbarco’s “Daily Loss Advisor” fuel loss report and Avaya’s “Expert View” report, just to name a couple, OEMs are beginning to graduate from simply capturing and transmitting machine data to applying intelligent analytics and BI tools to create new value for their customers.

To sustain competitive advantage, OEMs need to stop viewing remote monitoring as a stand-alone capability. Remote monitoring ENABLES “smart services” (see inset image), and OEMs need to integrate smart services into adjacent phases of the product value chain, such as design, manufacturing, sales, service, and marketing. At the Nashville event, it was a good sign to hear some OEMs beginning to talk about leveraging smart services to strengthen service contract offerings and integrating machine data with PLM, FSA, CRM, and other enterprise systems.

To continue the conversation, join us on July 29 - 31 in San Diego for Qualcomm's 4th Annual Smart Services Leadership Summit!