With Spime to Circular Service Design : Introducing Service Design to an IoT Platform Provider’s Delivery Process
Maiwald, Corina (2018)
Maiwald, Corina
Laurea-ammattikorkeakoulu
2018
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018060312194
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018060312194
Tiivistelmä
With Servitization and Digitalization being global trends in almost all fields of industry, Service Design and technology both find their place in those processes. This thesis explores how the technology concepts of Internet of Things (IoT) and spime could contribute to making Service Design a circular process. The thesis commissioner BaseN seeks to incorporate Service Design to the sales process as the first stage of a potential Circular Service Design Process when developing new service ideas together with customers and prospects. As an IoT Platform provider, BaseN can host spimes, the virtual and logical masters of physical products, gathering information and knowledge on the state of the object and its environment throughout its lifecycle. This constant flow of data not only enables manufacturers to mass customize and by that embrace customer-centricity, it also enables them and other stakeholders to utilize the spime generated knowledge pool to start new Service Design processes for new services to be developed based on the generated knowledge from products and services in use by individual end users.
This thesis explores with the example of a sock manufacturer how Service Design fits
in to the current sales process, how the manufacturer profits from this approach when innovating, and how the existing business relationship would expand to a Circular Service Design Process.
The theoretical framework is based on literature review of the relevant terms from the Service Design and technology field. It outlines the role of an IoT Platform provider to enable a manufacturer to innovate and shift from producing stand-alone products to offering Product-Service Systems, or even entirely Everything-as-a-Service. The Double Diamond model was used to design the Service Design Process for the thesis commissioner’s sales process. The utilized methods include desk research, qualitative interviews, idea generation through brainwriting, stakeholder mapping, customer journey map, and Service Logic Business Model Canvas.
Desk research and interviews confirmed that incorporating Service Design to the sales process brings various benefits. It enables more efficient allocation of resources, better and faster learning of all important facts concerning the (potential) customer and its field of industry, educating the customers and prospects about the IoT and spime and how they can transform their businesses from manufacturing products to offering intelligent, ever-evolving services. In addition, co-creating at the early stages of developing business relationships helps to build trust, see where the value in a new service innovation lies for all stakeholders, and when the process ends with a working prototype, the manufacturer gains a very concrete understanding of what the actual service will be like and how the IoT Platform provider enables its creation. It was also concluded that prospects and customers would easily regard this initial Service Design Process to be worth paying for, which in turn enables the thesis commissioner to monetize the process. Another outcome of the workshop was the realization that spime could constantly trigger new Service Design Processes and by that increase the overall speed of innovation.
This thesis explores with the example of a sock manufacturer how Service Design fits
in to the current sales process, how the manufacturer profits from this approach when innovating, and how the existing business relationship would expand to a Circular Service Design Process.
The theoretical framework is based on literature review of the relevant terms from the Service Design and technology field. It outlines the role of an IoT Platform provider to enable a manufacturer to innovate and shift from producing stand-alone products to offering Product-Service Systems, or even entirely Everything-as-a-Service. The Double Diamond model was used to design the Service Design Process for the thesis commissioner’s sales process. The utilized methods include desk research, qualitative interviews, idea generation through brainwriting, stakeholder mapping, customer journey map, and Service Logic Business Model Canvas.
Desk research and interviews confirmed that incorporating Service Design to the sales process brings various benefits. It enables more efficient allocation of resources, better and faster learning of all important facts concerning the (potential) customer and its field of industry, educating the customers and prospects about the IoT and spime and how they can transform their businesses from manufacturing products to offering intelligent, ever-evolving services. In addition, co-creating at the early stages of developing business relationships helps to build trust, see where the value in a new service innovation lies for all stakeholders, and when the process ends with a working prototype, the manufacturer gains a very concrete understanding of what the actual service will be like and how the IoT Platform provider enables its creation. It was also concluded that prospects and customers would easily regard this initial Service Design Process to be worth paying for, which in turn enables the thesis commissioner to monetize the process. Another outcome of the workshop was the realization that spime could constantly trigger new Service Design Processes and by that increase the overall speed of innovation.