Free services - commercialization challenges : Commercialization potential and avenues for remote support services at Junttan Group

Abstract

Remote support services have become an increasingly important part of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) product support services, and competitive differentiators, as well as strategic assets. These services require a high level of know-how on the products and systems for supporting the customers’ operational continuity when technical problems arise. These services require an experienced and a skilled workforce to be effective in rendering the remote support service the customers require. These services consume a significant amount of company resources. Within the case company these services are currently not part of commercialized service portfolio, therefore not creating a revenue stream for the company. The case company is interested in learning how the service should be developed so that it could be transformed into a commercialized service.

This thesis was conducted for Junttan Oy, a deep foundations technology equipment and services provider. The thesis is a qualitative study which employs case study as a research strategy. The research was conduct-ed as a through a literature review into service science, service management and business management topics, combined with a benchmarking interviewing key remote support services stakeholders from four Finnish OEM companies operating in machinery manufacturing sector, complemented by three interviews of sponsoring organization internal stakeholders and one customer. Both the benchmarking and the rest of the data gathering were conducted as thematic semi-structured interviews which were analyzed utilizing qualitative con-tent analysis to find out pertinent information conducive to the development of suggestions for developing the sponsoring organization remote support services towards commercialization.

As a result of the research, six development categories and suggestions for development or remote support services were identified. (1) Subscription model and services bundling, (2) Introduction of the support level selection to the new equipment sales process, (3) Making the value delivered via remote support concrete by communicating the value delivered to the customer systematically, (4) Structural considerations for developing the service robustness for the future, (5) organizational considerations for the sponsoring organization for rollout of the proposed transformation, and finally (6) Tools and systems considerations for enabling the ser-vice transformation. The overall determining factor of a successful service transformation revolves around customer value and whether the value generation and value co-creation between the service provider and the customer results in positive outcome to the customer, and the development efforts should be geared towards ensuring a high value perceived by the customers.