From product to service, from buyer to user. Servitization in manufacturing transforms the relationship between company and client to create greater value, competitive advantage and new opportunities.
However, for this to succeed, this process requires specific enabling technologies, capable of promoting a new business model effectively and productively. Technologies like Cloud, data analytics and above all IoT and IIoT.
Servitization and IoT in Industry 4.0
Servitization replaces traditional commercial relationships based on product sale (ownership economy) with a model aimed at providing long term services (usership economy). This guarantees greater competitiveness by cutting the ownership price of the physical product.
Nonetheless, the competitive advantage must be integrated with added value in terms of user experience. Greater product availability and usability, which becomes more specialized and customized.
To succeed in this challenge, the Internet of Things (and Industrial IoT) is essential. Connectivity make it possible to offer a service capable of interacting with the system and the user, but above all, collecting, communicating and processing production data. Through these insights, the company can finally develop a deeper knowledge of its customers and their needs, so as to design suitable solutions.
IoT also proves crucial in another aspect of servitization: customer fidelization. In fact, a business model based on service needs to look at the bigger picture. Therefore, elements such as after-sales assistance, predictive maintenance and updating become central. These are all aspects that digitization and IoT can improve exponentially and continuously.
In conclusion, industrial servitization is an incredible and inevitable transformation process in Industry 4.0. The same way humans have evolved from hunters to farmers to survive in the long term, companies have the opportunity to cultivate longer lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with their interlocutors.