Save the Date: Kick-off Event Seeheim, Germany on November 29th, 2018

Hardly any major company today neglects to mention service as a driver of strategic opportunity. Over the past 20 years, service has moved from the fringes to the center of executive action: Service is now “where the music plays”. And digitization is now driving servitization. Value and sources of competitive advantage are increasingly migrating from products to platforms and services. Data, knowledge, and the ability to precisely control operations are becoming more important than the absolute or relative performance of different products. In other words, it may now be more important to know when a product needs maintenance than to have a product which is “better” than another one.

As service in industry professionals we are therefore experiencing exciting times, and they come with great opportunities, but also major challenges. In the not too distant future, we can expect that smart connected products will diagnose and even fix problems themselves; Maintenance will become almost exclusively predictive -driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI); Spare parts will be 3D printed; Needed interventions and optimizations at any level will be carried out according to AI generated instructions; And humans will interact at a deeper level with machines through Augmented Reality and Digital Twins, whether the machine is in the same room or on the other side of the planet. The nature of the service business will shift from technical labor and logistics to knowledge management and exchange. But who will be the winners is, as yet, unknown.

And if a medium term technological “end-state” can be discerned quite clearly, getting there poses significant challenges for all companies and all managers: How to prepare for a different tomorrow while doing business and competing in the present?

At a Si2 Partners we have recognized that in times of unprecedented rate and breadth of change nobody has all the answers. And we are firm believers that diverse communities of professionals coming together to engage with issues and solve problems can create more value collectively than the sum of individual members – through boosting of creativity, information and knowledge exchange, resource pooling and avoidance of groupthink -on the condition of the right facilitation, structure and processes. So, we are building such a community of professionals in industrial service environments -business leaders, managers, digitization specialists, technical experts, consultants, technology providers and academics. This will enable ideation (Design Thinking), discussion, research, problem solving, benchmarking, training, innovation, development of tools and methods, and, importantly, the empowerment and augmentation of professionals with better skills and capabilities, increasing their value to their companies and the market.

If you are interested to find out more or participate, we’d like to invite you to a kick-off event in Seeheim (near Frankfurt/Main), Germany on 29th November 2018. A detailed agenda and venue information will be provided in due course, however, we envisage a one-day meeting starting at 09:30 and ending at 17:00. Expenses will be approximately €300 (excl. tax) per person, including meeting room, lunch and materials.

The agenda will comprise a presentation/discussion on the model, structuring and process of the Community and a first prioritization and discussion of topics of interest (service business) to be determined over the next couple of months through a series of short surveys (5-10 min). We invite you to take the first survey by clicking on this link https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Q798PJR  (if the link doesn’t work, please copy and paste into your browser).

The places to the event will be limited to ensure meaningful discussion and Q&A, and to create a good balance of participants. Depending on demand, the event may be repeated. If you would like us to reserve you a place, or if you have an idea or suggestion on the agenda and topics, please send one of us an email. We will provide further updates as planning progresses. You can also join the Community and our mailing list by visiting the Service in Industry Hub.

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