Services "Brand" within the Organization (Q Targeted for non-pure-play Services orgs)
Our organization has a 150+ year manufacturing history. We are viewed as a great "engineering" company. We do also have a strong track record in Services (mostly equipment-related start-up, repair, modernization, etc. in part of our business, but a significant contracts/post-warranty in another part) -- but we are for sure a "Capex-Centric" company...
Obviously there are a ton of places I can go from here :) But my specific question is this:
For those who've undergone (or are undergoing) the transformation to a more Services/Opex-focused company, how have you managed the "internal brand" within your organization? We remain a bit of the outcast... We struggle for mindshare... We have a difficult time with internal recruiting... Certainly it's easier now than it was years ago -- but I'm looking to better define the brand and accelerate the mindshare inside of the organization (which we know will, in turn, have an impact outside the organization)?
Answers
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Hi Alex, we are very much in the same place as you. I like the term "struggle for mindshare" - exactly my everyday job:) What definitively helps us is a committment from the Executive level. Two years back our CEO came to shareholders with the vision the company future where service business has much more prominent share (3 times higher than now). This makes a big part of our "why" when we are fighting for mindshare (and timeshare, and budgetshare). Another big part of "why" are threats of our hardware drifting in the commodity (inflation of features vs deflation of added value). Here we get inspired by TSIA and position service as the logical Adoption engine and a custodian of the installed base.
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we created an internal brand to generate momentum and identity for people. It helped a lot on training, workshop, pre/post-sales activities.
We also used this brand to explain the customer our portfolio and services, for 4-5 years, during this whole transformation.
Now, since the "boat has set sail" (services are bigger than product), we must consolidate the company brand and name as a whole as being a services company. So we're dropping this branding to go only with the company's name.
From manufacturing, you may be interested on reading more on Michelin Fleet Solutions case study (https://www.thecasecentre.org/educators/ordering/selecting/featuredcases/michelinfleet), as an example.
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