Design For Outcomes: A Critical Step To Unlocking As-a-Service Models

By Sumair Dutta, Sr. Director of Customer and Market Insights at ServiceMax

There continues to be a greater amount of great research and content published about equipment-as-a-service and outcome-based business and engagement models. It is quite likely that these will be critical part of how organizations deliver products and services in the near future. It is also likely that customers will resort to consuming products and services in this manner given the financial and other benefits extoled. In my opinion, it is more likely that these types of engagement models become one part of a product and service delivery portfolio.

There are many transformational elements that need to take place before manufacturers can deliver equipment-as-a-service. This includes connectivity into assets, the recognition of the installed base, the validation of output delivered, and the commercial infrastructure to support these models. But prior to evaluating all these gaps, there are two fundamental questions about as-a-service models that still need to be answered. I don’t have the answers to these but would like to create a dialog among the service community to find out.

1. Are products being designed with outcomes in mind?
2. Are customers actually demanding outcomes?

Let’s discuss the first question and dedicate a follow up to question 2.