Where Servitization And Sustainability Converge

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

On this week’s podcast, I welcome Dr. Andreas Schroeder, Digital Lead of The Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School back to discuss the ways in which Servitization and sustainability are linked. The Advanced Services Group is preparing for its Servitization Live event, which runs October 4-6 in a hybrid format, and sustainability is one of the major themes being covered.

According to Dr. Schroeder, sustainability and Servitization are closely linked and companies with interest in either area should understand the connection. “The way I understand sustainability, there are societal obligations, and then, of course, companies have their own strategies,” he ways. “What I argue is that these are not contradictive to each other. A good-run business, or specifically a business that tries to move into the advanced services space, naturally needs and contributes to sustainability objectives. These are not two diverging interests that need to be balanced out. The interesting thing is that these are very well, and very nicely, aligned.”

The Advanced Services Group has seen an increase in Servitization efforts driven by sustainability-related motivation. “There are different kinds of motivations driving Servitization,” says Dr. Schroeder. “Quite a number of them come from the digital angle – companies that have digitized products and are looking for business models that help drive more value out of the investment in digital. The other bucket is companies that have an edge in product innovation but are feeling competition creep up and are getting squeezed on price, so they look to Servitization to make use of innovation and expertise without having to compete on price. Now, though, we see also where companies literally see the absolute need – the constraints that the traditional business models put on the way they can interact with customers.”