How to launch new services successfully

A few notes from the discussion sessions

Below are some topics and takeaways from our discussion.

These notes are not a detailed transcription or summary, nor does it repeat topics already presented at the beginning of the Roundtable meeting.

• The challenges and approaches largely depend on the type of service innovation at hand:
  • Types of innovation range from:
    • Incremental enhancement of existing offering.
    • A new solution to the customer problems we already try to solve.
    • Solutions to unmet customers’ needs.
    • Solutions to latent customers’ needs.
    • Entering markets new to our company.
  • The level of uncertainty during development and launch increases along with the types of innovation mentioned above. These uncertainties must be managed and validated during the introduction phase, establishing a problem-solution-fit and a product (service)-market-fit.
• The launch of newly developed services requires a significant (50% or more) effort and investment compared to the development phase. This is to drive internal adoption and customer adoption.
• We must be sensitive to different needs for different:
  • Customer segments (types of business, maturity of operations, etcetera).
  • Customers in different regions across the world.
• Two major risks when developing and launching new services:
  • Overthinking, leading to analysis paralysis and no progress.
  • Underthinking, leading to high risks of failure, lost investments and declining confidence from internal stakeholders.
• Customers do not buy into your new service offering can have several reasons, like:
  • Not well articulating the customer value
  • Trying to solve a latent need, which needs to be developed. This can take years.
• To identify, validate and articulate the customer value, the following is vital:
  • Talk with (friendly) customers about:
    • Their needs (tip of the iceberg).
    • Their vision, strategy, priorities and future needs.
  • Involve these customers in the development and introduction phase, and do trials with them.
  • Discuss with these customers what impact the services had during these trials and what the bottom-line result was for the key metrics they find relevant.
  • Get more data about the customer value (and value for your own business).
  • Build a business case for your customers.
• Also, your customers go through a transformation journey, developing the maturity and digitalisation of their operations and asset management.
  • Offer a minimum viable offering that resonates now without asking them to make a quantum leap they cannot adopt right now.
  • Develop a stepping-stone assortment of offerings, providing them with the solutions for each phase in their journey.
  • These will also enable your organisation and stakeholders to adopt the new service offerings step by step.
• Having a service development team that drives the first steps of the introduction without too much burden on the operating companies can make life much easier. Once you have the data for a compelling internal business case, you have the tools to build buy-in with the executive leadership team and other stakeholders.
• Driving sales performance with equipment sales does require a top-down commitment to adjust priorities and incentive schemes.
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