“Service Strategy in Action is THE perfect reference for any executive when considering the big step into Services. The book provides a well-defined process for achieving differentiation and growth through service offerings beyond the product sale.”

Marie-France Crevecoeur, Vice President General Manager, Service, Business Group Professional, Philips Lighting

“To all leaders facing the challenge of moving from a product-centric focus to becoming a service provider with the intention of delivering true customer value: Read this book!”

Anders Ekblad, Director Volvo Group Strategy

“Service business has great potential for many companies and this book provides a clear roadmap of how to unlock the potential of service growth. Providing not only quality products but also value-added service to our customers helps us to build long-term relationships.”

Matthias Fischer, President and CEO, Toyota Material Handling Europe

“Service can bring deep customer insights, which is indispensible for tailoring added-value solutions, particularly as digitization is redefining the current service model. Service Strategy in Action covers essential steps towards developing service and expanding business models successfully.”

Oliver Riemenschneider, Group Senior Vice President, Head of Business Unit Turbocharging, ABB

“As a world leader in premium tubal solutions, we are leveraging our unique field expertise and high-value, data-enabled services. We use extensively the Service Strategy in Action framework and the authors’ thought leadership in order to constantly create more value for our customers and develop disruptive business models.”

Jean-Marc Scemama, Vice-President Corporate Marketing, Vallourec

“Service Strategy in Action will help you unlock hidden profit potential, for both you and your customers, by changing the way you think and act about your products and expertise. No longer is it about delivering a product that meets the customers’ expectations, it’s about delivering a product and adding services to help the customer realize all the value that your offering can bring. Companies must move past selling basic must-have after-sales services, such as replacement parts and access to technical support. Advanced companies add value to customers top- and bottom-line through innovative services and customer solutions. If your company needs to re-think the value you can offer through value-added services and new service business models, then this is the book you need to read for implementing the authors’ twelve-step roadmap to service growth and profits."

Todd C. Snelgrove, Vice President Marketing, ABB

"Overall this is the best book on business services I have ever seen and one that every manager involved with development and delivery of business services should read."

Dr. Peter J. LaPlaca, Emeritus, University of Connecticut

Review in Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 64, 2017.

“There will be that day when your industrial organization will have decided on its IoT devices, when big data will stream through big platforms and great capabilities will provide big opportunities to create unheard customer value. That day (and hopefully earlier) somebody will need to capture said value and organizational focus should shift from technologies to servitization strategies. Valuable advise is rare for transactional product marketeers needing to embrace continuous services. Having learned much of the trade empirically, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon Services Strategies in Action, a book worth reading and practicing.

Relying on extensive research and hands-on collaboration with industry leaders, the authors provide a refreshingly useful summary of their findings. Standard management literature often focuses on B2C services, direct-to-market businesses or startups, but this book includes noteworthy chapters on various key areas that typically get overlooked. My personal favorites include the following insights:

• A classification of B2B services highlights the difference in between targeting an asset or a customer process as well as focusing on providing an input or an output for those targets. This distinction is very helpful when assessing various capabilities notably in pricing, risk mitigation and customer insights.
• Another noteworthy chapter is the role of leadership on the journey from strategy to execution. I liked the adaption of Kotter’s eight steps and a well-designed stakeholder map.
• A must-read is the chapter on services selling including an eye-opening section on why “product sales people are from Mars and services sales people are from Venus”. It highlights how the need for targeting customer processes requires different sales force characteristics and explains various criteria for selection and incentives. Awareness of these challenges is helpful as they surface late in the execution but require a lot of effort to be addressed.
• Two other unique areas of the book are the chapters on the distributor-manufacturer relationship and possible organizational structures. The latter is stressing the risk of losing needed synergies when separating solution organizations.

Overall, if you're in B2B solution marketing then this needs to be in your library.”

Holger Pietzsch, Head of Marketing & Solutions Deployment, Caterpillar