If somebody had said in 1984 that he had a vision of people watching Formula 1 from their phones in 2014, he would have been considered mentally ill. In 1994 he could have been hired into a start-up-firm going bankrupt later that year. In 2004 this idea had already landed on Steve Jobs’ office desk. And now in 2014 it’s part of our everyday life! In the end it was all about daring to think in a new way.

I was intrigued to take part in Aalto University’s seminar about Leadership in the productisation of services (LEAPS) a couple of weeks ago. The closing seminar showcased results of the LEAPS –project   that had lasted two years. The project focused on identifying and developing open and customer-driven methods for service productisation. LEAPS-project was carried out in collaboration between Aalto University, Tampere University of Technology and Innotiimi Oy.

Here are the 4 most interesting things I learned during the afternoon:

Everything can be viewed as a service

The keynote speaker, professor Anders Gustafsson from Service Research Center in Karlstad University, Sweden had a really interesting presentation. He talked a lot about service logic and that service is a perspective on value creation. The most important thing is to focus on value-in-use, especially on co-creation of value. He also concluded that everything can be viewed as a service. This was something we all agreed with, after hearing that already 70-80% of our GDP is service related. The service sector is constantly growing as traditionally goods based companies are starting to rely more on the service part of their business.

Big change: you have to get the customers to pay for the services

Anders Gustafsson also talked about companies traditionally giving services for free to sell products. This can generally be considered as a big problem. The companies have to make a transformation: customers have to start paying for the services. As a solution to this problem, Gustafsson mentioned bronze, silver and gold levels for customers as an example. You have to find a way to make the service part somehow visible to the customer.

5 steps for successful productisation workshops

Jarno Poskela from Innotiimi Oy had an inspiring presentation about the five steps that are needed for successful productisation workshops:

• You need motivated experts
• Create a productisation path by using service development model, that includes organizing, service process, service concept and the resulting service
• Have the courage to use various kinds of tools and innovate
• Activity curve is good to be taken into account, as the intensity of action fluctuates over time
• Facilitation is an important part of the workshops: opening – implementation – ending

Clear goals needed

You can make service productisation a success when you know what you’re looking for and have clear goals. Choose the right services that have a strong need in the market for productisation.

For further information, please see the presentation material here (mostly in Finnish). You can also visit the web site of LEAPS-project’s handbook for productisation of services (in Finnish) for ideas and thoughts.

Written by Marja Roine, Master’s Degree Student (Customer-oriented Service Development)