The seminar from January 17th was hosted by theme 4 (‘Customer Data and Ecosystems’), speaker Helena H. Olsson, Malmö University:
“NOT my job: On the challenges with service innovation and development”
With digitalization disrupting industry after industry to an extent that we have only seen the beginnings of, the business landscape in which the Software Center companies operate is dramatically changing. Key to digital transformation, and one of the challenges that the Software Center companies face, is the shift from product-oriented and transactional business models towards continuous and more service-oriented revenue.
However, service innovation and development brings several challenges to existing organizations and ways-of-working. In our experience, developing services that go beyond existing sales and that generate entirely new revenue streams prove difficult and involve challenges such as e.g., prioritization and validation of ideas, continuous evaluation with customers, cross-functional teams that go beyond R&D and the adoption of new ways-of-working.
In this presentation, we present the key challenges that we see the Software Center companies face when developing complementary services to their products. Also, we outline the steps companies need to take to evolve from product-centric service development towards customer-base centric services where the “real” opportunities for monetization and new revenue streams exist.