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Aberdeen Group: Remote product service a differentiator

Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Published : 21 Dec 2006 13:43

The Aberdeen Group has released a compelling report on "remote product service," which the think tank sees as a strong differentiator where it exists, also, an unavoidable customer demand. Following their executive summary.

Customer demand for higher asset uptime across industries is compelling service chain executives to leverage an emerging category of solutions called “remote product service.” In fact, 70% of polled best-in-class service organizations currently

use RPS solutions, noting such gains as 38% improvement in customer retention, 30% reduction in field technician dispatches, and 28% improvement in first-call resolution rate.

RPS solutions allow manufacturers to remotely capture and analyze asset performance data, identify root causes of failure, and trigger corrective workflows including repairs, upgrades, and proactive technician and part dispatch. Early RPS-adopters are realizing significant improvements in asset uptime, technician productivity and customer satisfaction,

as well as dramatic reductions in unplanned, on-site service calls. By some market estimates, overall RPS market revenue will grow to $290 billion by 2011, up from less than $50 billion in 2006.

Key Business Value Findings

• Best-in-class companies are twice as likely as the average companies to achieve asset uptimes of greater than 95% and three times as likely to achieve service contract compliance greater than 91%.

• RPS users are four times as likely as non-users to achieve asset uptimes of greater than 95% and three times as likely to achieve service contract compliance greater than 91%.

• RPS solutions are approaching the mainstream of telecom, utilities, high technology manufacturing and medical device manufacturing sectors.

Implications & Analysis

• A majority of the companies stated that they intend to deploy commercial RPS solutions in the next 12 to 24 months.

• Nearly two-thirds of best-in-class companies stated that they modified business processes to incorporate preventative and proactive approach to service delivery.

• More than two-thirds of leading companies capture asset information in real-time in order to proactively take corrective action or recommend resolution scenarios to technicians prior to service-call dispatch.

Recommendations for Action

1. Avoid passing initial RPS deployment costs onto your customers.

2. Bundle your RPS offering with the initial product sale.

3. Base preventative maintenance contracts on asset utilization.

4. Build customer retention programs on robust performance metrics and pay-forperformance

contracts.

5. Prioritize asset data types to be captured.

6. Train service technicians to evangelize the benefits of RPS.

This report available on www.aberdeen.com

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