Industrialisation

Industrialisation relates to the firm’s ability to standardise and “productise” the solution in such a way that it can be efficiently replicated across regions and over time. Based on our expertise, Vectia has divided industrialisation into four process stages:

 

Solution development. Moving into solution business necessitates firms to redefine their research and development process. The R&D budget cannot be spent only on developing product features; allocations have to be done in order to enable also solution development. Solutions often consist of a multitude of service components and these have to be developed at the same level of scrutiny as the products. The solution development process also has to be driven by customer insight. It should focus on the customer’s processes and financial drivers, not only on technological innovations.

The solutions also need to be easy to apply. In order to secure scalability, repeatability and efficiency firms need to create rules and guidelines for how to develop solutions. Hence, firms typically need to develop solution structures, where solutions can be built out of standardised components.

Solution availability. Solution industrialisation focuses on securing that solutions can be made available in an efficient manner. One ingredient in this is to create predefined solution configurations for different segments so that they fit the value propositions made to the same segments. These solution configurations should be based on verified results from earlier solution deliveries.

Furthermore, the industrialisation process should give the input to making promises. The firm’s sales and account management organisation should therefore be regularly updated about the availability of the different solutions and what the solutions make possible for the customer.

Solution configuration. One of the most important parts of industrialisation is to create solution configuration tools. These configurators can be used for configuring customer solutions in a flexible way and simultaneously securing efficient delivery. A part of these configurations are contract models that support the value-based pricing of solutions. Examples of these are, for instance, performance contracts.

A second key area is to develop value pricing tools. Moving from cost-plus pricing to value-based pricing may require the development of a new systematic pricing discipline.

Solution delivery. It is essential for solution business that the delivery meets the promises. This requires that firms have well defined communication processes that enable them to provide necessary information to customers during solution delivery. Furthermore, firms should regularly monitor the delivery status and proactively plan corrective actions if delivery is at risk for one reason or another.

Vectia helps firms with industrialisation by:

• Defining and implementing common product and solution structure
• Defining “Basic Sales Items”, the repeatable building blocks of solutions
• Product and Solution management systems
• IT system definitions incl. solution configurators
• Product and Solution management roles and organisation
• Benchmarking projects