2021-01-03

Aftersales & Service Market 🏪- do you know yours?

What is your Aftersales & Service market?

As for every business, you need to have a clear view of what your market is. This is also important for Aftersales & Service business. Defying, identifying and targeting are some of the first actions you take when you start leveraging your opportunities for Aftersales & Service as a business.

Depending on the maturity of your Aftersales & Service, you start ‘with the basics’ or can already be ‘on an expert level’.
There are more components to look at when you determine your market than just maturity though.
The complexity of the technology, the access you might have to customers, the level of ‘proprietariness’ connected to the technology, the (local) regulations that are valid, the level of competition already available in the market, and ‘the value you can add’ at the end the day, will all determine if you can include them in the definition of your market.

Most companies that start with using Aftersales & Service as a business focus initially on their installed base (iBase), since this is where they can be most successful and it ‘ticks’ all the boxes as described above.

As a second step, especially if you’re an expert in a certain technology, 3rd party services are offered. For instance, this means that companies start working on equipment from a competitor that has the same technology built-in. In those situations, you have to ensure that you do not only understand the technology and have the competence to serve it but also have access to spares, 2nd level support, that you don’t violate regulations and can do it better/faster/cheaper than the original manufacturer. This can be looked at and in some cases, and offer an opportunity to broaden your market. Remember though, if you can do this others probably can too. So, you have to ensure to keep working and developing your competitive edge.

There are companies that specialize themselves in just Aftersales & Service in specific technologies and become the benchmark for it. This is seen in the ‘high-end’ part of the Aftersales & Service market, like in the energy industry (Nuclear, Oil & Gas). This also happens in the ‘lower-end’ of the market, as the development of general automotive workshops. Both of those markets start to open up, also based on changing regulations.

In my experience, the MedTech market generally has sufficient market opportunities for Aftersales & Service that are not all leveraged to the optimum possible. Most of the time it is known where the products they have sold are shipped to, but it is often unclear if these products are still in use and how are they used. Especially the latter is a great opportunity to ‘go back in’ and learn how your iBase can be used better and more efficiently by your customers. Just doing that is often perceived as a value and customers appreciate that by spending money on it. There’s your start of building your Aftersales & Service as a business…

A happy new year & stay safe!

Peter van Altena.