Si2 speaking at the Forum conference helping raise the standards of customer operations

Is AI the intelligent way forward? To many commentators and solution providers have it all the wrong way round

On the 22nd March we had our first Service Leaders Network meeting in Germany where we met with a number of services professionals. Our aim is to create a support network for ‚Service in Industry‘ professionals that is far more dynamic and collaborative than any of the current forums found […]

In a report from 2015, McKinsey & Co., a consultancy, estimated that the IoT’s potential value to manufacturing, from operations and equipment optimization alone, lies between US$ 1.2 and 3.7 trillion. Such estimates are probably already obsolete, as even more powerful technology is developed and deployed. However, they do point to a […]

Knowledge is power, this insight of the English philosopher Francis Bacon from 1597 is even more valid today. In earlier times, knowledge was usually kept to oneself to gain a personal advantage. Today, it is the sharing of knowledge that leads companies to success. Knowledge is the most valuable asset of a […]

Field service has historically contributed significantly to the bottom line of many industrial OEMs. In fact, at least since the installed base of plant and machinery surpassed annual product sales in the 1990s (in western industrial markets), industrial field service has been an important contributor to the economy as a whole. […]

Digitization enables continuously increasing automation in business execution, operations, and decision making. As a matter of course, this not only opens up numerous opportunities for major improvements, for example in productivity, but, when certain thresholds are reached, fundamentally changes the nature of the business. It therefore also brings numerous risks, […]

  Si2 Partners have just published the first management report in their “Technology in Service” series on Augmented Reality. Based on surveys of service managers, senior executives and digitization professionals, the reports will shine a spotlight on the state of play of digital technology in industrial and technical service businesses. […]

Si2 Partners was at the Industrial Data Summit last week participating in panel and round table discussions on the key issues facing manufacturing companies as they look to leverage digital technologies into their business. Working with our partners at Hennik Edge, Nick Frank ran a series of 5 round tables with […]

Si2partners was speaking at the Field Service Summit at Warwick and the following day at the Spare Parts Summit We ran around tables on the importance of change management  on the successful implementation of new systems or business processes, talking with over 30 participants over 5 sessions. At the spare […]

See our latest blog on  Digitisation & Servitisation: Start with the Customer and not the Words! based on discussions and presentations at the 2017 edition of the After:Market conference at Hamburg. First published on behalf of the AfterMarket event, the article concludes that the companies that are leading the shift from product […]

It was in 1999 that an article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) drew attention to the fact that industrial revenue and profit pools had shifted, and that “smart manufacturers are moving downstream” towards services. It observed that annual industrial product sales growth in the US had declined from 5.2% […]

Press Release issued 28th November 2017 HAMMERSMITH, England & HEIDELBERG, Germany – Nov. 28, 2017 – PRLog — Si2 Talent Management enables Service business leaders to build their ‚People Platform‘ for success. Five offerings can be blended together to develop service capability and create competitive advantage. ·     √ High Performing Service Organizations ·     √ […]

Delivering on business objectives demands that we  acquire those capabilities that help us differentiate from the competition. The same is true for service professionals as they look for the next steps in their career.  Yet matching needs with people is still recognized as one of the biggest challenges for employers […]

For most of us who have run a Service Organisation, the motivation of our people is one of the key factors that will make us successful. Si2 ran a  forum at AfterMarket conference last week, where managers at  could share their experiences of what has made them successful in this […]

Nick Frank was recently interviewed by Mobile Reach for their  podcast series called “Five Questions for a Field Service Expert.” This podcast series has interviews leading field service experts including practitioners, CEOs, analysts and consultants. In this episode, Si2 Partner Nick Frank shares some of his experiences in running a Field Service Organisation. […]

One of the central themes of the 2017 “After:Market business platform” is building a customer-centric service business, however what does this really mean for those responsible for running Service Operations? Service In Industry bloggers were asked by Copperberg to explore this question through the different presentations at this year’s event. […]

See the latest blog article initiated by Copperberg as part of the AfterMarket Conference in Hamburg and published on www.copperberg.com in October 2015. Go To the Service in Industry Hub for more.

See the July News letter on the Service in Industry Hub site 19/06/2017 FEATURING GE, JEFF IMMELT AND THE DIGITAL/INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE GE’s Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt of over 16 years to retire. Immelt has caught flak due to GE’s share price performance since his appointment shortly before the 9/11 […]

FEATURE: RENEWABLES Unsubsidized renewables have become the cheapest source of power -by far- in many countries, turning wind and solar into major asset classes and probably the fastest growing service market in the world -in the process changing or displacing other installed bases. Of course, this affects size, growth rate […]

Si2 Partners were at the Field Service Forum run providing Industry Expertise to the event. Represented by Nick Frank, we facilitated two round tables together with Click software on Customer Centric Solutions, as well as running a Panel Discussion on monetising the Industrial Internet of Things.  Our goal with the […]

Si2’s Nick Frank was interviewed by Mobile Reach as part of the Ask the Expert series of blogs on Field Service. For the full interview follow this link

It was a pleasure to be invited to moderate a round table at the Field Service Summit at Warwick University conference centre. Si2’s Nick Frank helped Click Software run a round table on how to  ‚EXCEED CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS AND DELIVER MAXIMUM BUSINESS VALUE THROUGH NEXT GENERATION FIELD SERVICE‘ We ran […]

For the 2nd year in a row, Si2 is honoured that two of its partners have been include in the Field Service News top 20 most influential people in Field Service for 2017. Nick Frank and Michael Blumberg both write regular thought leadership articles an various aspect of achieving the shift from […]

If you are based in the UK and looking for a Field Service Management Solution, you might find this event interesting. Connect Field Service Management is a conference designed to allow managers who want to purchase a FSM solution to talk to a wide variety of solution providers in 1 […]

Matt Elton While working at SIX Group, a leading E-Payments provider, Matt Elton used Si2 ON-Demand extensively to help achieve his objectives. In this video he shares his experiences. For more information see the Si2 ON-Demand presentation  

Si2 On-Demand helps companies achieve business objectives faster, with lower risk and less cost: Rapid problem Solving, Insights and Support in Remote Session Deep Dives: For Service Leaders by Service Leaders Every single day, business leaders must deal with problems, crises and challenges. Whether acute or chronic, operational or strategic, […]

Recently published in Field Service News, Nick Frank from Si2 provides some insights into how to improve customer experience through journey mapping.  The article ‚Improve customer experience in 30 minutes through Journey Mapping‘ describes how for the vast majority of service managers and leaders, customer experience is something intuitive, as most effective professionals […]

Si2 Partners‘ Nick Frank presented at Maximize Europe 2016, a ServiceMax conference in Amsterdam on „Where to start with Servitization and what are the enablers“.  This was followed by an interactive discussion with the 40-50 attendees, using exchange and flip charts rather than power point, to build on the knowledge in […]

Si2 Partners is a growing business advisory network of service industry management experts and consultants with an innovative business model interested in collaborations with professionals around the world – and the operator of the blog Service in Industry Hub As our business and offerings expand we are interested in experts […]

Si2 Partners‘ Nick Frank chaired the latest Service Community stream which was part of the Servitization 2016 Conference held in Birmingham, UK on 19th October 2016. The stream attracted over 120 managers from leading companies around the UK. It looked at practical examples of how organizations have overcome specific challenges within their […]

Titos Anastassacos of Si2 Partners delivered the keynote presentation at the annual conference of EASA Europe and World Chapter in Marseille on the „Future of Service“ looking at new technologies and businesses models impacting the technical service space as well as strategic options for service providers. EASA is an international trade […]

Si2’s Nick Frank was recently interviewed by Field Service Digital in the run up to his session at Maximize Europe . Manufacturing, Remade: How Product Companies Embrace Services By Janine Milne “We’ve basically reinvented what manufacturing is. Manufacturing now and going forward is a different business.” That’s a bold statement […]

In his latest blog in the Service in Industry Briefing, Michael Blumberg explores why service marketing is different from the classic  product marketing thinking. The problem is that these 4 P’s do not always apply to services. Service products are intangible and difficult to describe, so they can be challenging to […]

Practical advice on how to develop Service KPI that drives people to action.  Si2’s Dag Gronevik  and Nick Frank   are interviewed by Kris Oldland of Field Service News on their experiences in setting effective KPI’s.  You can listen to a brief sample of the discussion or download the full podcast through this link to Field Service News […]

In the latest Service in Industry Briefing blog ‚ Customer Journey Maps: Why they can help you and how to approach them‘  (www.serviceinindustry.com), Nick Frank looks at how customer Journey maps  can help managers to improve the: Customers perceived experience with the organisation and so increase loyalty  Experience delivery so as […]

Si2 article on ‚Raising the Design Game to Succeed in Outcome Based Services‚ published in the Service In Industry Briefing, appeared as a featured article in the ISSIP August 2016 Newsletter The article talks about the idea of a separation between Product & Service Design in the world of Outcome based […]

As part of Si2’s support for the Service Community, Nick Frank will chairing the Service Community stream at the Servitization Conference. This conference to be held at Aston Villa Football club in Birmingham on the 18th October 2016, has been  organised  ‘The Manufacturer’ and is co-hosted by the Advanced Services Group from Aston Business School. […]

In the Copperberg Newsletter edition 08/16, the Si2 blog article on ‚Raising the Design game to succeed in Outcome Based Services‘ was a recommended read. The article is based on  work by the User Experience Special Interest Group of ISSIP of which Nick Frank is a member. It discusses that the idea of […]

The idea of a separation between Product & Service Design in the world of “outcome based services” is out-dated and limiting. In an age where digitization has blurred the boundaries between products and services, a new paradigm is emerging for delivering outcomes. Companies that see service based business models as […]

Read a well read blog post from Si2 Expert Ian Blackman on Obsolescence management. Planned obsolescence is not really a new concept. “God used it with people” as Robert Orben the American comedy writer once said. He also said “Time flies. It is up to you to be the navigator”. Orben […]

Si2 Partners has been a core member of the steering team that developed the UK’s National Strategy for through-life engineering services TES)  together with companies such as Rolls-Royce, Siemens and Babcock. Si2 is part of the TES Council that will be charged with the implementation of the action plan to […]

Nick Frank from Si2 Partners played a key role in the development of a UK National Strategy for Engineering Services working  with the country’s leading industrial companies and institutes. The strategy will be launched on 5th July at the IET London and has been sponsored by the British parliament. Chris […]

Nick Frank from Si2Partners delivered the keynote at the Chief Service Officers (CSO) Summit held before the Maximize conference event in San Fransisco last week. Limited to a small number of senior service executives, this exclusive event has been developed by ServiceMax to enable leaders to explore and discuss current issues […]

Our latest blog by Nick Frank discusses the art of service transformation and that the mistake many leaders in industry make, is to believe that defining a clear vision and strategy with ruthless follow up is the only recipe for success. This may indeed initiate change, but rarely do the […]

Si2’s Nick Frank gave the keynote presentation at eWON’s FlexThink Developer Conference in Birmingham on 25th May 2016. eWON are the global leader in smart IoT enabled router technology for connecting to machines and industrial assets. Organised with their local agent Mac-Solutions, this conference brought  the latest thinking in the IoT […]

Latest thoughts from the Service in Industry Briefing Blog by Dag Gronevik, an independent consultant focusing on international service management and service transformation, strategy, operations, business and organizational development. If you want to ensure strong performance of service operations in manufacturing companies these are some guidelines you need to follow based on over 30 years […]

On May 12, 2016, Nick Frank from Si2 hosted the Service Community event at Cranfield University’s Virtual/Augmented Reality Lab. Over 30 service professional came together to share experiences on how to drive service businesses forward. At Si2 we are passionate about the growth role services play in modern manufacturing and […]

Latest thoughts from the Service in Industry Blog by Titos Anastassacos, Managing Partner Si2 Partners in which he highlights 5 key points The trajectory for international expansion is usually different for services than products as service growth strategies need to allow for very different local market dynamics and installed base growth rates Strategy […]

Latest thoughts from the Service in Industry Blog by Titos Anastassacos, Managing Partner Si2 In previous articles on pricing, we gave an overview of three generally accepted approaches: “cost plus”, “competitive” and “value based” pricing (VBP) and briefly described a methodology for the latter. In management literature, VBP is often expounded as the apex […]

Si2 was asked to run a series of round tables on scheduling, mobility and big data at the Field Service Summit held in Oxford on the 12th April. Attended by over 100 service professionals, this event was all about rethinking the role of Field Service.  As an expert contributor, Si2 […]

Si2 Partners helps industrial companies leverage services and take advantage of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or Industry 4.0 to beat the competition and win in their markets. Si2 provides innovative consulting solutions, business execution services and „On-Demand Advisory & Support“ for forward thinking clients worldwide. Clients can develop their business more effectively and […]

In industrial product companies a career in service, primarily understood as after sales service or some enhancement thereof, has not usually been associated with a path to the very top of the organization. Service has traditionally been defined as a support activity which does not provide sufficient exposure to the […]

Latest guest contribution on the Service in Industry blog by Vikram Singla, Busines Development Director, Oracle UK Servitization – as defined by Aston Business School – is the concept of manufacturers offering services tightly coupled to their products and hence moving from a transactional to a relationship-based business model. These services […]

Nick Frank from Si2 will be hosting a discussion at Field Service Summit on the 9th March on ‚Driving Business Growth through Servitization and Proactive Maintenance‘. He will host an interactive discussion on the Internet of Things and the benefits this can bring a business, drawing on real examples of business […]

The first couple of weeks of 2016 have seen a continuing crash in the oil price,  increasing pessimism about China’s economy and a corresponding bear market in stocks around the world. Oil is now trading at below US$ 30/bbl. leading to cuts in investments and lay-offs by oil producers (BP, […]

The so called „sharing economy“ is a very big deal, as the huge valuations of Uber, Airbnb and others attest. It is often conflated with Peer-2-Peer (P2P) Apps, however it is mainly about sharing assets that would otherwise be underutilized, whether or not some form of labor is included: cars, […]

Within Service businesses, most of the thinking is centered on driving out cost through remote diagnostics and analytics. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The digitization of products provides an even bigger revenue opportunity, often in ways not initially foreseen.

Published in The Manufacturer  August 2015 by Nick Frank, Co-Founder of Si2Partners Is it really true that servitization business models only really work for companies with complex engineering products such as jet engines, trains and wind turbines? My own experience is that it’s not the complexity of the product that’s key. It’s the […]

In May 2015’s edition of the The Manufacturer,  Nick Frank is interviewed on why he believes Service Thinking is the pathway to business growth. “I am an industrial person”, Nick Frank tells The Manufacturer and before starting his management consultant career, Frank worked for more than 25 years as a senior manager in industry. […]

Published in The Manufacturer  May 2015 by Nick Frank, Co-Founder of Si2Partners The Internet of Things (IoT) is all marketing hype and of little value or relevance to SME’s It may be a question of perspective, but the fact of the matter is that unless you do something with the data generated by […]

Published in The Manufacturer March 2015 by Nick Frank, Co-Founder of Si2Partners “Service Thinking is just for big companies!” WRONG, I suggest you think again! In my experience of the manufacturing industry, those companies that achieve an EBITDA of 20-35% do so because they have found a way to have a […]