SLN Summit

19-20th May 2025
Lufthansa Conference Center near Frankfurt, Germany

 

Service Leaders Network

The Service Leaders Network builds on the exchange of experience and insights as well as collaboration between members in common projects to build stronger capabilities and knowledge among participants, drive performance, master challenges and solve problems.

Find out more about the Service Leaders Network

Summit GOALS and KEY INFO

The goals of this summit for this small select group of service professionals are to gain new insights into

  • Overcoming Barriers to Progress: Reframing Your Mindset to Unlock Data-Driven Success
  • Shift Your Thinking, Shift the Outcome: Unlocking Data-Driven Success

 

The participation fee is 500Euro which covers all summit costs including dinner, lunch and refreshments.

Location: Lufthansa Conference Centre, Lufthansaring 1, 64342 Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany.

Accomodation: Reserved rooms available at conference centre on request

Focus and Topics

In today’s fast-changing industrial world, service leaders face a big challenge: making sure the “right information is in the right place at the right time.” Traditional methods—like relying on seasoned technicians, fine-tuning service systems, or building knowledge libraries—aren’t cutting it anymore. As technical expertise shrinks and onboarding new talent becomes harder, these approaches fall short.

Generative AI offers a game-changing solution. By tapping into your existing data and documentation, it reduces the need for tribal knowledge and helps teams work smarter. But here’s the catch: even with big investments in IT systems and AI, many organizations struggle to see results. Why? Because success isn’t just about the tools—it’s about adopting the right mindset and processes to make those tools truly work.

Real experiences from real people

Hear directly Eva Kunczicky Founder and Managing Director at Speak – Lead – Transform. Eva will share her lessons and perspectives from senior service leadership positions at Kardex Remstar and Hilti into how the vision of leadership is the game changer for the integration of advanced data technologies, into supporting value creation in data intensive service businesses.

Gain insight and expertise from Nicolas Bartschat on how to implement service applications based on complex analytics.  As Head of Service EMEA at ASMPT, a €1.76B provider of technology and equipment solutions for the electronics manufacturing, Nicolas will share his personal insights on implementing AI solutions for Knowledge Management and Customer Support Automation

Why Attend?

Join a curated group of 10-15 service leaders for an interactive session facilitated by SI2 where you can benchmark your progress against real-world data, debate the make-or-buy approach for AI solutions, and exchange ideas with experienced peers. Expert facilitation will ensure your voice is heard and your interests addressed.

This is your opportunity to step out of your comfort zone, embrace AI with clarity, and reframe your mindset for measurable success.

Agenda

The Summit style will be a flexible & informal workshop format with the following proposed agenda. If you would like amendments or to include some specific points, please let us know.
Si2 will host an informal dinner on 19th May at 7pm at the Lufthansa Conference Centre for attendees who arrive the day before the event. It’s an opportunity to get to know each other.

8.30      Welcome and first discussion on your priorities & expectations 

9.30     AI solutions for Knowledge Management and Customer Support Automation

    • Experience exchange and Facilitated workshop Case with Nicolas Bartschat, ASMPT & AI Consult

1200     Morning review / Plan for the afternoon

12.15    Lunch & Network

13.30    Vivid Visioning: Your Strategic Tool for AI-Driven Service Excellence

    •    Experience Exchange and Facilitated Workshop with Eva Kunczicky

16.00    How can the SLN help you with these challenges

    • Collaboration Projects and Experience exchanges
    • Next steps and potential collaboration projects

16.50    Wrap up / Feedback / Questions

17.00    Summit End

Complete this short form if you would like to attend and we will get back to you

Further information on the venue and the logistics will be sent to you after registration.

Expert Practitioners Backgrounds and Interests

Nicolas Bartschat

Nicolas Bartschat is Head of Service EMEA at ASMPT, a €1.7 billion leading provider of high-tech solutions for the electronics manufacturing industry. With almost ten years of experience, he has implemented numerous projects with a focus on increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving service quality. His responsibilities include the digitalization of service processes, the development of global IoT platforms and the introduction of AI-supported solutions.

In his role as Head of Service EMEA and Global Product Manager, he leads pioneering initiatives, including the implementation of intelligent automation tools for customer service. His approach combines technological innovation with in-depth requirements analysis to achieve sustainable results.

In addition to his work at ASMPT, Nicolas Bartschat is Managing Partner of AI Consult and supports medium-sized companies in the integration of AI and digital technologies.

Project History
  • Redesign and optimization of service and support processes
    Increased efficiency and reduced response times in hotline and support structures
  • Introduction of software-supported customer service platforms
    Increased customer interaction, satisfaction and efficiency
  • Building business intelligence for service and sales
    Automated data-based decisions and insights
  • IoT-Plattforms
    Machine connectivity, improved operational processes and real-time data analysis

Eva Kunczicky

Eva Kunczicky is an accomplished and visionary leader with more than 15 years of extensive service leadership experience in dynamic international markets in companies such as Kardex Remstar and Hilti.  As a seasoned and successful executive, she has driven complex transformation projects with strategic foresight, achieving sustainable results. Her expertise lies in innovatively advancing organizations and navigating change effortlessly with empathy and clarity. Combining strategic vision with operational excellence, Eva specializes in leadership, change management, and service optimization.

As the founder of Speak – Lead – Transform, Eva combines profound organizational transformation with inspiring personal development to enable impactful change. This harmonious blend of structure and humanity forms the core of her distinctive consulting approach. Incorporating cutting-edge technologies such as AI, she supports organizations in engaging their people in the transformation process in a motivating and empowering way. By doing so, she builds a powerful bridge between technological innovation and human potential.

Vivid Visioning: Your Strategic Tool for AI-Driven Service Excellence

  • How can a clear vision help you bridge the gap between AI innovation and real business value in your service operations?
  • What if the key to unlocking AI’s potential lies not in technology, but in the way you envision and lead change?

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the customer journey presents immense opportunities for innovation and efficiency gains. But how can we ensure this transformation is not only successful but also sustainable? This is where Vivid Visioning comes into play – a strategic tool to unlock the full potential of AI and deliver real value for your service business.

Why Vivid Visioning is essential:
Technological transformation succeeds only when it is clearly and inspiringly communicated. Vivid Visioning enables leaders to create a forward-thinking, vivid picture of how AI applications like predictive maintenance, automated data analysis, or process optimization can impact their organization. This vision serves as both a roadmap for implementation and a tool to reduce fears, foster acceptance, and bring everyone on board for the journey ahead.

Bridging technology and people:
Leaders play a pivotal role in turning this vision into reality. They need the skills to actively shape change, engage employees, and steer transformation processes. The focus is not on implementing AI at any cost but on leveraging a shared, purpose-driven vision to create targeted value.

Achieving successful AI implementation with Vivid Visioning:

  • Develop a clear vision of the future, defining the role of AI in your service business.
  • Identify business cases that create real value, avoiding AI solutions that require costly adjustments post-implementation.
  • Strengthen change leadership skills to reduce fears, engage stakeholders, and prepare your organization for the future.

Harness the power of Vivid Visioning to future-proof your organization – with a clear vision that bridges technological innovation and human potential.

Find out more about Eva at linkedin.com/in/eva-kunczicky-6b191b103 or see her website https://speak-lead-transform.com

Service in Industry

Deep dive into the industrial service business.

Join our community to receive analysis, insight, news and more.
We will never share your data

Service in Industry

Deep dive into the industrial service business.

Join our community to receive analysis, insight, news and more.
We will never share your data

Service Innovation for value-driven opportunities:

Facilitated by Professor Mairi McIntyre from the University of Warwick, the workshop explored service innovation processes that help us understand what makes our customers successful.

In particular, the Customer Value Iceberg principle goes beyond the typical Total Cost of Ownership view of the equipment world and explores how that equipment impacts the success of the business. It forces us to consider not only direct costs associated with usage of the equipment such but also indirect costs such as working capital and risks.

As an example, we looked at how MAN Truck UK used this method to develop services that went beyond the prevailing repairs, parts and maintenance to methods (through telematics and clever analytics) to monitor and improve the performance and  fuel consumption of their trucks. This approach helped grow their business by an order of magnitude over a number of years.

Mining Service Management Data to improve performance

We then took a deep dive into how Endress + Hauser have developed applications that can mine Service Management data to improve service performance:  

Thomas Fricke (Service Manager) and Enrico De Stasio (Head of Corporate Quality & Lean) facilitated a 3 hour discussion on their journey from idea to a real working application integrated into their Service processes. These were the key learning points that emerged:

Leadership

In 2018 the Senior leadership concluded that to stay competitive they needed to do far more to consolidate their global service data into a “data lake’ that could be used to improve their own service processes and bring more value to customers. As a company they had already seen the value of organising data as over the past 20 years for every new system they already had a “digital twin” which held electronically all the data for that system in an organised fashion. Initially, it was basic Bill of Material data, but has since grown in sophistication. So a good start but they needed to go further, and the leadership team committed resources to do this.

  • The first try: The project initially focused on collecting and organising data from its global service operations into a data lake.  This first phase required the development of infrastructure, processes and applications that could analyse service report data and turn it into actionable intelligence. The initial goal was to make internal processes more efficient, and so improve the customer experience. E+H looked for patterns in the reports of service engineers that could:
    • Be used to improve the performance of Service through processes and individuals
    • Be used by other groups such as engineering to improve and enhance product quality.
  • Outcome: Eventhough progress was made in many areas, nevertheless, even using advanced statistical methods, they could not extract or deliver the value they had hoped   for from the data. They needed to look at something different.
  • Leveraging AI technologies: The Endress+Hauser team knew they needed to look for patterns in large data sets. They had the knowledge that self-learning technologies that are frequently termed as AI, could potentially help solve this problem. They teamed up with a local university and created a project to develop a ‘Proof of Concept’. This helped the project gain traction as the potential of the application they had created started to emerge. It was not an easy journey and required “courage to trust the outcomes, see them fail and then learn from the process”. However after about 18 months they were able to integrate the application into their normal working processes where every day they scan the service reports from around the world in different languages to identify common patterns in product problems, or anomalies in the local service team activities. This information is fed back to the appropriate service teams for action. The application also acts as a central hub where anyone in the organisation can access and interrogate service report data to improve performance and develop new value propositions.
  • Improvement:  The project does not stop there. It is now embedded in the service operations and used as a basic tool for continuous improvement. In effect, this has shifted the whole organization to be more aware of the value of their data.

Utilizing AI in B2B services

Regarding AI, our task was to uncover some of the myths and benefits for service businesses and the first task was to agree on what we really mean by AI among the participants. It took time, but we discovered that there are really two interpretations which makes the term rather confusing. The first is a generic term used by visionaries and AI professionals to describe a world of intelligent machines and applications. Important at a social & macroeconomic level, but perhaps not so useful for business operations -at least at a practical level. The second is an umbrella term for a group of technologies that are good at finding patterns in large data sets (machine learning, neural networks, big data, computer vision), that can interface with human beings (Natural Language Processing) and that mimic human intelligence through being based on self-learning algorithms. Understanding this second definition and how these technologies can be used to overcome real business challenges is where the immediate value of AI sits for today’s businesses. It was also clear that the implication of integrating these technologies into business processes will require leaders to look at the change management challenges for their teams and customers.

To understand options for moving ahead at a practical level we first looked briefly at Husky through an interview with CIO Jean-Christophe Wiltz to CIOnet where we learned that i) real business needs should tailored drive technology implementation, and ii) that before getting to AI technologies, there is a need to build the appropriate infrastructure in terms of database and data collection, and, most importantly, the need to be prepared to continually adapt this infrastructure as the business needs change.

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