Empowered electronics service and support

The COVID–19 pandemic has intensified industry trends and external pressures that were already impacting electronics service delivery operations. Seemingly overnight, organizations across the industry needed to not just respond, but respond with alacrity. Despite the need for electronics companies to reinvent the entire service delivery function virtually, consumers still had high expectations for quality.

Executives had to act quickly to offer plenty of contact options, rapid response times, and new modes of hardware repair or replacement.

In changing the premise of service delivery, everything around it needed to evolve, as well.

As a result, the service function has dramatically shifted, not only because service delivery has become more dynamic and virtual. In changing the premise on which service is delivered, everything around it needed to evolve, as well. Electronics organizations began by prioritizing cash flow and optimizing operating expense. But going forward, they need to consider how to create competitive advantage and resiliency.  

It’s true that a rapid response to a force majeure, such as COVID-19, combined with an amplified need for collaboration and increased cost pressures, can negatively impact an organization. But it doesn’t have to. What if the force majeure is a catalyst to transitioning from old ways of working to a new, intelligent service approach?

To better understand the current and future after-sales support capabilities of electronics companies, the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) joined forces with Oxford Economics to survey 600 executives across 6 industry segments and 19 countries.

The Empowered: Driving service delivery success

In our survey, executives revealed plans for applying exponential technologies and shared how their current implementations enhance aspects of after-sales support performance. The research also studied how developing and applying insights from after-sales support data drives improvements throughout the organization. Three categories of after-sales support emerged: the Enabled, the Enacted, and the Empowered.

94% of Empowered organizations drive their service delivery functions from cloud-enabled architectures. 

While all three models deliver benefits, Empowered organizations—those fully embracing NextGen Service capabilities—are significantly more efficient, using far fewer resources to execute on far more support requests. On average, they earn higher customer retention, which often translates to higher profitability. As well, these advanced service organizations showed the highest percentage of cloud computing across locations and applications. In fact, 94% of Empowered organizations drive their service delivery functions from cloud-enabled architectures versus less than 80% of Enacted and Enabled companies. 

Each service delivery model depicts a set of capabilities across four aspects of the after-sales support function:

• Primary objectives (customer experience, cost takeout, or growth) 
• Governance and execution model (internal, external, or a combination)
• Extent to which collaboration is enabled across an ecosystem
• Organizational satisfaction with after-sales capabilities and performance.

The path to Empowered

Our research says electronics service organizations can “have it all”—or at least most of what they need to deliver effective, efficient, technically savvy service. The question, is how to get there from here? 

A logical, four-step path starts with a guided re-evaluation of the enterprise’s strategic principles. Second, executives should examine potential interaction improvements. The third step develops a new business architecture that embeds intelligent workflows—supported by exponential technologies—for service delivery and other business functions.

It also requires orchestrating change based on real-time visibility of the enterprise—its people, technologies, and overall performance. The fourth and final step involves building a business case for transitioning to NextGen Service, as well as outlining a strategic workforce development plan.

Stepping up service delivery

4 steps to help electronics organizations transition to Next-Gen Service

Read the full report to see how NextGen Service delivery can help electronics organizations boost operational efficiency, increase customer retention, and deliver a competitive advantage in a shifting business landscape.