 |
Tony
Affuso
Chairman of the Board and Chief
Executive
Officer |
Today’s economy is accelerating
manufacturers’ changing view of after-sales service.
Increasingly, it has become a strategic business issue
for companies looking to develop consistency in their
revenue, gain a competitive edge and secure customer
loyalty.
Research has shown that many discrete
manufacturers now garner 10 percent to 40 percent of
their revenue from after-sales service and that service
profit margins for this type of service can be from 25
percent to 1000 percent higher than margins on product
sales1. In some cases, servicing long life
products (assets) can result in 2 to 5 times the revenue
of the initial sale. In the aviation industry alone, the
global market for aircraft maintenance, repair and
overhaul is expected to reach $55.2 billion by
2015.2
Manufacturers cannot afford to ignore
their products once delivered to the customer. Whether
direct service is the goal or simply ensuring that a
customer or a third party can keep its products safe and
functioning well, successful manufacturers need to
support service with information created during product
development. Research indicates that “Best in class
performers are 2.9 times as likely as average performers
to have deployed configuration management solutions to
support the service lifecycle."3 To gain
maximum value from service functions, companies need to
maintain uniform data access across a product’s full
lifecycle, from design through production, installation
and maintenance – a capability provided by Product
Lifecycle Management (PLM).
