Services 4.0

There is a paradigm shift to the concept of Service in Industry 4.0; irrespective of the Industry and Vertical. Life and Industries are pivoting to a new future where the divide between the Physical and Virtual is blurred by Digital Technologies. Those in Services must Lead and Respond to this Transformation with progressing on their own journeys in excellence; otherwise known as Innovation. The classic example to understand this phenomena is the business of Amazon. As it has emerged as this big Supply Chain behemoth, it is leaving no business models untouched; be it B2C, B2B, B2B2C, C2C and P2P. While in the past three versions of service, the physical part of Supply Chain was the driver for Data & Information Processing, it is the Digital Processing that is the driver for the Physical movements of goods and people. Central to this argument is data and Intelligence is moving 20 times exponential in comparison to the movement of people and goods. Amazon while outsourcing its low end activities focused on developing this capability with the time and money it saved. Only if its Service Providers knew better. And now that it has accomplished its broader agenda, Amazon can practically have any donkey carry its physical weight from origin to destination.

Having a Servant's heart and a digital mind are critical to the thriving of businesses in the Services. Continuous Innovation is the method.

The Services Industry for any vertical and / sector has emerged from Labor Arbitrage through Cost and Resource into the current Value Arbitrage. As Customers have shifted from being Oligopolies and Monopolies into Optimized Business Units within and enterprise group, the need for organic growth has become more evident; especially given the changes in the environment including Life, Digital Technology and dynamically shifting Global Customer Aspirations.

It should be evident by now that Services Industry needs to geared not only to Proposition Value but rather enable "Plug and Play" of Engines, Components and / or Connectors into the Customer Experience, Engagement & Enterprise. Services Organization must be have the capabilities to either Create / Influence or be part of ecosystems that operate mutually inclusively as Platform, Product, Process and / or Projects (Services).

The world Bank estimates the combined revenue of the global businesses to be in excess of $190 Trillion by 2025. Service organizations cannot rely on conventional strategies and tools. They need to reinvent themselves through Design Thinking. To not just be driven by Customer Requirements but rather providing Customers the ability to Innovate seamlessly transporting Intellectual Property (IP); from Conceptualization to Commercialization in a Continuum.