More than 30 companies have been helped to increase their profitability and to meet the challenges of the future by courses in service-driven corporate development, arranged by Paper Province.
“The idea is to provide additional knowledge for companies that work in manufacturing and explore how they can add services to increase their competitiveness”, says Per Myhrén.
Corporate development by means of service-dominated logic constitutes a powerful resource when facing increased competition from the global market.
“By adding services in the customer’s value chain, small and medium-sized businesses can become more competitive. But it requires a new way of thinking and a customer-driven development process”, explains Per Myhrén, Innovation Advisor at Paper Province.
30 companies have completed the training
Thomas Sundberg is a consultant with extensive experience of service development. For several years, he has been training Paper Province’s member companies within the field of servicification. So far, he has trained more than 30 companies, with the help of experts from the Service Research Center at Karlstad University.
“The societal demands on companies regarding sustainability are increasing all the time. You need to question if your company can evolve and become more profitable in any other ways than by increasing product sales”, says Thomas Sundberg.
This does not mean that the company should stop production. Instead, the product portfolio should be adapted to offer more profitable solutions for all parties, as well as increasing sustainability.
“For every product I develop, I must also ask myself: How do I generate the greatest benefit from this product in a lifecycle perspective, and how can it be packaged?”
Servicified business
One of the companies that has completed the training and gained a new perspective is the forest company Nykvist Skogs.
“This is one of the best training courses I’ve experienced”, says CEO Pär Skinnargård.
He believes that the combination of theory and practical exercises makes the course work so well. He also appreciates that it was attended by companies with different types of business, with different conditions and perspectives.
“The opportunity to meet with other companies and to hear about their challenges and solutions is of great importance to me. There is so much we can learn from each other”, he says.
Increased sustainability
Thanks to the theoretical knowledge and practical exercises in the servicification training, Pär received the help he needed to expand the company’s offering. He chose to implement several changes.
“There were certain things I had been thinking about for quite a while, and the servicification course helped me realise that I was on the right track.”
An increased focus on services, combined with forest owners becoming less dependent on the forest as a sole source of income, has enabled Nykvist Skogs to take a greater and more far-sighted responsibility for the forest.
“We can now better advise our customers to think in the longer term and to reinvest in the forest, instead of merely extracting as much money as possible from the final felling. This establishes a longer-term relationship, is more sustainable, and enables the forest to increase more in value over time.”