Traditionally, services lack many of the characteristics that make a physical product easy to sell, buy, replicate, and produce efficiently. This is especially true about complex professional services. It can take two hours to explain what the service is about - and still the customer might get it wrong.

Productization is a practical and systematic method to implement product-like features and characteristics into a service and package it into a more manageable and understandable object.

The power of productization is at its best with high volume services. Furthermore, all services that aim for high volume will benefit from productization. For successful service replication (franchising) productization is a must.

The Works:

Our productization framework consists of two flows (commercialization and standardization) through three main topics (customer expectation, ability to deliver, service proposition). The main topics cover 24 subtopics in total. The framework drives the productization project and keeps it going according to a predetermined schedule.

The focus is only on subtopics that truly need work, the result being a fast and low cost productization project and the best possible utilization of your own resources. The framework is suited for a wide variety of service types and it has been successfully applied in over 200 service productization efforts. it is no rocket science but straightforward and practical work.

On average, the projects involve 3 to 5 people to attend 3 - 4 workshops in a time frame of 2 to 3 weeks. Very complex (for example services with global coverage) services may necessitate several months of work. Investing more time on certain subtopics, such as the revenue generation model, is usually well worth it.

The Results:

The result is a thoroughly thought out and well defined service product that is a joy to sell and market. The content and the message are clear and appealing. They establish the right kind of customer expectations Resulting in quick and clear buying decisions.

A productized service is also a delight to buy and to consume. The customer is immediately able to understand the value of the service and see what they need to do to make the most of it. No hassles or let-down customer expectations in service delivery!

A productized service is risk-free and cost efficient to produce. Repeatedly. Service delivery is standardized, making is the service easy to deliver and to allow others (partners, other sites, franchising etc.) to replicate it.