Increasing Services - A Case Study at ABS Regarding the Change Process towards Service Orientation

The main purpose of this master thesis is to identify the issues concerning the transformation process of a product oriented company into a service oriented company, and how these issues can be overcome. We will exemplify this by developing a dewatering pump rental concept for ABS, and identify the drivers and barriers for ABS when implementing the service oriented rental concept in Sweden and Poland. This master thesis is based on the systems perspective. The reason for this is the required holistic perspective, where the system has to be regarded from different points of departure in order to be understood. The theoretical studies include services and change management. Through the services theories and the empirical studies at ABS Spain, we have developed B.O.M.B.A. – our suggested full scale rental concept for ABS. Through the change management theories, B.O.M.B.A., and the empirical studies at ABS Sweden and Poland, we have identified what needs to be done in the two organisations in order to implement a rental business. Finally we present the PST model, which is our suggested generic model for how a product oriented company could transform into service oriented. Increasing the amount of services in product offerings has become a popular way of increasing profit in mature industries. However organisational changes often imply barriers. Step-by-step methods are effective ways of performing long lasting change. We have proposed the Product to Service Transformation (PST) Model, which is a step-by-step method for transforming product oriented companies into service oriented companies. We stress the importance of creating an ideal service concept in order to identify all important parts associated with the service orientation and service organisation. We further believe the ideal concept strengthens the vision and shows the organisation a well thought-out idea, preferably built on a success story. Through this the organisation is better prepared to overcome the internal barriers towards the transformation. The concept should continuously be revised and developed in order to create new competitive advantage. We emphasise the importance of controlled flexibility in service organisations. The expression includes both the importance of personnel taking own initiatives within terms of reference, in order to meet customer demands, and the importance of cost control, in order to set the right prices of services and to know how flexible to be within tendering processes