Solution Business

Success in solution business starts by accepting that solution business is a separate business model, not simply another product category or an extension of the existing product business. This book identifies the business model areas that firms need to focus on when transforming into solution business. It further organizes these areas into three sets of capabilities and practices: commercialization, industrialization, and solution platforms.

Commercialization refers to a firm’s ability to understand customers’ value-creating processes and to create solutions that enable improved value creation for customers. It also refers to a firm’s ability to sell the solutions and to receive compensation based on customers’ value-in-use.

Industrialization refers to a firm’s ability to standardize the solution in order to create repeatability and scalability. To support repeatability, firms need to develop common processes so that the solutions can be efficientlyreplicated across regions and time.

A solution platform creates the necessary support for an effective solution-business process. The platform consists of subsets of capabilities related to strategic management, management systems, infrastructure support, and human resources.

Solution Business: Building a Platform for Organic Growth is the first book to take a comprehensive view of success in solution business, and its relevance therefore extends to all functions of firms wanting to become solution providers. It offers advice for strategy planning, business development, research and development, marketing, sales, supply chain management, operations, finance, planning and control, legal matters, and human resources management.

The book is also relevant on many managerial levels. For top management, it provides the agenda for transformation. For functional heads, it illustrates the capabilities that each function needs to develop. For business-unitheads, it shows the areas prone to conflict during the transition towards solution business. And for middle management, it offers a language with which to discuss solution business across functions and regions.

The book will also help you self-assess how ready your organization is for success in solution business.