By Sarah Nicastro, Founder and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service
When organizations talk about transforming service, particularly given today’s pressures, the instinct is to look for the big move. Is it a new service strategy? A technology investment? A shift toward servitization? A new operating model? More digital services? Better talent?
The reality is that it’s all of those things—and none of them in isolation.
In a recent conversation for the UNSCRIPTED podcast, I spoke with Peter George, Head of Global Sales and Service for Alfa Laval’s Industrial Food and Heat Transfer Division, about the company’s journey to bring service into greater focus. I loved how Peter described that journey as a “big jigsaw puzzle with a lot of pieces.”
It’s an apt analogy.
Because what makes successful service transformation so complex is quite similar to the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle; it isn't simply that there are a lot of pieces, it’s that the pieces have to fit together just right to complete the vision.
You can’t redefine the service proposition without considering what that means for the people delivering it. You can’t ask technicians to become more consultative without giving them the competence, tools, and information to do so. You can’t build digital service capabilities without thinking about new roles and career paths. And you can’t expect the organization to invest differently in service if the business still fundamentally sees it as a reactive, break-fix function.
Service Transformation Starts with Changing the Vision You’re Aiming to Build
Historically, Alfa Laval viewed service as important—but, like many manufacturers with a strong product heritage, it didn't necessarily receive the same level of focus as product development.
That began to change as the company listened more closely to customers.
Peter explained that customer conversations were increasingly moving beyond traditional concepts like reliability and maintenance toward efficiency, sustainability, and ROI. Those are all areas where service can have significant impact, but they require a different way of not only thinking about but talking about service.
That became an important starting point: understanding that the value customers seek through their lens and allowing that to fundamentally change the service conversation.
Instead of, “Your machine is broken, and we can fix it,” the conversation becomes, “What are you trying to achieve, and how can we help you get more value from this asset across its lifecycle?”
That shift may sound subtle, but it has significant implications for everything that follows. And while the pieces to any one organization’s jigsaw puzzle will be unique, here are those that were vital to Alfa Laval’s success.
Puzzle Piece #1: Redefine the Service Vision
The first piece of Alfa Laval's puzzle was redefining what service should be.
The company brought service leaders together to establish a new service vision and then looked at its existing offerings through the lens of the customer lifecycle. Rather than simply retaining traditional service names and descriptions, the organization reconsidered how those offerings fit into the customer's journey and, critically, what value each one delivered.
That meant moving away from describing activities and toward describing outcomes. In the eyes of the customer, a reconditioning service isn't simply reconditioning. An upgrade isn't simply an upgrade.
What does that intervention enable the customer to accomplish? What happens when the equipment isn't performing as it should? What can be done to prevent recurring problems? How can the asset contribute more effectively to the customer's broader objectives?
And not only considering the view of the customer but adopting their language so that you express your understanding and so what you say resonates because it’s in their terms.
But redefining the offering creates another puzzle piece: if you're asking your people to have a different conversation with customers, they need to be equipped to have it.
Puzzle Piece #2: Build the Workforce Around the New Value Proposition
The frontline role changes when service changes.
A technician who is expected to simply diagnose and repair a problem has a different job from someone expected to act as a trusted advisor, identify opportunities to improve performance, and help a customer understand how to get more value from an asset.
Alfa Laval recognized that distinction. Peter emphasized the importance of attracting people with the right mindset and behaviors, but he also highlighted something that can sometimes get lost in conversations about frontline transformation: the human experience of doing the job.
For Peter, who began as a service engineer himself, work-life balance is one of the first considerations when thinking about attracting and retaining field service talent. Recognition, appropriate workload, training, tools and support all matter, but so does making sure people have a life outside of work.
Another important piece is career development. Not every field engineer wants to become a manager (nor should they). Alfa Laval has created learning programs and pathways that allow people to develop their skills and move into other roles when they're ready, including newer digital service roles.
That is a perfect example of why the puzzle pieces interconnect. Digital transformation creates new roles. New roles create new career opportunities. Career opportunities help attract and retain talent. And better talent enables the organization to deliver a more sophisticated service proposition.
Puzzle Piece #3: Give the Frontline Workforce the Tools to Succeed
One area Alfa Laval focused on was making information much more accessible to technicians in the field. For an OEM, critical information can live across multiple systems and repositories. A technician may need a drawing, parts list, standard operating procedure, or other piece of information while standing in front of equipment at a customer site.
Alfa Laval worked to centralize that information and make it accessible through tools such as IFS, reducing the friction involved in finding what technicians need to execute their work. The company also simplified reporting so technicians could complete documentation in real time rather than spending additional hours at the end of the day.
Notice the dual benefit here: Better technology can improve operational efficiency, but it can also improve employee experience.
Reducing administrative burden doesn't only mean a technician can potentially complete more jobs. It can mean less time spent working after hours, less frustration and more time away from work. That's an important mindset shift: technology investments shouldn't be evaluated solely through the lens of productivity. They can also be investments in the people who use them.
Puzzle Piece #4: Extend Beyond the Physical Field with Digital Services
As mentioned, Alfa Laval's transformation involved the creation of new digital capabilities. The company has established digital service centers where experts monitor connected equipment and provide predictive services. Those teams also act as a support mechanism for field engineers, helping them troubleshoot problems and access expertise when they need it. Alfa Laval has expanded this capability globally and incorporated technologies including augmented reality.
Again, this is more than the surface-level technology story. Digital service creates new capabilities for customers. It creates new support mechanisms for technicians. And it creates new career pathways for employees.
The pieces reinforce one another. The frontline doesn't become less important because digital capabilities expand. Instead, the definition of the frontline ecosystem becomes broader. Expertise can flow between the field and digital teams, with each making the other more effective.
Puzzle Piece #5: Create R&D Specifically for Service
Perhaps one of the most tangible indicators of Alfa Laval's changing perception and prioritization of service is the development of dedicated R&D activity for service.
Product R&D is a natural concept in a product manufacturer, of course. But service R&D requires a different mindset: proactively looking at what could be improved once products are in the field and creating new tools, services, or interventions to improve performance, efficiency, and customer value.
And critically, Alfa Laval's service organization is feeding those opportunities into dedicated R&D resources.
That creates a feedback loop: The field sees the opportunity. Service captures it. R&D develops it. The customer receives more value.
That is a very different model from waiting for something to break and then responding. It is service innovation becoming an intentional discipline, which only happens in a business that truly values the opportunity service presents.
Puzzle Piece #6: Build the Organizational Infrastructure Around Service
There's a lot of infrastructure required to make all this work. Peter talked about ensuring service has the right footprint, service centers, and infrastructure to support the installed base, while also embedding service systems into the broader IT landscape so employees can access the information they need seamlessly.
But it’s more than just infrastructure. It’s the understanding that to achieve true success, you have to accept that service transformation isn’t a “service initiative,” but rather a business transformation.
Marketing has a role because the organization needs to communicate value differently. HR has a role because talent models, career development, and employee experience have to evolve. R&D has a role because service opportunities need to influence innovation. IT has a role because information and systems need to support execution. Sales has a role because the conversation around customer value has to extend beyond the initial product sale.
In Peter's words, the transformation requires the whole organization to come along, not just service.
Advice for Service Transformation Success
The fact that the pieces can't be solved in isolation is, ultimately, what I find most compelling about the jigsaw puzzle analogy. The complexity isn't simply that there are many things to do; it's that each thing changes the requirements for the others.
Pull one piece out, and the picture changes. That's why transformation can feel overwhelming. There isn't necessarily one obvious starting point, and there certainly isn't one initiative that will solve everything. What’s helpful in achieving success is to understand upfront the interconnectedness of the pieces.
When I asked Peter what he found most challenging about this journey, it wasn’t the complexity itself he named, or any certain aspect of it, but rather the temptation to move too fast. “Once you know what needs to change, the temptation is to move quickly,” he shares. “But transformation has to be digestible for the organization for it to work.”
Alfa Laval has deliberately brought the pieces together over time, allowing different functions to adapt and ensuring changes become embedded.
That may be one of the most important lessons for organizations embarking on their own transformation: Service transformation is not a project you complete; it's a new way of operating that you progressively build.
The goal isn't to put every piece in place as quickly as possible. It's to make sure the pieces fit—and that they stay in place.
There’s a wealth of knowledge in the full conversation with Peter, I’d recommend giving it a listen.