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Equipment-as-a-Service

Use IoT to create new business models and generate more predictable, recurring revenue

Differentiate your solutions with Equipment-as-a-Service

Want to make it easier for customers to use your equipment, while building deeper relationships that deliver higher sustained margins? EaaS, or servitization, helps equipment makers reduce customers' TCO while shifting focus from one-off product sales to higher-margin services and parts.

Evolving to an EaaS business model is only possible when you stay connected to your equipment. But more than technology, it also requires changes to people’s mindsets and processes. First-mover enterprises are already creating strong competitive advantage where the rewards are significant. We like to think of it as the final step on the IoT maturity journey after exploring services including remote monitoring, smart field services and performance management.

Reduce barriers to adoption
A pay-as-you-use business model reduces customers' up-front costs and their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for your equipment. By reducing your customers' risk through flexible equipment acquisition options, you can expand the market for your products and build long-term customer relationships.
Stay connected to customers
Customer expectations are rising. They want to pay for what they use, have someone else worry about uptime and expect parts to be replaced only when necessary. Monitor and optimize performance of your connected equipment to meet customer needs more efficiently.
Generate resilient revenue
Offering products as a service creates resilient revenue streams and improved margins as an alternative to building your business on hardware sales. With greater insights and control over your equipment, you can enhance customer uptime, extend machine life and negotiate performance-based contracts with confidence.

Numbers tell the story

billion dollars. That's the projected market for EaaS in 2025 with CAGR of 35% starting 20191
x
greater total shareholder return among machinery companies that combine hardware, software and services, compared to laggards2
%
of equipment suppliers are evaluating, planning on or currently offering EaaS1

Companies that are further ahead in the transition from equipment businesses to integrated solutions businesses have delivered higher total shareholder returns over the past three years.”

- Bain & Company, The Hardware Paradox: Machinery Must Expand beyond Machines
Take a closer look at Equipment-as-a-Service
  • What is Equipment-as-a-Service?

    Equipment-as-a-Service (EaaS), also known as Product-as-a-Service,  Machine-as-a-Service or servitization, is a business model in which equipment makers rent equipment to end users in exchange for periodic payments. By eliminating a single up-front purchase in favor of a fee for hardware and services, servitization can help manufacturers lower their customers' Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and offer more flexible equipment acquisition options. Similar to the way technology companies are shifting to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscriptions, customers who sign up for EaaS can fund equipment use with OpEx funds, freeing capital for other priorities.

    Ultimately, EaaS can enable customers to pay for defined outcomes that better match their needs, while generating opportunities for equipment makers to offer high-margin services and enhance their products with data-driven insights.

  • What advantages does an Equipment-as-a-Service business model offer?

    EaaS helps equipment makers shift from a reliance on shrinking hardware margins to more profitable after-sale services and parts. At the same time, customers can lower their equipment Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and receive more flexible equipment charges that respond to their changes in demand.

    Bain & Company analysis2 has determined that for industrial equipment makers, the share of value creation associated with hardware is shrinking. Bain expects hardware to decrease from the average 31% of an equipment maker's profit today to 23% by the end of the decade. Remaining profit will come from software, services, and solution offerings that bundle equipment with software and services. EaaS is an efficient way to bundle high-margin services with high-performing equipment in a package that aligns with equipment customers' needs for lower TCO and more flexible equipment costs.

    For equipment makers, an EaaS business model offers several advantages including:

    1. Integrating, maintaining and even operating equipment remotely: By connecting machines to the industrial IoT, equipment makers can include remote condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and performance optimization as part of EaaS offerings.
    2. Data from installed equipment: Before EaaS, once a machine was sold and out the door, the data from that machine was gone. In an EaaS model, equipment makers have access to operational data, enabling them to analyze performance of installed equipment. This data enables more efficient design and operation of smart equipment going forward.
    3. Lower barriers to customer acquisition: A machine that may never have been sold can now be deployed with EaaS. With greater flexibility in pricing and a lower price point for entry, customers are able to acquire and use manufacturing equipment that would have otherwise been prohibitively expensive or otherwise ineligible for purchase.

    The EaaS model delivers benefits to customers including:

    1. Reduced capital expenditure: Purchasing manufacturing equipment is a capital-intensive expenditure that presents a barrier for manufacturing customers. EaaS provides an opportunity to fund equipment with OpEx instead of CapEx. Customers benefit from lower up-front costs, while ensuring they have control over the production process and the quality of products manufactured. 
    2. Data-driven insights: In many EaaS agreements, the equipment maker provides equipment and production benchmark data to the manufacturing customer to help optimize machine utilization and productivity. The accuracy of the benchmarked data can help manufacturers integrate data-driven strategies that optimize productivity, which delivers benefits including cost savings and greater efficiency. 
    3. Lower operating costs: As a part of EaaS, the task of maintaining manufacturing equipment, updating software, firmware or hardware is the responsibility of the equipment maker. This cuts down on the operational expenditure of manufacturers and helps manufacturers focus on their core operations. 
  • What are the challenges in offering Equipment-as-a-Service?

    Anticipating the challenges to adopting an EaaS business model means preparing for the path ahead.

    First, equipment makers can face business challenges. Pricing an EaaS agreement can be difficult. This is especially true for equipment suppliers who want to move to a unit-based payment model because they must find a new way to define and measure value to the end-user. Embracing EaaS also requires transition to a new business model that has implications for distributor relationships. Manufacturers accustomed to receiving payment up-front for unit sales of equipment must be ready to delay revenue to later in the process, as customers use the equipment and services. Finally, financing is an inherent part of EaaS offerings; equipment providers need to create new relationships with finance institutions to offer a range of agreements for customers to choose from.

    Second, equipment makers can face technical challenges to moving to an EaaS model. Cost-efficient operation requires real-time device management, scalable architecture to support big data management and sophisticated analytics, all integrated with field service and spare parts management. Equipment suppliers need to create additional business metrics to generate trusted equipment usage statistics for accurate billing, and automated billing software to enable more frequent, lower cost payments. In terms of risk management, EaaS suppliers need to assume operational risks that the customer formerly absorbed—so understanding and modelling these risks is necessary. This includes modelling environmental factors such as temperature, vibration, dust level, humidity and more.

    The right approach to IoT-connected devices can help overcome many of these challenges. But every equipment supplier needs to understand the risks, and methods to mitigate those risks, as they consider adopting an EaaS business model.

    Equipment makers should consider the skills needed to succeed with an EaaS business model, including:

    Designing a service: Your field service and support teams need to be empowered to maximize the OEE of the customer’s assets in the field. This means that they need the tools to monitor, analyze and update performance data and operating settings so they can schedule and execute on part replacements and predictive maintenance.

    Selling a service: The tools, incentives and bonus structures that incentivize sales teams to win large but infrequent capital deals rarely work when sales teams pursue smaller and more regular service subscriptions. Sales leaders must move the organization from hunting one-off deals to farming recurring revenues.

    Supporting a service: An ongoing service relationship requires equipment makers invest to become both high-touch and customer-obsessed. Contact center staff, field service engineers and the broader ecosystem of parts suppliers must focus on delivering customer-centric outcomes. This extends to product design: an initial investment in more expensive components or a more easily serviced design may reduce long-term costs if it means fewer or shorter field service engagements.

                    The platform that makes it happen
                

Finding the right IoT partner is the most efficient way to become a smart equipment maker. You'll need IoT analytics to see how to prevent problems with your products and reduce maintenance costs. You may also need a network of experts to guide you. Learn more about the easy-to-rebrand Cumulocity IoT platform.

                    Smart, connected products
                

Deliver new features faster with connected products. With the ability to remotely monitor, manage and analyze product data, you’ll know how and when customers use your products. You’ll see how to sell more services, create new product bundles, design contracts based on use and offer higher-value services with stronger SLAs. Offer OEE as a value-added service to your customers.

                    4 steps to IoT maturity
                

The journey to EaaS can be hard. That’s why we’ve outlined a process to make it easy. Take steps up the IoT maturity curve and create value at each phase. We recommend equipment makers start with remote monitoring, then work to implement smart field services and improve overall equipment effectiveness through performance management

                    Deploy predictive maintenance services
                

Learn how IoT data, continuously analyzed by streaming and predictive analytics, enables predictive maintenance services that help customers maximize uptime, predict maintenance needs and reduce maintenance costs.

                    Advance your sustainability goals
                

IoT solutions can help your organization operate more efficiently, unlocking opportunities for green solutions in enterprises, cities and communities. Advance your conservation efforts with new ways to reduce energy consumption, enhance efficiency, monitor quality in real time and keep your systems running at peak performance.

                    IoT Buyer's Guide
                

Looking to connect and monitor industrial equipment and create value-added IoT-enabled services that significantly differentiate your products and create new revenue streams? Read this guide to help you find the best IoT platform that enables this and delivers the outcomes you want and need.
How IoT at the edge enables Equipment-as-a-Service business models
The benefits of adding IoT-enabled services to industrial equipment is clear,  yet transitioning from product sales to EaaS can be a challenge. Read unique insights from Beecham Research on the the ways IoT edge computing enables business model transformation—and apply these findings to make your transition to an EaaS revenue model successful.

1IoT Analytics, Equipment as a Service Market Report 2020-2025, 2Bain & Company, Thinking Outside the Machine: Global Machinery & Equipment Report 2022  

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