Services: The Obvious

 

Yes, I admit I read Fast Company. At least every other year. Why? Because they often point me at the obvious, the visibly invisible, and on occasion they produce an inspired stretch of writing that’s worth excerpting. Here is one:

 

The cutting edge, the thing that is getting traction, is the effort to sell services rather than products. It is a shift in perspective that can transform a business. It’s IBM selling you computing services – serer space, processing capacity – rather than actual computers. A company selling computers wants to sell as many servers as possible, without much regard to the power they consume or cooling they require; a company that sells computer services wants the most efficient, cool-running servers it can make. Companies that are able to turn their business inside out this way find that addressing sustainability issues can change from a burden or cost to an opportunity for efficiency and profit.

 

If you are a chemical company, you sell the service the chemical provides rather than the chemical itself – disinfection rather than chlorine. Suddenly, you want to conserve the chemicals, to find ways to recover and reuse them. Indeed, imagine what Nike might be like if it sold “shoe services” by subscription – the way Netflix rents movies – instead of shoes.

 

Obvious, right?  [From: Fact Company, November 2007. 50 Ways to Green Your Business, by Mark Borden, Jeffry Chu, Charles Fishman, Michael Prospero and Danielle Sacks; pp.90-99.]