The aftermarket has long been your company’s stable profit engine, fueled by the steady, reactionary flow of spare parts sales. We all know this model: a machine breaks, a part is ordered, and the process repeats.
But that dependable engine is shrinking. The rise of outcome based service models and predictive maintenance means that high-volume, unplanned parts sales are becoming a thing of the past. Your customers aren’t just buying equipment — they’re investing in guaranteed uptime, efficiency, and performance.
This is a fundamental pivot, not just a trend. It requires moving from a product-centric mindset to an outcome-centric business model. But how do you make this critical shift without creating a massive rift with your essential dealer network? We’ve found the solution starts with clarity, data, and a unified strategy.
The traditional business model is now a liability. Waiting for a breakdown is no longer a viable customer service strategy — it’s a cost. Service led growth is about moving to a proactive, subscription-like model that guarantees your customer’s success.
As sensors and AI accurately predict failures, the need for emergency, high-margin spare part sales drops sharply. This is great for your customer's uptime, but it directly impacts a traditional revenue stream for both you and your dealers.
The focus moves from selling a piece of metal to selling a service contract that guarantees machine availability : often called 'Power by the Hour' or 'Uptime as a Service.'
Outcome-based contracts provide a much more stable and predictable revenue stream than volatile parts sales, offering a foundation for long-term growth for all partners involved.
Your customers aren’t interested in the replacement cost of a bearing; they are interested in the cost of unplanned downtime.
Your new value proposition must directly address their top business concern: operational continuity.
When OEMs start offering these comprehensive service contracts, it often looks like a direct competitive threat to the dealer network. Dealers, who have built their business on parts sales and reactive service, see the OEM moving into their territory. This channel conflict is a significant risk, but it is one you can turn into mutual opportunity.
Dealers need to transition from being parts sellers to local outcome delivery partners. Their new value is in executing the maintenance plan, managing the local logistics, and deepening the customer relationship with on-site expertise.
Move dealer incentive structures away from simply volume of parts sold and towards metrics like customer satisfaction, contract renewal rates, and guaranteed uptime delivered.
The single most valuable asset in this service-led shift is data. To unify your strategy with your dealers, you must start sharing planning data.
A trusted, shared view of customer health, powered by your integrated ERP system, is the foundation for a collaborative model.
Provide dealers with the same visibility you have: real-time sensor data, predicted failure dates, and suggested maintenance schedules. This transforms their inventory and staffing from reactive guesswork to proactive, planned execution.
Using an integrated commerce platform provides a single portal with which both OEM and dealers can view the customer’s machine history, service contract status, and upcoming maintenance needs.
When a dealer knows a part is likely to be needed in 60 days, they can manage their stock and logistics efficiently. This, enabled by smooth ERP data flow, reduces their inventory risk, eliminates emergency shipping costs, and ensures the part is on hand before the machine fails.
Shifting the mindset is only the first step; the real work is in making the new model easy to execute. This is where your back-end systems: your ERP, PIM, and CRM — become the central nervous system for delivering guaranteed outcomes and where your e-commerce platform serves the right information to the right person at the right time.
Link service contracts directly to your ERP for automated billing, and to your CRM for proactive customer communication.
Give dealers a dedicated commerce experience that instantly identifies the exact part and service instructions required for a specific machine ID and predicted fault.
Equip dealer technicians with mobile tools that provide step-by-step repair guides, real-time access to inventory, and the ability to close out a service order directly in the field, reducing administrative friction.
Your KPI needs to move from revenue from parts sales to customer uptime percentage and service contract profitability.
The aftermarket is changing, and the choice is clear: cling to a shrinking, reactive parts business, or embrace service-led commerce to secure stable, recurring outcome-based revenue. The path forward is not about replacing your dealer network, but about re-engineering the partnership.
By democratizing predictive data and building trust-based frameworks, you can equip your dealers with the clarity they need to move from reactionary parts sellers to profitable, proactive service partners. This unified strategy is the only way to convert channel conflict into a foundation for mutual sales growth and stronger, more loyal customer relationships.
This is a business-critical moment. Are your systems and your partners ready to shift from simply selling a part to guaranteeing an outcome?
See the strategies required to deliver guaranteed customer uptime. Access our on-demand session on the future of B2B commerce.
