“2025 was the year the execution gaps became impossible to ignore.”

That is how Lisa Hellqvist, Managing Director at Copperberg, frames the past year in this annual year-end conversation on Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters. Drawing on hundreds of off-stage conversations from Power of 50 events, webinars, and community sessions across Europe, Lisa reflects on what leaders said they were prioritizing and what actually held them back.

In this episode, Lisa unpacks the tension between ambition and reality in aftermarket and service transformation. While AI, sustainability, servitization, and customer centricity dominated the narrative in 2025, the real confessions pointed to deeper structural challenges: fragmentation, organizational misalignment, and a persistent lack of ownership across functions.

Looking ahead, the conversation shifts from reflection to direction. Lisa outlines what she calls the “slogans of 2026”—a move from evangelism to execution, from scale to clarity, and from uptime metrics to lifetime value thinking.

Inside the Episode:

- Looking back at 2025

- What changed—and what didn’t

- Where leaders are misreading the moment

- Signals heading into 2026

-Advice for planning the year ahead

Grounded, candid, and shaped by real conversations from the field, this episode offers a clear-eyed perspective on what the past year revealed and what leaders must do differently as they plan for 2026.

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Stay Connected:

- Connect with Lisa Hellqvist on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisahellqvist/

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction

04:00 Key Themes in Aftermarket and Service

09:31 Surprises in Leadership Perspectives

12:17 The Shift from Why to How

15:03 Sustainability and AI in Focus

21:59 The Shift Towards Ownership and Service Models

30:43 Taking Action: The Importance of Small Steps

31:52 Looking Ahead: Signals for 2026

38:07 The Future of Technology and Service Value

45:32 Closing

—

Help Us Grow:

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- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

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“Value isn’t universal; it’s contextual.”

That is Coralie Bordeaux’s guiding principle for shaping how a global industrial company communicates value across markets, cultures, and customer expectations.

As Global Marketing Program Lead for Value Propositions at ABB Electrification, Coralie joins Copperberg Conversations to unpack what it truly takes to translate complexity into clarity at scale. This episode examines how global frameworks, local insight, and cross-functional collaboration come together to create value messaging that resonates everywhere—yet remains grounded in the realities of each market.

From turning technical depth into meaningful outcomes to empowering regional teams, Coralie offers leaders a practical lens for communicating value in a way that is strategic, credible, and human.

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Stay Connected:

- Connect with Coralie Bordeaux on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/coralie-bordeaux-a9496353/

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction

02:13 What ABB Electrification Does

03:12 Inside Coralie’s Role

05:56 How Industrial Companies Communicate Value Today

07:09 Aligning Global Messaging with Local Realities

10:18 When Local Insight Changes the Strategy

13:45 Peer Exchange as a “Superpower”

14:33 Learning That Value Is Contextual

17:04 The Future of Value Messaging

18:50 Closing

—

Help Us Grow:

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“Servitization succeeds when the product becomes a subset of service.”

That is Umayal Palaniappan’s bold take on what it truly means for manufacturers to embrace a service-led business model.

Drawing on two decades of shaping services strategy in a global engineering company, Umayal joins Copperberg Conversations to unpack what it takes to move from product to outcome, and why AI should be seen as a helpful enabler rather than the headline. This episode explores the human, operational, and commercial shifts driving servitization, providing leaders with practical insights to scale with confidence.

Inside the Episode:

• Origins and Curiosity: How early influences and a systems-first mindset carried Umayal across continents and functions.

• AI as a Supporting Tool: Why AI is not a magic wand, where it supports smarter service models, and why adoption often falters without operating model change.

• Scaling Servitization: Clear routes to value, early KPI signals that pilots are ready to scale, and the role of modular offerings in balancing personalization with efficiency.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: The lived-experience empathy needed to bring engineering, service, and business teams together.

• Leading Change: What a penguin colony on a melting iceberg can teach us about urgency, alignment, and the humility to pilot, fail fast, and iterate.

Servitization is not won on strategy alone. As Umayal points out, it is clarity, collaboration, and trust that carry transformation across an organization. For leaders, the challenge is less about technology and more about bringing people along the journey.

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Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction

02:12 Early Influences and Curiosity in Engineering

04:47 The Rise of Generative AI in Manufacturing

09:39 Understanding Servitization and AI's Role

12:56 Scaling Servitization Initiatives

15:38 Challenges in Cross-Functional Collaboration

17:48 Leading Change and Building Trust

20:35 Aligning Organizational Goals with Customer Value

27:17 Key Performance Indicators for Success

29:52 The Future of Servitization

33:06 Outro

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Stay Connected:

- Connect with Umayal Palaniappan on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/umayalpalaniappan/

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—

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At e-connect – Power of 50 in February 2025, Copperberg gathered 50 digital commerce leaders in Cologne for a focused day of insight and exchange around the theme: “Transforming E-Commerce for Continuous Growth.”

From real-world challenges to future-facing strategies, this recap captures the moments that mattered.

Inside the Episode:

• Delegate Spotlights: Hear firsthand from attendees representing Kalmar, Sandvik, and Ammann Asphalt GmbH. From digital nudges to adoption roadblocks, their reflections show how e-commerce leaders are navigating change in different contexts.

• Keynote Soundbites: Discover what stood out from the main stage. From Roehm’s practical take on behavioral nudges to commercetools’ call for generational relevance, and Schneider Electric’s reality check on buyer expectations, these talks reframed what’s possible in modern B2B commerce.

• Roundtable Debriefs: With five interactive sessions running throughout the day, our moderators from Coveo, Sana Commerce, PROS, and Valtech reveal the patterns and takeaways they saw emerge, from the role of AI in personalization to unlocking pricing potential.

• Themes to Take Forward: From AI’s growing influence on the buyer journey to the importance of starting small and building confidence, the day’s conversations centered on one common theme: practical progress over perfection. As Kathy Miller of TVH reminded us, “Don’t boil the ocean.”

  
  

If you missed the event or want to revisit the standout moments, this episode brings the conversation to you, one voice at a time.

—

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction

01:03 Insights from Delegates

03:00 Keynote Takeaways

12:01 Roundtable Discussions

14:54 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

—

Stay Connected:

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—
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Are inefficiencies quietly draining your service margins? In this episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief at Copperberg, speaks with Luke Huckerby, Director of Strategic Business Development at Syncron, to discuss how OEMs can close profit gaps, strengthen customer relationships, and move confidently toward more advanced service models.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Advanced Services: Opportunities & ThreatsHow service contracts help secure long-term loyalty, drive recurring revenue, and why OEMs that don’t evolve risk losing ground to third-party providers and shifting customer expectations.
  

• Why Synergising Service Lifecycle Management Is EssentialLearn how linking operations across departments builds stronger service performance—and why service contracts are the natural point of alignment.
  

• What Are the Threats Lurking in Your Service P&L?From poor contract pricing to invisible revenue leaks, Kris and Luke reveal the traps hiding inside many OEM service organizations, and how to root them out.
  

• The Impact of Syncron’s New Contract Pricing SolutionFrom predictive costing to scalable pricing models, see how this solution helps OEMs simplify complexity and make smarter decisions faster.
  

• Does Critical Tech Offer a Competitive Edge—or Just Keep You in the Game?Why adopting advanced technology may give OEMs a head start today, but could soon become a basic requirement to stay relevant in an increasingly servitized market.

  
  

For OEMs serious about driving service transformation, this conversation is a powerful starting point.

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Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction to the Discussion

05:06 Identifying Revenue Leakage in Service Contracts

07:00 The Shift from Cost Center to Profit Center

11:29 The Importance of Service Contracts

13:01 Data Flow Challenges in Service Organizations

19:59 Understanding Servitization and Its Steps

26:59 Understanding Customer-Based Pricing

34:49 Navigating Third-Party Threats

43:18 The Importance of Technology Adoption

52:28 OUTRO

—

Stay Connected:

- Join the Copperberg Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow us on social media:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—

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In December 2024, 50 service and aftermarket leaders gathered in snowy Stockholm for the first-ever Sustainability in Service Summit. This episode brings you key moments from that day—from the pre-event workshop to the closing panel—through the voices of attendees, speakers, and partners. With a mix of keynote reflections, roundtable takeaways, and delegate insights, this episode captures how the industry is turning sustainability from aspiration into action.

Experience the pulse of the event:

- Workshop Kickoff: Step inside the exclusive pre-event workshop hosted by Syncron, where the theme Profit with Purpose challenged attendees to rethink the role of sustainability in driving margin and mission.

- Delegates in Focus: Service professionals at the event share what resonated most and what’s next on their sustainability roadmaps.

- Keynote Takeaways: Our speakers delivered keynote presentations on aligning sustainability with growth. From Kalmar’s service models to Tomra’s approach to empowering field teams, these sessions brought fresh thinking on how to merge profitability and purpose across the service lifecycle.

- Roundtable Insights: Get a front-row seat to the core discussions that shaped the day. During five rounds of peer-to-peer discussions, delegates and partners tackled real challenges—like internal buy-in, KPI alignment, and cross-functional silos—and surfaced practical strategies to build momentum toward more sustainable service practices.

- Panel Reflections: Listen in as our expert panelists brought the day’s insights full circle. With themes of collaboration, transparency, and action at the forefront, the panel delivered a powerful closing message: sustainability is no longer a side initiative, it’s becoming the foundation of service strategy moving forward.

This episode delivers the kind of practical insight and strategic perspective that service leaders need to navigate complexity and drive results through sustainability.

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Time Stamps:

00:00 INTRO

01:08 Pre-Event Workshop

01:50 Setting the Tone with Lisa Hellqvist

02:51 Delegates in Focus

07:13 Keynote Takeaways

11:42 Roundtable Insights

19:38 Panel Reflections

22:33 Closing Thoughts

23:44 OUTRO

—

Stay Connected:

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—

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In this episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker, Spare Parts Manager EMEA at Positec Germany, pulls back the curtain to share her journey of building Positec’s spare parts management in EMEA.

From managing complex relationships across global headquarters and regional subsidiaries to overcoming communication barriers, Anastasia demonstrates why a successful spare parts leader needs both soft skills and strategic insight to deliver consistent, meaningful results.

Join us as we discuss:

- Building Spare Parts Management from Scratch: Anastasia’s experience and insights from creating and refining Positec’s spare parts processes across EMEA, from inventory management to training dealers.

- Communicating with Global Stakeholders: Overcoming language barriers, bridging gaps between stakeholders, and mastering the delicate art of balancing global and regional interests within an international service supply chain.

- Expanding from DIY to Professional Markets: How Positec strategically transitioned into the professional B2B market, tackling heightened service expectations and inventory complexities along the way.

- Empowering Dealers through Transparency: Why dealer relationships are central to Positec’s growth strategy, the pivotal role of their dealer portal, and practical insights into keeping dealer networks aligned, satisfied, and effective.

- Future Opportunities: The importance of digital transformation, including AI-driven predictive services and dealer portals that streamline orders and repairs, offering an exciting preview into industry trends and practical tips for adopting new technologies to stay ahead competitively.

Throughout the episode, Anastasia emphasizes how critical effective communication and trust-building are for spare parts professionals navigating international roles, providing practical takeaways for those looking to enhance their own roles.

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Time Stamps:

00:00 INTRODUCTION

01:23 Anastasia's Career Path and Role at Positec

04:02 Understanding Positek's Operations and Market

05:49 Challenges of Managing Across Diverse Regions

11:48 Building Trust and Communication with Subsidiaries

14:59 Conflict Management and Team Dynamics

17:27 Team Structure and Responsibilities

19:14 The Role of a Manager in Supply Chain

23:08 Current Priorities and Market Focus

25:19 Challenges in the Professional Market

28:08 Milestones in Training and Development

31:35 Keeping Dealers Happy and Managing Expectations

33:26 Growth Areas in the Industry

35:47 Future Impact and Innovations

37:47 Proudest Achievements and Advice for New Managers

41:41 OUTRO

—

Stay Connected:

- Connect with Anastasia Buyzhina-Ecker on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasia-buyzhina/

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—

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In this episode of Copperberg Conversations on Manufacturing Matters, we explore what’s next for field service. Lisa Hellqvist, Copperberg’s Managing Director, sits down with Martin Knook, CEO of Gomocha, to explore how companies can adapt their field service operations to meet the demands of 2025 and beyond.

From sustainability to predictive maintenance, Martin and Lisa unpack the critical trends and challenges shaping the sector, offering actionable insights for industry leaders looking to stay ahead.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

- Sustainability in Field Service

How businesses are adopting sustainable practices and how this shift is being driven by customer demand and regulatory compliance.

- The Evolution of Predictive Maintenance Why maturing predictive maintenance strategies is a cornerstone for operational efficiency and how data plays a critical role.

- Outcome-Based Services The growing trend of purchasing services over products and the generational shift driving this change.

- Addressing Talent ShortagesStrategies to bridge the skills gap, retain top talent, and reimagine the role of the field service technician.

Field service leaders and forward-thinkers alike will find this episode full of actionable insights to adapt and thrive in a shifting landscape.

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Time Stamps:

00:00 INTRO

02:10 Background of Martin Knook

12:03 Key Differentiators in Field Service Management

22:05 Sustainability in Field Service Operations

32:21 Navigating Complex Regulations in Field Service

39:44 Predictive Maintenance: Challenges and Opportunities

47:52 The Shift to Outcome-Based Service Models

54:36 Harnessing IoT Data for Intelligent Decision Making

57:50 Bridging the Generational Gap in Service Expectations

01:00:24 The Role of Assistive Technologies in Service

01:04:46 Addressing the Talent Shortage in Field Service

01:08:01 Reimagining Field Service Operations for the Future

01:18:09 OUTRO

—

Stay Connected:

- Connect with Martin Knook - https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinknook/

- Connect with Lisa Hellqvist - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisahellqvist/

- Join Copperberg’s online Business Manufacturing Community - https://bit.ly/3ZiYUoe

- Follow Copperberg:

→ LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgLi

→ YouTube - https://bit.ly/cpprbrgYT

—

Help Us Grow:

- We’d appreciate it if you could leave a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform.

- Liked what you heard? Spread the word by sharing it with your network.

- Got feedback or questions? Drop us a line at podcast@copperberg.com—we’d love to hear from you!

—

Music sourced from Pixabay - https://bit.ly/3XZ2KSE