industrial//industrial ecosystem//aftermarket

The aftermarket is all the business that exists after the asset is installed: maintenance, spares, repair workshops, upgrades, consulting, digital transformation, MES, CMMS and EAM software, optimization, control-system renewals and migrations.

The aftermarket is all the business that exists after the asset is installed: maintenance, spares, repair workshops, upgrades, consulting, digital transformation, MES, CMMS and EAM software, optimization, control-system renewals and migrations.

A machine or a plant lasts fifteen to thirty years or more, so the manufacturer, the integrator and the vendor can earn for decades from spares, service, maintenance, software and upgrades. The initial sale is the opening entry, not the business. The aftermarket is the seller's view of the same decades a buyer prices as Total Cost of Ownership, where operating cost is added to the purchase price.

The strategic incentive is lock-in: the more the equipment is integrated with the manufacturer's software, the higher the switching cost, and the larger the aftermarket. For a plant, that cost is a line in every purchasing decision (sophisticated buyer).

Digitalization is the newest aftermarket product: condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and analytics sold on top of the installed base, which is why access to the machine's data has become part of the negotiation (data holders, IIoT).