Why Top Service Leaders Choose Coaching-Sparring

How Si2’s Intensive Sparring Programmes Help Service Leaders Navigate Complexity, Build Confidence, and Deliver Sustainable Impact

Over the last 24 months, Si2 has seen a sharp rise in demand for what many Service Leaders loosely refer to as coaching—and others as sparring. While the terminology varies, the underlying need is remarkably consistent.

Service Directors and VPs are operating in an environment of growing complexity:

  • Digitisation and IoT initiatives moving faster than organisational capability
  • Talent and knowledge gaps driven by retirements and attrition
  • Increasing pressure to monetise services while protecting the installed base
  • Heightened scrutiny from senior leadership on service profitability, growth, and resilience

 

In this context, many high-performing Service Leaders reach a similar conclusion: they need a trusted external partner—not to tell them what to do, but to help them think better, faster, and with greater confidence.

This is where Si2’s Coaching-Sparring offering comes in.

Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring… and Why Service Leaders Need All Three

In theory, the distinctions are clear:

  • Coaching empowers individuals to find their own answers through questioning, reflection, and skill development
    “How could you approach this?”
  • Consulting provides direct, experience-based answers and recommendations
    “Here is how organisations like yours typically do this.”
  • Mentoring offers long-term guidance based on personal experience and perspective
    “Here’s what I learned when I faced something similar.”

In practice, however, senior Service Leaders rarely need just one of these approaches in isolation.

When you are preparing a board-level presentation on a new service business model, navigating internal resistance to pricing change, or shaping a roadmap for advanced services or IoT monetisation, pure coaching is often insufficient. At the same time, being handed generic consulting slides rarely builds the confidence or ownership required to lead change internally.

What Service Leaders actually need is a blended, mature, and situational approach—one that flexes between coaching, mentoring, and consulting based on the moment, the challenge, and the individual.

At Si2, this is exactly what we provide. But we do so with a level of intensity, focus, and accountability that goes beyond traditional executive coaching. We call it Service Sparring.

What Is Service Sparring?

Service Sparring is a confidential, intensive development partnership designed specifically for senior service leaders.

The concept borrows from martial arts sparring: a safe but challenging environment where skills are tested, assumptions are questioned, and confidence is built through practice—not theory.

In practical terms, Service Sparring means:

  • A trusted partner who understands industrial service business models deeply
  • A space to test ideas, rehearse critical conversations, and challenge strategic direction
  • Direct, honest feedback grounded in real-world experience
  • Access to broader Si2 insights, case examples, and peer perspectives

Unlike traditional coaching, Service Sparring is not passive. The Si2 coach actively engages, challenges, and—when appropriate—shares perspective and experience. Unlike consulting, ownership always remains with the Service Leader. The goal is not dependency, but capability, confidence, and clarity.

Crucially, this requires maturity on both sides. Many managers believe they are “coaching” their teams when they are in fact directing or consulting. In sparring, the Si2 coach consciously chooses the right mode—listening, questioning, advising, or challenging—and makes expectations explicit. This clarity is one of the reasons leaders find the experience so powerful.

Beyond Individuals: Can Sparring Work for Leadership Teams?

While this Insight article focuses on individual Service Leaders, the same principles can—and do—apply at team level.

Si2 regularly runs sparring-based programmes for global service leadership teams addressing challenges such as:

  • Elevating leadership team performance
  • Aligning around service strategy and priorities
  • Navigating transformation under uncertainty

With today’s virtual collaboration platforms, these programmes can be delivered effectively even across globally distributed teams. However, for the purposes of this article, we will focus on the individual Service Leader experience and its tangible benefits.

Case Study 1 – Xander Hillewaere

Former Service Director, Agfa Group

The Context: New Role, New Technology, New Expectations

When Xander stepped into his role as a Service Director at Agfa, he faced a combination of strategic opportunity and personal stretch.

The organisation was exploring how to leverage data from connected equipment—the broader IoT opportunity. At the same time, there were significant concerns around:

  • Capturing knowledge as senior engineers began to leave
  • Ensuring any digital initiative delivered real economic value
  • Building internal credibility for a new service-led business model

As Xander himself describes it, this was a major learning curve.

“At the time, we were looking into what we could do with the data coming out of our equipment—the whole IoT story. We had to develop a business plan that would either generate cost savings or new revenue. And at the same time, we were dealing with a knowledge gap as senior engineers were starting to leave.”

This was not a situation where a generic framework or one-off consulting engagement would suffice. Xander needed space to think, test ideas, and grow into the role—while still delivering results.

Why Coaching-Sparring?

“I was still learning a lot. This was a big new project for me, and I needed some help.”

The decision to engage in a Coaching-Sparring programme was driven by a desire for support without loss of ownership. Xander wanted a third-party perspective—someone who could help him form and refine his own ideas, rather than impose solutions.

Together with Si2, a programme was designed that balanced structure with flexibility.

What Did the Programme Look Like?

The engagement consisted of approximately 40 hours spread over a year, which Xander could draw on as needed:

  • One-hour virtual sparring sessions
  • Full-day face-to-face workshops
  • Targeted desk research on specific topics

This flexibility proved critical. Rather than fixed monthly coaching calls, Xander used the time dynamically—aligning sessions with real business moments.

“For each session, I gave myself an objective. For example: ‘I want to critique this roadmap presentation I’m going to present to my boss.”

In practice, sessions often involved:

  • Walking through strategic plans or presentations
  • Articulating thinking out loud
  • Being challenged on assumptions or direction
  • Receiving precise, experience-based feedback

Sometimes the feedback was challenging; often it was affirming with small but impactful refinements.

“It was very relevant, very precise, and very much in my control.”

Trust, Challenge, and Access to Experience

As trust developed, the sparring became more direct and more valuable. Xander increasingly welcomed not just questions, but input based on Si2’s wider experience—across industries, business models, and service maturity levels.

Through the extended Si2 Service Leaders Network, he also gained access to perspectives that would have been impossible to obtain internally.

“For example, I was able to talk to a CEO who had used a service business model to dramatically increase growth in the truck market over a two-year period. You cannot get these types of insights from a book.”

This exposure helped Xander ground his thinking in reality, not theory.

Discipline and Reflection

One simple but powerful practice Xander adopted was keeping rolling notes from each sparring session.

“Not only did this act as a record I could refer back to, it also allowed me to set clear objectives for each session.”

Over time, this created continuity, momentum, and a clear line of sight between sparring conversations and business outcomes.

Blending Sparring with Targeted Consulting

Another advantage of the Si2 approach was the ability to blend sparring with selective consulting when needed.

“I built in flexibility to request additional consulting work—like research on pricing models and which might be most appropriate for our situation.”

This allowed Xander to stay focused on leading his function, while still benefiting from expert analysis when required.

The Outcomes

Looking back, Xander identifies three key benefits:

1. Objective Sounding Board

“Having an objective person to bounce ideas off—without internal constraints—is incredibly valuable.”

2. Practical Execution Insight

“We got much more information on how to practically do it, and we adapted the execution accordingly.”

3. Sustainable Impact

“The programme we developed is still running, even though I’m no longer there. Devices are still being connected, data is being leveraged, and management buy-in is there.”

This last point is particularly telling. The success of the sparring programme was not dependent on Xander’s continued presence—it built something durable.

Case Study 2 – Tobias Asbrand

Service Sales Manager, Georg Sahm GmbH & Co. KG

While the first case illustrates sparring at Service Director level, the second shows how the same principles apply in service sales leadership.

As a newcomer to sales, Tobias entered his role with strong motivation, excellent service product knowledge, but limited experience in structuring and selling service offerings.

Having attended Workshop in which the Si2 facilitator-coach had helped an extended Service /Sales team develop a targeted sales strategy for their region, he realised that some personal coaching would be very useful for him. Having experienced the practical tools the facilitator had used to develop customer segmentation and understand the customers value, he talked with his Manager and the  Si2 coach, and they co-created  a personalised sparring programme. Their objective was to double the number of service contracts being signed in the region.

They agreed a set number of sparring hours over a 6 month period, Tobias would get support through a series of regular virtual and face-2-face meetings.

Through a six-month Service Sales Coaching-Sparring programme, he worked closely with Si2 to:

  • Define clear goals: Targeting the right customers is critical for any sales person. By working with the segmentation models and value propositions, they were able to clearly identify the target customers to approached in a proactive manner. 
  • Develop a compelling service sales concept: For each customer they worked to develop an approach to the customer, matching their needs to the propositions. They tailored standard Si2 assessment questionnaires to the specifics of that customer segment, to ensure that Tobias knew (and practiced) matching the questions to the situation, so as to tease out of the customer their real needs.
  • Align marketing, customer analysis, and internal processes: So as to put into action the sales plan. Week by week they would review progress. Where necessary customer letters were developed together. The Si2 facilitator was working with Tobias in real time to implement the skills and techniques they had discussed, so by the end of the programme the programme he was confident and performing.

Tobias recently noted on Linked IN that  “I was able to significantly improve my sales skills and apply them effectively with our customers.”

In fact he was being modest. He in fact was able to increase the contract penetration by a factor of 3, well exceeding the expectations of his boss.

The value was not theoretical training, but guided application—combining Si2’s ideas andd experiences with Tobias’s own work to create something practical and credible.

Conclusion: in today’s world, Service Leaders Value Sparring

Across dozens of engagements, several consistent benefits emerge:

  • Faster, better decision-making in complex situations
  • Greater confidence when engaging senior management and peers
  • Reduced isolation in high-pressure leadership roles
  • Stronger ownership of strategy and execution
  • Sustainable capability, not just short-term results

In uncertain environments, Service Leaders don’t need more slides—they need sharper thinking, honest challenge, and experienced perspective.

Why Si2 Coaching-Sparring Works

Service leaders do not need generic leadership coaching. They need context-specific, experience-driven, outcome-focused development.

Si2 Coaching-Sparring works because it:

  • Is grounded in industrial service reality
  • Balances challenge with support
  • Combines reflection with action
  • Respects the leader’s ownership and accountability
  • Focuses on real decisions, not hypothetical ones

In an environment where service is increasingly central to growth, resilience, and differentiation, the quality of leadership thinking matters more than ever.

Sparring sharpens that thinking—when it matters most.

If you are a Service Director or Service VP navigating complexity, transformation, or new responsibility, Coaching-Sparring may be the highest-leverage investment you can make—not just in yourself, but in the long-term success of your service organisation.

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Service Innovation for value-driven opportunities:

Facilitated by Professor Mairi McIntyre from the University of Warwick, the workshop explored service innovation processes that help us understand what makes our customers successful.

In particular, the Customer Value Iceberg principle goes beyond the typical Total Cost of Ownership view of the equipment world and explores how that equipment impacts the success of the business. It forces us to consider not only direct costs associated with usage of the equipment such but also indirect costs such as working capital and risks.

As an example, we looked at how MAN Truck UK used this method to develop services that went beyond the prevailing repairs, parts and maintenance to methods (through telematics and clever analytics) to monitor and improve the performance and  fuel consumption of their trucks. This approach helped grow their business by an order of magnitude over a number of years.

Mining Service Management Data to improve performance

We then took a deep dive into how Endress + Hauser have developed applications that can mine Service Management data to improve service performance:  

Thomas Fricke (Service Manager) and Enrico De Stasio (Head of Corporate Quality & Lean) facilitated a 3 hour discussion on their journey from idea to a real working application integrated into their Service processes. These were the key learning points that emerged:

Leadership

In 2018 the Senior leadership concluded that to stay competitive they needed to do far more to consolidate their global service data into a “data lake’ that could be used to improve their own service processes and bring more value to customers. As a company they had already seen the value of organising data as over the past 20 years for every new system they already had a “digital twin” which held electronically all the data for that system in an organised fashion. Initially, it was basic Bill of Material data, but has since grown in sophistication. So a good start but they needed to go further, and the leadership team committed resources to do this.

  • The first try: The project initially focused on collecting and organising data from its global service operations into a data lake.  This first phase required the development of infrastructure, processes and applications that could analyse service report data and turn it into actionable intelligence. The initial goal was to make internal processes more efficient, and so improve the customer experience. E+H looked for patterns in the reports of service engineers that could:
    • Be used to improve the performance of Service through processes and individuals
    • Be used by other groups such as engineering to improve and enhance product quality.
  • Outcome: Eventhough progress was made in many areas, nevertheless, even using advanced statistical methods, they could not extract or deliver the value they had hoped   for from the data. They needed to look at something different.
  • Leveraging AI technologies: The Endress+Hauser team knew they needed to look for patterns in large data sets. They had the knowledge that self-learning technologies that are frequently termed as AI, could potentially help solve this problem. They teamed up with a local university and created a project to develop a ‘Proof of Concept’. This helped the project gain traction as the potential of the application they had created started to emerge. It was not an easy journey and required “courage to trust the outcomes, see them fail and then learn from the process”. However after about 18 months they were able to integrate the application into their normal working processes where every day they scan the service reports from around the world in different languages to identify common patterns in product problems, or anomalies in the local service team activities. This information is fed back to the appropriate service teams for action. The application also acts as a central hub where anyone in the organisation can access and interrogate service report data to improve performance and develop new value propositions.
  • Improvement:  The project does not stop there. It is now embedded in the service operations and used as a basic tool for continuous improvement. In effect, this has shifted the whole organization to be more aware of the value of their data.

Utilizing AI in B2B services

Regarding AI, our task was to uncover some of the myths and benefits for service businesses and the first task was to agree on what we really mean by AI among the participants. It took time, but we discovered that there are really two interpretations which makes the term rather confusing. The first is a generic term used by visionaries and AI professionals to describe a world of intelligent machines and applications. Important at a social & macroeconomic level, but perhaps not so useful for business operations -at least at a practical level. The second is an umbrella term for a group of technologies that are good at finding patterns in large data sets (machine learning, neural networks, big data, computer vision), that can interface with human beings (Natural Language Processing) and that mimic human intelligence through being based on self-learning algorithms. Understanding this second definition and how these technologies can be used to overcome real business challenges is where the immediate value of AI sits for today’s businesses. It was also clear that the implication of integrating these technologies into business processes will require leaders to look at the change management challenges for their teams and customers.

To understand options for moving ahead at a practical level we first looked briefly at Husky through an interview with CIO Jean-Christophe Wiltz to CIOnet where we learned that i) real business needs should tailored drive technology implementation, and ii) that before getting to AI technologies, there is a need to build the appropriate infrastructure in terms of database and data collection, and, most importantly, the need to be prepared to continually adapt this infrastructure as the business needs change.