Controlling Service Business at a German Printing Press Manufacturer

摘要

HEIDELBERGER DRUCKMASCHINEN AG is the world leader in manufacturing offset printing presses. During the last few years machine sales and profits have grown strongly and have made HEIDELBERG a successful brand. HEIDELBERG focuses on divisions to control its various product businesses. Derived from the HEIDELBERG strategy service activities like spare part sales and field services are considered as an own business opportunity. At first the paper describes the complex interactions between machine and service business as own cost or profit centers and the problems which result on that. In the following service business interactions will be shown in causal loop structure. Here the focus lies on important delayed relations between cause and effect on operational service and machine business as well as the whole financial success of HEIDELBERG in interaction with customer satisfaction. To avoid false decisions in long-term business these interactions have to be understood by the managers to plan and control their business with focus on long-term success. Based on that system conditions a first complex system dynamics model will be developed for service business to simulate and understand the effect of operational and strategic decisions. Especially the optimisation of long-term financial success will be taken into consideration. The model analyses financial performance in short and long term context. Various simulation runs show that controlling service is very complex and each decision with long-term effect should have to be analysed in financial and operational effect to avoid the risk of a decrease in company's total performance. In addition the design and setting of suitable objectives for the management will be discussed.