Develop a new service your business can actually deliver.

Imagine a distributor whose customers keep running short of essential components. They ask whether you could replenish stock for them. Before offering a subscription, find out what matters most: fewer emergency orders, less work for purchasing or certainty that production can continue.

Those needs lead to different services. A scheduled delivery, a managed stock programme and a promise to supply at short notice require different information, capacity and commercial agreements.

Make the first offer specific enough to discuss with customers and employees. For the distributor, it might look like this. This is an illustrative proposal, not a client case.

Agreement	An example for the first trial
Customer	Existing customers with recognisable, recurring demand
Deliverable	A replenishment proposal based on agreed stock information
Customer decision	The customer confirms changed quantities and new items
Boundary	No promise of unlimited availability or uninterrupted production
Required support	Reliable usage data, stock allocation, a contact for exceptions and delivery

Decide whether the service is charged separately, included with deliveries or priced around agreed availability. Include stock, transport, preparation and customer contact in the cost. A subscription is not an improvement if a handful of unpredictable requests consume all the available capacity.

Discuss the offer with the person who can approve the purchase. Include an actual price, trial period and division of responsibilities. Ask whether they would start on those terms, rather than only whether the idea sounds useful.

For the distributor, that might mean a six-week trial at an agreed fee, weekly stock information and replenishment proposals that the customer approves. Components and transport have their own pricing agreement. Record the response alongside the offer: who can approve it, which condition remains unresolved and when a decision is due.

A customer may want to proceed but be unable to provide reliable stock information. That is a specific obstacle to resolve first. A request for guaranteed availability changes the service and the capacity it needs. Revise the proposal and ask for a decision again. This helps establish which responsibility the customer actually wants to buy.

An account manager sees that a customer's usage has changed. Can they adjust the next delivery? Is enough stock available, and what has been reserved for other customers? Establish what the account manager can agree, which information needs checking and when a colleague should be involved.

Working through these questions protects both the customer relationship and the people responsible for it. More responsibility needs to come with knowledge and authority.

An account manager needs more than a warning on a dashboard: they must be able to assess which commitment is possible. The decision-authority framework helps agree that room to act.

A customer trial should answer three questions: will the customer buy on these terms, can the team deliver, and does the actual effort support the price? Follow a complete cycle, including a change or an incomplete request.

Agree in advance what would justify expanding the offer. If every order still comes back to the same specialist, it is not ready to scale. If the customer understands the offer differently, revise the promise. Interest alone is not enough, but a trial that reveals a mistaken assumption is still useful.

Existing systems may support the first version. An integration or custom application may be needed to connect information, commitments and actions. You do not have to build all the underlying technology yourself.

For a digital healthcare platform, we worked with the project lead and DevOps on the API and client application. Our responsibility was integrating external communications technology and the processes around a consultation. The technology became part of a connected journey from registration to starting the service.

Start with business process analysis to develop the offer and organisation. Platform development covers designing and building the agreed support. If maintenance is the specific opportunity, read launching a maintenance service.