Selling outcomes, not machines
Why servitization stalls in most manufacturers, what the successful ones did differently, and how to price a promise instead of a product.
Keynote SpeakerBusiness AdvisorBooks AuthorUniversity ProfessorStartups Founder
Mario Rapaccini
For over twenty years I've helped large manufacturers turn products into advanced services — first as a researcher, then as their advisor. I work where two kinds of innovation meet: process innovation, powered by the digital technologies that make servitization real — AI, IoT, digital twins, AR/VR — and business-model innovation. The outcome is new service offerings that can be sold as subscriptions, pay-per-use or outcome-based contracts.
Servitization
In mature B2B markets, product margins erode. Service relationships compound. Everything I research, teach and advise on sits on that crossing point.
Base
ProductWe supply products
Product sparesWe supply spare parts for products
Intermediate
Product break / fixWe restore the condition of products
Assured maintenanceWe guarantee our performance in restoring product condition
Performance advisoryWe guide the capture of more value from products
Advanced
Customer asset capabilityWe guarantee the outcomes from products
Customer process capabilityWe guarantee the outcomes of business processes
Customer platform capabilityWe guarantee the outcomes of a business platform
Twenty years of work with
University of Florence
ASAP Service Management Forum
Aston Business School
HSLU Lucerne University of Applied Science
POLIMI Graduate School of Management
SdM · University of Bergamo
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
University of Pisa
University of Siena
Università del Piemonte Orientale
ZHAW Zurich
ACSI - Big Academy
Baker Hughes
General Electric
Ricoh
Canon
Tetra Pak
Epson
Electrolux Professional
Kyocera
Lilly
Magna Closures
TIM Academy
Unicoop Firenze
El.En.
Nippon
GKN
SCM Group
Sacmi
Powersoft
Angelantoni
Fiorini International
Univet
100+Peer-reviewed publications
20+Years researching servitization
250Students taught each year
12Funded R&D programmes led
4Startups & University spin-offs funded
Keynote speaking
Talks that
survive the
Q&A
I speak at industry conferences, corporate kick-offs and executive off-sites — in English and Italian. No generic futurism: every talk is built on field research with manufacturers and on what actually worked for them.
- Keynote · 45–60 min
- Executive workshop · half day
- Panel & moderation
- English / Italian
AI on the shop floor, after the pilot
Moving from proofs of concept to operations that hold: where AI creates real margin in industrial firms, and where it quietly burns budget.
Digital twins, AR and the machine that explains itself
What twenty years of condition monitoring, AR/VR and simulation projects say about the next ten years of field service.
Business model innovation in B2B
Data-driven digital services as a growth engine — and the organisational surgery required to make them profitable.
Research, creativity, enterprise
My ikigai: showing students and early-career engineers how scientific research, creative innovation and entrepreneurship connect.
Built for your audience
Tell me who is in the room and what decision they face. I will build the talk around it, with your sector's evidence.
Advisory
Senior advisor
to industrial
companies
I work with a small number of firms each year, usually alongside the CEO, the operations lead or the head of services. Short engagements, written deliverables, no army of juniors.
Service strategy
- Service portfolio and pricing design
- Service network configuration
- Business case for connected products
Digital & AI programmes
- Technology scouting and foresight
- Requirements for BI, MES and controlling
- AR/VR, digital twin and monitoring pilots
R&D funding & certification
- Public R&D programme design (EU, PRIN, FESR)
- Industry 4.0/5.0 investment appraisal
- MIMIT-qualified Research, Development &Innovation certification (Frascati & Oslo manuals)
Executive education
- Tailored programmes for leadership teams
- Innovation workshops and facilitation
- Board-level technology briefings
Selected engagements
2020–24
Unicoop Firenze
Retail group, revenue above €2bn. Built the tax-relief dossier for a large portfolio of Industry 4.0 investments.
2023
Univet
Advisory on the design of a new industrial organisation.
2022
Istituto Diocesano di Supporto al Clero
Assessment and software selection for business intelligence and management reporting.
2021
Magna Closures
Requirements definition for a new BMW assembly line with the finance and industrialisation teams.
2021
Nuovo Pignone · Baker Hughes
Cost estimation models for turbomachinery, developed with the technical team.
2020
Angelantoni Test Technologies
Organisation design for services built on connected test chambers.
2018
Fiorini International
Requirements for a new automated warehouse.
2015
Canon Italia
R&D and technical advisory: prototypes for connecting production printers.
Research
Twenty years
of field work
Servitization, digital transformation and data-driven services in manufacturing — studied inside companies, not from a distance. I direct ASAP, the Italian inter-university centre that since 2003 has brought researchers and manufacturing managers into the same room.
2025–26
MES4RES
A measurement model for the resilience of manufacturing companies. PRIN 2022 funding, with the universities of Bolzano and Brescia.
2025–26
VCTOP
Turning tacit knowledge into process optimisation. Regional FESR programme, with Plastylenia SpA.
2020–23
IMPACT
Values-based innovation cultures for sustainable business impact. Erasmus+, with Baker Hughes, 3M and TÜV NORD.
2020–23
SAFEGUARD
POR CREO FESR Tuscany, with Powersoft.
2018–19
iMAAT
A VR/AR tool supporting configuration and sales of turbomachinery equipment. With Baker Hughes and Ergon.
2015–16
Cost & performance management for servitization
PRIN 2015, with the University of Pisa and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
2011–13
PROSSALIC
EU FP7 Marie Curie IRSES, with UFRGS (Brazil) and Tokyo Metropolitan University.
2010–11
SIGMAR
Principal investigator. Major-accident risk management across a network of companies, with condition-based monitoring.
2004
ASAP
After-sales advanced planning. The project that grew into a permanent forum: five universities, more than sixty large companies.
Recognition
Best paper presentations at the Spring Servitization Conference (2016, 2017). Most-cited paper awards from the International Journal of Production Research (2019) and Industrial Marketing Management (2021).
Spin-off
Founded Smartoperations in 2015 and chaired it until 2019. Acquired in 2022 by P4I, part of the Digital360 group.
Teaching
Classrooms
and boardrooms
Around 250 engineering students a year in Florence, plus fifteen years of executive teaching in Italy's leading business schools. Same material, very different rooms — and that is exactly the point.
UNIFI · Florence
School of Engineering
Innovation Management · Business Strategy · Business Economics · Entrepreneurship & Innovation workshops.
POLIMI GSoM & Unibg SdM · Bergamo
meGMI
Executive master in industrial asset management and maintenance. Teaching for over fifteen years.
UNIPI · Pisa
Scalability: Digital Technologies and Company Growth
Faculty member and steering committee member for the University of Florence.
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna · Pisa
MAINS
Service Design & Management · Teaching for over ten years.
UNIUPO · Novara
Master Universitario "Service Manager"
Faculty and lead of the Digital Technologies module.
ACSI · Florence
Big Academy
Faculty and lead of the Operations module.
Aston Business School · Birmingham
Advanced Services Group
Visiting professor
HSLU · Lucerne
Visiting professor
Also led the UNIFI–HSLU Double Degree programme.
Writing
Books,
papers,
arguments
More than a hundred journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters, published by Il Mulino, Franco Angeli, Palgrave, Springer and Hoepli. I write for two audiences at once: reviewers who check the method, and managers who need to decide on Monday.
Themes
Servitization & advanced services
How manufacturers build, price and organise service businesses — and why so many of them stall halfway.
Themes
Design of digital services
Business model innovation, from selling products to selling outcome-based contracts.
Themes
AI and industrial data governance
How artificial intelligence reshapes internal operations and the mechanics of value creation in B2B.
Themes
Technology foresight
Digital twins, augmented and virtual reality, the metaverse — assessed against what manufacturing can actually absorb.
About
Engineer
first
Mario Rapaccini is Professor of Business Strategy and Innovation Management at the University of Florence and Director of the ASAP inter-university research centre.
He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering (magna cum laude) and a PhD in Energy Engineering from the University of Florence, and full professorship qualification in both Management Engineering and Industrial Plant Engineering. Before academia he spent four years running information systems for a security services group of more than a thousand people — which is roughly when he stopped believing in technology that nobody has to operate on a Monday morning.
He is a chartered engineer, a CEPAS BV certified Servitization Manager, and a MIMIT-qualified assessor for research, development and innovation activities. He is RASMUSSEN CONSULTING certified Lego Serious Play facilitator. He sits on the faculty board of the SmartIndustry PhD programme (Pisa, Florence, Siena) and he is chair of the University of Florence spin-off committee.
Outside the office he is a mountain person: mountain bike, ski, snowboard, and a long-running trail-running habit that has produced finishes at the Passatore (100 km), Lavaredo Ultra Trail (120 km) and Ultra Trail Via degli Dei (126 km). Endurance, it turns out, is also a research method.
He reads anthropology, neuroscience and behavioural psychology to relax — Harari and Kahneman on the shelf — plays guitar badly according to his two daughters, and will happily talk about science fiction for longer than the schedule allows.
- Chartered engineer #845 AR
- CEPAS BV Servitization Manager #13
- MIMIT R&D assessor
- ITRA trail runner
Taking speaking and advisory bookings for 2026–27
Let's talk
mario.rapaccini@unifi.itTell me the audience, the date and the decision you want them to walk out with. I will tell you within a few days whether I am the right person for it.
© 2026 Mario Rapaccini
Dept. of Industrial Engineering (DIEF) · University of Florence
+39 334 656 5465