Reflections from the Service Council™’s inService™ Podcast with Syncron CEO Josh Weiss
The most reliable source of profit for many OEMs no longer sits at the point of sale. It sits in the installed base.
In a recent episode of the Service Council’s inService™ podcast, Syncron CEO Josh Weiss joined John Carroll and Gerardo Palayo-Rubio to explore what that shift means for OEM leaders.
For many years, service parts were discussed largely in operational terms — inventory turns, fill rates, logistics efficiency. But the financial profile of the aftermarket suggests a broader lens is needed. Across industries, aftermarket EBIT margins average around 25 percent, compared to roughly 10 percent for new equipment. In some sectors, the differential is significantly higher.
As equipment sales soften and asset lifecycles extend, that margin profile carries greater strategic importance. The installed base becomes not only a support obligation, but a source of repeatable revenue and durable value.
A recurring theme in the discussion was the need to elevate how parts performance is framed internally.
Many organizations have strengthened efficiency and resilience in recent years. Investments in process, digital tools, and supply chain agility have improved responsiveness in the face of disruption. Yet many still struggle to demonstrate how parts availability influences revenue growth, contract performance, and customer retention at the enterprise level.
While service leaders routinely track first-time fix misses caused by parts shortages, those metrics are not always translated into clear implications for profitability or customer loyalty. As a result, service parts performance remains underrepresented in executive-level conversations. Service Council research reinforces this dynamic, with fewer than one in five service leaders prioritizing parts-related supply chain metrics as a pathway to executive influence.
During the episode, Josh reflected on his own experience leading industrial service organizations where aftermarket represented a significant share of revenue. In his view, the inflection point comes when parts are viewed through a lifecycle and customer lens rather than as isolated availability and efficiency metrics.
That perspective influences how performance is measured, how investments are prioritized, and how confidently the service organization can engage at the executive level.
Resilience was another central thread in the conversation. In recent years, resilience has understandably been associated with risk mitigation — protecting supply chains from volatility and disruption.
The discussion with the Service Council broadened that frame. Growth-focused leaders are three times more likely to prioritize supply chain metrics than those focused solely on efficiency. That difference reflects a recognition that availability and reliability directly influence customer trust.
In sectors where uptime drives revenue, parts availability affects contract performance, service economics, and long-term partnerships. Reliability becomes part of the commercial value proposition.
Resilience, in that sense, shapes competitive positioning as much as operational stability.
Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence featured in the discussion, but in pragmatic terms.
Josh highlighted that high-fidelity aftermarket data remains a prerequisite for translating digital ambition into measurable growth and margin impact. Legacy subsystems, fragmented processes, and siloed metrics limit the ability to generate the intelligence required for scalable decision-making.
Organizations progressing most effectively are focusing on foundational maturity first — harmonized processes, cross-functional alignment, and a single source of truth. Only then do advanced technologies translate into measurable business advantage.
Another signal of this shift is structural. What was once approached as regional optimization initiatives are increasingly being designed as enterprise-wide programs.
Josh described how OEMs are broadening the remit of parts initiatives from single-division projects to globally harmonized efforts. The emphasis is on consistent processes, aligned metrics, and shared data foundations from the outset.
That evolution reflects a wider recognition that parts strategy influences overall performance only when it is designed at the enterprise level.
Treating service parts as income-producing assets across the lifecycle — rather than as static inventory — changes how organizations think about growth, loyalty, and margin protection. It shapes how supply chain and service metrics are integrated. It influences how confidently leaders can connect operational performance to board-level priorities.
Josh summarized the opportunity clearly:
“If they do this and do it well, it is a competitive advantage.”
For OEMs navigating slower equipment cycles and rising service expectations, the installed base is not simply a downstream responsibility. It is a strategic lever.
Those who approach it with that mindset are likely to see the difference compound over time.
You can watch the full episode of the inService™ podcast featuring Josh Weiss on the Service Council website here.