Trends in Warranty Management

Warranty management is a hot topic nowadays in Europe. Following the US, companies in the EU are getting more and more aware of their aftermarket presence. Products become less and less distinctive, hence another differentiator is needed. Along with this trend, changing EU regulation and legislation is forcing companies to think about their after market processes. Since 2003 the US government requires public listed companies to publicize their key-warranty figures, such as warranty reserves and warranty spendings. It’s only a matter of time until this requirement hits the European based public listed companies. Often these legatorial requirements are seen as mandatory costs, but the possibilities to turn these into opportunities to optimize the existing warranty chain, reduce costs and even increase revenues and supplier recovery are overlooked in many cases. In these times of increasing margin pressure on products, an efficient and well designed warranty claim handling solution helps you to: - improve supplier recovery - improve product quality - deliver high service levels on warranty claims - generate sales on services - increase customer loyalty - reduce claim handling costs Looking at the overall after sales “value chain” or service value chain, as shown in the (simplified) picture below, it becomes clear that the after sales process is a highly complex model with many dependencies. It also shows that Warranty Claim Handling with interfaces to virtually every part of an organization (often inter-company and even international), is actually the heart of the after sales operation.