Strategic Context
The OEM’s relationship with a customer should not end at the point of sale of equipment—in fact, that’s when the value creation begins. In the construction and industrial machine sectors, the initial machine sale typically contributes just 10 – 15% of the company profit, while aftermarket services (parts, AMCs, rebuilds) can contribute upto 50–70%, if captured effectively.
Yet today, most OEMs treat the aftermarket as a siloed sales function rather than a strategic lever to drive lifetime value. This results in lost visibility, missed parts revenue, and limited brand loyalty, especially once the machine changes hands or exits warranty.
The visual below outlines a five-step roadmap to unlock lifetime value across the machine lifecycle – from first sale to long-term retention:
In this article, we focus on aftermarket monetization—an underleveraged yet high-margin lever available to OEMs.
The opportunity is especially critical in high-capex, long-life (15+ years) and business-critical machines used in mining, power generation, construction or marine transportation where uptime directly impacts customers operations and hence revenue. These machines often operate in high-wear environments: extreme temperature, pressure and corrosive environments making OEM-grade support essential and monetizable.
Qwixpert has developed and deployed a structured, end-to-end approach to help OEMs unlock this opportunity—by connecting machine tracking with delightful customer experience that will boost aftermarket sales.
Qwixpert’s Aftermarket Enablement Framework
The graphic below outlines an approach built to convert lost visibility into profitable aftermarket outcomes:
Step 0 and 1: Reclaim Visibility – Locate Machines and Develop Machine Base
Industrial and construction machines typically lasts 10–15 years, with over 60–70% of the active fleet more than 3 years old. However, this is when OEM visibility tends to decline due to factors such as: ownership changes, fragmented or outdated data systems, staff attrition, and poor-quality legacy sales records.
To restore machine-level visibility across the network, there are three core activities that should be undertaken:
Step – 0 is a one-time foundational activity that requires cross-functional collaboration between Unit sales and Aftermarket team. This should be backed by a strong validation protocol to ensure that the data captured is clean and actionable without which the activity can be ineffective.
Step 2: Anticipate Demand – Track Usage and Plan Interventions
Unplanned downtime is among the costliest risks for machine users; for instance a mid-sized excavator failure on a critical site can lead to significant loss due to delays, idle labour, and penalties. To avoid this, most customers ensure timely replacement of parts either from OEM or other manufacturers. OEM’s often miss this opportunity due to lack of visibility on how machines are being used and when the parts are likely to fail.
To bridge this gap, the OEM’s can leverage on the data base to develop a prediction algorithm:
Illustration:
Illustration of a plastic moulding machine parts identification and prediction
Development of a prediction algorithm that generates trigger to field team will help OEMs stay ahead of failures, drive timely parts revenue, and strengthen their role as uptime partners.
Step 3: Drive Engagement – Monetise Through Targeted Aftermarket Actions
OEM’s often rely on generic reminders or dealer push to drive parts and service sales; but by leveraging the intelligence generated in Step 2, OEM’s can deliver proactive engagements and personalised offerings such as timely ‘nudge’ as machine nears service date or AMC proposals based on actual usage of machine will lead to better conversions.
A key success factor is timely response of the field team to the trigger and operations teams support to ensure availability of the part. Further, to ensure sustained success of this function, customer interactions (part sales, service visit or unfulfilled order) should be fed back into the analytical engine in order to improve it’s performance.
Illustrative flow for Maintenance Triggers
Qwixpert partnered with a leading construction equipment OEM to enable trigger-based customer outreach for oil and lubricant sales.
By identifying machines approaching service thresholds and driving timely, targeted engagement, the initiative expanded aftermarket coverage—bringing ~25% machines into the service funnel and boosting lubricant sales by over 12%.
Case Study
Conclusion: From Visibility to Value
As industrial and construction machines OEMs look beyond the initial sale, aftermarket monetization is no longer optional—it’s the primary path to margin growth and customer loyalty. Yet realizing this opportunity requires more than better data. Qwixpert has worked with leading OEM to operationalize this playbook—tracking machines in the field, building outreach processes, and enabling behavioural change through org structures, training, and system design. Our engagements indicated a potential to unlock a jump in aftermarket revenue, while positioning the OEM as a long-term uptime partner.