Extended Service Agreements, Not Right to Repair, Are the Real Aftermarket Story
Right to repair is forcing part of this conversation, but the pressure was already there from three other directions.
Manufacturing has spent the last few years absorbing structural shifts in how OEMs relate to customers after the sale: tighter margins on new equipment, more price transparency, more channels competing for the same purchase, and rising expectations around uptime and digital service. Right to repair is the loudest of these shifts, because it's legislative and adversarial, with hearings, settlements and a clear opposing side. But manufacturers treating it as an isolated legal threat are missing that it's one piece of a broader realignment of who controls the aftermarket relationship.
Parts pricing power is eroding as customers get better price visibility and more sourcing options. The dealer channel faces more competition for the same purchase, with buyers increasingly willing to shop around rather than default to convenience. Digital capabilities, such as real-time parts data, automated ordering and predictive service, are turning into the baseline for everyone, not the edge that a handful of manufacturers used to have. And now right to repair is opening up the diagnostic and parts data that used to be the moat itself.
Four pressures, one common effect: proprietary control is fading as a competitive advantage, on roughly the same timeline for nearly everyone. Plenty of OEMs never had to compete on service, because a locked-down parts and diagnostic ecosystem did the competing for them. That era is ending.
This story was originally published by SupplyChainBrain. Read the full story at SupplyChainBrain →
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