Getting started with PSS

Establishing a strong foundation in circularity is key to beginning your PSS journey. This involves learning the key concepts of PSS, how it fits into business models, and its role in sustainability. In this section, you will find five introductory resources that explain these concepts and help you begin developing your PSS. These resources include toolkits, guides, handbooks, and interactive platforms designed to provide a solid foundation for building your PSS business.

The Nordic Circular Economy Playbook Toolkit

This toolkit offers a comprehensive guide to achieving circular advantages for businesses. Companies can use the playbook to better align with customer expectations, deliver outcome-oriented solutions, and enhance efficiency through technology and digitalisation. The playbook is particularly valuable in the Nordic manufacturing industry, covering five key sub-sectors: machinery and equipment, maritime, energy, transportation, and construction.

The Nordic Circular Economy Playbook includes nine tools and templates to help businesses develop, evaluate, and refine their PSS models. Four of these tools are automated Excel files that provide outcome calculations:

A Business Model Development tool that helps iterate circular business models by identifying inefficiencies and customer pain points and evaluating the potential of circular approaches. It prioritises development opportunities and guides companies in shaping their most promising business models.
A Value Case Tool estimating revenue potential, cost impacts, and investment needs. It helps companies understand the value drivers of circular business models and assess various sub-models.
A Capability Maturity Assessment Tool for evaluating whether a company has the human resources needed to achieve its circular business goals. It assists in assessing and prioritising the maturity of business capabilities for effective implementation.

USEFUL FOR
Developing PSS business models or improving existing solutions. Many of the exercises are also relevant for distributors and retail PSS providers, particularly the ‘Ecosystem Partner Identification’ and ‘Roadmap Development’ templates.

TARGET GROUP
Companies in the Nordic manufacturing industry, in particular within Machinery and equipment; Maritime; Energy; Transportation; and Construction.

DEVELOPED BY
Nordic Innovation

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A Technology Maturity Assessment Tool to determine the maturity of the technologies in use, addressing common challenges like market readiness, technological capacity, and funding shortages, which many PSS providers face.

In addition to these, the toolkit includes five organisational development templates:

Culture Gap Analysis: This template helps assess how company culture supports (or hinders) the adoption of circular business models, offering ways to bridge cultural gaps for smoother integration.
Ecosystem Partner Identification: This template helps businesses identify key external partners and resources that can assist in building internal capacity and forming strategic partnerships.
Funding Requirement Analysis: Highlights areas where external funding can support the piloting of new business ventures, facilitating the transition to circular business models.
Roadmap Development: A practical planning tool that outlines key activities, estimates timelines, and prioritises goals from short-term to long-term, helping companies chart their path towards circular transformation.
Business Model Canvas: A high-level overview of the key building blocks of a PSS business model, including value propositions, infrastructure, customers, and financing, enabling businesses to visualise their product, resource, and business flow processes holistically.

The Circulator

The Circulator is a web-based tool that provides an overview of companies successfully implementing circular business models. Its core concept is that circular business models often involve a combination of strategies, organised into three main types:

Circular Value Creation: Focuses on creating economic and environmental value by managing products and materials in a circular way. In a Business Model Canvas framework, these strategies are linked to key activities, resources, capabilities, and partners.
Value Proposition: For PSS models, this focuses on delivering core value to customers that aligns with circular strategies. These are linked to product offerings, customer segments, and customer relationships in the Business Model Canvas.
Value Network: Recognises that true circularity requires collaboration across the entire value chain. These strategies involve delivery channels, customer relationships, key partners, and resources.

In addition to these, the Circulator offers archetypes representing four key organisational focuses: customer relationships, product/process development, value network building, and sustainability. These archetypes help companies understand the different approaches to circular value creation.

useful for
Aspiring entrepreneurs and businesses seeking guidance on how to integrate circular strategies into their business model and value proposition. Developed as part of an EIT Raw Materials-funded project in the raw materials industry, this tool offers inspiration and practical insights through real-world case examples, encouraging organisations to explore and adopt circular strategies.

Target group
All types of PSS, in before, during and after the development of a PSS solution.

Developed by
VITO, Circular Flanders, TUDelft & Radboud University.

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The Circulator mixer tool can be used to filter relevant cases.

Guide for Developing Product as a Service Business

The Guide for Developing Product as a Service Business was developed as part of the Paas Pilots research project (2021–2022) and incorporates practical insights from two Finnish companies, Pure Waste and Image Wear. Their real-world examples, drawn from the textile sector, showcase how to implement and develop a PSS model successfully. While the guide focuses on textiles, it offers valuable tools and tips that can be applied across industries, including B2C and B2B markets.

The guide offers practical advice on preparing for and implementing a PSS, illustrated through case studies. It covers the economic, societal, and environmental benefits of PSS and introduces a structured approach through its “Developer’s Path,” which consists of five key steps:

Getting Started: Focuses on identifying the needs and demands for circular business models, exploring collaborative opportunities, and mapping out success goals, key focus areas, stakeholders, and priority targets.
Understanding: Examines what makes the business model unique compared to traditional models and identifies the target customers and market segments that will benefit most from the PSS.
Developing and Prototyping: Shifts attention to the concept itself, involving price setting, customer testing, visualising customer journeys, and identifying potential gaps.
Refining: Involves reviewing the environmental and social impact of the business model, evaluating partnerships, and finalising the steps needed before launch.

useful for
Businesses looking for an introduction to PSS models, their potential, and the requirements for building and implementing such models, with a particular focus on the textile industry.

target group
All business providers wanting to develop and implement PSS solutions.

developed by
Turku University of Applied Sciences, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LAB University of Applied Sciences

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Piloting and Scaling: Focuses on launching the concept, creating marketing campaigns, measuring the impact, and conducting pilot tests through practical iterations.

Each step highlights key considerations and actions for developing a product-as-a-service business and recommends suitable tools to support each phase.

The five steps outlined in the Guide for Developing a Product-as-a-Service Business.

The Circular Design Guide

The guide’s primary aim is to shift the mindset of business owners, developers, and innovators towards circular approaches. By leveraging the Design Thinking methodology, it encourages businesses to explore sustainable, resilient, and long-lasting value creation within the Circular Economy (CE).

The Circular Design Guide offers a wide range of methods to support businesses as they transition to CE. These methods are grouped into four main categories – Understand, Define, Make, and Release – with six key activities within each category:

Understand: In the context of PSS, activities such as the Service Flip help transition from product-based models to product-service models. Supported by the Service Flip Worksheet, this activity promotes creative thinking by understanding user needs. It helps PSS providers address cultural habits and compete with traditional business models by aligning their services with consumer desires – despite market readiness challenges.
Define: The guide offers activities to help businesses define their CE strategy by identifying challenges, finding circular opportunities, building teams, and aligning brand identity. The Circular Buy-in activities support gaining stakeholder commitment and overcoming cultural and market barriers to adopt circular business practices.
Make: This category focuses on creating circular business designs. Activities include user-centred research, circular brainstorming, feedback mechanisms, material selection, concept development, and rapid prototyping. The User-Centred Research activity is especially valuable for PSS providers with B2C models. Interview templates help engage stakeholders to better understand their needs during the product’s lifecycle, ensuring that services are relevant and user-centric.
Release: This section supports businesses in launching their circular solutions. Activities like Product Journey Mapping help PSS providers map the lifecycle of products, reviewing all use phases and end-of-life processes. Templates offer insights into the product’s journey and ensure smoother implementation in complex PSS systems.

The Circular Design Guide also includes advanced activities like Materials Journey Mapping, Product Redesign Workshops, Material Selection, and Moving Forward with Materials. These methods, accompanied by descriptions, videos, templates, and exercises, are highly applicable to PSS providers, offering valuable tools for developing and improving circular practices.

USEFUL FOR
Organisations looking to refine business models toward PSS and adopt circular economy solutions. It also helps innovators design more elegant, effective, and creative circular solutions. This guide is ideal for organisations looking to follow the Design Thinking framework.

target group
All types of PSS, in before, during and after the development of a PSS solution.

Developed by
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation & IDEO

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Lean Service Creation (LSC) Handbook

The Lean Service Creation (LSC) method is a well-established, open-source framework that combines lean business thinking, agile development, user-centric design, and start-up methodologies. Developed by Futurice, the LSC Handbook helps companies create innovative digital services that balance commercial viability with user needs – while also considering social and environmental impact. It can be used to build new businesses or iteratively improve existing services.

The handbook features seventeen different canvases, organised into seven phases, providing a structured approach to business development. These canvases guide companies through key processes such as co-creation, prototyping, experimentation, and problem-solving. They ensure that the right questions are asked and that solutions address real challenges. The canvases also facilitate teamwork, turning abstract ideas into actionable solutions.

The LSC process is centred around a business objective – often referred to as the design phase – where the entire team sets a common goal to ensure effective collaboration. The process is broken down into the following sub-phases:

User Needs: For PSS providers, this phase focuses on deeply understanding customers’ needs, emotions, motives, and values to create services that truly resonate with them.
Ideation: Using the canvases, teams generate technically feasible ideas that fulfil the needs of businesses, users, and society.

useful for
Developing a business concept from scratch or adding a service to an existing business model. While the focus is on digital solutions, the LSC Handbook is adaptable to any company aiming to create customer-centric services

Target group
Early stage PSS and PSS providers experiencing challenges due to the existing company culture.

Developed by
Futurice

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Concepting: Ideas are refined and strengthened to create more compelling and viable solutions.
Business Model: The concept is evaluated for its business potential, with a focus on value exchanges.
Validation: Assumptions underlying the new concept are tested to ensure they lead to the desired outcomes and objectives.
Wrapping it all up: The team defines the minimum lovable product (MLP)—the smallest version of the product or service that customers will love, enabling the business to launch with confidence.

The broad set of canvases can be used as a complete step-by-step guide or selectively, depending on specific business needs. The handbook also includes tips for improving teamwork and a handy “cheat sheet” for conducting customer interviews, enhancing both the development process and user research.