The Maintenance Paradox: Why Better Maintenance Isn't the Real Goal for Executives

Spoiler alert: Your shiny predictive maintenance pitch is missing the mark

Picture this: A maintenance software vendor and his customer maintenance champion walk into a boardroom, laptops clutched tightly, ready to deliver the pitch of their life. "We'll reduce unplanned downtime by 30%!" they declare triumphantly. "Maintenance will become a profit center, not a cost center!" The executives nod politely, ask a few questions, and... nothing happens. No purchase order. No excited handshakes. Just another "we'll be in touch" that never comes.

Sound familiar? Whether you are a technology provider or a maintenance leader trying to get backing for your asset performance improvement project, if you're in the predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, or broader maintenance technology space, this scenario probably plays out more often than you'd like to admit. But here's the uncomfortable truth: executives aren't ignoring your brilliant solution because they don't understand it. They're ignoring it because you're solving a problem they don't want to think about.

The Great Maintenance Marketing Myth

The industrial software world has spent years trying to convince manufacturing executives that maintenance is sexy. We've rebranded it as "asset optimization," wrapped it in AI buzzwords, and painted visions of maintenance teams as profit-generating heroes. It's a nice story, but it's fundamentally backwards.

Manufacturing executives don't want to care about maintenance any more than you want to care about your car's transmission. They want it to work, quietly and reliably, so they can focus on what actually keeps them up at night: customers, competition, and profitability.

Think about it from their perspective. When was the last time a CEO got promoted because they had really great maintenance practices? When has a board meeting ever started with, "Let's discuss our bearing lubrication strategy"? The answer is never, because maintenance—even excellent maintenance—is assumed to be table stakes, not a differentiator.

Those of us in the maintenance space know that the reality is very different, but it's also your problem, not the executive teams. That's what they pay you to do, help them not pay attention.

What Manufacturing Executives Actually Care About

So if maintenance isn't the golden ticket, what is? Recent industry research reveals where manufacturing executives are actually focusing their attention, and surprise—it's not on your CMMS dashboard.

According to multiple research studies since 2024, increased pressure on margins and profitability is the top factor driving change in manufacturers' commercial operations. APQC's 2024 survey of manufacturing executives shows that operational priorities center around efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction—not maintenance optimization.

Today's customers have come to expect seamless experiences across various channels. With 80% of customers demanding omnichannel engagement and near-seamless switch-over of devices and experiences, manufacturers are prioritizing integration to bolster customer engagement and satisfaction.

The pattern is clear: executives care about outcomes that directly impact the bottom line and customer experience. Here's what actually gets their attention:

Customer Satisfaction and Delivery Performance: Can we ship on time, every time? Are our customers happy enough to place bigger orders and recommend us to others? These metrics tie directly to revenue growth and market share.

Operational Efficiency and Productivity: How can we make more with less? Can we reduce our cost per unit while maintaining or even improving quality? This is about competitive advantage in a margin-squeezed world. Our friends at LNS Research just released their productivity pathfinders research this year; it’s worth a read to see where the best companies are winning here. Hint: None of them are winning by focusing on maintenance and reliability. Although they aren’t ignoring it, it isn’t the focus area, it’s a means to an end.

Quality and Compliance: Are we meeting regulatory requirements? Is our reject rate acceptable? Quality issues create liability, waste, and unhappy customers—all executive nightmares. Not to spend too much time with LNS Research , but James Wells writes a lot about the power of quality to improve performance and profitability, and there’s a reason it resonates.

Innovation and Time-to-Market: How quickly can we respond to market demands? Can we beat competitors to market with new products? Speed and agility drive growth in volatile markets.

Supply Chain Resilience: Can we deliver even when our suppliers can't? Recent global disruptions have made supply chain reliability a C-suite obsession. Multiple analysts are spending time here, because there's a lot that it brings to the table.

</Side note>: In my meandering around the world, I have found that there are some really cool technology solutions hitting the market who have some interesting takes on this.  Full disclosure: I don’t get a promotional credit from anyone in this space, so this isn’t a paid placement. But look at companies like Hexight and Regrello as examples, they are working very hard to make supply chain become less of an obstacle and instead become a powerful component of your strategy. </end Side note>

 Notice what's missing from this list? Maintenance metrics. Not because maintenance isn't important, but because it's invisible when it's working well—which is exactly how executives prefer it.

The Invisible Infrastructure Problem

Manufacturing executives view maintenance the same way you view your home's plumbing. When it's working, you don't think about it. When it's broken, it's a crisis that needs immediate fixing, but not a strategic priority worthy of ongoing attention.

This creates what we might call the "invisible infrastructure problem." Maintenance is critical to everything else working, but it's not a direct lever for achieving business objectives. It's a prerequisite, not a strategy.

The most successful maintenance programs are the ones that become completely transparent to executive leadership. They prevent problems before they happen, ensure equipment runs when needed, and never require a crisis management call to the C-suite. Ironically, the better your maintenance program, the less executives think about it.

Personal anecdote here: When I ran Caterpillar’s Marine Asset Intelligence software subsidiary, we were working with a major Marine company who used a lot of Caterpillar engines. This entire concept came to life for me in a call with their CEO, here is his blunt comment (slightly paraphrased due to time).

 “Look, I know I have to do this, but in reality, what I want is to never think about these engines again. I want to spend all my time focusing on running cranes and winches and moving my customer’s cargo, that’s what I want to wake up thinking about. I want my days spent asking ‘do we have enough capacity to take all the orders we are getting, do I need to buy a new boat?’ I never want to wake up worrying about if the engines are going to run today.”

The Real Cost of the Maintenance-First Pitch

In this context, it should be obvious that when software vendors lead with maintenance benefits, they're inadvertently positioning their solutions as "back-office" tools rather than strategic enablers. This creates several problems:

Budget Categorization: The project gets lumped into "facilities" or "operations" rather than strategic initiatives, limiting available funding and executive sponsorship.

Success Metrics Misalignment: The vendor celebrates a 25% reduction in maintenance costs while the executive wonders why production throughput didn't increase or customer complaints didn't decrease.

Stakeholder Disconnect: The pitch resonates with maintenance managers but falls flat with the executives who control the budget and strategic direction.

Limited Scalability: Maintenance-focused solutions often get pilot budgets rather than enterprise rollout funds because they're seen as departmental tools, not company-wide strategic assets.

Translating Maintenance Benefits to Executive Language

The good news is that maintenance improvements often drive the outcomes executives do care about—you just need to connect the dots differently. Here's how to translate maintenance benefits into executive priorities:

Instead of "reduce unplanned downtime by 30%," try "improve on-time delivery performance and reduce customer complaints caused by production delays."

Instead of "predictive maintenance saves money," try "increase production capacity without capital investment by maximizing equipment availability during peak demand periods."

Instead of "better asset management," try "reduce quality variation and customer returns by ensuring consistent equipment performance."

The underlying technology and benefits are the same, but the framing shifts from maintenance optimization to business outcome achievement.

Recommendations for Digital and Maintenance Teams: Getting Executive Buy-In

If you're a digital team or a maintenance team leading a digital initiative within a manufacturing organization trying to get approval for maintenance-related technology projects, here's how to reframe your approach:

Start with Business Pain, Not Technical Solutions: Begin your pitch by identifying a specific business problem that's keeping executives awake. Is on-time delivery performance declining? Are quality issues increasing customer complaints? Are you losing competitive bids because of higher costs? Lead with these business challenges.

Quantify Customer Impact: Show how equipment reliability directly affects customer satisfaction. Use specific examples: "The three unplanned outages last quarter delayed shipments to our top five customers, risking $2M in annual contracts."

Connect to Revenue Growth: Demonstrate how reliable operations enable the business to take on larger orders, expand into new markets, or improve competitive positioning. "With 99% equipment uptime, we could commit to the aggressive delivery schedules that win us premium contracts."

Tie to Strategic Initiatives: If the company is focused on sustainability, show how optimized maintenance reduces energy consumption and waste. If growth is the priority, demonstrate how reliable operations enable scaling without proportional infrastructure investment.

Present Total Economic Impact: Instead of just maintenance cost savings, calculate the full economic benefit including avoided lost sales, reduced premium freight costs, decreased quality issues, and improved customer retention.

Propose Pilot Programs with Business Metrics: Start small but measure business outcomes. "Let's pilot this on Line 3 and measure the impact on customer delivery performance over 90 days."

Recommendations for Software Vendors: Selling to What Matters

If you're a software company trying to sell maintenance-related solutions into manufacturing, it's time to fundamentally restructure your approach:

Reposition Your Solution: You're not selling a maintenance tool—you're selling a business performance enabler. Your predictive maintenance platform becomes a "production reliability solution" or "customer delivery assurance system."

Lead with Business Outcomes: Open every conversation with questions about business challenges: "What's preventing you from taking on larger orders?" "Where are you losing competitive advantages?" "What customer complaints keep recurring?"

Develop Executive-Friendly ROI Models: Create business cases that speak to operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage rather than maintenance optimization. Show impact on gross margins, customer retention, and market share.

Build Alliances Beyond Maintenance: Partner with operations, quality, and commercial teams who can articulate the business impact of your solution. The maintenance manager might love your product, but they probably can't secure the enterprise budget.

Create Customer Success Stories That Resonate: Instead of "Company X reduced maintenance costs by 20%," try "Company X improved on-time delivery from 85% to 97%, winning three major new contracts worth $5M annually."

Offer Business Performance Dashboards: Provide executive-level reporting that shows business metrics, not just maintenance KPIs. Show throughput trends, quality performance, and customer delivery metrics alongside equipment health data.

Position as a Strategic Enabler: Help executives understand how reliable operations enable their strategic objectives—whether that's growth, sustainability, quality leadership, or cost competitiveness.

The ultimate goal isn't to make maintenance more important to executives—it's to make it so effective that it becomes strategically invisible. When equipment runs reliably, production flows smoothly, quality is consistent, and customers are happy, maintenance has achieved its highest purpose: enabling business success without requiring executive attention.

For digital and maintenance teams, this means positioning your initiatives as business enablers first and technical solutions second. For software vendors, it means understanding that your buyers aren't purchasing maintenance solutions—they're investing in business performance capabilities that happen to be enabled by better maintenance.

The companies that get this right will find executives who are not just willing to invest in their solutions, but eager to expand them across the organization. Because ultimately, executives don't want to manage maintenance—they want to forget about it entirely while reaping the business benefits of excellence.

The maintenance paradox is real: the better your maintenance becomes, the less anyone wants to think about it. And that's exactly how it should be.

Remember: If your executive pitch starts with maintenance, you've already lost the room. Start with the business outcomes they're chasing, and maintenance becomes the invisible enabler of their success.