The collection and preservation of moths, butterflies and other insects

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Exploring the journey to services

Firms are increasingly providing services to complement their product offerings. The vast majority of studies on the service journey, also known as servitization or service transition, examine the challenges and enablers of the process of change through cases studies. Investigations that provide an in-depth longitudinal analysis of the steps involved in the service journey are much rarer. Such a detailed understanding is required in order to appreciate fully how firms can leverage the enablers while overcoming the challenges of servitization. This study investigates what does a service journey look like? It analyzes in some detail the actual service journeys undertaken by three firms in the well-being, engineering and learning sectors. The paper offers four contributions. First, in the change literature, there are two dominant theories: The punctuated equilibrium model and the continuous change model. This study demonstrates that servitization follows a continuous change rather than a punctuated equilibrium. It shows that such continuous change is neither logical nor structured but much more emergent and intuitive in nature. Second, the study provides empirical evidence to support a contingency view of the dominance and sequencing of the different process models of change across the change journey. Third, this research shows the pace of service development and when the coexistence of basic, intermediate and complex services occurs. Finally, it contributes to the literature in the service field by presenting three actual service journeys and the associated seven stages of the service strategy model that organizations should consider when managing their service journeys

Assessment of the sustainability effects of product-service systems

The concept of Product-Service Systems (PSS) as a means to realize sustainable business models is a vividly discussed topic in management literature. Most approaches to evaluate the impacts of PSS focus on the economic as well as the ecological dimension of sustainability, whereas social implications are hardly analyzed. However, a more comprehensive evaluation of potential effects of all three dimensions of sustainability is indispensable to foster the diffusion of PSS. Therefore, this article offers an integrative assessment of the sustainability impacts of PSS based on expert interviews in th B2B as well as B2C sector

Servitization as an innovation process: Identifying the needs for change

In the past, innovation efforts in industry were focused on tangible product innovations. Debating the topic of servitization has led to an expanded view of innovation. Intangible product innovations are an opportunity to complement innovation strategies. However, the practices and tools that facilitate creating tangible innovations have failed for intangible innovations. Therefore, many manufacturers hesitate to develop new services or Product Service Systems (PSS). With this background, this chapter presents a concept for managing a systematic innovation process with respect to specific challenges of intangible innovations. This managerial innovation model is based on case studies of servitizing manufacturing industries. The insights derived from actively applying industrial servitization processes were bundled into a generic procedure. The presentation of this generic procedure is organised into five sections: After an introduction, the second section provides a literature summary on service innovations in industrial firms. Then, we present the challenges of servitization processes identified in case studies and characterise the new innovation model

Servitization in industry. Introduction

Manufacturing industries traditionally develop and produce tangible goods. Additionally, they provide their customers with services such as maintenance and repair, in case these goods malfunction, or training so that their customers employees can use these goods properly. In the past, these services have not played a significant role in manufacturers' strategies. Recently, however, researchers and consultants are increasingly recommending that manufacturers reassess the value of services. The term "servitization" has been introduced to conceptualise the idea of manufacturers becoming service providers. This introductory chapter aims to confront the scientific servitization debate with recent data regarding the industrial diffusion of servitization models. Through the juxtaposition of research and practice, it will become obvious that the practical diffusion of servitization cannot keep pace with the increasing number of scientific publications focusing on servitization. The two objectives of this book relate to this gap between research and practice: First, this book offers detailed analyses of manufacturing sectors that elucidate the options and barriers related to servitization from a sector-based perspective. This sector-based approach allows for an individual and in-depth examination of the relationships among manufacturers and their clients by explaining leads and lags in servitization. Second, this book examines all primary and supporting activities of manufacturers with respect to manufacturers' need to reshape their activities in order to cope with the challenges of adopting a servitized business model. Such an examination will clarify the extent of a comprehensive servitization approach. This book is organised based on these two objectives and is thus divided into two parts. This introductory chapter concludes by introducing the remaining chapters and their authors